Changed lives…

I will recount the steadfast love of the Lord, the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord has granted us, and the great goodness to the house of Israel that he has granted them according to his compassion, according to the abundance of his steadfast love. For he said, “Surely they are my people, children who will not deal falsely.” And he became their Savior. In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old. But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit; therefore he turned to be their enemy, and himself fought against them. Then he remembered the days of old, of Moses and his people. Where is he who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of his flock? Where is he who put in the midst of them his Holy Spirit, who caused his glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them to make for himself an everlasting name, who led them through the depths? Like a horse in the desert, they did not stumble. Like livestock that go down into the valley, the Spirit of the Lord gave them rest. So you led your people, to make for yourself a glorious name. (Isaiah 63:7–14)

As a new Christian many years ago, my mentor had me do a Bible study on sin. I don’t remember the details of that lengthy study, but realize the wisdom of this assignment. Instead of responding to conviction of sin with honest confession, it made me realize how often I made excuses for it. 

That happens, sometimes with deliberate deception in order to cover it, and sometimes with a sincere belief that whatever was done was okay. These days, I think of a non-Christian who takes great effort to do and say the right things. Another person is a Christian but takes the glory for all his skills to the point of bragging about them. As these things happen, I feel sadness. Both are stressed with their actions and attitude and yet cannot see (or admit) that they are doing the wrong thing by being insincere. 

My role? Pray. One is oblivious to her hypocrisy. The other is hearing rebuke but his pride holds tight to his own power to do good.

Jesus, it has taken me years to see how I’ve done both. My pride in myself has blocked my relationship with You. Once I could see and honestly deal wit it, what a difference. As I’ve told these two, being weak and unable is actually better than thinking I can do it all without You. In feeling and admitting, I rely on You and then discover more love and power than I’d never know otherwise. Your ways and Your will are always a joyful surprise. I’d love to see You in action in the lives of these two people. Right now, both seem oblivious, yet You are God who can reveal truth and change hearts. May they hear You and be transformed.

Consider the source…

A family we know loves to tell stories that they make up. some see them as pranks and humor and laugh at some of the results. Others believe the stories and when they realize they were just stories, they see this family as a bunch of liars. Who is making the right judgment? 

Only God knows the heart and what motivates anything we do. I’m not good at figuring out my own heart so realize the importance of avoiding quick judgments. Yet even as I write this, I realize how easily mistakes can be made. Yesterday someone sent me a description of a person recently in the news. I don’t know that person nor have never heard him speak but I trusted the evaluation sent to me because I know and trust the sender. 

The description was of a powerful man of God. However, last night I read on social media the opposite opinion. According to that description of the same man, he was evil, a trouble-maker, and not anything like the first opinion. I prayed about this, not that it matters to me personally, but wondered how to think after reading both views. 

Charnock gave some light. He writes how those who reject God as Creator also reject Him as authority. If someone defames a Christian, it might be because they have believed in evolution and God (if He exists) has no right to tell them how to live.

Charnock adds that our Creator has a natural dominion over us as creatures before He has a dominion by consent over us as converts. We are like that too. When we create something, we have a right of possessing what we make. We can either cherish it or dash it in pieces, add to it or deface it. This means the first cause of everything has dominion. Those who agree with God, worship Him for this. Those who don’t will resent and even hate it and those who proclaims it. These verses come to mind:

For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. (Psalm 95:3–5)
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man... (Acts 17:24)
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... (Romans 1:18–22)

God surprised me in my daily reading through the Bible by the passage that was next. He says this about the huge rift between believers and those who do not:

The righteous man perishes, and no one lays it to heart; devout men are taken away, while no one understands. For the righteous man is taken away from calamity; he enters into peace; they rest in their beds who walk in their uprightness. But you, draw near, sons of the sorceress, offspring of the adulterer and the loose woman. Whom are you mocking? Against whom do you open your mouth wide and stick out your tongue? Are you not children of transgression, the offspring of deceit, (Isaiah 57:1–4)

He later reminds people how He has held His peace for a long time, yet they do not fear Him, but go on in their own way. Yet He tells all that there is another way: “The Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear.” Deadness happens because “iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. For your hands are defiled. . . .  your lips have spoken lies; your tongue mutters wickedness. No one enters suit justly; no one goes to law honestly; they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies, they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity. . . . The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths; they have made their roads crooked; no one who treads on them knows peace.” (Isaiah 59:1-4; 8)

PRAY: Oh Lord, those who hate You will protest and persecute those who love You and whoever convicts them of sin. Yet those who stand up for You can offend others, by shouting “Turn or burn” rather than “Jesus loves You and died for You” — both are true, yet speaking the truth in love is a NT command, even though gentle words can be rejected just as strong warnings can be rejected. You are Lord. May Your truth prevail. Amen.
 

