God works in me…

When I read a verse like, “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge” (2 Peter 1:5) I have to remember passages like this one:

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12–13)

If I don’t, then all efforts to add virtue to faith, etc. might be without and fruitless. Jesus is the example. He spoke often of doing the works God sent Him to do. He also said, “Not my will but thine be done” as He prayed.

One author says we cannot do what God does, and that God will not do what we can do. We cannot save ourselves nor sanctify ourselves, God does that; but God will not give us good habits.

I disagree. Apart from Him working in me to “will and to work for His good pleasure” I know that I would not want to add to my faith or doing anything other than what I felt like doing. It is this battle against self and my selfishness that He won for me at the cross and works continually in my life that I will be transformed into His likeness.

At the same time, when He speaks, I must obey, yet not I but motivated by the Spirit that lives in me. Another writer says: “My only resource is to cast myself upon Jesus in the most ignorant sort of way, defining nothing, and almost as it were believing nothing, but simply trusting Him to accomplish the whole work from beginning to end in His own way and time.”

She tells of a woman who thought she had to speak English in her prayers, but only knew two words, so she prayed those two words. These words were meaningless but God heard her heart and answered her prayers.

Others who pray seem to value thee’s and thou’s as if King James had the secret of prayer. Still others pressure God with “but You promised” and claim the right to have whatever they ask for.

These weeks, God is showing me that the secret of prayer is not any sort of manipulation or ‘trick’ or formula. It is helplessness. When I feel like the woman who knew no English, God hears my heart. When I feel physically faint or spiritually bankrupt, I am learning to rest in Him. As a third writer says, when I am feeling unable, His message is not, “Be strong and of good courage” because my strength and courage has abandoned me. Instead, He says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”

This is what God asks of me — never “Try harder” but always “Trust Me” and “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” (Psalm 27:14)

PRAY: Jesus, in waiting for You yesterday, three phone calls became answers to the cries of my heart. I was trying to verbalize one of those cries, but the other two were also ‘heard’ and answered, needed but not expressed. You hear me, even when I don’t speak. You work in me even when I feel useless. May I be as faithful to hear You, not so I can jump into action but so You can direct me to act or think whatever You desire from me. I want to be motivated by You, not my I wants, or what is happening around me. Guide even my heart as well as my prayers. Oh, God, what a wonder You are!

Truth in bad dreams?

 

My nighttime dreams are vivid and often humorous. Yet sometimes they are dark and confusing, even seeming like attempts to divert me from trusting the Lord. Last night, my dreams were filled with selfish actions, several odd funerals, and the confusion of being lost in a building and not able to find what I was looking for. I woke up feeling numb and distracted.

Christians who are filled with God’s Spirit feel love, joy and peace, so instead of dwelling on the dream and trying to rewrite it to make sense, I began saying and singing the truth about Jesus and what He has done for me. After that, I read this, the first line in my devotional book: “Our liberty must come from an understanding of the mind and thoughts of God toward us.”

The author continued to focus on who I am in Jesus and what He has called me to be. I am not in bondage to the dictates of my old life, nor the ‘rules’ of being a servant, nor the power of dreams. I am a child of God and being transformed into the image of Christ. The Bible tells me that as I live and walk in the Spirit, “against such there is no law” (Galatians 5:23). This means putting away all rules driven by self-effort and trusting the Lord to make of me what He wants of me. I’m to confess known sin and humbly recognize that just as I could not save myself, I also cannot be sanctified and set myself apart to serve Him alone, not even in my dreams.

However, as I follow Jesus and see amazing answers to prayer and am excited about His work in me and in others, the conflict begins. I’m not to trust the world’s ideas, nor the lies of Satan, but I’m also not to trust myself. Those dreams hit me with, “If you had a real faith, you would not have dreams like that.”

However, Jesus is my Savior from every sin, and every weakness, even from an imperfect faith, and I can do nothing else but trust it all to Him. For example, I’m learning more about prayer for others. A major lesson is to leave out my personal ideas of what is needed and start telling God what to do. As one writer says, my approach to God is possible because of what Jesus did, not about what I think:

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10:19–22)

Walking in faith means praying in faith, but if my faith is in my I-wants or my I-thinks, then I my faith is in myself and not in the wisdom or the power of God — the kind of praying that the Lord answers, the kind of praying that comes from experiencing my own weakness and from having awful dreams that show me how useless and foolish I am at the core of my being.

