His school of higher learning…

A childhood illness kept me out of public school and away from other children for most of grades one to seven. Later, I realized how much I did not learn from being with my peers, particularly the people skills that are learned by experience. I didn’t know what to say or do in many normal situations. I felt the awkwardness of having a blank mind or no opinion rather than knowing what my peers learned from growing up in a social setting. 

When I became a Christian in my late twenties, this lack became an acute reality. However, it was not totally negative. Instead, God used it to His advantage. I did not have many worldly ideas to unlearn. I also felt like a servant coming to Him eager to learn how to live.

Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, till he has mercy upon us. (Psalm 123:2)

Many other verses became a comfort to me and an encouragement when I felt stupid or not like other people, verses like these:

Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. (Psalm 25:4)
I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. (Psalm 32:8)
I am your servant; give me understanding, that I may know your testimonies! (Psalm 119:125)
So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:12)
Put false ways far from me and graciously teach me your law! (Psalm 119:29)

The image of having an empty platter for Him to fill became particularly strong. Many times I’ve felt like that, particularly after seeing other Christians who seemed to know very easily what to do and say, even in awkward situations. 

Struggling to be more like that, I realized two things: one is that this is not about learning it in school but about relying on the Holy Spirit. And secondly, even when feeling blank about many things, I have a great deal of pride and can be stubborn about having ‘my way’ instead of obeying God. Doing and saying the ‘right’ thing involves being humble and lowly, teachable and willing to listen to and obey the Spirit. This is not learned in grade school either.

My part involves spiritual disciplines such as Bible reading, study, and prayer, being alone with God, asking for His wisdom and trusting what He says. It helps to pray His Word, and learn of Him. Obedience is an intentional choice, but it can be stalled by unforgiveness, failure to confess my sins, and failure to be accountable to others. 

While I might have learned many things from my peers in class and on the playground, I would not have learned obedience from a changed heart. That involves lessons that come only from the Lord because He is the only one who can make the changes. This is certainly why this verse has always part of my learning experience:

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

PRAY: Lord, would being in school as a child made learning about You easier? I don’t think so. It might have given me more worldly notions that require ‘mind renewal’ (Romans 12:2) and deepened my stubborn pride, but I can’t know that. I just know that You governed my life from birth to this day, and You know what still needs to be done to transform me into the image of Your Son (Romans 8:28-29). For all that You do as my Savior and Teacher, I am deeply thankful even though I realize how far I am from that goal.

Speak up or pray?

Exodus 29; Proverbs 5; John 8; Galatians 4

One of my relatives and his family belong to a cult. We have had conversations about our conflicting beliefs, most around the identity of Jesus Christ and the importance of what He has done. This cult does not believe that Jesus is God nor do they believe that salvation is by faith in Him. They teach their members that they must belong to their organization and that Jesus died to give them the hope of salvation by doing good things. My relative hopes that the ‘good’ he has done is good enough but he has no assurance because his faith is in his organization and in himself.

I wept for him as I read John 8, particularly verse 11 to the end. Several time Jesus declares who He is and what will happen to those who deny His identity. He talks about the truth and the liar who wants to destroy people. He tells how to be free from the power of sin and how to escape death. My gut knotted as faces of family and friends came to mind.

Devotions with God are supposed to be about my spiritual walk with Him. What is this passage saying to me? How am I supposed to apply it? One thought was that I send a challenge to this family, an invitation to read John 8:11-59 every day for the next month. Would they do it? I don’t know. Will I do it? Maybe.

Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” So the Pharisees said to him, “You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true.” (John 8:12–13)

These self-righteous religious leaders accused Jesus of lying. It reminded me how a member of this cult responded when I quoted Jesus and said He would not lie. She replied, “I don’t know about that!” Faith cannot think God’s Son is a liar.

Jesus also told the Pharisees what would happen to them if they remained in their sin of not believing Him . . .

“I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.” (John 8:24)

They changed the subject. I’ve noticed that these cult members do the same. Either they don’t get it, or they don’t want to hear it. The next few verses show that their claim to salvation was their heritage, their ‘belonging’ to Abraham was their hope:

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.” They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did." (John 8:31–39)

My relative is convinced that belonging to this organization is his salvation. He ignores the words of Jesus who said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

The chapter goes on to describe how the liar had captured the hearts of those Pharisees and how Jesus is the everlasting Lord, but all they did was pick up stones to throw at Him. My gut is still in a knot. I’m not worried about stones. I just want to share truth with words that illuminate rather than alienate.

APPLY: Pray and be certain. God’s ways are not my ways. He could be telling me to take action or He could be telling me to wait on Him, that He will take action. Either way, obey Him.

What to do when?

When I go on Pinterest to look at art quilts or anything else that inspires me to make my own quilts, the array and number of beautiful items can be overwhelming —  I need to remember that I can make only one of them at a time. That is doable; a long list of ‘I want to try this’ soon becomes discouraging!

