There are times when life becomes painful, seemingly beyond what you can bear. Circumstances beyond your control insinuate themselves into your life and as your mind is reeling over your inability to fix things and your heart is churning with emotions that threaten to overwhelm, you wonder how you will make it through this.
This is a description of my life today.
I don’t think I have ever felt myself to be in such a helpless position as I am right now. At times I have felt like all I can do it sit and stare at the wall. Incapable of acting, incapable of thinking and often incapable of praying. Sometimes there just aren’t words.
The tendency of my personality is to get lost in my own thoughts, a futile replaying of events, which always leads to despair. I have felt myself drifting that way and I know I cannot go there. I must be able to pray. I must be able to get the ear of God. But how? How can I reach so high when I am so low? So weak? So helpless?
“Though the Lord is on high, yet He regards the lowly” Psalm 138:6
“The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart” Psalm 34:18
“Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His mercy.” Psalm 33:18
What a comfort this is to me! What a source of hope! I may be helpless, but I am not hopeless. My God has not promised to make everything in my life the way I would like it to be, but He has promised that throughout the duration of it, He will be with Me.
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9
Right now I am utterly and completely weak. But He is always infinitely and eternally strong. This is truth that brings rest to a weary soul.
“But the salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; He is their strength in the time of trouble. And the Lord shall help them and deliver them; He shall deliver them from the wicked and save them, because they trust in Him.” Psalm 37:39-40
The pain remains great, but His word brings hope that it will not always be like this.
Several years ago during a time of prayer the Lord revealed an area of sin in my life. This wasn’t one of those outward sins that anyone else could see. It was an issue of the heart that only He could see. Today I can’t even remember exactly what is was, but I do remember that the first reaction I experienced was deep grief at the revelation of it. But within a matter of moments that emotion gave way to absolute horror as I realized that this was something that had been in my heart every time I had gone before the Lord in prayer or worship. Each time I had brought it with me and unknowingly presented it before Him. Him….the Holy God. At that moment I understood the desperation of Isaiah’s cry – Woe is me! I am undone!
My only recourse was to stand before my Lord and my God with a deeper understanding of my own wretchedness and dependence upon His mercy. The initial guilt and shame of the revelation of my sin was replaced by a deep thankfulness for the cleansing blood of Christ.
PRAYER: Who is a God like You who forgives the sins of His people and remembers them no more? Your purifying work in our lives is a sure sign of Your love for us. May we live in continuous remembrance of the greatness of Your mercy towards us.
“But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not be works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Titus 3:4-7
Sometime it is so difficult to grasp the concept of grace. Maybe because we live in a culture where those who work hard are rewarded and where achievement is praised. Maybe it is the stubborn willfulness of the 2 year old that remains in us throughout our lives that continues to cry “I can do it myself!” Maybe it is a deal that seems too good to be true. Infinitely too good.
Religion and works have traditionally gone hand in hand. And in our natural way of thinking, it seems right that it should be so. While I admittedly have a limited knowledge of other religions, I believe I would be correct in saying that Christianity is the only one where works are excluded as having any merit in relation to obtaining righteousness.
Don’t miss this word —– excluded. There is nothing I can ever do to make myself more accepted by God or more righteous in His sight once I have trusted Christ for my salvation. The imputation of Christ’s righteousness to me the moment I believed has been and forever will be my only basis of righteousness. How ridiculous (and even insulting) it is to the Lamb of God when we attempt to add our own puny efforts to the work of the cross.
What perfect, holy blood and what a perfect, holy life was poured out on Calvary. So wonderfully complete was this sacrifice that it suffices for all who call upon His name for the duration of time.
Whiter than snow. A new creation. This is what I am now because of Jesus.
The labor was His. The benefit is mine. So I will rest in His labors and rest from mine.
Oh diligent seeker
Do not grow weary
Perseverance is needed
In this pursuit
Has He not promised
Great reward
To those who seek with all their heart?
It is Him
He is the prize
Our great reward
Daily seek Him
And be watchful
For oftentimes
You will find
He reveals Himself in unexpected ways
Ignore distraction
Flee temptation
That threatens to slow you in the chase
And run after Him
With all your heart
Shedding every weight that hinders along the way
It is no carrot dangling from a stick
An unobtainable enticement
That we run after
But His sure promise
Of knowing Him
That fuels this pursuit
Several weeks ago I ran across a link to http://rjperalta.wordpress.com/ and spent some time reading through it. I was thoroughly amazed as this man shared story after story about his experiences while sharing the gospel. It seems that he has ordered his whole life around opportunities to share the gospel. I would encourage you to check it out. But be prepared to be challenged. I was.
I sent a link to this blog to a friend and it was the topic of several conversations. It can sometimes be difficult to find ways to witness to strangers. Most places, such as restaurants and stores and the like, are not conducive to witnessing. People are busy and don’t welcome the intrusion. This is the perception anyway. So my friend and I decided to take a day and do a bit of “eavesdropping evangelism”. We chose a couple of stores where we thought we might find people doing a good bit of browsing or waiting in line. Once we were within earshot we would begin to testify to each other about our own salvation, making sure we were speaking loud enough to be overhead (but not so loud that we were obnoxious). Several times while waiting in checkout lines, people were noticeably listening to us.
