Yesterday we were to meet friends who we haven’t seen for a while at a restaurant we have been to many times before. We arrived at the parking lot at the same time and after greeting each other went to go in; only the door was locked and as we peered through the glass door, we noticed no lights and a sign that said they were closed on Tuesdays. What a bummer and why on Tuesdays, rather than a Monday when some establishments are closed after a busy weekend. We got suggestions of where to go and ended up at a Mexican place where the food was great, we were in a corner away from people, and since it wasn’t busy, we could stay as long as we wanted, which we did! It was really perfect and we could be free to share, and I smiled as I thought, “Lord, you had this place in mind all along. Thank you!” That was a minor little situation and yet God had something better for us as we waited. I also was reminded that I had a gift I ordered for our friends, and didn’t know if it would arrive in time; but only a few minutes before we were to leave to meet, it arrived in the mail. Yes, His timing is perfect!
Month: December 2023 (Page 2 of 4)
We need to be free in the giving to the needs to others and also receiving so we can grow in grace as mutual needs are met. We find that the sharing with others involves both our weaknesses and our strengths. Where we are inadequate and lack strength, someone else is strong and can minister to us. And where they are weak, we can help share their burdens. No one has it all together, even if they think so, they will discover it is a lonely life not to need others. If we selfishly sow to the flesh, we will use others around us to validate us and tell us how good we are doing. But if we sow to the Spirit and help and serve others, we will experience the freedom of mutuality and living freely.
The Gospel Coalition website offers an article by Trevin Wax entitled 60 years of ‘Honest to God’. Sixty years ago, I was a young freshman at Augsburg College, having spent the previous two years at a Lutheran Bible school in California. As a recent convert determined not to lose his faith, I had my testimony of new life in Christ and a deep commitment to the Word of God as my guide to both life and practice. Bishop A. T. Robinson’s book Honest to God came as a shock to my newly-formed biblical frame of reference. I vividly remember struggling with some of the bishop’s proposals.
Feeling inadequate to respond to Robinson’s book, I asked whether I should I cling to my orthodox faith as I prepared to become a pastor. Should I reconsider restating “traditional orthodoxy in modern terms” in order to reach an increasingly secular culture? The bishop warned that the survival of Christianity was at stake. “There is no time to lose” in seeking to “recapture ‘secular’ man.” According to the bishop, the church needed radical change, embracing a “metamorphosis of Christian belief and practice,” while calling for a recasting that would “leave the fundamental truth of the Gospel unaffected,” yet still requiring “everything to go into the melting – even our most cherished religious categories and moral absolutes.” I wondered what that would mean.
I am very thankful that I weathered the spiritual storm caused by Honest to God. I remember being unsettled with Robinson’s criticism of “supernaturalism” and “the miraculous.” I felt my own personal experience as a believer was under attack. I had my testimony but did not have the spiritual maturity to disprove Robinson’s point of view. In the words of Trevin Wax, Robinson believed that “the church should heed the naturalist critique of supernaturalism because it exposed many of Christianity’s cherished beliefs as ‘an idol’ we must no longer cling to.”
Wax observes, “Now that postmodern waves have crashed upon modernity’s shore… Robinson’s ‘recasting’ looks like little more than an outdated attempt to curry favor with people who have ‘come of age’… What the church needs most isn’t another proposal that integrates Christianity from the vantage point of our contemporary sensibilities but leaders who interrogate our current moment from the vantage point of historic Christianity.”
Men, this is my testimony after over 60 years of contending “for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 3). I was motivated by Paul’s words to young Timothy: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles to word of truth” (II Tim 2:15). I remember clinging to II Tim 3:16-17: “All Sculpture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” I believed fervently that I had been filled with God’s Holy Spirit. Jesus said of the Spirit, “He will not speak on his own; but he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come” (John 16:13).
What did this mean for me? First, I wholehearted wanted at a young age to a “worthy workman” for the Lord. I surrendered myself to him as best as I could. 2) With all my heart and mind I believed scripture to be “God-breathed” and I submitted myself to the authority of God’s Word. 3) I realized I am helpless without the work of the Spirit in my life – and I praise God for the “fullness of his presence” in me.
Since we were created in the image of God, we are free to live creatively and to create! We need not compare ourselves with anyone else, for we are an original. God’s work in us is unique and He has put what is needed into us to accomplish His will for our lives. Our grandson is presently making decisions of how his gifts will be used. and our granddaughter works where her artistic ability is valued, and creativeness just oozes out of her.
