It is Finished

Hoping for a quick victory, I now realize that the battle has just begun. We are praying for someone whose life has fallen apart and seeing some progress. Because of unexpected yet welcome events, it appeared that God was at work and this person was open and ready for change in his spiritual life. However, any evidence of that was missing yesterday. 

I get discouraged easily when I cannot see progress. I come to the Lord thinking that my prayers have been in vain and nothing is working as I’d hoped. However, God reminds me again that I’m to walk by faith, not by sight. He also reminds me to keep my eyes on Jesus. From His life, I learn much. He is not only my example of how I need to live, but also my example of how I need to think. 

Today’s devotional reading is based on a short verse from His prayer shortly before the crucifixion. As He talks to God about eternal matters and His desire for the future, He says,

I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. (John 17:4)

Jesus actually had not yet died for the sins of the world. How could He say that He had finished the work His Father sent Him to do when He still had one major act of obedience ahead of Him? 

The person who wrote the devotional says it is because Jesus knew that when His will was yielded, the battle was as good as over. In the shadows of Gethsemane, Jesus battled the cup of suffering and death. That battle ended when He said, “Not my will but thine be done.” As soon as He willed to die, He already triumphed over death. The cup is “easy for the lips to drain it when once the heart has accepted it” because “the real battlefield is in the silence of the spirit.” Because He conquered that battle, it was over and Jesus had finished what God sent Him to do. 

In the same way, prayer is my battle. Having God’s assurance of answered prayer is very powerful. It ought to be the same as declaring, “It is finished” even though the answer is not yet in sight. This is almost too profound for me, yet I can see that the Lord wants me to cling to this, not to what my eyes can see. He has given assurance and expects His word and promise to be my confidence, enough to say it is finished.

I can see that this confidence is no different from faith in eternal salvation. I have eternal life as a gift from God. I am completely assured of heaven, yet cannot see anything of it with my eyes. What is my assurance based on? Is it not the promises of God and faith in Him to keep His promises? 

In the same way, He promises to answer prayer. Do I have to see the answer before I believe what He says? Unfortunately, I’ve thought that way and too easily abandoned prayer because the answer didn’t come as quickly as I’d hoped. Now I can see that because of the faithfulness of the One who promised, I can consider this as good as done and pray with the assurance that “it is finished.” 

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Lord, I need to confess my doubts. So often, my faith wavers under delay and lack of visual evidence. That has never happened regarding my eternal destiny, so why should my faith jump all over the place when it comes to assurance about other things that You clearly promise? Forgive my quickness to doubt You in these things that You have once given me faith to believe. Increase my faith and may my heart be like Your heart, realizing that once You determine what needs to be done, You will not only see it through to the end, but even now consider that it is already accomplished.

Christian Homes

In the beginning, believers in Jesus Christ met in one another’s homes. While most of the universal church assembles in buildings reserved for worship, house churches still exist in some parts of the world where authorities do not allow Christians to assembly publicly.

Even in North America, a few have forsaken church buildings. They abandon what they call “the organized” church because they have been hurt, or because they see corruption of various sorts. To escape all that, they meet in their homes. However, Spurgeon takes a different approach to the idea of churches in our homes. He uses these verses to prompt his thoughts. 

Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, To Philemon our beloved fellow worker and Apphia our sister and Archippus our fellow soldier, and the church in your house: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Philemon 1–3)

From this, Spurgeon asks his readers about their homes. He wants to know if parents, children, friends, servants and all members of each home are saved and part of the universal church, or are some still unconverted?

This question is dear to my heart. Even though only my husband and I live in this home, we have family members who are not part of the church of Jesus Christ. As Spurgeon says, how would this father’s heart leap for joy, and this mother’s eyes fill with holy tears if from the eldest to the youngest all were saved!

We have prayed for unsaved family members for many years, looking to the great mercy of the Lord until He works in their lives. In the case of Philemon, he may have had a deep desire for the salvation of all his household, including a servant named Onesimus. This man wronged him and ran away from his service. No doubt his master’s prayers followed him. At last, as God would have it, Onesimus was led to hear Paul preach and his heart was touched. He returned to Philemon, this time as a faithful servant, but more; he was now a beloved brother in Christ, adding another member to the Church in Philemon’s house.

