God is not finished with me yet…

 

Our group Bible study is in Romans, but we often bring in thoughts from other parts of the NT, particularly the conflict we have between that old nature of sin and the new nature God gave us of Christ and His righteousness. 

This morning’s reading describes how the freedom we have in Christ must not be interpreted as freedom to do whatever we want — because that “I want” is often an old nature thing. As one of our group said, learning to walk in the Spirit means learning to listen to God. My ‘good’ ideas are not always His ideas.

Part of the problem is that the Bible often describes sin in extremes and the desires of the flesh as a list of gross activities that most Christians try to avoid. I know I want to serve God but the ideas I have can be motivated by a desire for self-glory, but even that desire is fleshy and can injure the faith of others.

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. (Galatians 5:13–18)

The law of God is helpful to discern the bad stuff that creeps in, but because some of that is more subtle than the lists, I can miss it as being fleshy. I’m prompted to look at the list of spiritual fruit and let it help me pinpoint some of the opposites.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22–23)

Love’s opposite is usually hate, but it could be ignoring needs that love would otherwise supply. Joy’s opposite can be anxiety and worry. Peace can easily be replaced by being over-burdened for others, which could be interpreted as a godly thing even though it can also be lack of trust in God. Patience easily gets replaced by “I must do something” when God is not asking me to do anything but trust Him. Again, listening to His voice is really important!

Kindness is an action. Doing nothing could be the opposite, or being mean, or gossiping about the needy person. Goodness has similar fleshy counterparts including ignoring those who could use my help, or a call, or even a hug or a smile. The opposite of faithfulness could sound like, “Oh, I forgot” or other forms of apology about ignoring responsibilities. Gentleness and harshness seem obvious, but just the lack of it says much. 

One dictionary says this: Gentleness refers to a virtue that characterizes one’s internal disposition or spirit. This term is  exclusive to Christians and never used to describe a person outside of Christ. It is accompanied by “love” and precedes “self-control.” James 3:13 relates it to the quality of being “wise” and Ephesians 4:2 puts it alongside “humility.” It is the opposite of being hostile or pugnacious — looking for a fight. Gentleness is required of the Lord’s servants to instruct “opponents with gentleness.” From this, I can see that gentleness is about being humble rather than assertive or pushy.

Self-control is often considered something ‘self’ does, but this is a fruit of the Spirit so it’s opposite sounds like “I couldn’t help it” — or any excuse of the flesh for doing something that is selfish and sinful. The passage goes on to add this: “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.”(Galatians 5:25–26) The flesh opposes this too — with pride, or with trying to get a rise out of others, or being discontent from a longing to have what others have.

Paul sums it up: “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:7–9) Fleshy living yields more of the same. Spirit-filled living reveals that I have eternal life.

PRAY: Lord, this exercise in words and their opposites convicts me. Doing good involves my whole being. Sometimes I think I’m dedicated wholly to You, but again realize You still have much to expose and cleanse out of my life.

Learning from history . . .

Which one is the wiser statement: “Study the past if you would define the future.” (Confucius) or “Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.” (Edmund Burke)?

Our ‘home group’ is studying the kings of Israel. I came away with one question. They recorded the activities and outcomes of their kings. Clearly, those who followed God prospered and those who did not did not. Each one of them made their own decisions. If they knew the historical patterns, why would any of them choose to worship idols and disobey God? These ‘evil’ kings knew yet repeated the past. It seems all they learned from any study of the past was how to replicate it in their own lives.

My conclusion may come across as crude, but it seems that sin tends to make people stupid. As we discussed this during the Bible study, we agreed that the laws of God are true and He never changes, but even the good kings occasionally pushed against the boundaries and got themselves into trouble. That is, we are doomed to repeat history even when we know it, and unless God intervenes, the past cannot help but define the future.

“Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:7–9)

This is a spiritual law that could be called cause and effect. It is illustrated in the physical realm of agriculture. If I plant a carrot seed, I will get carrots, not peas or corn. In my spiritual life, if I plan, plant and spend my energies in activities that are self-focused and driven by my old nature, I will reap a spiritually dead crop that amounts to nothing of eternal value. If I live according to the Spirit, the results will last forever.

The ‘evil’ kings were all about power and doing their own thing. They were not measured as evil by their building programs, achievements, battles, etc. but by their response or lack of response to God. The good kings were also not measured by any accomplishments as we might measure our leaders. They were measured by their faithfulness to God and His commands.

I look back at my own history and cannot make an accurate list of “this I did for God” and “this was fleshy junk.” However, I know both will be determined at the bema judgment seat of Christ:

“According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” (1 Corinthians 3:10–15)

Because of Jesus Christ, my eternal destiny is not shaped by mistakes or rebellion, but by faith in Him. What is affected by the law of cause/effect is eternal rewards. Some of life’s efforts will go up in smoke while some will shine like gold.

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Lord Jesus, Your Word motivates me to think about motivation and about the power behind everything on my to-do list. Some of it is obviously useless. Open my eyes and keep them open to see and obey the Holy Spirit that the resulting work not only pleases You but will pass that final test.

Keeping at it?

One of the most difficult challenges I face is persevering. I’m interested in everything with a mind easily distracted. I easily become bored. I’m also somewhat lazy. Short-term tasks are not a problem. Even breaking down a larger one is helpful as long as the steps are clear with a beginning and an end. But give me a task that will last for weeks, months, years and I struggle to finish it.

Tozer says small deeds of love are not forgotten by God, so those little things are good too, but the focus is single-hearted obedience to Christ and a deep desire to glorify Him. For this, there is great reward, no matter how long it takes.

“Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:7–9)

Eternal life is not earned by my sowing and reaping but it is demonstrated and enhanced by doing good and not giving up. How does God teach this? Certainly the Holy Spirit is part of it for in my humanness I am like a baby who wants what I want when I want it — as in right now! I’m impatient and if things do not happen or get done ‘on time’ I become more impatient.

Yet God persists and in His persistence,  I’ve learned something about perseverance. For one thing, God never gives up on me. If He were not a persevering God, my pillar-to-post drifting would have annoyed Him to quitting a long time ago. When I read the Old Testament prophets spelling out the way His people pushed Him away and tested His patience to the limit, I wonder. He finally exiled them to Babylon where they would learn to hate idolatry, but even that was persistence. He would not give up on them, and He will not give up on me.

How does this translate into everyday life? I tell others that God has taught me persistence in several ways. Right now, the most prominent is through quilting, specifically one quilt. It is a king-size commissioned by a family member. It is huge, difficult (I had no pattern) and physically hard to manipulate. I’ve felt like quitting several times, have procrastinated and strayed off to other projects, but finally told myself that if this keeps up, I’ll die before it is done. All that kept me going is that I love this guy who wants it and I’m hoping God will be glorified in the doing.

Persist. The word runs through my head, followed by ‘but I don’t want to’ and the wrestling match begins. This happens with other things, the most important being prayer, particularly the prayer for which I don’t see answers. God tells me to keep at it for in due season there will be results if I don’t give up.

This week, we had a visitor — someone on that prayer list, someone whose attitude and values were far from God’s will. We have prayed years for this person — another way of learning perseverance. In our visit, we saw changes both in attitude and values, changes that brought tears of gratitude and gave us hope and determination to continue to pray.

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Lord Jesus, sticking to Your plan and doing what You say is seldom easy, even with the Holy Spirit giving me the heart to do it and the will to hang in there. Thank You so much for this glimpse of what You are doing in answer to our years of praying for this person. It gives me encouragement to keep praying, to keep on interceding for all others too. It also encourages me to get that quilt squared up and the binding in place, to finish well. Keep me relying on You for the motivation, the results and Your promised eternal rewards.