When will God change a life gone wrong?

Woe to her who is rebellious and defiled, the oppressing city! She listens to no voice; she accepts no correction. She does not trust in the Lord; she does not draw near to her God. (Zephaniah 3:1–2)

The prophet is talking about Jerusalem; however, this passage describes someone that I know. Is it fair to change the name and place and be encouraged by what God says about a person not a city and apply it today as well as several thousand years ago? God is the same now as then except now we have these promises on this side of Calvary. The prophet goes on…

The Lord within her is righteous; he does no injustice; every morning he shows forth his justice; each dawn he does not fail; but the unjust knows no shame. (Zephaniah 3:5)

Yes, God has not changed. He is righteous and just, yet this person and many like her seem to feel no shame about their backsliding. However, God still speaks:

I said, ‘Surely you will fear me; you will accept correction. Then your dwelling would not be cut off according to all that I have appointed against you.’ But all the more they were eager to make all their deeds corrupt. “Therefore wait for me,” declares the Lord, “for the day when I rise up to seize the prey. For my decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out upon them my indignation, all my burning anger; for in the fire of my jealousy all the earth shall be consumed. (Zephaniah 3:7–8)

A day is coming when God will make all things right. He will deal with sin and those who have spurned Him, but look what He will do with those who are His, but are now without humility or loving obedience to Him…

“On that day you shall not be put to shame because of the deeds by which you have rebelled against me; for then I will remove from your midst your proudly exultant ones, and you shall no longer be haughty in my holy mountain. But I will leave in your midst a people humble and lowly. They shall seek refuge in the name of the Lord, those who are left in Israel; they shall do no injustice and speak no lies, nor shall there be found in their mouth a deceitful tongue. For they shall graze and lie down, and none shall make them afraid.” (Zephaniah 3:11–13)

He will make it right. My heart has been wounded with concern for this person and others who have been in relationship with God but are still wanting to run their own lives and have become haughty about it. God will sort it out. He knows how to humble the proud — or remove the proud.

Jesus, I feel so ignorant and unable when it comes to dealing with backsliding believers. The prodigal’s father let him go, but watched for his return home. How difficult now as there are so many lures to keep them in party-mode without any praise for You. Yet You got the prodigal’s attention by pig food and a deep longing for home. You know who they are — bring the wayward back to You, and help me from being anxious, annoyed, or judgmental as I wait.

 
 

Jesus knows best

We are spending time with a person whose life has changed. I don't know if it is a "pull up your boot straps" change or a commitment to Jesus. I want to know. Is this an answer to my many prayers? Or do I need to wait and continue to pray?

I asked the Lord to speak about this and Piper’s devotional reading for today says this:

"Nothing you will touch or feel or see or think today is apart from Christ. What can this mean but deep humility before such an all-encompassing, all-sustaining, all-governing person, and, since he loves us, indomitable confidence?"

To put this in my words, He is telling me to remember that He is the Sovereign God. He is in charge of whatever I see or hear today. That means no attempts at manipulation on my part. Instead of anxiety and being eager to know what I want to know, He wants humility and a deeper trust in Him. He knows what He is doing. I don’t and I don’t need to know. Trusting Him is enough.

This is not the answer I wanted or expected — but should have. It echos what He said when Peter asked Him about John:

When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” (John 21:21-22)

PRAY: Thank You, Jesus. This is not what I expected but You gave the right answer. Fill me with Your Spirit that I can do what You say and just trust Your power in that person’s life and I my life as well. You are always wise and always good. Bless Your holy Name.

Impatient with God?

When I want an instant answer to prayer, I ask God to show me my sinfulness. Last night I started to read again “The Prayer Life” by Andrew Murphy. His first chapter is about the sin of prayerlessness. He says that being in the flesh rather than in the Spirit is the cause. So I asked God to show me what was keeping me from praying as I ought.

This morning, Charnock’s reading for today hit me with a short discussion on the patient wisdom of God. It says:

The most impotent persons are the most impatient when unforeseen emergencies arise; or at events expected by them when their feeble prudence was not a sufficient match to contest or prevent them. But the wiser anyone is, the more he bears with those things which seem to cross his intentions, because he knows he grasps the whole affair and is sure of attaining the end he proposes . . . yet, as a finite wisdom can have but a finite patience, so an infinite wisdom possesses an infinite patience.

