2009-12-18
Good Morning Dear Ones,
Today we will begin looking at the narrow gate to eternal life. This metaphor is taken from MT 7: 13-14, a passage I often cite in my writing. Must be that the Holy Spirit thinks it’s important. I know the Lord does, or He wouldn’t have included it in His Sermon on the Mount. “Go in trough the narrow gate, because the gate to hell is wide and the road that leads to it is easy, and there are many who travel it. But the gate to life is narrow and the way that leads to it is hard, and there are few people who find it.” Surely the Lord is telling us that we will face many trials and that relatively few people have the self-discipline to withstand the evil one’s temptation to the end. That doesn’t mean this endurance in faith is impossible; it just means that more people will give in to the fleshly part of themselves than will refuse steadfastly to do that. Years ago, I read in a book, “You’ll never find a rose garden.” That statement stuck with me, but it didn’t defeat me. What was meant was that no one’s life would be lived without some challenges. PS 55: 22, “Cast your burden on the Lord, and He will sustain you; He will never permit the righteous to be defeated.” Wanting to be righteous is at the heart of a true believer’s life. We know that we are far from perfect, because we have both inherited sin through Adam’s line, and we commit sin ourselves. Once we become adults, I guess it is like Dorothy who wakes up and says to her little dog, “Gee Toto, I guess weren’t not in Kansas anymore.”
Just as we had an increasing number of choices to make and consequences to suffer from them as we were growing up, our lives reach a point where we must take responsibility for them ourselves. That’s the beginning of real maturity and adulthood. We’ve gone through school or begun to work for a few years, and suddenly we find ourselves needing to follow through on our career choices and taking responsibility for ourselves. Christ didn’t spend his whole life working in Joseph’s carpentry shop. Adults find themselves still having to make choices about their beliefs, who they associate with, what they do for a living and with their lives, where and how they will live. If the wrong choices are made, then adults must take the consequences for those choices. I thought I wanted to teach biology, botany, and/or chemistry on the college level. But God had another idea. When I forged ahead on my own, I became expressly unhappy. Piece by piece that dream unraveled, and it became obvious that I had to come to teams with this “Higher Power” that had another agenda for me. That was before I even acknowledged God in my life. So, it was back for more schooling and gradually working toward the career for which He had created me. Interestingly enough, teaching would be a part of that career, but not all of it.
One of the quintessential Biblical stories of someone trying to go His own way, only to meet with disaster and to turn to the way God had mapped out for him is that of Jonah. JON 1: 7-10, “The sailors said to each other, ‘Let’s draw lots an find out who is to blame for getting us into this danger [of the ship on it’s way to Spain breaking up in choppy waters]. They did so and Jonah’s name was drawn. So they said to him, ‘Now, then tell us! Who is to blame for this? What are you doing here? What country do you come from? What is your nationality?’ ‘I am a Hebrew,’ Jonah answered. ‘I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made land and sea.’ Jonah went on to tell them that he was running away from the Lord.” After all, God had instructed him to go to Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, which was to the east, not west as Spain was. Jonah didn’t want to face Israel’s enemies. Everyone knows that Jonah was thrown overboard and was swallowed by the big fish. Whilst in this predicament, he prayed and finally agreed to obey the Lord. On the third day, he was heaved out on to a beach. His task was to go to Nineveh with the message, “In forty days Nineveh will be destroyed!” [JON 3: 4]. Amazingly, the people of Nineveh heard the message and called a session of fasting and prayer. God saw this and that they had given up their wicked behavior, changed His mind, and Nineveh was saved [JON 3: 10]. In the same way, my own obedience to God in the end has also led to my own salvation, a salvation that has taken on many forms and brought great blessing to me.
The whole point of this is to realize that while we have human free agency, things will go a lot better for those who listen to God and obey Him. There is nothing in the world more important that our real and personal relationship to God. It deeply affects our relationships with other people. These too also are important, more important that the acquisition of material wealth or giving in to the many baser of human desires of the flesh. PS 52: 8, “But I am like an olive tree growing in God’s house, and I can count on His love forever and ever.” It may seem like an odd way of looking at things, but God allows a measured amount of challenges and grief to be a part of our lives to bless them. What I mean by this is that He builds our strength, courage of faith, and willingness to depend on Him by showing us that dependency on other humans or on ourselves simply doesn’t work. He often refuses to let those He calls to faith to reject Him! As it did with Jonah and with me, we have to come to the realization that God really is capable of anything He wants. “Nothing is impossible for God” [MK 10: 27] even if it is impossible for a man. We also learn through working through our challenges that while we are yet sinners, He will grant His help and His love to any of us who recognize our spiritual poverty and call on Him in prayer. We acknowledge His supremacy, but also our trust in His righteousness. PS 62: 5, “Only God gives inner peace, and I depend on Him.” Try this and see that God never abandons us or breaks His promises [PS 9: 9-10; PS 138: 8].
PRAYER: O Lord, we bow our heads and approach You in utter reverence. You have shown us Your power to do good repeatedly. In the past, there were times when we were unaware or aware but ignoring this. No more! We are learning through our challenges and Your help in getting through them that we can’t continue our past behavior. PS 107: 43, “Those who are wise will take all this to heart; they will see in our history the faithful love of the Lord.” When we seek your guidance first, we have an idea of which choice to make, which path to follow. You never promised us it would be easy. After all, we have the example of Your precious Son, Who suffered, Who was scorned, and Who died on the cross, so that we could be saved [JN 3: 16: RO 3: 24-25]. With Him, He carried the weight of the world’s sins to the cross. None of us have had to make that extreme a sacrifice. You accepted Him as the perfect sin sacrifice for us all HE 10: 10], and then raised Him after three days, so that He would be forever honored in heaven and given eternal life. What more important goal can we have than to be given eternal life? This is nothing we can do for ourselves, as it is due to the grace that You choose to extend, even though we hardly deserve it [EPH 2: 8-10]. We can’t boast of our own accomplishments, because the talent and opportunity to do them came from You, through the Holy Spirit. We praise and thank You for Your generosity, goodness, gentle caring, and wise guidance. We love You for caring so much for each of us. In Christ’s holy and mighty name, we pray. Amen.
Next week, MT 22: 14, “Many are called and few are chosen” will be the subject the Holy Spirit has given me. We’ll look at how this concept dovetails with the metaphor of the “narrow gate to the hard road” that we find in MT 7: 13-14. If nothing else gets stamped on the mind of a person who spends daily time in the Scriptures, it should be the consistency of God’s teaching. No matter whether a concept is read about in the NT or the OT, the consistency is there in a way no human can craft it. Our God is consistently fair, just, loving, wise, caring, and all the other many attributes He demonstrates. Looking not only for His deeds, but also for His attributes is a lifetime education for our heads, our hearts, and our hands. His example is unparalleled anywhere in the universe. It’s definitely one to follow, as closely as one can. We are called to examine the conduct of our lives and to compare it to the example Christ set for us. If we find some parts of ours wanting, then God calls us to do the work of conforming to Biblical truth. RO 12: 2, “Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by the complete renewal of your mind. Then you will be able to know the will of God-what is good and is pleasing to Him and is perfect.” Knowing what is perfect doesn’t mean we can be perfect, but it does mean that we have to power to make significant improvements, ones that will lead to a better quality of life in the real and eternal sense of the word. Praise and thanks be to God!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn