Call for revival?

A Christian friend tells of how some professing believers turned a Bible story into a play that portrayed the characters as modern oddments, making the story meaningless and mocking the truths it conveys. She was in tears as she shared her outrage. Later, another person told me how some believers give only to get a bonus on their income tax. 

For these and other reports, reading Job this morning felt like a punch in the gut, the same punch I feel watching world news. It declares to me the same truth that God gave a loyal servant thousands of years ago:  

If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm and consume you, after having done you good.” (Joshua 24:20)

Only this time, it applies not just to Israel but to all His people everywhere. Nearly 200 years ago, a loyal Christian man wrote this: “While we obey, his bounty shall shower upon us: and when we revolt, his justice shall consume us.” 

While some protest saying God loves all people, seems that too many professing Christians forget that God curses as well as blesses and His justice seems even more heavy when His blessings have been given. Steven Charnock says “Justice is never so severe as when it comes to right goodness, and revenge its quarrel for the injuries received.”

When the world turns its back on God, we acknowledge that sinfulness and might even rejoice when God judges it, but what about when the church of God ignores our responsibilities? How about enjoying His mercies and forgetting the One who granted such grace to us? What about justice for taking all He gives but failing to honor the Giver? The OT addresses such failure:

They forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt, (Psalm 106:21)
And she did not know that it was I who gave the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished on silver and gold, which they used for Baal. Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my wine in its season, and I will take away my wool and my flax. . . . and no one shall rescue them out of my hand. (Hosea 2:8–13)

So also does the NT: 

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. (Romans 1:18–24)

Should God not make us uncomfortable when we ignore His goodness and even claim an injustice when He withholds it? We have so much and His goodness is poured out in many ways. That goodness is fully disclosed by His Word and yet many are not reading it nor discovering that   He expresses it in many more ways than by just satisfying our comfort. Instead of seeking His face, we pray for more than we already have. Can I be thankful for what He takes away because I enjoyed it a long time, or do I whine because I possess it no more?

Sin says I think I am better than God instead of honoring Him, or being thankful I am in His care because He is wise in all He does. This echos the Israelites who “murmured against God,” that had strengthened the hands of their deliverers; “despised the manna” he had sent them, and “despised the pleasant land” he intended them (Psalm 106:24). Distorting the Bible as a source of plots for entertainment shows contempt of God and his unparalleled goodness. Yet those who profess to love Him do the same every time we try to replace His will with our own.

PRAY: Jesus, I am thankful for what You are doing, even for the way You deal with those who ignore Your goodness. It hurts to see such behavior punished, but hurts far more when You are ignored.

Memory problems. . . .

 

This morning I was upset briefly over a very small thing. God gave me one of His looks and reminded me of this weekend’s strong lessons. He is faithful and will eventually finish the work He started in me. He promises that one day, when I see Him face to face, I will be like Jesus (1 John 3:1-3).

While I want this now, my efforts are often side-tracked by very small things. In all these, God shows me that sin runs deep and if I look at myself, it seems being like Jesus will never happen. Yet He persists. The following verses describe some of what I’m to be, even though it seems so impossible. At that, I need to remember the last lines, and believe them:

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it. (1 Thessalonians 5:16–24)

The reading in Charnock’s wonderful book speaks to my doubts too. He says:

All distrust is founded in a doubting of his truth, as if he would not be as good as his word; or of his omniscience, as if he had not a memory to retain his word; or of his power, as if he could not be as great as his word. We measure the infinite power of God by the short line of our understandings, as if infinite strength were bounded within the narrow compass of our finite reason; as if he could do no more than we were able to do.

Most of the time I’m not caught up in distrust yet falling short brings it on, revealing that I’m trusting my performance instead of where my righteousness comes from. It is in Jesus, by grace. Not in me. I cannot be like Him without Him. What is annoying is forgetting this so easily. The OT people of God did it too. They spoke against God, saying, “Can God spread a table in the wilderness?" (Psalm 78:19) They did not connect that His power to turn the dust of Egypt into lice for the punishment of their oppressors, could also turn the dust of the wilderness into corn for the support of their bodies! He rebuked the Red Sea for their safety, but could not provide bread for their nourishment?

To them, the giants of Canaan were too strong for Him, but they had seen the armies of Egypt drown under His hand. Was their distrust from a denial of God’s existence, or of His power over the world, or were they thinking He’d created creatures too hard for Himself? Or like me, did they simply failed to reflect on who and what God is and instead kept thinking about their own abilities or lack thereof?

PRAY: Jesus, to be like You is Your work in me, yet my part is active involvement in this relationship, talking to You, thinking Your truth, relying on You for even the little things, and realizing all the time and for all those little things, You are here with me and wanting me to know that — and to be delighted in all that it means. I so easily blame my attention issues when the problem is not that, but thinking too well of myself instead of remembering You constantly say, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Because of this truth, I need to “boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9–10) —for it is in weakness that I rely on and obey You.