2015-01-30
Good Morning Dear Ones,
Last week, I was led to ask some difficult questions in connection with a discussion of covenant applications. These were ones only each of us as individuals can answer. How well am I living up to the Covenant of Grace? Have I kept up my end of a marriage covenant (if married)? These examples and others all require both humility before the Lord and honesty. They can be answered between ourselves and the Lord in prayer, with us listening for the Lord’s direction, as adjustments and/or improvements must be made. Certainly the initiative David took after his friend, Jonathan’s, death at the battle of Gilboa [1 SAM 31: 1-6] in finding remaining members of Saul’s family gives us an example of a heart-attitude that pleased God. David took his covenant of friendship before God with Jonathan very seriously [1 SAM 18: 1-4; 1 SAM 20: 15; 2 SAM 9:1].
In his quest to find the last remaining member of Saul’s family, David found Jonathan’s crippled son, Mephibosheth, and called him to stand before his kingly throne. Mephibosheth felt the same dread and diminished sense of self, as if he was still a five year old (the age at which, in her fright to escape the arrival of David’s troops, his nurse dropped him causing this injury to his feet-2 SAM 4: 4). He felt that his rightful inheritance had been taken from him when David assumed the throne of Israel. Mephibosheth couldn’t stand long and collapsed, prostrating himself before David. David’s kindness at this juncture came as a huge surprise to Mephibosheth, because Mephibosheth thought of himself as a “dead dog –an embarrassing piece of garbage” [2 SAM 9: 8].
Oh, how I can relate! I can’t ignore my own first-hand experience with a poor self-image during my childhood. My well-meaning parents put so much emphasis on getting an education that they didn’t think about a child having feelings. I was brutally teased in the schoolyard for having corrective shoes and braces on my teeth. I was a redhead with freckles and the subject of mean-spirited mockery. To make matters worse, I was already full-busted by the time I was in the sixth grade. At home, our family had an air of intellectual competition at the dinner table that was crushing, because I was the youngest and a girl—shades of Gideon exclaiming at the Lord’s bidding to “’Go and save Israel,’ ‘How can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family’” [JG 6: 14-15]. You may know that Judaism is a very patriarchal belief system, and in our culture in my day, Jewish women had little authority in the family. If I had known what I do now, it wouldn’t have crushed my spirit the way things did, but I was misinformed about the potential I had. I remember bringing home straight A’s in school, but it was never enough to please my parents or give me any self-confidence. That didn’t change until I was in high school.
One other question occurs to me for us to ask ourselves: Are we ignorant of all the responsibilities (which God balances with blessings) that come to us, as a result of the Covenant of Grace? To answer this question, we must examine our relationship with God and with others around us, our behavior on a daily basis (particularly toward people who don’t make it easy to endure their company—I call them EGR or “extra grace required” people). Do we love God and seek out His company/intervention in our lives, or do we ignore Him? Have we really learned to discover His many blessings? Are we afraid of God, figuring that the losses, illnesses, and disappoints in our lives are Him punishing us? Do we fear submitting to God? Being accountable to Him? How well do we actually know God? These are tough questions, demanding our honest appraisal. They are not asked to evoke guilt, but instead, to jump-start us in making improvements. God wants us to know Him well, not just a passing acquaintance [COL 3: 9-10]. I feel we can stop trembling and rest assured that He loves us! Repeatedly, He shows us His love, if we are only willing to recognize it. He does want us to cooperate with Him in the process of sanctification. We can know that He will always be rooting for us to succeed in gaining eternal life. Yes, our God can always be trusted. PS 33: 4-5, “The Lord is truthful; He can be trusted. He loves justice and fairness, and He is kind to everyone everywhere on earth.”
It is the goodness that God gave David that led this king to welcome Mephibosheth (just as he was) to his table and his life. It didn’t matter that Saul and Jonathan were gone. All that mattered is that David took his covenant relationship with Saul’s family very seriously. Just as Mephibosheth was blessed by this covenant, we are blessed by our covenant relationship with God. God may have had His reasons for letting me think He didn’t exist and that blessings were for everyone else during my childhood. But beginning with my quest to find the Lord Yeshua [Jesus], that misconception was handsomely rectified. The contrast before with after He was in my life is so great that it led me to spend the rest of my life wanting to serve Him--once I was aware of my mistaken notion that I wasn’t in His sights. Our God loves us enough to work with our faults and foibles, to take us under His wings just as we are. May He always be thanked and praised!
PRAYER: O Lord, we come before Your throne, imperfect, often ignorant, and sometimes disobedient. Today, no matter what our issues might be, we “offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to You, as a spiritual act of worship” [RO 12: 1]. You love us enough to take us just as we are and to give us the time we need to cooperate with You in the process of sanctification. This is at the heart of our need to do what is required of us in the Covenant of Grace. In return, You have given Your Son, Jesus, on the cross, so that by believing in Him and repenting of our sins, we may saved [JN 3: 16] and be justified, i.e. deemed acceptable in Your sight [RO 4: 3]. You took us while we were Your enemies and, through Jesus, You made us Your friends, Your spiritually adopted children [RO 5: 9-11; RO 8: 14-16]. You enabled us to work to expunge our sins by “transforming us inwardly by the renewal of our mind” [RO 12: 2]. We must ask and honestly answer the tough questions mentioned above (within Your earshot). Our requests are in PS 139: 23-24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is anything offensive in me; and lead me in the way everlasting.” You are a loving God, Who richly deserves our heartfelt thanks and praise for the many blessings You bestow upon us. We are grateful for Your patience, compassion, kindness, and faithfulness to the covenant between us. Your wisdom knows no bounds, and we ask for Your gracious guidance in the holy/mighty name of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: I’m led to continue writing about covenant applications as we share in the King’s table. There’s more to say on the issue of sanctification than has been already written. We must also look into the open invitation that each of us is given to come to the King’s table. Contrary to my mistaken childhood notion that God either doesn’t exist or doesn’t care, quite the opposite is true. God loves each of His human creation full on, which is why we can so bitterly disappoint Him when we serially reject Him. He is our forever Father; His wings are spread to protect us. PS 40: 1-2, “I waited patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set me on a Rock and gave me a firm place to stand.” He brings justice to our lives. PS 89: 14, “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; love and faithfulness go before You.” When we came to faith, we were justified; and now we labor with the Lord in the process of sanctification. He wants to perfect us and purify us to the point where He deems we are ready to be glorified, i.e. brought back to His side in heaven for a blissful eternity with Him. These are not the acts of a God Who ignores us, but instead, are those of One Who loves each of us dearly-warts and all J. Take comfort in knowing that, and know also that He wants us to succeed in gaining eternal life with Him and in having the best life we can even while here on earth. Let me close with this reconnaissance: EPH 5: 1-2, “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, as a fragrant Offering and Sacrifice to God.” Our God deserves our eternal praise!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 24: 15
© Lynn Johnson 2014. All Rights Reserved.
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