Motivated by a new life…

 

Today’s reading from Charnock’s amazing book describes how God reaches those who are not yet His people and uses their ‘nature’ as part of His offer. He begins by saying how the devil tempts us by offering that which appeals to our corrupt nature. For instance, if a person is violent, the temptations will fit that temperament. If they are gentle, the temptation will not be the same, but more suited to the nature already in that person.

He then says that the wisdom of God does not destroy a person’s nature or try to change it to a radical opposite, but makes it correspond to our faculties. His example is Saul, who wanted what he thought was right and vigorously went after it. Then on the road to Damascus, God confronted this man and revealed to him what genuine rightness was (Christ) and this man vigorously went after it, not in His own strength but in the power of the Holy Spirit. His motivation was still there but transformed to God’s will.

I’ve taken courses in spiritual gifts that say those seven motivational gifts in Romans 12 are present before salvation — a part of human nature but corrupted by sin. When Christ comes in, these motivations are activated, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, they form the way God uses that person.

Charnock describes the process of God in clearing our understanding of dark principles so we may see his truth, our own misery, and the source of true happiness. He bends our wills according to this light, to desire and move to this end of our calling “efficaciously, yet agreeably; powerfully, yet without imposing on our natural faculties; sweetly, without violence, in ordering the means; but effectually, without failing, in accomplishing the end.”

Charnock says the Scripture calls it teaching, alluring, and calling. Teaching is an act of wisdom: “It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.” (John 6:45).

Alluring is an act of love: “And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt” (Hosea 2:15).

Calling is an act of authority: “You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face, Lord, do I seek.” (Psalm 27:8).

He says, and I agree, that none of these are violent constraints. God moves in them and the human will concurs. He changes the moral nature but not the physical. He lets the nature remain, but changes the principle in it: the understanding remains understanding, and the will remains will. But where there was before folly in the understanding, He puts in a spirit of wisdom; and where there was before a stoutness in the will, He forms it to a pliableness to his offers.

There is more, but this is enough to fill me with awe. A book on spiritual gifts lists what appeals to each of the gifts. For instance, those gifted as teachers are information gatherers and want to know facts that make sense. Those gifted in compassion are concerned about feelings rather than logic and want to experience God’s love.

This information hits me as I am praying for many who do not know Jesus. However, they are motivated in various ways. I know the servers and exhorters among them, and now God shows me how He works with these motivations so giving me ideas for how to pray for them.

PRAY: Jesus, there are times when You answer my prayers about how to pray for others and Your answers leave me stunned, yet eager to get at it. This is one of those times. My heart is almost dizzy to see the connection between human nature and the varying ways that You teach, allure and call people to Yourself. My desire for information and for knowing the right way to do things, has always been part of who I am. Now I understand much more about who others are and how to pray for them in ways that fit with Your wisdom. This is amazing, and I’m so thankful.

Seek His face

Last week in the hospital, I had several vivid dreams. One involved the Holy Spirit and the devil fighting over me. When I woke up, I felt that this was a war for my life. It was intense.

Another intense dream had me at a church meeting. Two theologians were bantering back and forth over their opposing views of a certain doctrine. At least two people in the room were asleep. Some were ill. Others were nattering about smaller matters. In this dream, I became frustrated with the debate after hearing one of the theologians say that we needed to be united, and unity required thinking the same way.

Really? This statement put me in ‘sermon’ mode! In the dream, I told the two theologians that unity was not about thinking the same, but about loving one another. Of course, the dream was longer than this summary, but I woke up surprised at its events.

In today’s devotional, Tozer says that apart from Christ and the apostles probably no group of believers in history has ever held the truth in total purity. As he quotes, “the truth is so vast and mighty that no one is capable of taking it all in, and that it requires the whole company of ransomed souls properly to reflect the whole body of revealed truth.”

This does not mean that God is the author of our confusion. Rather, our minds and hearts are messed up because of sin and we cannot understand clearly. The goal is to receive the truth without too much interference, yet as sinners, interference happens. We all have ‘holes’ in our thinking and need each other to properly understand God, and even then, we fall short!

Tozer’s last statement says what I ‘preached’ in my dream — it is not union God wants, but unity, and that is a matter of life and love.

How do we get that kind of love? Yesterday’s verses tell how Jesus told His disciples to love Him and that He would send them the Holy Spirit. This strongly suggests that for us to love Jesus, we need the Holy Spirit. Obviously, to love one another requires the same supernatural power.

In my thinking, if I am going to love God’s people and be part of that unity that is not about thinking alike, but about love, then I need to seek the continual help of the Helper that Jesus sent. This idea of seeking the help of God brings me to a verse that I selected as my ‘verse of the year’ a few years back — only today I discover something new about this verse. It says:

You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face, Lord, do I seek.” (Psalm 27:8)

The new discovery is that the word ‘seek’ that begins this verse is plural. That is, God says, “Seek my face” to all His people, not merely the psalmist, and not just to me. The context suggests it is a command to an individual, but the word form is plural!

I’m letting the implications wash over me. If all of God’s people are seeking the face of God, then are we not far more apt to have that loving unity that He desires?

Think of a classroom of students all seeking the face (desiring to know and please) the teacher. Are they more apt to get along with each other? Of course. Or consider a family of children seeking the face of their mother. Instead of looking at their own needs or being concerned about their own plans, they are in harmony because they have a common focus.

