Encouragement – Page 12

Not Under Law

Of all the phrases used by the Apostle Paul in the New Testament, “not under law” may be the most misunderstood. Most think it means God’s laws in the Old Testament are obsolete, but context implies something very different: Paul says, “sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” (Ro 6:12-14)

Not being under law is what causes us to overcome sin … yet sin is breaking God’s Law. (1Jn 3:4) Paul isn’t telling us we can sin all we want now, but how being in Christ causes us to sin less and less.

The key appears to be in the contrasting phrase – under grace: experiencing the power of God as He transforms us into the likeness of Christ. (Ep 2:8,10)

As God works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure (Php 2:13), we are no longer under law, trying to obey in our own strength, feeling only the duty and command but no empowering life, with no inclination to obey, always failing, rebelling and feeling the terror of our condemnation. Rather, we have Christ in us, the hope of glory (Col 1:27), Who delights in the law of God within us, moving in us to obey Him in spirit as well as the letter, that the righteousness of the law might be realized and fulfilled in us as we obey it from the heart. (Ro 8:4)

Jesus Christ overcame the world (Jn 16:33) and is doing it all over again in every one of His children (1Jn 5:4), delivering us from both the penalty and power of sin, giving us grace unto glory. (Php 1:6)

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Saved by Hope

Hope: an expectation that something good will happen, the delightful foretaste of blessings not yet seen, the heart’s response to God’s faithfulness. Hope is a cornerstone of spiritual life, intrinsic to all godliness. (1Co 13:13a) Life can be unbearable without it; Jehovah says we are saved by it. (Ro 8:24)

Hope saves by rescuing us from anxiety, worry, despair and despondency, giving us strength to live joyfully, to walk worthy of Him, with purpose and dignity even in the midst of our afflictions.

Knowing God is just and good keeps hope alive in this broken world. We must remember that YHWH has a glorious purpose in allowing evil and suffering. His Day will come: He will right all wrong; He will judge all in righteousness and truth. (Ps 9:8) In the end, as surely as we are, God’s children will exult in Him.

The Almighty makes no promise lightly; He puts His name and character on the line in every single one. He need not do so for Himself: He is giving us an ultimate opportunity to honor Him, to trust His heart before seeing His hand.

Will Heaven see any promise unfulfilled? to even one person? What have we to lose in acting out His faithfulness? Is there a better way to glorify Him? Or any other way … is it even possible to honor Him without trusting Him?

Let the world go its way, heedless of glory and judgment to come. Keeping our eyes on the heart of our King, let us count on Him; expect Him to fulfill His Word. Let our story be the joyful anticipation of heavenly reality … an abiding witness of God’s eternal faithfulness. “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.” (Ro 15:13)

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Ponder the Path

Jehovah says, “Ponder the path of thy feet.” (Pr 4:26) We should be thinking carefully about the course we’ve chosen so far in life, and where our path is leading. Our decisions comprise our path, and our motives determine its course.

There are paths of the righteous (Pr 2:20) and of the wicked (Pr 4:14) … and God is pondering all of them. (Pr 5:21) Every choice we make extends our path in one direction or another, towards God or away, and God is noticing every time; though we can always turn back and retrace our steps, we can never actually erase one.

When we walk in darkness and lies we can’t see what we’re stumbling over (Pr 4:19); it’s an unstable path that’s impossible to understand. (Pr 5:6) “But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” (Pr 4:18) Let’s choose each and every step of life thoughtfully, and well.

Staying on the right path ultimately distills down to just one thing: pleasing God. God give us grace, to know wisdom, to walk in in the light, in Your ways, in strength and power. (Pr 4:11-12) As we seek Him He is faithful to show us the path of life (Ps 16:11), and to walk with us along the way. (1Jn 1:7)

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The Voice of God

Many of us long to hear the whisper of God’s Spirit guiding us in life’s journey. Wouldn’t life be so much simpler if God would just tell us what to do? Perhaps we need to learn to quiet ourselves, wait on the Lord, and listen to the voice of the Spirit for supernatural guidance.

