Our regular daily emails have not gone out for the last several days because I have been ill and unable to set these up. I hope to resume them tomorrow. We will have to “catch up” the mailings that you have missed, so for the next few days you will probably receive more than one message each day, until we have caught up with the current date.
Also, a word about the audio recordings. I decided to “test” these for a month or so and see (1) how much time it would take me to do them and (2) what the response would be from readers. The response has been good, but the time was more than expected. So I have decided not to try to do these this year. I plan to start recording “Diligently Seeking God” and “Reaching Forward” at the start of next year, and then do the “Enthusiastic Ideas” recordings the year after that.
Thanks for your patience during this illness. Last weekend, I got vicious case of food poisoning in a well-known fast food restaurant and have been pretty well incapacitated for most of the week. I am doing a little better, but still have a ways to go. Please say a prayer, since I am scheduled to start a speaking engagement in Atlanta on Sunday.
“For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the Law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel” (Ezra 7:10).
OUR “NATURE” IS GIVEN TO US BY GOD, BUT OUR “CHARACTER” IS CREATED BY OUR CHOICES. What we do with the raw materials of our created nature brings into being a character that is either good or bad. Of course, the fact that character is a matter of choice does not mean the choices are always CAREFULLY made. Indeed, many people simply live by default, going with the flow and ending up with a character that has been chosen haphazardly. But haphazard choices are still choices. Whether we’ve been careful or careless, we’ll still have to account to God for our decisions.
Ezra is said to have “prepared his heart.” Apparently he had given some thought to the sort of man he wanted to be. Surely he was aware of what the major alternatives are that lie before a human being, and his choice to pursue godliness seems to have been a deliberate decision. It’s not unlikely that Ezra had given some consideration to the matter of CONSEQUENCES. There is no more “consequential” choice than the choice of one’s character, and Ezra had no doubt considered that some kinds of character would take him places he didn’t want to go to.
It is worth noting the particular character Ezra prepared himself to have. This wise man determined that he would (1) SEEK God’s will, (2) DO whatever he learned, and (3) TEACH to others the things that he had both learned and lived. We could look a long time and not find a better three-point program for character development. Seeking, doing, and teaching . . . the will of God. These things point to the very heart of what human existence is all about.
If we’ve not already done so, it’s urgent that we prepare our hearts. It’s time to think seriously about what matters most to us. What kind of people do we INTEND to be? “When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind” (Seneca). But preparing our hearts requires more than charting our course. We must also count the cost and resolve that we’ll pay the price to have a character that’s worth having. The devil is eager to test how well prepared our hearts really are.
“You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one” (James Anthony Froude).
“Moreover You led them by day with a cloudy pillar, and by night with a pillar of fire, to give them light on the road which they should travel” (Nehemiah 9:12).
IF WHAT WE REALLY WANT TO DO IS FOLLOW GOD, HIS ASSURANCE TO US IS THAT WE’LL ALWAYS GET THE INFORMATION WE NEED TO DO HIS WILL. Many things we may not understand, but there will always be sufficient light on the road to guide our next step, if our motive is to obey.
Jesus pointed to the importance of motive when He said to certain ones, “Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do” (John 8:43,44). Whose “desires” we most deeply want to DO is the crucial factor that determines whether we’ll “understand” the things we need to understand. And it takes a person of more honesty than many of us have mustered to tell the truth about whose will means more to us, God’s or someone else’s.
How much obedience really matters to us is indicated by the use we’ve made of the light that has already shown upon our path. Does the day-to-day evidence of our decisions show that we’re thankful for this light? If not, there’s little point in seeking further light. As long as our conscience smites us for not doing the duty that lies clearly before us, we don’t have the luxury of worrying about the various hypothetical questions that cloud the future.
Biblical faith is much more than a simple trust that God’s light will lead us. It’s an active FOLLOWING of that light step by step. We certainly should rest in the confidence that the road will be illuminated according to our needs. But there’s also a need for sobriety. God is a rewarder of “those who diligently seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6), and we show that we’re diligent seekers by actually taking the steps that He has shown us. The path toward God will challenge our willingness to obey perhaps more often than it does our ability to understand. In any case, our choice must be to move forward. God will not allow darkness to hinder the diligent.