He knows all yet was willing to die for all…

 

Today, after our holiday and after this move, and even though our home is not yet organized, I get back to the routine of praying with others for a couple hours. This morning I read more of Charnock’s amazing book, a section on the omniscience of God. He knows all things just as the Bible says in verses like these:

O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. (Psalm 139:1–4)

Charnock points out that prayer is not to administer knowledge to God, but to acknowledge this admirable perfection of His nature. If God did not know, why pray? It would be like asking a statue, or a photograph, or any idol to protect and care for me. Instead, I’m talking with One who knows, and that alone is a comfort.

For lack of knowledge, people misunderstand people. On Sunday, a person asked me if I could drop in anytime to visit my adult children. He asked in several ways and told me that no one seemed to understand his question. Of course I didn’t — I’m not omniscient and needed more information. Were his children annoyed with him for showing up without letting them know? Was he troubled by their busyness and wanting to make plans before coming over? I could only guess, but God never has to guess.

Charnock points to Jonah who tried to hide from God, as if God did not know that he fled to Tarshish. Charnock mentions the brothers of Joseph who didn’t tell their father what happened to his favored son. Did they think God didn’t know? He also says that people tend to more easily confess visible sins than those held in secret, as if the observations of others are more incentive than the knowledge of God.
The reading for today even suggests that some will reverse the meaning of Bible promises or add to them in an expression of their unbelief. For example, “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4) becomes “Blessed are they that rejoice, for they, and they only, shall be comforted.”

As a prayer leader, I need to watch out for such things and encourage faith, not only in our small group but in my own prayer life. The author of this reading says this is a problem of unbelief, yet I would add the sin of pride also motivates it. Compare being needy and asking for help with being so needy that ‘even God cannot help’ as one way to avoid honoring Him.

PRAY: Jesus, that true crime story I read yesterday gave me a shocking glimpse into the human heart. Lack of faith in You can result in extreme selfish thinking and actions that nothing else matters. What amazes me that it is for all sin You died. You bore the shame and the punishment for my sin and for unspeakable sins, even knowing that “The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” (Matthew 7:14) I’m in awe, not only that You know all things, but that You also came to earth to save sinners — all who sin, including me.

Stay out of the shadows …

Today’s devotional begins with: “Sometimes a great mystery is made out of the life hid with Christ in God as though it is a strange mystical thing that ordinary people cannot understand.” It goes on to describes this abundant life as liberty vs. bondage, as servants vs. sons, yet some experiences this week show me that there is another element that makes it a mystery. Those who are Spirit-filled get it, but those who walk in the flesh are mystified.

This showed up when I shared about the tulips. The full story: we live in a small condo complex where the board wants all units to look the same. One of 15 has a door wreath. While I’d like to paint my door orange (big no-no) I went looking for a wreath. Those in the store were cheap silk flowers, ugly, but the store had nice stuff and I soon noticed I was covetous, and also realized that my motive for getting a wreath was not right either. So I walked out of the store empty-handed.

At home, I did a computer search and found only one door hanging that I liked. It was pink tulips cascading out of a basket, but it was $258 so I shut my computer off and confessed my vengeful attitude, and the covetousness, and then prayed, “Lord, if You want me to have pink tulips, then You will have to supply them. Forgive me for being so foolish.”

That was a Monday. Tuesday morning, our doorbell rang. It was a neighbor who said they had a gift for me. He handed me a vase filled with a dozen pink tulips, real ones. I was flabbergasted.

Later, when telling others this story, the Christians that seem filled with the Spirit chuckled with delight at a God who can hug and rebuke us at the same time. They understood my delight at this hug, and the surprise of what He did. However, there were a few who struggle with worry and other things. Instead of being delighted, they were puzzled as if wondering why the neighbor gave me flowers or why God would ‘reward’ my confession by answering my prayer. They didn’t get it.