Our children will likely never move back home, and many of our relatives will never live under the same roof as we do, but there are unconverted among them. For these, I pray that God will bring them to Himself, so that we are part of the same church, the Body of Christ who worship God in spirit and in truth.

Spurgeon has more words about the church that is in a home. He says it must be ordered well. Believers are the most challenged and our faith (or lack of it) the most evident in our homes. We must deal with the common affairs of life in holiness, diligence, kindness, and integrity. I agree.

More is expected of a church home (a Christian home) than of an ordinary household. Our family worship ought to be devout and from the heart. Our love ought to be warm and unbroken. All external conduct ought to be sanctified and Christlike. Home is not the place where we can “be ourselves” and the larger church the place to be “pious.” The church in our home is the place where our Christian faith and integrity are tested and revealed. If we cannot be obedient to God in our homes, how can we be effective in Christian service in the larger church?

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Lord, in our home the congregation is only two, at least most of the time. Yet You have told me that the way I behave in my home is the truest reflection of my faith. In some ways, this thought gives me joy for You have helped me so much to be a more godly wife and mother. Yet I am also convicted and must confess how often I fall short of godliness in this church that is in our home. As I bring my failures and disobedience to You, I know You forgive and cleanse, but I also know the importance of being like Jesus in daily living. Even if my unsaved family were not observing me, You offer grace and peace that I might walk with You in every thing that I do, bringing You glory and magnifying Your name.

“Soft Hearts”

Twice a month we join with other couples in praying for our adult children. Our group is called “Soft Hearts.” Some of these young adults on our long prayer list profess to know Christ, but most are not walking with Him. We have been praying for many years without seeing huge results.

Discouragement doesn’t come as easily as it used to, probably because God is refining our motives as we pray. We’ve learned much about ourselves and about prayer. We know that we cannot tell God what to do, and we realize that we approach Him on the basis of who He is and what Christ has done, not for any other reason.

This morning I read about the Lord and two angels dropping by Abraham’s tent for a visit (Genesis 18). While they talked, they decided to let Abraham in on what they were going to do. Because “the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave” these cities and the people in them were about to be destroyed. But Abraham’s nephew, Lot lived in Sodom.

Abraham began to speak to the Lord about this impeding judgment. He used words like, “Far be it from You to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked” and “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” and “I who am but dust and ashes have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord” and “Let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak. . . .”

Abraham had no assumptions that God should do whatever he asked. His approach was tentative and deeply respectful. Nevertheless, he did intercede for Lot.

Later, “It came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot had dwelt” (Genesis 19:29).

This verse encourages me. I’m not sure about the spiritual state of some of these young adults for whom we intercede, but God hears our prayers and He is able to rescue them from the judgment to come. (This is that eternal judgment that everyone deserves, and the only escape is faith in Jesus Christ, the kind of faith that results in obedience!)

This verse also reminds me of one in James 5. It says, “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” The context is healing and the necessity of confessing our sins before we ask God for anything. Righteous people are those with an open connection to God that is unclouded by unforgiven sin.

Lest I fear this means I must be super-spiritual, the next verses say, “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.”

Elijah was not ordinary in some ways, but he was a human being like me. His story reveals that he had fears, doubts, and times of despair when he felt as if God was not listening. That happens to me and the others in “Soft Hearts.” Yet in obedience, Elijah prayed energetically and passionately. He trusted God even when God was silent. We want to be like Elijah and trust God as we pray, no matter what happens.

Abraham and Elijah both saw the answers to their prayers. We who pray for our children would like that, but we realize we could depart for glory before God produces visible results in the lives of our children. Ten years ago the idea of not seeing answers was a horrible thought, but after praying daily for this group of young men and women, we are more content. It is now easier to say that no matter what God does (or does not) do, and no matter when, He is the Judge of all the earth and He will do what is right.