The Providence of God

 

Friday, August 21, 2020

I give you thanks, O Lord, with all my heart; I will sing your praises before the gods.  I bow before your holy Temple as I worship.  I praise your name for your unfailing love and faithfulness; for your promises are backed by all the honor of your name.  As soon as I pray, you answer me; you encourage me by giving me strength.  Psalm 138:1-3

The Psalmist lets us in on a little key ingredient to faith; you’ve got to keep going.  I’m not talking about really tough times when you don’t know whether or not you’ve got it in you to take one more step; in times like that He carries you.  Rather, it’s more the times when you just don’t feel like taking any steps that you’ve got to keep taking those steps.

·       Did you ever just not feel like saying that prayer?

·       Have you ever felt like it was a waste of time to go to another worship service?

·       Has there been a time when you felt too angry to pray?

·       Did you ever feel like it was useless to forgive that guy….again?

Hear the Psalmist again: 

As soon as I pray, you answer me; you encourage me by giving me strength.

Faith isn’t spooky, doesn’t require a medium or fortune teller, and it certainly isn’t hiding anywhere.  Faith is constantly available, and the problem isn’t that God has made it only for the superstars, like Moses, Peter, or Paul; the problem is, frankly, sometimes we just don’t feel like it.  And this is the point at which we find that faith. 

If you have developed a habit of praying, giving, worshipping, helping others, or any other spiritual discipline, there will be times when you don’t feel like it.  Those are the times to put aside feelings and remember it is a discipline, and the strength God gave you to form that discipline, will be the same strength that shows up in that discipline.  This is so, because of another little key the Psalmist let slip…it’s not about us, or our feelings; God’s providence, His care for us, is all resting on the honor of God’s holy name.

In a discussion with a dear friend we were talking about this same issue, and I had the thought that many times I don’t really want to get up as early as I do.  Sometimes, even when I manage to drag my aging carcass out of the bed, stumble to the desk with my first cup of coffee, and begin to read, I do not feel like writing another devotional (perhaps just like you sometimes don’t feel like reading another devotional).  But, when it has become a habit, you do it anyway. 

And one of two things happen:

1.     Somewhere in the process, like the Psalmist, you realize that entering that time of prayer, or service, or devotion, God has encouraged you, replenished your strength, or resolve, or grown your faith.   The technical term is providence – the Lord has provided. 

The other possibility is:

2.     You don’t feel anything but bored, or tired, or angry, or, well…fill in the blank.  And, in this case, it isn’t that God can’t provide what you need; you’ve bumped into the need for a vacation….or a nap…or a nap on vacation.  You get the idea.

Your tank of human strength has run low, and God wants to replenish all of you, not just your spiritual side, He wants your mind, emotions, physical being, and relationships to flourish.  And, you’re not your best self when those feelings begin to control every decision, action, or word that drops from your tired, bored, angry lips.

For You Today

There are times to take a break, step back, and regain strength, or perspective; it’s time to let God replenish whatever is running on empty. 

Don’t be afraid of that.  It’s providential…one of God’s promises!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today.  Have a blessed day!

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Title image Pixabay.com ∞  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For another post on activating your faith, see Faith Finding the Path to Do Right

 

Hopelessly Confused

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Monday, August 6, 2018

With the Lord’s authority I say this:  Live no longer as the Gentiles do, for they are hopelessly confused.  Their minds are full of darkness; they wander far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against him.  They have no sense of shame.  They live for lustful pleasure and eagerly practice every kind of impurity.  But that isn’t what you learned about Christ.  Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception.  Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes.  Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.  Ephesians 4:17-24^(NLT)

Hopelessly confused!  Minds full of darkness, closed and without shame.  It sounds like Paul held little optimism for the Gentiles to find any peace or sense and purpose in life.  But Paul didn’t reserve that bleak outlook exclusively for the Gentiles; elsewhere he wrote essentially the same thing about the Jews, that they were acting as people of darkness, despite the light God had given them.  Paul expressed heartbrokenness to the extent that he would give up his own eternal life if it were possible to save them.

Now, if Paul expresses this hopelessness for both Jews and Gentiles, who’s left?  The short answer is…nobody!  To the Jews, there was no other perspective from which to view things – you were either inside the covenant, or outside; you were a son or a slave.

