This new life

Yesterday was filled with both encouragement and challenges. We heard the testimony of a man who was severely burned as a child. He shared how he overcame a deeply scarred sense of worth through faith in a God who unconditionally loves him. He challenged us to examine those things that keep us from knowing the love of God, the inner attitudes about ourselves that keep us from becoming all that God desires us to be. 

He also shared his escape from the way he had shut down to protect his emotions. He found freedom does not happen by bravado or bluffing but by allowing himself to be vulnerable. In that brokenness, he discovered the depths of God’s love and a new acceptance of himself. He married, has a family, and has also been blessed with a doctorate and a stellar career. 

His childhood horror led to new laws concerning fire retardant in tents, a ban on firecrackers, the development of a burn unit in a major hospital, and the salvation of his mother and himself. It also took the life of his sister and her friend, and nearly that of his little brother, yet he never said a word about whoever caused this event, only the good that God brought out of it. His attitude of acceptance and forgiveness was also a challenge to our self-protective tendency to fight or hold bitterness in the negatives of life.

Later in the day, I was challenged by an author. His book is about God’s greatness, but one chapter strikes hard at the apathy of those Christians who have all their worldly wants and wishes. I felt accused. At first, I raised my defenses at what seemed an unfair judgment of motivations. Why not show his readers how to be faithful to God, no matter their life situation or the length of their list of assets? 

Apathy toward God is sin, but the Bible does not condemn abundance. Jesus even promised His followers an abundant life. The problems come when we are not content with what He gives us and are constantly seek bigger, better and more of what the world has to offer, ignoring or forgetting God. 

As I thought about these things, I was again challenged about the way I think. Just as I’m to have a biblical self-view (regardless of my scars), I’m also to have a biblical view about the stuff in my life. The book basically said God will not bless anyone who has assets, but I don’t agree. The Bible says He is more concerned about how I use my assets and that I have a godly attitude toward them. Christians are not to think about life like everyone else, nor be involved in life the same way.

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.” Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God. (2 Corinthians 6:14–7:1)

Unbelievers are often focused on bigger, better, more — and doing whatever they can to get ahead. Some will break the law, if not the law of the land, then the laws of God. The Word of God challenges me to walk away from any union with sinful and self-centered thinking. I’m not to be like those who do not know Christ or have the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives. 

Jesus lives in me. The Bible says that I am the temple of the living God. If I think or act as if He does not defiles His temple and the holiness He bestows on all who believe in Jesus. 

God also made me His child. To carry on as if nothing happened in my life would be a denial of all that God has done and is doing. Instead, I am to avoid thinking and acting like I once did, and have nothing to do with that darkness. What I did in unbelief is outside of my new life in Jesus Christ and should be kept there. 

This brings yesterday’s challenges together. Living as a Christian involves thinking about myself as God thinks about me. Yes, I am a sinner and marred, but I’ve also been saved by grace through faith. God has blessed me even though I’ve done nothing to earn or deserve it. When I slip, His mercy, grace and the blood of Christ cover my sin. When holiness shines in my life, it is because He lives in me. This good life is all about Jesus, not about assets and certainly not about bigger, better and more. 

Of course, Jesus shines through more clearly when I keep away from any defilement that would hide or prevent that. But sin isn’t just about possessions or poverty even though both can be fraught with temptation to forget God.

Actually, my challenges are seldom about externals and more about the selfishness of my heart. In any or every situation, the world, the flesh, and the devil appeal to that old sinful nature to do the opposite of what God says and commands. But God invites me and enables me to stay close to Him rather than be lost in apathy and live my life as if I did not know Him.

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

The Odd Bits

Last night I had a terrible dream. In it, several events hammered at me yelling that my life was useless, that everything I have done has no significance. In that dream, I was isolating myself, and the accusing voices were relentless. Even before waking, I knew this was a spiritual battle and the “accuser of the brethren” who is called Satan was attacking me. Still in the dream, I began repeating my fears aloud for that often exposes them for what they really are. In doing this, I began to wake up and actually said aloud, “I am believing lies.”
 

Now, a story comes to mind of a person who questioned the piecemeal and ugliness of her life. God showed her that she was looking at the wrong side of a piece of tapestry. It made no sense to her until He showed her the beauty of other side. This is how life is — with a strand here and a knot there, most of it seemingly unconnected and meaningless. Each bit by itself makes no sense, at least until it is seen from the perspective of God. 

This is exemplified in an incident in the life of Jesus. He was travelling from one place to another and became tired so stopped at a well and asked for a drink.

Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) (John 4:6–9)

This seemed such an ordinary event. However, one thing led to another. The woman’s question gave Him opportunity to answer. She asked more questions and eventually the woman realized that He was the Messiah. She dropped her water jug and ran home to tell others about Him.

Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” (John 4:39)

The devotional comment is about the “bits of wayside work” and he calls them sweet. He does not see any ordinary events as tangles or knots on the wrong side of the weaving, but as parts of a bigger and more beautiful piece of art. He reminds me that all the odd bits, when life is over and I can see them from the other side, will turn out to be more important than those bigger events that to me seemed most significant. 

Then the devotional writer adds that the King’s servants are always really on duty, even while some can only stand and wait. Our lives are never useless in the hands of Almighty God, for we are His workmanship.

---

Lord, the dream showed me how easily Satan can discourage me when I measure my value in terms of what I can see, forgetting that You are weaving something that I cannot see. Your Word says that I am Your “workmanship (a weaving), created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that I should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10)

When I walk with You, I can expect to experience thirst and fatigue, just as You did. I can also expect to meet needy people who have questions, even in ordinary days. However, unlike You, I may not see what happens as a result of my response to those needs and questions. You may use those bits and pieces to bring one person or an entire town closer to Yourself. You may not show me any of that part of the weaving until I get to the other side. In the meantime, I’m to walk in faith, trusting You to do as You wish with me, Your tapestry. I’m also to stop listening to the liar who ruthlessly wants me to stop listening to You.