“God wills us to tread the hidden paths of grace in faith only; and so he only gives us just such light as we need for the present moment. It is not his will that we should see before us or around us, but he never fails to grant such light as makes it impossible for us to lose our way so long as we follow his leading” (Jean Nicolas Grou).
“Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen, and called its name Ebenezer, saying, ‘Thus far the Lord has helped us’” (1 Samuel 7:12).
WHATEVER HARDSHIPS WE MAY YET HAVE TO FACE, THE HELP OF GOD THAT HAS BROUGHT US THIS FAR IS NO SMALL THING TO BE THANKFUL FOR. Bogged down as we often are in the painful particulars of daily living, our perspective may be so confined that we suppose the bad outweighs the good. Like Job, we may foolishly wish we’d never been born (Job 3:1-26). We may question whether there is any use in trying to go forward, or whether, if we do try to go forward, there is any possibility that we’ll find the help we need. But consider this: the person who is alive to ponder such questions is always a person on whom God has not given up. Without His constant grace, we would not have made it this far.
The Scriptures teach that God is not only the Creator, He is the Sustainer of life. The Hebrew writer says that God “upholds” all things by His power (Hebrews 1:3). And Paul reminded the Athenians that it is in Him that we “live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). If God ever withdrew Himself from us completely, we would in that instant cease to enjoy anything that deserves to be called “life.” And very likely, in that instant we’d also be stricken with the consciousness of the good we had taken for granted, including the gift of all the time we used up questioning whether God had been good to us. It is, after all, only by God’s grace that we have the “opportunity” to doubt Him.
Do we despise the grace that has upheld us? Though we have more than mere survival to be thankful for, can we not see even in this survival evidence that God is willing to help us? He has not only proven His power, but He has proven His patience with us!
A failure of gratitude is one of life’s more serious failures, and one that is fraught with danger. Without God’s providence, we would have been vanquished long ago. If we don’t acknowledge that He has graciously watched over us in the past, we may have to learn the hard way what the diminishing of His grace means in the future (Isaiah 5:1-7). But if we will look backward with the eyes of gratitude, we can look forward with the eyes of faith.
Who brought me hither
Will bring me hence; no other guide I seek.
(John Milton)
The Lord is good,
A stronghold in the day of trouble;
And He knows those who trust in Him.
(Nahum 1:7)
THE SIMPLE AFFIRMATION THAT GOD IS GOOD IS A MARVELOUS THING. Perhaps the marvel of it is lost on us today, but long ago the notion that the Creator is benevolently inclined toward His creatures was a radical concept. What is more, the news that the goodness of the true God has been manifested in the atoning death and triumphant resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ, blew through the fear and superstition of the pagan mind like a cleansing hurricane. The human heart has simply never entertained a more nourishing, strengthening thought than the idea that God is good — perfectly, lovingly, and victoriously GOOD!
Make no mistake, the goodness by which God makes possible our reconciliation, and by which He will one day judge the world, doesn’t mean that all will be saved and none lost (Romans 11:22). To commit sin is always, in one way or another, to refuse the benevolence of God’s will in the here and now — and if we’re lost in eternity, it will be the consequence of having refused God’s love for so long that time ran out and our lives finally ended in rebellion (John 3:16-19). Some will simply not accept God’s reconciliation on His terms, and we’re told that these “shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power” (2 Thessalonians 1:9). God will not force His goodness upon any whose final choice is to refuse it.
But we need not reject the truth about God’s goodness. We can accept it. Peter wrote that we can entrust ourselves “to a faithful Creator” (1 Peter 4:19). This truth is far more than a lucky charm to be worn while we live any way we wish. It happens to be the most “disturbing” concept that can seize our thinking. Whoever truly comes to terms with the unfailing goodness of God will never again deal with sin or with uncertainty in the same way. A deep, grateful confidence that God is good will win the war against both wickedness and worry.
Yet, in the maddening maze of things,
And tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed trust my spirit clings;
I know that God is good!
