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.

Consequences

Today’s devotional makes me think about consequences, cause and effect, and the spiritual laws that God has created. As the Bible says, we reap what we sow.

But how does that work? I know people who do whatever they please and never seem to face consequences. Morally, their lives mock God but He has not struck them with lightning. The best biblical responses are that God is being merciful, or that they are piling up wrath. People can fill their shopping cart with whatever junk they find, but someday they will go through the check-out. Consequences will happen later.

The psalms have several sections about this. Most of them say something like this:

“Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.” (Psalm 37:1–2)

The idea is that those who do evil without repentance will eventually pay the price. The NT calls this the law of sin and death.

For Christians, Jesus eliminated that eternal consequence. That is, for every sin I commit Jesus suffered the price at the check-out. He wrote “It is finished” on the debt I owe by taking my place and paying it.

But what about the consequences in this life? If I robbed a bank, does the death and resurrection of my Savior keep me out of jail? Hardly. If I cheat and lie, will I prosper? Not so. The Scriptures are clear; God rebukes and corrects His children when we violate His will:

“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)

Consequences, and the quicker the better, are one of God’s ways to bring my life into obedience. Like any child, if I’m allowed to get away with my rebellion, then what? These verses suggest that without discipline I cannot claim to be in God’s family. Getting away with sin is the mark of those who do not believe or belong to Him!

“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? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.” (Romans 2:4–5)

No immediate consequence for sin is merciful in that God can use this to lead sinful people to Him, but anyone who keeps at their ungodly behavior is not thinking about eternal consequences. They are taking mercy for granted, and that is dangerous.

Tozer uses this verse: “Good sense wins favor, but the way of the treacherous is their ruin.” (Proverbs 13:15) The Holy Spirit tells me that I need to work with the spiritual laws of God. I cannot change them by presumption. If I want His favor in my life, then I cannot mess around. Knowing Christ died for my sin is not going to avoid repercussions in this life. If I presume so, I will suffer losses of some kind, losses that rob me of the full joy of my salvation. Would I want this to be any other way? I don’t think so. I want God to be serious about sin.

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Lord Jesus, I hate this awareness of ‘gloom and doom’ but need to think about it lest I step off the path of righteousness into unprofitable paths. In You, I am free from the law of sin and death, but not free from the effects of deliberate sin. Thank You for grace and mercy. Thank You also for being serious about my sin.

Ordinary stress is God’s extraordinary correction

Because of childhood illness and doctors telling my parents I would not live long, I wasn’t disciplined much, at least not until it began to look like the doctors were mistaken. Odd, even though my parents dearly loved me, I knew at an early age that discipline is a way to show love to your children. My parents meant well, but I needed to be corrected then, and still do. 

Perhaps due to that background and certainly because of my spiritual gifts, I’ve never had a big problem with God correcting me. Besides, He does it for my good and because He loves me.

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)

Today’s devotional begins with an intriguing line, “It has been well said that ‘earthly cares are a heavenly discipline,’ but they are even something better than discipline; they are God’s chariots, sent to take the soul to its high places of triumph.”

Early in my Christian life, God showed me that He had a great purpose in everything that happened to me. As Romans 8:28-29 says, I “know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son…” 

That meant that whatever happened to me, I could look for opportunities to become spiritually mature, to be more like Jesus. Until today, I’d not thought about the usual stresses of life as God’s discipline also.

The Greek word for discipline come from one that means “training” yet has the idea of correction. Right away, I began thinking how my current “earthly cares” are God’s way of correcting something in me. Instead of stewing about them, it makes sense that I look at them from His perspective. What is God trying to say to me? What needs correction in my life? How can I be more like Jesus because of those things that anyone would classify as ordinary cares of life?

The first example that pops to mind is the stress of decision-making in this downsizing process. Moving to a smaller place is exciting, but the practical reality is that it is smaller. Not all of my stuff can be stuffed into it. One closet alone, shelved to hold books, has been an enormous task. Deciding what to keep and what to toss (or give away) is giving me a headache.

I’ve already been corrected in two ways by this closet. One is that I don’t need to keep mementoes of academic achievement to prove anything. My sense of worth is in Jesus Christ and the price that He paid for me. I know that, but this stress tests me; do I really know it?

Secondly, life is short and no matter how “important” some of these books and things are to me, none of them can go into eternity with me. Eventually, it will all wind up in a landfill. I know that too, so why am I stressed?

Jesus never intended that anyone hang their worth on their achievements. Even the Old Testament has something to say about glorying in anything that I do.

Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 9:23–24)

Jesus never boasted about or held on to anything in this world. He also told His disciples that they needed to be willing to give up everything and take up their cross to follow Him. He stressed the importance of their total abandonment to all that is in this world.

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:57–62)

In this life, getting off that path of being like Jesus happens daily. Each day brings trouble and stresses that are God’s designated rods of correction to keep me on the right path. Instead of gritting my teeth and trying to overcome the trials, it is far better to ask my God what He is saying about my heart, and then be obedient to His correction.

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Lord, what a timely poke in my ribs. I’ve been stressed about this crazy to-do list and missed seeing the stress as Your correction and as an opportunity to grow. Understanding that You are wanting to use even this for my good is three-quarters of the battle. Open my eyes and help me cooperate with whatever You have in mind.