And, truth be told, the Bible presents no middle ground where that is concerned.  When you consider the terminology of judgment passages, there is either lost or saved; those two categories do not have a common meeting place!

So, what is Paul’s point?  Actions are important; they tell you what is going on within the person who acts.  It’s not that actions create eternal life within, but actions announce whether the second birth has actually occurred.  Paul says to the believers at Ephesus:  If you really did surrender your life to Christ, where is the change of your behavior that is consistent with life; why are you still acting as if you’re dead in sin?

The apostle takes these disobedient Christians to task for their dimness of holy living; he ushers them into Heaven’s dressing room.  Take off the old garment of sinful living which is tattered and threadbare…that which can’t keep you warm and is not fit for you to wear before God; put on the new garment, your holy nature, knitted by the Holy Spirit, which clothes you in righteousness.  Let the Spirit direct your path.

For Paul, there is no confusion, no hopelessness when you’re in Christ…except if you say you believe, go through the ritual of believers in worship and fellowship with Christ’s church, but then say the opposite with a life that is largely unchanged. 

In short, Paul lowers the common-sense hammer:  New life is a changed life.

In Paul’s day, as in ours, there were plenty of people who claimed they’d been saved, born-again from above…and, yet, their actions spoke so loudly that no change had taken place, you cannot help but doubt their words.  Perhaps many were serious…wanting to be included in God’s eternal glory…but were just not willing to let go of earth’s lust and darkness.  It’s strange when you put it out there just that way, but what else can you say about it?  Well…here’s what Jesus said about it:

And the judgment is based on this fact:  God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.  All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed.  But those who do what is right come to the light, so others can see that they are doing what God wants.”  John 3:19-21^(NLT)

For You Today

If your light has grown a little dim, and that Christian wardrobe looks a little dated, perhaps it’s time for renewal.  Nobody has to stay hopelessly confused.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com

The Sacrifice of Self-Control

[i]

Friday, April 28, 2017

So prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control.  Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world.  So you must live as God’s obedient children.  Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires.  You didn’t know any better then.  But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy.  For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy.”    1 Peter 1:13-16^(NLT)

The apostle Peter is a most ironic choice by God to be a teacher of self-control.  If you consider his track record, every time Peter opened his mouth he seemed to wander off the reservation and insert his foot: 

·       Peter said he would die for Jesus; in the end he denied he even knew him.

·       Peter’s immediate response when the soldiers came for Jesus in Gethsemane was to whip out a sword to fight for the one who had said turn the other cheek.

·       Peter promised a lot; he even proclaimed a correct answer to Jesus’ question that he was Messiah, but when crunch time came he wimped like the rest of us.

So much for self-control!

Yet, on Pentecost Day we find Peter preaching to at least 5,000 at the Temple, and becoming the little rock Jesus nick-named him.  Peter was to be the de-facto leader of the early church; a man with little self-control became one of the most dramatic examples of putting all in the hands of God.  Tradition has it that he was crucified as Jesus was, but thought it was improper to take the same position as his Lord, and asked to be placed on his cross upside-down.

Two quotations I’ve come to love may offer some of the best advice I’ve ever heard when it comes to being disciplined, or having self-control, and how to go about it:

Maxie Dunnam:  Spiritual formation is that dynamic process of receiving through faith and appropriating through commitment, discipline, and action.[ii]

Faith happens between the ears and heart; appropriating what faith tells you to do is a matter of putting it into action in your life.  It may start small, but ends up big as commitment, discipline and action.

Charles Reade:  Sow an act and you reap a habit.  Sow a habit and you reap a character.  Sow a character and you reap a destiny.[iii]

Peter’s disciplined friend Paul simply said that we reap what we sow ^{(Galatians 6:7).}  The “acts” Charles Reade held up are those areas of self-discipline you want to cultivate.  It begins with an intentional step, based on the faith conviction that you must live a certain way.  That sown seed of faith becomes a habit, which eventually becomes your character, where you don’t think about it anymore, you simply continue.  That character is your destiny or legacy.

For You Today

If there is a problem with self-discipline in your life, turn it upside down and crucify whatever is preventing you from giving glory to God.  Your character and legacy depend on what you will do with your first step today.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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NOTES

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 ^I Title image: Masaccio [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

[ii] Maxie Dunnam quoted on Great Thoughts Treasury

[iii] Charles Reade quoted on Brainy Quotes