God’s assurance

When trouble comes and the danger is real, I want my first thought to be that this problem is not too difficult for God. He can solve it. His solutions will surprise me, but He is powerful and not limited by the enormity of the situation.

Tozer writes that one meaning of the word “power” is “ability to do.” This week, I’ve become more aware that part of that to-do list is helping me KNOW that He is going to do something.

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.” (John 16:13)

I’ve been praying continually regarding a dire situation that I’ve been asked not to share. I’ve tried to worry and the Holy Spirit will not let me! He keeps guiding me to this: “I am in control and taking care of this situation. Nothing is too hard for me.”

This is a wonder — not just that God can do whatever is needed, but that he makes His will vivid to my heart and mind. He is not shouting, but His thoughts are clear, almost piercing and certainly beyond the limits of my intellect. He uses Scripture that pops into my head, and He brings to my recall past incidents that affirm where He is going with this.

This incredible communication with God begins with another experience, that of being made new, given new life, given His life. It is a mysterious event but nonetheless real. For me, it was even dramatic. It matches up to what Jesus told a Pharisee in His day:

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:5–8)

What the Spirit does is not an imaginary or ethereal work. It is real. He does not give people a ‘zap’ but a new life that changes everything — from the attitudes of the heart to the actions of life. He changes the motivations and desires that are basic to humanity so they line up with the will of God. For some, this takes a while. For others, it is noticed immediately.

For me, learning how to hear the affirmation of the Holy Spirit began with total assurance that I belong to God and have eternal life . . .

“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.” (1 John 5:13–15)

 Confidence in answered prayer has taken longer, partly because I’ve been slow to listen to His voice and too quick to turn to my own thoughts and ideas. However, the Christian experience is as Tozer describes, “The Holy Spirit creates in us a new life and a new set of spiritual senses altogether, through which we discern, understand, and enter into the life of God and the spiritual realm.” This reality sustains my faith and gives me peace and assurance, needed this week more than ever.

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Jesus, I thank You for a heightened sense of Your presence and for making clear to me that You are in control and hearing my prayers. You have given me that ‘peace that passes understanding’ even though the end of this crisis is not yet in sight. To God be the glory.

Obedience Results in Reassurance

Genesis 22: 1-25:18

I am trying to imagine God asking me to give Him something precious to me. Would it be my husband, my children, life itself?

For Abraham, it was his son. His faith was tested when God told him to sacrifice Isaac. This narrative is one of the most significant in the Old Testament. Not only does it demonstrate the faith of the patriarch, the faithfulness of God, and the genuine depth of Abraham’s faith, it also points to Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God that was provided to take our place on the altar of sacrifice.

Other sections in today’s reading describe the death of Sarah, how Abraham’s chief servant demonstrated faith in God to help him find a wife for Isaac, and the death of Abraham. He was buried by his two sons, Isaac and Ishmael.

What spoke to me today is how God deepened Abraham’s assurance after he obeyed this incredible command to sacrifice his son.

“Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’”

He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide.”

And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son,  I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.” (Genesis 22: 10-18)

God did supply a substitute, just as He later supplied Christ. And God does test my faith just like Abraham was tested. This happens every time He asks me to do something that requires me saying ‘no’ to everything that seems good and right to me.

However, God also repeated His covenant promise to Abraham right after he obeyed in faith and this is how faith is increased. Not only does God ‘come through’ when we do whatever He is asking us to do, He also hugs His people with affirmation. We need it. I need it.

God may ask me many things, but giving up what seems good and right is the most difficult. Yet when I do, He affirms to me that no matter what I surrender to Him, He will bless me far beyond that sacrifice with multiplied blessings that at present I cannot foresee. And when He gives this assurance, my faith is stretched to reach out and embrace that unknown, not because I’ve figured out what it is, but because I know that my faith is in the same God, the God of Abraham, and that He is able to do exceedingly above and beyond all that I can ask or imagine!

Trusting God in the challenges

Habakkuk 2:6–3:19, Acts 18:1–28, Job 26:1–14, John 16:33

This morning was one of those days when I didn’t want to get out of bed. I was thinking that life is too hard, but before I could have too large a pity-party, God had me read the above three passages. My goodness, my life is easy compared to Habakkuk and Job, and even Paul and the early Christians.

Habakkuk faced the certainty that God was going to use the idolatrous Chaldeans to purge His people. He was dismayed, yet finally said, “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” (Habakkuk 2:14)

Habakkuk trusted God no matter what: “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places . . . .” (Habakkuk 3:17–19)

Job didn’t understand or think positively about the calamities that were happening to him either, but he did acknowledge the power of God. He said, “Sheol (place of the dead) is naked before God, and Abaddon (destruction) has no covering. He stretches out the north over the void and hangs the earth on nothing. He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not split open under them. He covers the face of the full moon and spreads over it his cloud. He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness. The pillars of heaven tremble and are astounded at his rebuke. By his power he stilled the sea; by his understanding he shattered Rahab. By his wind the heavens were made fair; his hand pierced the fleeing serpent. Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?” (Job 26:6–14)

Job, like most of us, longed for understanding about his situation, but in the midst of not knowing very much, he knew that God is God.

As for Paul, his life was polarized; he was blessed or he was persecuted. In today’s reading, “He reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks. When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” (Acts 18:4–6)

Then “Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized. And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.’ And he stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.” (Acts 18:8–11)

But later, when “Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal . . . .” (Acts 18:12) Gallio dismissed the issue saying he refused to judge religious arguments. So Paul was free. He went to Ephesus, then Caesarea, then Antioch and other areas, preaching the Gospel.

Another believer named Apollos was doing the same. “He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus.” (Acts 18:26–28)

Rarely does a Christian serve God without opposition. It seems that the more effective that service, the deeper the trials. Habakkuk was a righteous man, but his way of life was dramatically altered. Job also was a righteous man, yet he lost his family and all his possessions, even his health. Paul and others were obeying the Lord, yet were threatened, even stoned as their message blessed others and changed lives.

God’s ways are not my ways, nor do they fit the perception of the world. We are taught to work hard and be rewarded, yet in this kingdom that reward is uncertain. It belongs with certainty only in the world to come.

In John 16:33, Jesus says that no matter what He experienced, God was with Him. This gives me peace. Then He added, “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

This I am to believe, even when I cannot see it, and it also gives me peace.