His incredible love…

Insurance policies and other legal documents use the term “an act of God” which is defined as an instance of uncontrollable natural disasters like floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, meaning  anything that is beyond the control of humans. Acts of God do not absolve people from a duty to exercise reasonable care.

It interests me that this term is used only for disasters. Seldom do I hear sunshine, a balmy breeze, the birth of a baby, the bloom of flowers, or the soft wool of a lamb called an act of God. No wonder the idea of God loving us is difficult for many people to accept. He gets blamed for all the negative things we cannot control but evolution takes credit for the positives. Regardless, the Bible says:

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. (1 John 4:7–12)

This passage offers several clues to why the term “an act of God” is used as it is. One, those who know God will know that He loves people, and will love people too. But those who do not know God cannot love like He does. Many who don’t know God assume that whatever makes them uncomfortable or stressed is not good. Without knowing God, it is difficult if not impossible to see that He uses all things for the good of those He loves. We who know Him are told to be joyful in trials for God is using them to mature us. (Romans 8:28-29, James 1:2-4)

Second, the love of God sent Jesus into this world to die for our sins. The people who know this also know their sin is harmful and can ruin their lives. Eventually we learn that the love of God exposes and deals with our sin, not because He wants to hurt us but to rescue us from sin’s destructive power. His love will go to great lengths to get that job done. It includes kindness:

Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? (Romans 2:4)
For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. (2 Corinthians 7:10)

Yet His love also includes discipline:

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:6–11)

Such discipline may come through an “act of God” that I cannot make happen nor prevent. God knows what I need to be more like Jesus, and He also knows how to get me there. It might be His incredible kindness (I have seen it in my hospital stay) or in trials that I cannot control, such as being unwell without any apparent lack of self-care on my part. He is training me to be more kind by example and to be more patient by helplessness. He teaches me that all events of life including “acts of God” open my eyes to His great love that wants only the best for me, and that best is being like Jesus. And as today’s devotional says, the first step into the life hid with Christ in God is that of entire consecration. I must do it gladly, thankfully, and enthusiastically and can, because seeing all things as acts of God is the most joyful way to live.

PRAY: Lord God, as You work all things so I might be like Jesus, I sometimes feel sorry for myself as I forget the love that motivates Your will. Mercy and genuine pity for spiritual bondage is far more important than mercy and pity for physical discomfort. I’m glad You will never stop loving me.

A reason to pray . . .

 

I’ve been praying for the salvation of a person I know because her extreme selfishness is ruining lives. She is oblivious to her condition and her attitude is a childish ‘I will have my own way’ no matter what anyone else might want. In other words, I want God to fix this mess for those reasons.

However, God rebukes my motive for praying. He starts with this statement and a verse: Every dimension of life, whether physical or spiritual, is a testimony to God’s mercy.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. (1 Peter 1:3)

When God saves, it is not because anyone is special, more deserving, or more needy. Nor is it because their sinfulness is interfering with the faith of others. It is because He sovereignly choses to love and extend His great mercy to that person.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— (Ephesians 2:4–5)

He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, (Titus 3:5)

As today’s devotional says, God addresses the pitiful condition of mankind because of His great mercy. Unregenerate people are totally depraved, dead in trespasses, enslaved to sin, cursed to eternal damnation, unable to help themselves, and in desperate need of someone to show them mercy and compassion. That’s the good news of the gospel: God loves sinners and extends mercy to all.

Of course, we need to be willing to admit we need it, but that is God’s doing also. We are told to repent yet also told that God grants it:

God exalted (Jesus) at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. (Acts 5:31)

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. (Acts 17:30)

Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? (Romans 2:4)

And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. (2 Timothy 2:24–26)

Without Jesus, repentance is not a purely human action. Esau sold his birthright and regretted his actions, then afterward, “when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.” (Hebrews 12:17) This was an ‘I’m sorry I got caught’ repentance, not the kind God wants. His “godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.” (2 Corinthians 7:10)

Bottom line: as I pray for this person, I need to ask God for mercy. He loves sinners and as the OT says, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22–23)

My prayers need to look more like this: “For your steadfast love is great above the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth! That your beloved ones may be delivered, give salvation by your right hand and answer me!” (Psalm 108:4–6)

Also, when I pray, asking for godly repentance must be included. This is not a case of ‘fix it for my comfort’ but a case of ‘turn her life around, granting repentance that You may be glorified.’