PRAY: This is Your Word for me today, Lord. I must trust You like a lost and confused child in utter ignorance, weakness, foolishness, and blindness with nothing that I can do but throw myself on You to meet the needs You place before me. You are the Savior of the lost, and I am lost without you. Keep me trusting you moment by moment! As the devotional writer says, if I look at my feelings, or at my experiences, and at what seem to be the practical results of my trusting, I could despair. But when I look only at You and Your faithfulness to lead me — in darkness or in light because Your blood was shed to redeem me and it is sufficient to cleanse and sanctify even me. Help me remember that effective intercession means substituting my ideas with Your desires for our godliness. It is so easy to pray in sympathy for human discomfort than praying for Your will to be done — in my own life and in the lives of others. Thank You for revealing truth even in bad dreams.

Measuring Truth

 

Jesus and the written Word of God is the standard by which all teaching should be measured, but that does not mean all teaching is false. Years ago, I took a course from a Bible school that introduced me to the idea that “All truth is God’s truth.” Some will say, “If it isn’t in the Bible, God did not say it” yet there are many realities not covered in Scripture that are true. Not only that, biblical truths can be expressed without a chapter and verse or any indication that they came from God’s Word, yet they are still true. Discerning these things means knowing Jesus and knowing the Bible so well that truth and falsehood can easily be spotted.

Case in point: last night we were invited to attend a large meeting of NA, Narcotics Anonymous. It was called “Cake Night” where several people stood and told about being clean for certain periods of time. Some were still struggling, but many were able to conquer their addiction for more than a decade. All of them confessed how this was impossible in their own strength and most told how God helped them and how much they needed the support of others too. A few used ‘colorful’ language, but for the most part, it was an exciting evening of hearing people confess their weaknesses and failures and share how God brought them to a better place. Humility and honesty stood out.

We left that meeting feeling as we had been worshiping, and at the same time wondering why most church gatherings did not glorify God as much as this gathering of people who fight the specific sin of addiction to narcotics. What does it take to bring a sinner to the foot of the cross and to openly admit their selfishness, their stubborn nature, and their helplessness to the point of crying out for help? Don’t we all battle something?

MacArthur speaks of the false teaching that led Jim Jones and his cult followers to commit suicide. He rightly said that spiritual deception is a serious issue to God. The Greek word translated “reproof” in 2 Timothy 3:16 means “to rebuke or confront someone regarding misconduct or false teaching.”

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. (2 Timothy 3:16)

MacArthur also says, “If you have a thorough grasp of Scripture, you have a standard by which to measure all teaching.” He focuses on being able to easily recognize false doctrine and avoiding spiritual deception, but what about being able to acknowledge truth? I wondered what the average Christian would think of an NA meeting where people openly admit their sin and openly confess that without God they would be dead. How did they know their ‘habit’ was evil? It was a rough looking crew. The man sitting in front of me had green hair and several nose rings. But the point was, they struggled with a specific sin and admitted it. They talked also of overcoming and beginning to “give back” by helping others conquer their sin. Isn’t that biblical?

False religions share one lie: that we can save ourselves and we do not need God. They may have a moral code, but a relationship with God is not there, only a pretense or a claim but without substance, only lots of “I did it” talk. That was absent at this meeting.

PRAY: Jesus, these men and women blessed my heart with their stories and with the strong sense of support they have for one another and their battle with sin. They celebrated their victories and openly wept and hugged one another. They also told of how their sin had ruined their lives and how God and the support of one another was rebuilding what had been lost. Their integrity was obvious, an attitude I’d like to see more of when Christians get together in Bible studies and prayer gatherings. Your truth is truth, in a church service or in a college classroom, or wherever You are changing lives.

PONDER: There is a big difference between what we witnessed last night and the people I know who belong to cults or liberal ‘Christian’ denominations. Those groups need prayer and truth too, so they can be released from the deception that being “religious” or trying harder is the truth that will set them free.