2012-01-20
Hi There Dear Ones,
Last week, the Holy Spirit had me end with the start of a discussion of our commitment to our covenant relationships with the Lord. We saw, in LK 22: 42, that Christ’s commitment was great enough that He was willing to suffer and die for us on the cross, so that we might have a way to be saved. He was putting the Father’s will in front of His own, in perfect obedience, even though He understood what that entailed. MT 7: 13-14, gives us perspective on our own need to make sacrifices in favor of our covenant relationships with the Father. “Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow is the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” It won’t be easy for the obedient believer, any more than it was easy for the Lord Jesus. However, the trials we have now are small in comparison to the great blessings ahead, blessings that will last for eternity. 2 COR 4: 18 shows my statement here is based on Scripture. “So we do not look at the trouble we can see right now; rather, we look forward to what we have not yet seen. For the troubles we see will soon be over, but the joys to come will last forever.”
Let’s look at RO 6: 6-7, “For we know that our old self was crucified with Him, so that the body of sin mighty be done away with, that we should not longer be slaves to sin-because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.” Now see, RO 6: 23, for greater understanding. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.” When we talk about being “crucified with Him,” we are referring to the death of our former lives, our independent living. Since the only life I really know is my own, I’ll share some of what this entails for me. Until I was age 25, I wasn’t even aware there really is a God, and that He and His Son, have me in their sight. It took several more years for me to stop thinking of God as a one-faceted Being that was only interested in reward and punishment. I had to learn that He not only was inviting me into a covenant relationship, but that it would be the most personal and intimate relationship in my life. Moreover, He was calling me to spend my earthly life serving Him in ministry! I was 25 having been raised in a conservative Jewish home, and genetically Jewish on both sides of my family. And yet He opened my heart to faith in the Son, my Lord Yeshua, Who wanted me to believe in Him, repent of my past sins, and serve Him. I agreed only after I had come to the end of myself, hitting rock bottom in my life. Immediately I laid myself open to family objections, traditionally Jewish friends losing interest in me, and the need to end an abusive first marriage, which lasted for 15 years. Once these things were dealt with and through much emotional pain, it was necessary to take the knowledge of the OT that I had acquired in my upbringing and add to it by giving the Lord Yeshua the opportunity to reveal Himself to me through study of the NT. My spiritual immaturity had to quickly become a thing of the past. God gave me wisdom; now I had to use it. To the present I have actually been studying the Scriptures for almost 43 years, and I still have a lot to learn from the Holy Spirit. Thankfully He is giving me joy in the process.
There are sins in my life, sins that need correction. I could no longer be selfish, self-centered. My impatience, pride, worrying, refusal to be entirely open with myself, lack of humility, destructive anger, refusal to take certain necessary risks, problem with swearing, and other sins needed to be revealed and expunged. I had already stopped smoking, and after waiting until age 21 to overcome my fears of driving, got a license. [Those fears had arisen from over-reaction to being in a bad accident when I was a passenger in a car at 13. A pedestrian decided to commit suicide by stepping in front of the car I was in. Sadly, this mentally ill man succeeded. I was badly injured.]. Entirely too recently, I have finally learned to stop swearing. But all these other bugaboos are constant temptations in my life. But the most important thing I have done in my life is to put my faith in God first and to make his agenda my first priority. He blessed me with a wonderful second marriage, which is will pass its 35th year in Jan.’12. God wanted me to mature spiritually, and His way to do it was to surround me with spiritually mature role models, people who live “in Christ” and teach by example. Still, I have plenty of work to do in cooperating with the Lord in my sanctification. Like all believers still on earth, I’m a work in progress. No doubt, I’ve entertained the Lord with some of my foolishness. I’m the same person who spent her entire undergraduate college career taking science courses to avoid having to write English compositions. I’m the same person who avoided praying for years, because I didn’t think prayer was real or had the power it does. That’s why He made me a writer and made it necessary for me to lead a 195-person prayer chain for my congregation. As always, God has had the last laugh. Praise and thanks be to Him! J
PRAYER: O Lord, well, enough about me and my sins! You are calling all of us to be honest with ourselves and reveal, even search out to find, sins we commit-both overt and subtle. This is painful work, work that we are not always comfortable doing. But it is necessary work, necessary to our very sanctification. The idea of the human need for sanctification was discussed as early in the Torah as the NU 16: 3-7, when the rebellious Korah and his followers were told to light their censors and wait for God to reveal who is holy. We all know that Korah rebelled against Moses. Korah and his followers, who showed God so much contempt, were swallowed up in the ground [NU 16: 30]. The need to be sanctified came up again in JS 3: 5, “Joshua told the people, ‘Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.’” And later, Job, a man of true faith, was able to say in JOB 23: 10, “But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I will come forth as gold.” Dearest Abba, in this prayer I use Your very words, because You can teach us the most about our need for sanctification. The basics of it are revealed in RO 8: 1-2, “Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” We should not forget we are not the only ones who are working toward our sanctification. The Holy Spirit also works, as we see in 2 THESS 2: 13, “But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.” You explain what a faithful person does in his sanctification in COL 3:1-3, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” Lord, we ask You to take us, hand in hand, through Your “Refiner’s fire,” so that we may appear with You, when You appear and share in Your eternal glory. We thank You for the hope for this You give us and praise You for Your loving and generous nature. In Christ’s name, we pray. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: I am led by the Holy Spirit to continue encouraging all of us to examine our commitments to our covenant relationships with the Lord. Rejecting sin isn’t easy, nor is uncovering hidden sins we are committing. A class I once took required me to make a time line of my life. I was to divide it in five part of approximately equal numbers of years. Then, I was to mark all the signal events, e.g. points where I passed certain milestones, that would change my life. [Stop reading here and do this exercise for yourself first. Then, continue reading, as I share my experience with it]. As I covered all the ones I could think of, it became obvious whether I was allowing the Lord in my life for a certain event or not, i.e. from what point of view I was selecting what mattered, my human one or the Lord’s. After awhile it became patently obvious to me that God has been working hard to change my human point of view to His. See what it is like for you. You don’t have to show it to anyone; it can be just between you and the Lord. But, remember to be honest with yourselves. For me, it helped me uncover some more subtle sins I had. Remember this comforting thought: Our Lord is working hard when we cooperate with Him to bring us to the point where we can be glorified, i.e. sufficiently purified, perfected to be brought to His side for eternal bliss and fellowship with Him. RO 15: 13, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace, as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Praise and thanks to Him for such profound love!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 24: 15, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”