Operative Grace

I’m getting more and more bowled over by the way I see the hand of the Lord in all sorts of things.  It’s amazing to see how He works in the lives of non-believers and they just seem to ignore it or are unable to see it.  But I guess that’s one of the way’s in which we can tell that He is alive in us, because we get to see it and are reduced to tears at His goodness in letting us see it.  There’s a song by Mercy Me that really describes this.  It’s called “Bring The Rain”, and here are some of the lyrics:

I can count a million times / people asking me how I / can praise You with all that I’ve gone through.  The question just amazes me / can circumstances possibly change / who I forever am in You?

The depth of feeling in these lyrics is something else.  But what it really speaks to is how a Christian experiences life as opposed to a non-Christian.  I mean, I can see how God’s at work to change the hearts and minds of people I work with, to incline them more to one another in love.  Now, it’s not the great turning towards God that still needs to come, but it’s a start.  What I find most amazing is that in learning not to take each other for granted, these people are taking small steps towards learning more about what God feels for His children.  And I have been placed in the position of being able to observe this and offer the truth of Christianity in it.  This is what’s really amazing.

Acting on that, however, is what will make the difference.  Not speculation, not thoughtful commentary.

Action.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

A World Apart – Letting Go

As people tend to do, we hold on to things. We try and manage everything, control everything around us and pretend to ourselves that we have the power to do so. That even includes what might traditionally be understood as missional work. We try and control what God does in the lives of the people we seek to save. Missionaries, of course, will laugh at this statement, because they know better. They know that God’s the only one who decides what God will do. Look, for example, at Matthew 8:1-4:

“When he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. and behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.’ And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying ‘I will; be clean.’ And immediately he leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said to him, ‘See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a proof to them.’”

I understand this to say that it is entirely under the sovereignty of the Lord to heal or not heal as He sees fit, and I consequently extend this to point to the necessity of letting go of those things we want to hold up and say ‘look, I did this’ or ‘look, have I not been blessed to do this?’ The point I want to make is simply this: The job of a Christian is to live according to the new life in Christ that he has been given, and let God do the work of getting a hold of the heart. I have friends who say that the chances of fully converting them are slim, but present, and at that I smile inwardly and say, God, I’m just here to do the work I can. I can seek to become more Christlike, to share Him as he lives and works in me, but I can’t do the work in man’s heart to incline it towards Christ, or to remove it and give him a heart of flesh. That’s what the world doesn’t really understand with hope. That while many things are beyond our control, they are not beyond God’s.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Sufficiency VII – Power

After a long week away, I’m taking up the keyboard again, with the latest on sufficiency. Tonight’s topic – sufficient power, and written, no less, on the occasion of the demonstration of such sufficiency.

One of the things that I struggle with a lot is the power of God to accomplish everything He’s said he will, and the power of Christ to have fully forgiven the sins of those who claim Him as Saviour. I may have mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. We live in a culture so conditioned to self-sufficiency that God’s power, it seems, can’t be trusted next to our own to accomplish His purposes in us. Furthermore, we can’t even claim to know His purposes, and what they include for each one of us. We place our faith in money, in our ability to pay our own way, and in everything we can do without God, even going so far as to question where He fits in a life full of everything we want. It’s a sinful condition of the heart to believe this, and one that we need to confront.

So what does it mean to the heart to see the Father’s love and the Father’s providence in action?

What should it mean?

To briefly answer these, I’m going to address them step by step. The first question is the most important, bringing into the light of truth the worship of God through the mediation and sacrifice of Jesus. I’d like to say that to see God in action in providence, in love, and in power restores the heart, brings peace to the soul and encourages the mind.

But I can’t, because in order for any of these to affect me, I’ve got to have open eyes. and thank God He does open my eyes. Like today, for instance, in the gift of seeing the tangible, valuable, and incredibly joyful results of fervent and heartfelt prayer and intercession. And that is a gift reserved only for those who believe in its power. The stumbling block here is, of course, unbelief.

Luckily for us, that’s covered in Mark 9:23-24, the famous Lord I believe…help my unbelief passage.

What I hope my little point suggests is that the knowledge of God’s sufficiency in power comes from the witnessing of that power in the lives of believers. If you look at one who calls himself a Christian but places his faith in such examples as financial pragmatism, or in an employer, or in a minister rather than He whom he ministers for, you will be confused, and you will not be given a clear picture of the character of a true believer. Biblically, what marks a believer is a faith that declares the power of God to overcome all situations.

What this should mean in the heart is a faith in the abilities of God, rather than in our own; an openness to the promise of God’s power, and a willingness to see that power magnified so that God might be given ever more glory.

I want to focus this particular understanding a little bit more practically, so the remainder ofthe week’s posts will be devoted to looking at this with, I hope, a little more clarity.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Providence

You may have noticed it cropping up in post labels. You may think it’s a city in Rhode Island. You may even have a good sense of it doctrinally. But how often have you seen it in action?

How often have you needed money or support that you’re unable to get on your own, and that all of a sudden just sort of shows up?

How often have you run into a friend who needed you most at that very moment, or encountered someone you didn’t expect and suddenly got to look forward to a new chance to spend time with them?

The world calls it coincidence, Morpheus in the Matrix calls it what it is, and I agree with him.

Providence. The assurance that Someone’s looking out for you, that He’s got it all in hand and directs it as He sees fit.

Some interpretations confuse it with predestination, arguing that there’s no free will. Others – the more Biblically-versed – should be aware that it’s precisely the power that operates to fulfil prophecy, give glory to God by showing He’s able to do it, and keep us moving along when we don’t think we can.

Regardless of what it’s called, what it does, and what it offers, where it comes from is still the same.

Just some thoughts for the day.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Warrior – Fathers and Sons III

I Chronicles 22:8
“But the word of the Lord came to me, saying “you have shed much blood and waged great wars. You shall not build a house to my name, because you have shed so much blood before me on the earth.”

I say that the Lord did not want a house built in violence, but a house built in peace, that it might truly become a house of prayer for all nations. Our God is not a God simply of sacrifice, but a God of great tenderness also. Solomon was to build the temple in peace-time, to honour the Lord as God among the Israelites when they could truly worship him. It is not beneficial to the Christian to wage war always, because God is then not glorified fully. Although we are no strangers to adversity, we are not meant to be in a perpetual season of strife.

David was a man of conquests as well as a man after God’s own heart. Let us not forget that David slew Goliath, and earned the respect of Israel in this way. He was and remained a warrior for God. By the Lord’s strength and by his grace and providence, David was enabled as a man of action.

Here, in the larger passage, we can see the playing out of a new dynamic – If a man’s father is a warrior, then his son, by the Lord’s will, may be a man of peace. Let us not dismiss the call to be a warrior, however, because if we are men of peace, then we are also men of inaction, and incapability.

The Lord, too, is honouring David’s sacrifices to bless his son. Look further. Verse 9:
“Behold, a son shall be born to you who shall be a man of rest. I will give him rest from all his surrounding enemies. For his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quiet to Israel in his days.” Praise God for offering balance when it is needed. By the cost of the father’s sacrifice is the measure of the son judged, and I would encourage men of integrity to take heed of this.

Next time: Jesus said “the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise…”

Blessings;

Christ-bearer

Providers – Fathers and Sons II

Jehovah-Jireh – The Lord Will Provide. What more can we ask for?

As I look back on 1 Chronicles, the reality of the passage seems to be tarnishing slightly. By reality, I mean the sense that the Scriptures really are speaking the word of the Lord to me. To you who read this as Christians, you must have had this type of experience…when the Lord just spoke right to you through His word, hitting deep emotional centres and bringing joy, conviction, or clarity out in great measures. When you receive such a blessing, you note the lack of it all the more acutely when you get away from it for a time. This is tangential to what I want to talk about…but not really.

See, the Lord himself is called by the name Jehovah-Jireh, ‘The Lord Will Provide’, and provision is the gift of the Scriptures to the heart and to the soul. That’s something important. God the Heavenly Father is a great provider of gifts to His children, such as edification and splendour in His word. Look no further than James 1:16-17 for the basis of support for this: “Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

In the same way, David amassed materials for the temple so that the word of the Lord concerning Solomon would be fulfilled materially. One central point of a father’s blessing to his son, then, is to provide some material means by which the purposes of the Lord in the life of his son are to be fulfilled. This is not to say that the purposes of the Lord depend on the work that we accomplish towards them, but rather that the deposit we have been given regarding the purposes of the Lord – spiritual giftings, connections, desires, circumstances, and upbringing – is essential to remember in the work our Father has for us, and is meant as a provision for His plan.

It is not simply in the province of the fathers that we find this working itself out. Part of the Lord’s contract with David was that He would give Solomon rest, for the sake of David’s work to glorify His name. Solomon was expected to use this providence and add to it, and as David’s son, he was to fulfill the desire of his father’s heart in ways that David could not.

To be a man of God, then, is to honour your father’s sacrifices by multiplying his provision through them, doing great things as the Lord has spoken concerning you. Should the Lord see fit to bless a family with sons, it is part of the father’s responsibility to ensure a legacy for the Lord’s work, to provide something upon which to build.

Next time, Warrior.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.