^^^^^^^

Dear Jesus, in context, this verse seems to speak to me as an individual. I’m to seek Your face. Yet a closer look reveals that You have a far greater desire than individuals seeking You; You want all of us to seek You, desire You, reach out to You. In doing this, we draw closer to You and therefore closer to one another. To make this very practical, when I talk with Your people, it is always good to encourage them to be looking for You, seeking You. Nothing else is as important to unity as our desire for You!

Deeper Intimacy

In the challenge from my pastor to deepen my intimacy with God, I’ve been pondering what intimacy means and almost decided it is easier to know when it is there or not there than to describe what it is.

One person says it is like long and continuing eye-contact, which creates a bonding —again without a good description. Others say intimacy is like friendship — you can be yourself and the other person loves you anyway, or you can be together without any hindrance to knowing and understanding each other.

How then is intimacy with God? Eye-contact seems impossible, yet God says, “Seek my face” to the psalmist (see Psalm 27:8). I find it interesting that Hosea connects this seeking with acknowledging guilt (see Hosea 5:15).

Certainly, with God I can be myself and know I am still loved. His love is based not on who I am or what I do, but on who He is. However, knowing that He loves me comes from having a relationship with Him . . .

“Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:8)

I had no idea that God loved me until the Gospel informed me of the extent He went to demonstrate it. Jesus came. Jesus displayed God’s glory. Jesus died for my sin. Those are His love actions and when Jesus came into my heart, they declared the reality of intimacy with God.

Yet to me, the greatest intimacy-builder is tied up in the statement of being together ‘without any hindrance.’ How can that happen? God is so far above me, so holy, so indescribable. That distance of ‘being’ and my smallness compared to His greatness is hindrance in itself. How can anyone be in the presence of such a God without hindrance — never mind have intimacy with Him?

The Bible says sin separated me from Christ, so I was alienated from His realm, without hope and without God in the world. (Ephesians 2:12) The hindrances are always about sin.

I think of the things that separate me from intimacy with others. Every issue that springs to mind also involves sin, either mine, or theirs, and usually both. Our fears of being ‘discovered’ or known fully do it. We fear rejection, create walls to protect ourselves and in the process intimacy is pushed aside.

I cannot do that with God. He already knows everything about me, even to the hairs on my head and to the words I speak before I open my mouth. What do I do with that? It forces me to examine my own lack of knowledge of God. Being totally known like that is like being stripped naked. I cannot hide. I must face the fact that my sin prevents me from intimacy with this all-knowing God.

This is not to despair. The Gospel is God’s answer. My sin is forgiven. Not just the past sin, but today’s sin and tomorrow’s sin. it isn’t about my efforts or contrition, but about the One who bore my sin and shame so God would be justified in forgiving me. Even so, my part is confessing sin, saying the same thing that God says about it. David, Old Testament king of Israel knew that. He said:

“Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah” (Psalm 32:1–5)

And I know the importance of confession too. Plunked between two verses about intimacy destroying attitudes is my favorite Bible verse, the one I long ago decided was key to spiritual growth:

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (1 John 1:8–10)

Confessing sin is key to intimacy. The more I open up, the more time I spend, no matter what else I do, no actions will erase the distance between my heart and the heart of God created by sin that I will not acknowledge or ‘fess up to. It must be acknowledged before I can look Him in the eye. It must come out in the open before I will hear Him say, ‘Child, in Christ you have redemption secured by His blood, forgiveness of your trespasses — all according to the riches of His grace (Ephesians 1:7), and because of Jesus, You can snuggle up close to me and be loved and accepted.’

Timothy Keller, in his book “Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God” says, “To lose our grip on the costliness of forgiveness will result in a superficial, perfunctory confession that does not lead to any real change of heart.” And it is in the changing of my heart that I draw into a deeper relationship with the One who does the changing.

^^^^^^^

Jesus, words often fail me. How can I respond to all of this? I hear You invite me to come and talk to You, draw near, be open, allowing You to show me who I am so I can better see who You are — deepening the bond, deepening the intimacy. Oh, such a wonder!

Communion moments . . .

John Wallace advises that whenever my mind has nothing to fix itself on, drop my heart in prayer and use those moments to commune with God.

I don’t know what others do with those moments of nothing particular to think about. I know my imagination can wander, or I can worry, or allow negative thoughts. Wallace gives sound advice and those who follow it can have hearts that are “moving shrines” where God is continually worshiped and loved. Further, there is a sense of being at home with God and therefore never alone.

For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God. (Psalm 62:5–7)

Each year, I select a theme verse. The one that has made the biggest impact on me is Psalm 27:8, “You have said, ‘Seek my face.’ My heart says to you, ‘Your face, Lord, do I seek.’” In seeking the face of God, my heart reaches for Him and wins a lovely sense of His presence. Yes, I know He is always with me, yet these are occasions when I’m much more aware, much more in communion with Him.

The NT author of Hebrews gives similar advice as Wallace. He says to think about all that have been faithful witnesses to the glory of God and to be “looking to Jesus” . . .  

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. (Hebrews 12:1–3)

This focus has an effect, for human beings tend to become more like what we look at, what we focus on. While this fact can be distressing as young people imitate their idols, it is even humorous to see couples begin to look alike. In the early church, the people knew the disciples “had been with Jesus” no doubt because their faces reflected His.

Oh the wonder that Jesus lives in me. I “have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) because “God said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ and has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” (2 Corinthians 4:6–7)

Today is Sunday, corporate worship. As Christians come together to seek the face of God, how blessed of Him to give me these thoughts at the beginning of this day.