2012-10-12
Good Morning Dear Ones,
Last week, we concluded the segment on “A New Creation.” This week, I’m prompted by the Holy Spirit to begin a new segment of the “Our Covenant” messages called “Selfishness to Unselfishness.” These messages will reflect what happens as God fulfills His promise to live with His people [EX 33: 12-14], but not just with the Jews wandering in the desert. We have to see what happens with people today.
A huge issue for us to take on is God’s goals for us. 2 COR 5: 15, “And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him Who died for them and was raised again.” How do we learn to do this? We need to recall RO 8: 14-16 first. “Because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God, for you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by Him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.” This is important, because it establishes the new believer in Christ, as a member of God’s family, adopted into it by God’s loving grace. Another passage to remember here is EPH 2: 8-10, “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God has already prepared in advance for us to do.” These two last passages give us the basics that we need to know to go on.
Now, we must come to understand that being a part of God’s family, or any family for that matter, involves taking on age-appropriate responsibilities to that family. In the case of God’s family, the responsibilities are not only age-appropriate (as determined by God), they are also appropriate to one’s spiritual maturity. I can’t help but think of HE 5: 12-14, where we see God’s attitude toward people who, by their thoughts and actions, retard their spiritual maturation. “In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish between good and evil.” In other words, we are not just to be adopted into God’s family, but we are to mature in it. This is accomplished through sanctification, the process by which God perfects and matures us gradually to the point where we are ready for glorification (God’s call to us to His side in heaven for eternity). We must submit to His authority, follow His guidance, take the encouragement He gives us without fright at the time we are asked to abandon our comfort zones, and we must become unselfishly caring of the needs of other people.
RO 14: 7-9 gives us further illumination on these important God-set goals for us. “For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that He might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.” We should spend time meditating over these passages given today. The bottom line is that we should live for the Lord and trust in Him; this may be far more easily said than done, but nonetheless, we must do it anyway. Those who do, discover strengths in themselves they never knew they had. They are blessed by a great covenant relationship with the Lord. We have many responsibilities as members of God’s family, but there are also many blessings which come our way.
We should recall the Parable of the Good Samaritan [LK 10: 25-37], a very familiar story which asks a crucial question: Are we our brother’s keepers? As this story unfolds, Christ takes us from the selfish approach of being led by fleshly human desire to the unselfish approach of reaching out and helping a person in trouble. It’s a beautiful example and a practical one of the point of this segment of my messages. If the details of this story escape you, please read the passage given above. This is worth one’s time. For me personally, the move from being selfish to unselfish has been a long, difficult road, one which hasn’t ended yet. My past life without faith was riddled with acts of selfishness, not motivated by malevolence, but by fright. I hadn’t yet learned to love and trust the Lord. There are still areas of my life where improvement in this is needed, there’s no question about it. Part of being in God’s family is learning to take responsibility for one’s own actions, rather than playing the victim or blaming our weaknesses on others. While that truth may be painful, God, through His grace, has created us in Christ, to endure the pain of facing the truth and learning to live for Him. HE 4: 13, “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and bare before the eyes of Him in Whom we must give account.” Our God is forgiving and loving, so we must place our trust in Him to help us through our weaknesses.
PRAYER: O Lord, we came to You as we were, and You have accepted us, in our weakness and sin, as Your children. You have given us the Holy Spirit to guide and direct us to Your ways. RO 8: 26-27, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And He Who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.” Over the course of time, You have instructed us through Your word and have brought us to fall in love with it and with You. This precious covenant relationship to which You have called us, and called us first when we least deserve it [JN 15: 15-17], warrants our attention to detail and our willingness to submit to and trust You. We can come before You with freedom and confidence, as You have promised, with our trials, our thoughts, our questions, our concerns, and our fidelity [EPH 3: 12]. There is a skill which we should acquire; it is the habit of coming to Your word every day and having an active prayer life (including listening for what You tell us). Your word instructs us and leads us to good deeds (2 TIM 3: 16-17). Prayer connects us with Your love when we call to You, Your answers in our times of trouble, and Your further instructions [PS 86: 5, 7, and 11]. We learn important information toward helping us to mature in RO 9: 9-10. “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” We can strengthen our faith according to Your direction in RO 10: 17, “Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.” Lord, we know that you want us to grow spiritually and not spend our lives as infants only able to take spiritual milk. We utter this belief in the holy/mighty name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: I am led to continue this segment of “Selfishness to Unselfishness” with more important Scriptural reconnaissance that God has given us to further our growth spiritually and enhance our service to Him as a full-fledged members of His family. In the meanwhile, we should look at our own example of living out Biblical truth as part of the family of God. We need to examine our relationships with other people, identify the areas where we need to make improvements in taking our responsibilities as His adopted children, and observe Him at work in our lives. Being aware of the blessings He bestows on us is a great first step toward appreciating the freedom Christ has given us. JN 8: 32, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” God’s love is all around us, and when we are not feeling it, we can ask Him to help us recognize it. PS 33: 22, “Yes, Lord, let Your constant love surround us, for our hopes are in You alone.”
We must remember that it is at times of stress, trials, losses, illness, and disappointments that we mature spiritually the most. From the Lord’s perspective, we should welcome these trials, knowing all the while that He will never give us trouble that is so severe that it destroys our resolve to have faith [1 COR 10: 13]. Through the blood of Christ shed for us on the cross, our repentance, and faith in Him that we are saved [JN 3: 16; RO 2: 24-25]. Claim 1 PET 3: 17, “It is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.” Thanks and praise be to God that we can make this week the time we take a big step forward, with God’s help, toward spiritual maturation!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 24:15
© Lynn Johnson, 2012. All Rights Reserved.
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