Once when we were doing this, an older lady walked by very slowly and finally just stopped to listen. She was a believer also and we talked with her for a while. She was encouraged by what she overhead and we were encouraged by knowing she was encouraged!!
When the day was over, my friend and I were both thoroughly joyful, having spent the majority of the day discussing Jesus. While this method certainly does not replace direct evangelism, what a wonderful way to make the Lord Jesus the center of even shopping trips.
In the parable of the sower, Jesus said that the sower went out to sow. Let us also, as often as we are out, be mindful of every opportunity, in every way, to sow seeds for the kingdom of God.
Then as He went out of the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, “Teacher, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!” And Jesus answered and said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone shall be left upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” Mark 13:1-2
The disciple admires the building. What a great achievement of man. Look Jesus. Look how beautiful the thing that we have built for God.
Jesus’ response to the disciple begins “Do you see”? Do you really see this building for what it is?
The temple represented the presence of God on earth among His people. It was where sacrifice was made and where worship was intended to ascend continually. But the religious system of Jesus’ day had turned the temple into a marketplace. A place of corruption cloaked in spirituality.
The disciple admired the stones. But if he had really seen these buildings (and what they had now come to represent) through the eyes of Jesus, he would have wept with shame. For the very ones who had been given places of solemn honor and responsibility in the temple were the ones who were seeking to put to death the Son of God.
Jesus is not impressed with our religion, our pomp, or the quality of our workmanship. These are the things that draw the applause of men. Jesus is interested in worshippers.
The first person recorded to have a desire to build a temple, a house for God, was King David, a man after God’s own heart. But not all religious men are such a man. And God may stand by for a season as we dishonor His house, but eventually He will tear it down rather than have His name profaned in it.
“He must increase, but I must decrease.” John 3:30
Kenneth Wuest’s expanded translation states it this way: “It is necessary in the nature of the case for that One to become constantly greater but for me constantly to be made less.”
I love this! The very nature of Christ in our lives is that all things related to Him are constantly tending towards increase. There is no end to the potential for His fruit, His glory, His nature to fill us and be manifested through us. Ephesians 1:23 says He “fills all in all.” Fullness, increase is His nature.
For us, however, our role of decreasing is contrary to everything in our nature, for we long to increase also. We want to increase our power, fortune, reputation, control, and the list is probably near to endless. So for those of us who belong to Jesus, those who really long to walk with Him, He will not entrust this work of decreasing to us. My observation has been that when I try to decrease by my own will, I will inevitably overlook the most problematic areas because those are frequently the most painful to deal with. But the Lord knows exactly where the death blow should fall and He knows exactly what type of execution will be most effective. And thus it is by His hand that I am made to decrease.
For John the Baptist, decrease was not optional. I don’t think it is for me either. I must decrease and Jesus must help me to decrease. Sometimes when I am going through a time of decreasing, I am tempted to think His ways are harsh. Physical death is not pretty or painless. Dying to self isn’t either. But He recently reminded me that I do not die for His pleasure, but for my pleasure. He knows the joy that will be mine as He increases in my life. He has heard the desperate prayers to know Him and walk with Him. He knows how intensely I want this, so He is willing to do what is necessary, even if it seems harsh and risks being misunderstood. Knowing this, that all of His dealings are the pathway to receiving the greatest longing of my heart, I can rejoice in His goodness to me, even in the midst of difficulty.
Receiving a heavenly perspective can make a world of difference.
I was listening recently to a message by Don Carson and he shared this story:
When he was a young undergrad at college, along with another boy he started a Bible study in their dorm. Even though they really didn’t know what they were doing, God blessed it. There was a graduate student named David in that dorm who was also a believer and very gifted in apologetics. Don took 2 of the young men from his group to meet with David. David asked the first guy why he was there. The guy gave him an answer about how he wanted to study all the various world religions and worldviews and was interested in knowing a bit about Christianity.
David’s response – Sorry, I don’t have time. You don’t really want to know Jesus, you’re just playing intellectual games. I’ve got plenty of books you could read that would give you that information.
Then he asked the second guy why he was there. The answer was along these lines – I come from a liberal family. We go to church, we’re good people, but we don’t believe all this virgin birth, resurrection stuff. What is it that you think you’ve got that you think we don’t already have?
David’s response – Watch me.
He invited the boy to come live with him and all his time that wasn’t taken up with studies, he would shadow David and observe his life up close. The boy didn’t take him up on the offer, but apparently he was intrigued and kept making visits to talk to David. By the end of the semester he was a Christian.
What a bold offer. Come live with me and watch my life. Could I be so bold as to make such an offer? Could you?
Yesterday morning at 4:35 AM there was a double murder .6 miles from my house. I was in my house reading my Bible at 4:35 AM while those 2 souls were crossing into eternity right down the street. There’s something quite unsettling about knowing this.
2 weeks ago, a 28 year old man jumped (or fell) from the top of the 10 story building that I work in.
All around us, everyone we see is potentially moments away from death. It is a very sobering thought. And it certainly underscores the importance of being faithful to share the gospel.
We must work the works of Him who has sent us while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. (John 9:4)
He is my Delight 