(John Greenleaf Whittier)
“In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:6,7).
ALL BUT THE MOST CYNICAL WOULD AGREE THAT THE INNOCENT EAGERNESS OF YOUNG FAITH IS A PART OF ITS BEAUTY. This spirit is a part of the childlikeness that Jesus said we must recover if we are to enter the kingdom (Matthew 18:1-5). But as life unfolds, experience can cruelly test our confidence in the greatness and goodness of God. What then? Is faith to be given up as a relic of our immaturity, or is there a greater thing that can happen?
It should be noted that some people do live for long periods without meeting any serious test of their faith. It would be unfair (and also condescending) to charge every such person with having a faith that is naive or ill-informed. Faith in the heart of a human being can be the “real thing” whether it has been “proven” or not.
But in the case of most of us, hardships eventually do test the genuineness of our faith, sometimes sorely. What happens to a well-founded faith as the years go by?
Consider that faith is more than a feeling and more than a mood. It is a conviction, a choice to commit ourselves to the truth that God is indeed the Creator revealed to us in the Scriptures. And like any decision to trust, the commitment of ourselves to the truth about God is likely to be tested. But mere testing doesn’t mean that our faith was foolish. To the contrary, it may well demonstrate just how wise our choice was. Truths that we grasped in the noonday sun don’t have to be thrown away during the hours of darkness. That’s when their value is most apparent.
Ultimately, faith is akin to friendship, and there’s a big difference between a friend who WOULD help us and one who HAS helped us. As life lengthens, the well-placed confidence of our youth can become a fixed friendship with God, tried and true. Such a trust is the mainstay of our maturity, as Paul well knew: “I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day” (2 Timothy 1:12).
“Faith is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience” (James Russell Lowell).
And he shall be like the light of the morning when the sun rises,
A morning without clouds,
Like the tender grass springing out of the earth,
By clear shining after rain.
(2 Samuel 23:4)
HOW MUCH MORE WELCOME IS THE LIGHT OF A LAMP AT MIDNIGHT THAN AT NOON! The scientist would be quick to tell us that the lamp doesn’t really “shine” any more brightly when it’s dark than when it’s light; the darkness only makes it appear so by its contrast. But emotionally, what a difference the darkness makes! Without the background supplied by the darkness, we’d hardly love the light as we do.
Perhaps this explains why some human lives seem to have more depth and texture than others. Those who’ve battled to maintain a luminous faith after suffering serious failure or significant sorrow aren’t any more “real” than anyone else, but they certainly seem so. We’re drawn to sufferers who have survived.
The attractive power of David’s passionate love for God shines with such splendor partly because of the black moral failures from which his honor had to recover. And consider a man like Paul. He never staggered morally, but here was a man whose desire for God blazed with a special brightness because of the long, dark years of his lonely travail as an apostle. The struggle only made his hope more precious. “The time of my departure is at hand,” he said. “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:6,7).
The suggestion here isn’t that sorrow should be invited into our lives. But when it makes an appearance, as it will in the life of anyone who dwells on this planet, we can make it our aim to shine all the more radiantly against the dark background that has developed. The Lord Jesus Christ was a “Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3), and we love Him dearly for having tasted the salt of our tears. Unlike Him, our sorrows are often the consequence of our own misdeeds. But whether the darkness is of sin or some other sorrow, we can seek God in such a way as to brighten our character with the brilliance of tested faith.
“. . . may the lessons of the darkness fill my days with awe so that I may learn to experience you, my God, all the days and nights of my life. Amen” (Naomi Levy).
“Though you grind a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain, yet his foolishness will not depart from him” (Proverbs 27:22).
NOT ALL WHO SUFFER LEARN THE LESSONS THAT SUFFERING CAN TEACH. The Proverbs vividly describe the fool who is chastened often by life’s painful experiences but who never learns what he’s being taught. The wise person pays attention to pain, making the right changes in his life when he sees what the consequences of wrongful behavior are. Yet the fool pays no heed. He blames and he complains, but he doesn’t learn. “As a dog returns to his own vomit, so a fool repeats his folly” (Proverbs 26:11).