Bingo. While I rely on God for patience with the important issues, I can get impatient over little things. While this does not seem connected to prayer, from reading this and thinking about it, I can see how my fleshy desire for instant results can keep me from talking to God. Without a quick answer, I tend to stop asking.

Today’s devotional reading was like putting salve on a sore spot. Here the focus is not on how foolish I am but on the wonder of what God has done about it. The author writes that to make me acceptable to God, my sin must be punished and His justice must be satisfied. Even the sin of not praying about everything deserves separation from Him forever. Yet the Gospel tells the good news: the only way God could both punish me for sin and save me from sin was by the “infinitely meritorious, voluntary and efficacious death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, my Substitute.” Jesus became sin for me, willingly assuming all responsibility for my neglect.

When Isaiah 53 says “He was despised and rejected” yet “pierced for our transgressions . . . crushed for our iniquities” — that includes all those times that I turn to my own way. Every iniquity was laid upon Him, not just the gross sins easily put at the top of the list but the things I do apart from His way without even noticing it, which seems worse than noticing it. He was oppressed, afflicted, yet patiently led like a lamb to slaughter and stricken for even the least of my transgressions. (Isaiah 53:1–8)

Impatience with little things does not seem so little as He shows me that I am actually impatient with Him. Even if I don’t move ahead and try to answer my own prayers, this shows up in not praying if the results take too long. And Hebrews 9 tells me that salvation is about “eagerly waiting for Him” not being impatient about it. (Hebrews 9:24–28)

PRAY: Jesus, I can see the connection between impatient with my impotence to do something about life’s challenges, and this foolish impatience with You when I bring those challenges to You. Who am I to think You should quickly do anything for me? And yet You have done all things that I need and are entirely patient with me. Forgive my attitude and actions and fill me with Your Spirit so I will always be eager to talk to You, even if in Your wisdom You decide this is not the best time for answers.

Waiting is the hard part!

 

In a group of Christians I once asked what would be their first question for Jesus when they finally see Him. One person said, “Why did it take you so long to get through to me?”

I feel like that some days. It reveals a lack of patience. He saved me and is saving me, but I’m tired some days of the cycle of victory, then realizing more incompleteness in my transformation, then another win, then more conviction of sin. I want what is promised: “obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” (1 Peter 1:9) Like a child, sometimes it seems time is either ‘right now’ or ‘forever’ and I’d like the ‘right now’ instead of waiting.

Today’s devotional reading points to the future goal of what is going on every day:

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18)

MacArthur writes: “You rejoice because you have and continue to hold on to the logical result of your proven faith—your ongoing deliverance from sin. ”

The battle is real. I know that I need ongoing deliverance because sin is an ongoing problem. Fifty years or so ago, I was given new life in Christ and made a new creation by Him. I am no longer a slave to the penalty and power of sin; but I am certainly not yet fully glorified and still subject to sin’s influence. I can relate to Paul’s description of the struggle between the flesh and the spirit:

For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? (Romans 7:19–24)

There are days when I can say with him: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin” (Romans 7:25) yet there are days when that deliverance seems impossible. It is something like a roller-coaster ride when the ups and downs never end and the ‘right now’ is too strong to let me even think about the end of the ride that is certain to come. No light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.

PRAY: Lord Jesus, I know You are my Savior and You are the Great Deliverer. It is only through You that I have victory over sin, death, and eternal judgment. I’ve not stopped loving and trusting You yet some days am just tired of the ups and downs. Is this is why Your word says:

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:28–31)

I need to wait on You, even if it seems too much for my energy levels to simply hope for Your help and trust that You will renew me again. Normal fatigue is okay, but spiritual fatigue is not.

PONDER: Waiting is the hard part but if I am waiting for myself to be perfect, or waiting for answers to long-prayed prayers, that could be a long wait. Instead, I need to be waiting on the LORD, enjoying Him rather than in experiencing anything else. He is always with me, even in these times when patience seems a foreign language.