This mystery of resting in Christ is available to those who are actively relying on the Lord, yet hidden to those who are filled with worry, doubt, and self-centered ideas. That mode of living cannot see truth because it is hidden by the world’s way of thinking, or by the I-wants of the old nature, or by the lies of the devil. While not totally in the dark, walking in the flesh produces many shadows.

The devotional writer ends with this: “I sometimes think Christians look on our Lord as someone appointed to keep them out of their possessions, rather than to bring them in to them. They little know how such an implication grieves and dishonors Christ. (Yet) when they do recognize it, the spirit of bondage becomes impossible to them.” That is, once we see it, we can see the contrast and forget what our darkness was like.

That is the wonder of trusting God. It is described in verses like these:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6–7)

You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. (Isaiah 26:3)

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. (John 14:27)

Pink tulips make no sense to someone who thinks God punishes their sin and will withhold His blessings if they are not behaving properly. Sometimes that happens because His children are not yet perfect in behavior, but when we confess He forgives and cleanses — and He never stops loving us and wanting us to know the wonder of His love.

PRAY: What can I say? You died on a cross to prove Your love for all humanity. That great sacrifice is enough, more than enough, but then You add the warm touch of no fear, perfect peace, and occasionally, pink tulips.

 

Grateful for Grace

 

READ Psalm 16–20

One thing that takes time to learn is this: when troubles comes, big or small, the best solution is to bring them to the Lord. Those new to faith in Christ know this, yet that old habit of trying to figure things out for ourselves is persistent. Eventually we say, “The only thing left to do is pray” then finally realize that is the first thing to do, not our last resort.

The psalmist, in this case King David, figured that out. He knew his way was useless:

Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.” (Psalm 16:1)

This is a difficult lesson for all. Pride, education, worldly success, praise from others, and a host of other things add up to support that “I can figure it out myself” attitude,  never mind the root of it. Sin is defined in the Bible as going our own way (see Isaiah 53:6). It might not be evil, like murder and other dark and forbidden sins. It may even seem good, but the lack of faith in God and trusting me, myself, and I makes it sin.

David could see himself as a sinner, but he’d learned another lesson — that those who trust in God’s salvation have traded their sin for the Savior’s righteousness. He said, “As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.” His words convict me. I’m not always delighted by God’s people. Sometimes some of them seem less than excellent. Yet I realize where those negative thoughts can come from:

And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.” (Revelation 12:10)

Satan is behind accusations against the people of God. This is different from the prophets who were told by God to remind His people of their sin. It is different from seeing sin in another believer and going to that person in great humility and the power of the Holy Spirit to restore them (as in Galatians 6:1–3). Satan is both a liar and destroyer. His accusations are not true nor are they intended to restore by producing conviction and repentance. He wants God’s people to stop trusting God, start trusting ourselves, ruin our witness to God’s goodness and destroy any effectiveness our faith might have on others.

Jesus said that the world would know that He came and that we belong to Him by our love for one another. Accusing one another does not do that. Love restores and builds up, cares for and honors others who belong to Christ.

My attitude toward those who reject Christ also needs to be loving, wanting them to join His kingdom by faith, and not allowing myself to be involved in what they do. David said, “The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips. The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot.” He knew their fate and the danger of supporting worldly ways. Instead, he chose the ways of the Lord and because of that, he could say:

The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption. You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

This reading (Psalm 16:1–11) solves a puzzle. I’ve noted that those gifted in compassion often misunderstand those gifted in discernment or have a prophetic ministry, and vice versa. Compassion wants people to feel good; prophets want people to hate sin. Confrontation of sin does not make the target feel good, at least not at first, but the intention is to bring joy back into their lives. Compassionate people may seem too easy on others, even giving them excuses for their sinful choices, yet Jesus showed compassion and cared for the multitudes who were, “like sheep without a shepherd.” Only the Holy Spirit can tell us what needs to be done for those caught in sin.

In the meantime, enjoying God is always wise. He leads His people in the path of life and gives joy and pleasure. He is not the author of friction, doubt, lack of trust, or disharmony. His promise is eternal life and in this life, He gives counsel, instruction and security. For His great grace, I am eternally grateful.