How can we avoid this foolishness? When we suffer, how can we keep our eyes open?
Much could be said, but the answer comes down to this: only the tender heart is teachable. When we find ourselves responding to pain with resentment, it’s probable that our hearts have started to become tough and unteachable. Self-pity, bitterness, and suchlike often tempt us when our hearts are heavy. But if we choose a “hard” response to suffering — that is, if we let go of either reverence or gratitude — then we lose the humility that is required for learning. But there is also a danger on the other side. If we find ourselves becoming secretly proud of the “humble” way we’re dealing with our difficulties, then this martyr-spirit will likewise keep us from learning as we should. To be teachable, we must be neither cynical nor sanctimonious.
James wrote, “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. BUT LET PATIENCE HAVE ITS PERFECT WORK, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing” (James 1:2-4). In the end, it is self-centeredness that prevents patience from having its perfect work. To gain wisdom from our suffering, our focus must not be on ourselves. The main object in life is neither to defend ourselves against suffering nor to exploit it self-righteously, but to seek a greater Truth outside of ourselves.
“I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness, and the willingness to remain vulnerable” (Anne Morrow Lindbergh).
As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness;
I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness.
(Psalm 17:15)
LIFE IN GOD IS NOT ABOUT US, IT IS ABOUT HIM. We need to be reminded of this. In a day when “self-actualization” is thought by many to be the ultimate goal, we must remember that Christianity is not about the simple reformation (or even the “actualization”) of our own character. It is about forming the character of Christ within us. Christianity is about God.
It is clearly true that our own characters need to be reformed. The sin we’ve allowed to creep into our lives has marred us and made us into beings very different from those we were created to be. But God’s purpose in dealing with sin is not merely to remove the habits that hinder us from “self-actualization.” As Lilias Trotter wrote, “Holiness means something more than the sweeping away of the old leaves of sin; it means the life of Jesus developed in us.” This is the very desire Paul indicated when he addressed the Galatian Christians: “My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19).
In the New Testament, our coming to bear a closer likeness to God is nothing less than the goal of the gospel. Paul wrote, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18). And writing to another group of Christians, Peter said that God’s power “has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (2 Peter 1:3,4). We are called to partake of God’s own nature.
As near as we can tell, God created us in His own image so that we could show forth His goodness and respond to His love. Sin destroys our ability to do these things, and if sin’s damage is to be undone, we must not only be forgiven of the sin itself, but we must be remade in God’s image. He has arranged for us to be crucified and recreated. To seek Him is to seek this.
“The essence of true holiness is conformity to the nature and will of God” (Samuel Lucas).
“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Hebrews 11:8-10).
IT WAS NOT A CURSE, BUT A GREAT BLESSING, THAT UPROOTED ABRAHAM FROM HIS EARTHLY HOME. Far from the land of his youth and never again owning a plot of ground as his home, Abraham lived out his life wandering from one shepherd encampment to another. This was a great blessing because it made it much easier for Abraham to look beyond this world. As a sojourner dwelling in tents, he “waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”
When we stay so long in one place that it begins to feel like “home,” we may forget that our lease on this life is temporary. We quit dreaming about heaven, and we get to the point where we don’t want to let go of the things we’ve grown so accustomed to. We should learn from the Hebrew patriarchs. They “all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13).
But we should be careful not to misunderstand what it means to be a sojourner. Despite all the painful consequences of sin in the world, it is still a world made by our Heavenly Father, and He means for us to enjoy it (Ecclesiastes 5:18,19). Let us not measure our holiness in terms of how miserable we can make ourselves. Our challenge is not to keep from enjoying this world; it is rather to keep from “settling down” in it.
“For our citizenship is in heaven,” Paul wrote to Christian friends, “from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20). “Here we have no continuing city” (Hebrews 13:14). It is good for a guest to enjoy himself — as long as he remembers that he’s a guest. Abraham must surely have enjoyed the passing sunrises, sunsets, and starry nights in the strange land of Canaan. Yet his heart could not be held for long by these things. He was too much in love with their Giver.
Not where I breathe,
but where I love, I live.
(Robert Southwell)