PRAY: Jesus, You always address the needs of my heart first before You grant the desires of my heart. In this case, my desires were more about me than the other person, never mind that my concern ought to be that You are glorified in the answer. I’m thankful for Your great mercy. By it, I repented and received eternal life and an eternal inheritance. Without Your goodness and grace, I would be just like that person whose selfishness is so destructive.

PONDER: Mark 10:46–52 tells how a blind man called out for mercy and received it. When God granted mercy to me, I didn’t call out for it nor realize how much I needed it, yet He came into my life anyway. For those who are caught up in ‘me, me, me’ the Lord God knows exactly what to do and how to demonstrate mercy and His great love and power. I need Him to show me my part in doing the same.

 

 

The war against evil

 

READ Joshua 9–12

Our grandson asked why God made war against the tribes in Canaan. We hesitated and then he said, “It was because they were evil, wasn’t it?”

This reading is about those early battles after Jericho and Ai were defeated. I’ve often thought that these battles are much like the battles of Christians against sin. Our new life in Christ is secured, yet the old life and temptations from the world, our old fleshy nature, and the devil threaten us. God says we must “put to death” all sin and live in newness of life, just as ancient Israel must do.

But the next event does not fit that analogy. Joshua was duped by the Gibeonites who pretended they lived far away and were no threat to Israel. They asked about a covenant so they would not be destroyed and their deception won them the curse of being servants rather than death.

However, Joshua was not fooled again. When the “five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon, gathered their forces and went up with all their armies and encamped against Gibeon and made war against it” he kept the covenant made with the Gibeonites, and “went up from Gilgal, he and all the people of war with him, and all the mighty men of valor.” Then the Lord said to him, “Do not fear them, for I have given them into your hands. Not a man of them shall stand before you.”

When Joshua and the army of Israel came upon the armies of these kings, the Lord threw this vast enemy into a panic and they fled. The Lord threw down large stones from heaven on them and they died. “There were more who died because of the hailstones than the sons of Israel killed with the sword.” (Joshua 10:5–11)

In the middle of all this, God answered an amazing prayer. Joshua said in the sight of Israel, “Sun, stand still at Gibeon  . . . . And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies . . . . The sun stopped in the midst of heaven and did not hurry to set for about a whole day. There has been no day like it before or since, when the Lord heeded the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel.” (Joshua 10:12–14)

Joshua put to death the five kings that had attacked him, then “struck the whole land, the hill country and the Negeb and the lowland and the slopes, and all their kings. He left none remaining, but devoted to destruction all that breathed, just as the Lord God of Israel commanded . . . . and captured all these kings and their land at one time, because the Lord God of Israel fought for Israel.” (Joshua 10:40–42)

When these and other enemies joined forces to fight against Israel, the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid of them, for tomorrow at this time I will give over all of them, slain, to Israel. You shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire.” It happened just as God said.

Just as the Lord had commanded Moses his servant, so Moses commanded Joshua, and so Joshua did. He left nothing undone of all that the Lord had commanded Moses . . . .There was not a city that made peace with the people of Israel except the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon. They took them all in battle. For it was the Lord’s doing to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle, in order that they should be devoted to destruction and should receive no mercy but be destroyed, just as the Lord commanded Moses . . . . So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the Lord had spoken to Moses. And Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their tribal allotments. And the land had rest from war. (Joshua 11:15–23)

Experience and these events tell me that obedience is vital and that God is with me to give me victories over my battle with sin. I need to guard against the subtle suggestions that some of them can be used for my good, and any fear that I cannot overcome. Joshua’s battles assure me in my battles that Christ is with me. He has already secured my place in His kingdom and wants me to fully experience His gift of abundant life!