Isn’t this the same with the commandments of God? The Bible says obedience the test of whether or not I love Him. But Jesus tell me that I must keep all of them. Impossible. How can I determine what to do when?

Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. (John 14:23–24)

The commandments can be as overwhelming as too much creative inspiration. Even the list of ‘do unto one another’ in the New Testament can produce in me a deep sense of inadequacy — if I forget that I can only obey them one at a time!

At any given moment, I can do all things? Right now, the command of God is that I should desire His Word, read it, consider what He says. I can do that right now. However, feed the poor, visit the sick, preach the gospel, take care of the homeless, minister to widows and children, and so forth — I cannot do all that right now; I’d need to clone myself.

Obedience is never about me deciding what I should do at any given moment anyway. It is about paying attention to the Word of God and Holy Spirit and doing what He points out to me as: ‘this is it, do it right now.’

Elizabeth Elliott was asked how she managed her time. She is a speaker, author, and ambassador for Christ, plus a normal person with the usual responsibilities of life. She said, “I do the next thing. You always know what it is, the next thing.”

This has been an important and helpful guide for me. The next thing is often loud and clear. I’ve been in the grocery store, picked up most or all the items on my list when I hear ‘go home’ and know that is the next thing. I’ve been at home and finished my to-do list when some chore pops in as the next thing, or ‘phone someone’ or some other action pops to mind.

This works in conversation too. Not every thought that comes into my head needs to be expressed, but the Holy Spirit makes clear that when He wants me to say something, I know that whatever it is becomes the ‘next thing’ and I must say it.

Is this inner voice ever wrong? Not very often, but if that happens, it is because it is from a personal desire or agenda rather than me waiting on the Lord’s guidance and Him giving it. If I go ahead and in error or selfishness do whatever I thought was the next thing, the weight of conviction descends on my confidence. I feel guilty, annoyed with myself, sorry for jumping ahead of the Holy Spirit. Figuring out what has happened might take a while, but if I’m honest with myself, it usually does not take long.

^^^^^^^^^

Jesus, I like how Tozer says that the “final test of love is obedience” not emotions, willingness to sacrifice, or zeal, but obedience to Your commandments. You are teaching me that the distinctive sound of Your voice will never ask me to take on more than one thing at a time, but to obey the next thing. Life has become a whole lot less complicated because of this simple truth.

The only real freedom

No one wants to be a slave, yet some people often feel as if they are slaves to their job, or their family, or to various passions and appetites. Many talk about freedom in terms of not being under the thumb of anyone and able to do whatever they want without restrictions or rules over-riding our desires.

Is that freedom? If one of my desires is to eat as much chocolate cake as I want, or drive as fast as I want, or play computer games all day, rationale tells me that is not really freedom and more like bondage.

I’m convinced that defining freedom does not mean doing what I want no matter what. Those I-wants have consequences, mostly unwanted. Besides, the Word of God tells me that no matter what, I’m a slave to something or someone . . .

Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. (Romans 6:13–18)

It seems that being a slave to God and to righteousness is the better choice than being a slave to sin, but that is not as easy as it sounds. For instance, even ‘religious’ people can find a way to call themselves righteous and hold their head high yet are in bondage to the sin of pride.

Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” (John 8:31–33)

Jesus answered them in much the same words as the above passage from Romans. He said that anyone who practices sin is a slave to it. Their sin at that time was in their plot to kill Him because He was telling them the truth; they were sinners with a self-righteous pride that kept them from admitting it was true.

The truth is in Christ. When He speaks to our hearts, we are to respond in obedience, not think we don’t need Him and push Him away. Tozer’s story of a boy who memorized Jesus’ entire Sermon on the Mount illustrates this well. This child quickly and easily learned that passage of the Bible. When asked how he did it, he said, “I would memorize a verse and then trust God to help me put it into practice. Then I would memorize the next verse and say, ‘Lord, help me to live this one, too.’”

That was the problem of those Jews who challenged Jesus claiming they were not slaves. They had a long history of hearing from God but not obeying Him. For generations they know what God wanted but prided themselves in being His chosen people. They did their own thing, thinking they were righteous but without obedience.

I can relate to this this ‘knowing but not doing’ — as most people can. One pastor called this the ‘obedience gap.’ Yet there is good news. Our ‘doing’ does not make us righteous anyway. The Gospel clearly says faith in Christ is counted as righteousness. Righteousness is a gift and it is in Jesus Christ.

And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption . . .  (1 Corinthians 1:30)

Why do good then? It is not to earn ‘brownie points’ with God but to live out what God has put in. When I do His will, I am demonstrating the power of God that sets me free from bondage to sin. Besides the glory given to God, obedience makes me happy. “If you know these things, blessed (happy) are you if you do them.” (John 13:17) Isn’t that the freedom I really want?

^^^^^^^^^

Jesus, grant me today the grace to put what I know into practice, living out what You have given to me. And I thank You for the blessings You give as the result of doing Your will but more importantly, Your blessings are the only reason I’m able to obey You in the first place.