Yet Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” (Jn 10:27) If we belong to God, He says we will hear His voice and follow Him; Christ never says this is something we need to learn. In fact, the idea that God’s children will miss doing His will because they don’t hear His voice seems to me foreign to scripture. (Jn 10:2-5) Perhaps we don’t yet understand the spiritual realm and what it’s like to hear the voice of God.

Following God seems to me simpler than we think. (Mt 11:29-30) As we walk in the light, He wills in our wills, speaks in our thoughts, and works through our acts. (Php 2:13) It isn’t complicated, yet most of us who call Christ Lord aren’t doing what He said (Lk 6:46): hiding His Word in our hearts and seeking to know wisdom as a manner of life. (Ja 1:5) If we aren’t even doing the basics, is it any wonder we’re struggling? If we aren’t careful, seeking supernatural guidance rather than doing what He says, we might open ourselves up for deception and hear the voice of strangers seeking to counterfeit the divine. In my experience, when we are obeying what He’s already told us, that hunger to hear a supernatural voice is fully and completely satisfied.

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He Learned Obedience

Joyfully obeying God is perhaps the highest form of worship. (1Sa 15:22b) It’s love acting out, “God, You’re worthy; You’re supremely important; Your desire is my only priority.” Those who love Him need not know why He commands, only that He does; “for this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments.” (1Jn 5:3)

ChristInGethsemane2 — The Passion: Christ Praying in Gethsemane

The greatest example of obedience ever may be Christ praying in the garden, “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.“ (Lk 22:42) As He’d planned from eternity past, His will was to ransom those He loved. Yet He could not be self-willed in dying for us: He was willing to give that up and die an eternal failure in the garden, lying on His face in the dirt, if that was His Father’s will. It was the ultimate submission, where He Himself learned obedience and revealed His perfection. He was then fit to author eternal salvation for all who obey Him. (He 5:7-9)

So often God gives commands without telling us why, yet the quickened soul implicitly knows God is good. Like Christ, the Author and Finisher of our faith, we obey, not always knowing what blessing will come, but that there is blessing in any and all obedience. (He 12:1-2) Yet it is not for blessing we obey, but simply for Him, because He is worthy.

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Subtlety to the Simple

Of all the things I’ve admired in Jesus Christ, it’s never occurred to me that He is subtle.

Subtle: not obvious, and therefore difficult to notice; difficult to detect or grasp by the mind or analyze; indirect in a way that prevents people from noticing what you are trying to do; showing an ability to notice and understand small things that other people do not; able to make fine distinctions; delicate and complicated in an attractive way

As God, Christ does not present Himself to the world in splendor and power, but in weakness and poverty. There’s so much He doesn’t say; He seldom answers clearly or directly. He drops clues and hints, hides truth in stories we struggle to understand, and answers our queries with even more questions, questions which expose our hearts and motives.

Yet I’ve been living so differently inside … so very un-subtly … wanting to be heard and understood, arguing, reasoning, being as compelling and as thorough as I can be, frustrated when others do not see. Evidently, God’s not like that.

I’m beginning to see beauty in His obscurity now, in His matchless humility, in divine subtlety. Perhaps it’s because we cannot yet bear His fullness that He veils Himself so. Yet He’s about sharing even His subtlety with all who seek Him. (Pr 1:4)

Transformation is amazing, becoming something we never thought we could. Christ being formed in us means becoming like Him in every way. (1Jn 3:2) He who began a good work in us will perform it until the Day of Jesus Christ, (Php 1:6) who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. (1Co 1:30-1) This is hope indeed!

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To Know Wisdom

Looking back over my life I’m realizing that most all of my troubles have come from not being wise. I made my biggest mistakes going headlong against the counsel of those who loved me most. No one to blame but me.

RayOnTree

Wisdom is being like God, knowing the best thing to do at every step and doing it with the right motive. Wisdom is rooted in and springs from the fear of God (Ps 111:10a); He says it’s the most important thing. (Pr 4:7)

How do we get wisdom? Simple: seek it, the way men seek money or pleasure … every day, with our whole heart. (Pr 2:4-5) Asking, praying without ceasing throughout each day, “Is this wisdom?” (Ja 1:5) And as we ask, we must be obeying wisdom: making the wisest choice we can every time we make a choice. (Pr 9:6)

Life’s tough, but it’s tougher when we’re stupid. Let’s ponder our path and walk worthy of God. The goal is not to have an easy life, but to be the kind of person to whom God will enjoy saying, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” (Mt 25:23)

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God Is Good

There are times when all the cruelty and suffering in this world moves us to doubt the benevolence of God, His intrinsic goodness. When God allows pain in our lives it’s easy to conclude He doesn’t love us, and even to be angry and resentful toward Him.

LavaTree — Cherry Blossom Tree, Fuji volcano

But where does doubting God’s goodness lead us? Does having no hope in our suffering make it any better? If God really can’t be trusted, if He isn’t ultimately benevolent and kind, how are we going to escape Him? What else is left, if God isn’t faithful?

Giving up on the goodness of God is to give up everything … there’s nothing left worth having.

God invites us, “O taste and see that YHWH is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in Him.” (Ps 34:8) Rather than asking God to explain Himself we can ask Him to help us trust that He knows what He’s doing, and that it’s all for a good reason.

So, what does this actually mean, to say that God is good. It can only mean that He aligns with a moral standard, that His behavior is right and appropriate. Yet, He Himself is this standard; He creates the standard according to His nature, defining for Himself and for us all what is right and appropriate — so the definition in this case is a bit circular. This is, however, not problematic — it is inevitable: such standards cannot create themselves, someone must define them and God is free to do as He wishes simply because He is God. The fact that He voluntarily chooses to live according to His own standard, even when this causes Him to suffer, is indeed impressive.

In the end we can all be sure of one thing: no one in Heaven will be disappointed or angry with God; we will be overwhelmed with delight and gratitude for all He has done. (Re 15:4) One day all His children will understand fully … and will rejoice in Him. (1Co 13:12)

The Psalmist says, “I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.” (Ps 27:13) Evidence of the unfathomable goodness of God is all around us. We think seeing will help us believe, but the truth is that we need to believe so that we can see. God isn’t asking us to deny the reality of suffering, or to refuse to fully engage in life, but calling us to an expectation and hope that He will bring beauty from ash and life from death. (Ro 8:28, 11:36)

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Abounding With Thanksgiving

All of life is a response to God; we are constantly reacting to Him, every thought and every act resonates with how we feel about Him. Are we responding to Him more out of unmet expectation and disappointment, or in gratitude and thanksgiving? Our core orientation here tends to define who and what we are, as much as anything can.

Whether we are conscious of it or not, deep down all of us know there is a God and that He is absolutely sovereign (Ro 1:20), governing all of life’s twists and turns. (Ro 11:36) We can be angry with Him for allowing sin and death, and not catering to us the way we’d like … or we can stand in awe of Him, amazed at the breathtaking beauty of His Creation, and that He’s willing to die for us, taking our place on an old rugged cross, bearing our sin and shame. Every one of us is constantly responding to an ultimate primal Goodness.

God calls us to respond to Himself with thanksgiving, giving thanks as a constant pattern of life, not in shallow half-hearted gratitude but in passion and sincerity: “rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith … abounding therein with thanksgiving.” (Col 2:7) Cultivating a thankful spirit, learning to trust that God is good, and to experience His goodness and glory even in the midst of darkness and trial, is the journey of a lifetime … one well worth the taking.

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One Thing

Life can be overwhelmingly complex at times, and incredibly demanding. Keeping focus on what’s important can be quite a challenge.

Cave_Tree — Boynton Canyon, Scott McAllister

I’m finding it helpful to remember that only one thing really matters: pleasing God. Like Paul, we should be saying, “this one thing I do.” (Php 3:13-14) Maybe this can help us stay focused: if God is pleased, what else matters? If God is not pleased, what else matters … really?

But knowing what’s pleasing to God isn’t so easy sometimes; our ways aren’t His ways and He doesn’t see things the way we do. He calls us to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with Him. (Mic 6:8) He must transform our hearts to be like His, and this is a lifelong process. (1Th 4:1) But I think 99% of it’s desire, simply wanting to please Him. As this becomes our focus, He will show us the way.

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