Within all of us is creativity that needs to be unleashed; when we live freely in God’s love, peace and joy will flow from Him into us and we may be surprised what flows out of us as a result. Some are creative with words and some with music or sounds etc. Of course, not everything happens overnight so we need not rush but to be patient as we stick with it. Soon fruit becomes evident in our lives, not by our own striving but by the work of the Spirit within us. We must not pay attention to how others view things or try to be just like them, but let our natural juices just flow in our own unique way. The more we are empty of self, the more we are free to live creatively! If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit! (Gal. 5:25)
Waiting is hard and it takes faith to wait for something we can’t yet see but only hope for. We have scripture and many prophecies of His coming again, so we wait in eager expectation and confident hope. An example of waiting happened yesterday when our son Kurt was waiting for his appendectomy. He had pain for the previous two nights and was very eager to get the surgery before his appendix burst. He was told it would be soon, like around 10 a.m. and we were texting back and forth before 6 am.so I knew he was ready to go. But no one came to prep him at 10 or 11 or 12 or 1 or 2 o’clock. By now I could imagine how hungry he was too but he would have to wait to eat until after the surgery, Finally, sometime after 3 they came to get him and his waiting was over and the surgery was done and went well. It didn’t happen before as the operating rooms were full. But in the fullness of God’s time, it happened, and he was commended as being their best Appendectomy patient all year!
Jesus is coming again for us, and we wait in anticipation, just like Kurt anticipated his surgery. We don’t’ know the time as it says in Mark 13:27, “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Jesus has not returned yet, as more time is given for the Holy Spirit to work on hearts to open up to the Lord and receive Him, so that they will be ready. But one day He will come in His power and glory and all those who know Him will with Him for all eternity. Let us be patient in our waiting but be eager to tell others that they too may join us forever with Him.
The good thing is that God’s love is not based on our performance of how good we do, but on His nature, for He is love. God’s love for us does not change. It is only our pride that thinks we can earn His love, for He loves us as we are, not how we think we should be. The Holy Spirit desires to communicate this marvelous love to our hearts. We are all imperfect beings with all our weaknesses, so our hope is only in the grace of God; He loves us and accepts us and desires to show His mercy to us.
The secret is not to try to improve ourselves but to surrender to Him who is love. We are in essence saying we are sinful, needy and broken but God, I thank you that you died for me, you saved me and accept me right where I am right now. Help me to accept myself in the same way you accept me and tell me I am your beloved. I receive it all through faith in your promises, not on my performance. Let me live as your beloved child and be ever grateful.
Sometimes we still feel angry after forgiving and the enemy will try to tell us we have failed and have not forgiven. But when we forgive, it doesn’t mean we change the facts and erase the hurtful past but rather our hurt for the person is healed. We can be angry and not hate. It happens to people who divorce who finally get to the place they can wish their ex well in their marriage. Smedes says that anger minus malice gives hope. If we choose to hang on to our malice than it keeps our pain alive. He gives suggestions that help us drain the poison of malice from our hearts, like being specific about it and even express it to God and maybe to someone else who can help us get rid of it. We can, of course, give the person over to the Lord and let God handle him. If they need rescuing from their own wicked ways, let God do the teaching. We can also pray for the peace of the person and let our anger do a work of reforming.
It helps to remember that we that we can’t erase the past, we can only heal the pain it has left behind! And in the forgiving, we are focused on what they did, not on who they are. We may also forgive in bits and pieces and it must be done freely. We can’t force someone to forgive as it may actually make it worse. Like Smedes said, that to set anyone free, forgiving must be freely given as an act of free love. We don’t know how they will respond and it must all be left in God’s hands. But when we feel unconditionally forgiven, we will know we are totally loved and affirmed and received. Nothing can separate us from Him who is love!
So why do we doubt or think that others are worth more? The enemy loves to tell us others are more gifted, better looking, more successful, and surely, they are worth more. But we need to view ourselves, not with self-doubts but in light of how Jesus sees us. He willingly gave His life for us, so He must have felt we were worth a lot. How many of us would give our lives for another? When I see a new born baby being loved by parents and adored by grandparents, it helps me take in my own worth. That baby doesn’t do anything to earn love; in fact, the baby demands a lot of time and attention. But the baby can’t do anything to prove his worth, only let himself be loved. We need to accept our place as His beloved child and receive His love that sets us free to be who He made us to be. It’s almost too good to be true! The Lord doesn’t compare us with others, as there is only one like us ever and we are a unique person of His creation.
In faith we need to open our hearts and receive from the Lord as He desires to pour out His love on us and tell us how precious we are as His sons and daughters. No one else is a threat to us, as He shows no favoritism, and His love is unconditional. Since He loves you also, I don’t need to fear He won’t have enough love for me for He is love! As Jer. 31:3 says, ” I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.”
Recent Comments