2002-01-01
Good Morning Faithful Ones,
“God can do so much more than we ask” is that key phrase from EPH 3: 20. Yesterday, I made the point that our Lord has shown remarkable compassion for mankind over their history. What He has always done for us and continues to do is only half of the story. The other half is how mankind responds to God’s sovereignty. In looking at Bible citations dealing with the conflict between the body and the Spirit, we get a better look at some of the difficulty with how mankind has responded. These are the things that will allow us to get an idea of the extraordinary amount of patience the Lord has shown us through the years.
A great example of this is the story of the manna and the quails from EX 16. EX 16: 1-3, “The whole Israelite community set out from Elim [south of Marah on the edge of the Red Sea], and on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had left Egypt, they came to the desert of Sin [inland east of Elim in what is modern day Saudi Arabia], which is between Elim and Sinai [SE of the desert of Sin]. There in the desert they all complained to Moses and Aaron and said to them, ‘We wish that the Lord had killed us in Egypt. There we could at least sit down and eat meat and as much other food as we wanted. But you have brought us into this desert to starve us all to death.’” Instead of giving up on these grumblers and complainers, God decided to test them and teach them to reach toward His perspective. He already knew that He was going to supply them with manna [described in MT 16: 31 as “like a small white seed, and tasting like think cakes made with honey”]. Through Moses, God instructed the people to gather up only enough manna for each day, except on the sixth day of the week when they should gather enough for two days. This latter instruction was so that they would not be gathering manna over the Sabbath. God wanted the people to trust and obey, the same thing that He wants us to do in 2001! Those people who didn’t follow God’s directions and who gathered more than one day’s supply of manna, found it to be full of worms and rotten the next day (20). Naturally, this incurred Moses’ anger.
This story is elaborated on in NU 11: 31-34. “Suddenly the Lord sent a wind that brought quails from the sea, flying three feet above the ground. They settled on the camp and all around it for miles and miles in every direction. So all that day, all night, and all the next day, the people worked catching quails; no one gathered less than fifty bushels. They spread them out to dry all around the camp. l While there was still plenty of meat for them to eat, the Lord became angry with the people and caused an epidemic to break out among them. That place was named ‘Graves of Craving,’ because there they buried the people who had craved meat.’” The lesson here, which seems so clear to us, is mankind’s need to obey God’s commands, even when it isn’t easy or they don’t fully understand them. In other words, trust and obey. And yet, when this lesson is applied to our own individual lives today, we are still struggling with it.
This situation is not hopeless as long as we endure in faith. One thing that helps us to do this is to keep our eyes focused on God’s goal for us. RO 8: 17, “Since we are His children, we will possess the blessing He keeps for His people, and we will also possess with Christ what God has kept for Him; for if we share Christ’s suffering, we will also share in His glory.” In other words, we will be joint-heirs to His Kingdom with Christ! We need to remember from the wisdom God gave Solomon expressed in PR 18: 10, “The Lord is like a strong tower, where the righteous can go and be safe.”
God’s wisdom is discussed in 1 COR 2: 6-16, which I hope you will read. Let me give some highlights. 1 COR 2: 7, “The wisdom I [Paul] proclaim is God’s secret wisdom which is hidden from mankind, but which He had already chosen for our glory even before the world was made.” Paul comments in (8) that had mankind already known this wisdom, they would not have crucified Christ. Then, he goes on to cite IS 64: 4 by saying in (9), “No eye can see nor ear can hear what no one ever thought could happen, is the very thing God prepared for those who love Him.” Now read how this is stated in IS 64: 4, “No one has ever seen or heard of a God like You, Who does such deeds for those who put their hope in Him.” Later in 1 COR 2: 12, our access to this wisdom is revealed. “We have not received the world’s spirit; instead, we have received the Spirit sent by God, so that we may know all that God has given us.” Paul’s explanation of this precious privilege culminates in (15-16). “Whoever has the Sprit, however, is able to judge the value of everything, but no one is able to judge Him. As the Scripture [IS 40: 13] says, ‘Who knows the mind of the Lord? Who is able to give Him advice?’ We, however, have the mind of Christ.” When we keep our hearts and minds on the goal God has for us and the Help, namely the Holy Spirit, that he gives us, we do not need to feel hopeless or depressed.
PRAYER: O Lord, how amazing are the blessings of Your guidance! It must baffle You that we have so much trouble trusting and obeying You, so that we can easily have access to them. Yet, You abide in love and make Your wisdom known to us through the Holy Spirit. You are our Tower of strength, our Refuge from destruction. From the earliest time of our history, You have repeatedly told us how we can find peace and salvation. Despite all of our sinning, You stand there waiting for us to seek out what You offer us. Today, we dedicate ourselves in humility to turning to You. We desire to examine our lives and get rid of the sin still in them. We ask for Your blessing on those who have not yet come to faith, that they will do this soon. Our hearts are open to serving You to this and any other purpose You might have. When we are in trouble or have questions as to what is right, we will come to You, trust the answers You give, and obey You by acting on them. You are the object of our worship, adoration, loyalty, faithfulness, trust, obedience, praise, honor, glory, and thanks for being the Presence in our lives that You are. In Christ’s name, we pray, amen.
Tomorrow, we will finish this section on the conflict of the flesh and the spirit with a recap of all the names of God discussed so far. But that is not the end. God, in His infinite wisdom and profound love, has even more for us. Each day I write about Him, I hope you can join me in feeling even more blessed than ever before. Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn