2002-01-01
Good Morning Dear Ones,
There are times when the Lord takes me on a spiritual adventure. He brings me to places I don’t expect to be in and sometimes keeps me there longer than I ever thought He would. Other times, He propels me on when I think I want to stay for awhile. My experience with Him is that it is always best to trust Him to know best. I can’t always say that is easy for me to do. But after studying RO 7: 14-25 I think I understand better what is happening. This is the passage in which our Lord prompted Paul to talk about the conflict between our inner spiritual selves that thirst for righteousness and our outward fleshly selves, still present but in the process of dying, that thirst to have their appetites satisfied. (22-23) “My inner being delights in the law of God. But I see a different law at work in my body-a law that fights against the law which my mind approves of.” In (24-25), it asks this profound question:” Who will rescue me from this body that is taking me to death?” And, it answers it, ”Thanks be to our God, Who does this through our Lord Jesus Christ!”
Since you know that in this present series of messages, I inviting you to look at Ecclesiastes 3: 1-15, you are probably wondering what the two passages have to do with one another. I think a lot. That is because I don’t know anywhere where the interface between our willful fleshly selves has produced more clashes with our inward spiritual selves than in the area of learning to yield to God’s timing. EC 3:3 “[God sets] the time for killing and the time for healing, the time for tearing down and the time for building.” By no means do I believe God is saying there is a right time to murder. In fact, He makes it clear EX 20: 13 that it is forbidden. So, we might ask: What does God mean by “a time for killing?” There’s plenty of room for interpretation here, so I will share my thoughts on this with the understanding that you may have some equally valid but different ones of your own. To me, the concept of killing can mean killing the desire to sin by the application of my own Holy Spirit-driven will when tempted. I had to do that very thing when someone speaking to me made some pretty unfriendly comments about Jewish believers in Christ. My fleshly self wanted to blast that person, allowing my angry and insulted feelings to take control. The Holy Spirit told me to do something that doesn’t come easy, to hold my tongue! Only Pete and I know that the Holy Spirit won the day here. I’m satisfied with that. Then, I thought about it. God must have been testing me to see whether my inner or my outer self would be in control. Imagine how Abraham felt when the Lord He loved told him to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac, at the altar! (GN 22: 2). Before you think I’m comparing myself to Abraham, bear in mind that the Holy Spirit doesn’t always win out in my conflicts. Abraham was a far more obedient believer than I am.
It’s a lot easier to think about “a time for killing” when we look back to the time in human history where mankind was grouped into tribes of hunters to be sure a food supply could be assured. Today, people who hunt (Pete and I are not hunters) do so under careful restrictions for when, where, and how much by the DNR. Without those restrictions, what starts out as sport becomes wholesale slaughter. On the other hand, without hunting, animal populations can’t be kept under control, forcing the extra animals for whom there is no food supply to suffer. This is not the right place to argue the pros and cons of hunting, but it is a way at looking at the issue of deciding to hunt for Godly and responsible reasons.
There is “a time for healing.” After a confrontation like the one mentioned above, there can be healing if the parties involved are interested in being spiritually responsible. I can’t expect that everyone is going to accept Jesus Christ as his Messiah, but I can demonstrate by my behavior what doing so produces in a more Godly person. In other words, I can’t control the behavior and beliefs of another person, but I can be a good example of my own faith. Wow! That’s hard sometimes! Have you found it to be hard? Yet, consider how important it is to let others (especially those who haven’t decided yet whether they will walk through that door marked “faith” yet) see the good having faith in Christ has done for us. Behaving in a way that brings about healing after a confrontation takes thought, creativity, and a caring heart. Christ told us to love our enemies in MT 5:44-45 and “pray for those who persecute you.”
From a physical standpoint the issue of healing is straight forward. That’s why those who dedicate their lives to healing, doctors, dentists, nurses, and other competent health professionals should be valued so greatly in our society. I love to do challenging crossword puzzles. It tickles me that a common cue that comes up often is “a nurse’s specialty”-three letters. Can you guess the answer? It’s “TLC.” If four letters were available, it would be “LOVE.” Now if that isn’t following the teachings of Christ, I don’t know what is. Naturally, there are some people in the health care profession who don’t live up to these Godly standards, but they are not included in these comments because I added the word “competent” above. Those who are competent are providing an example of healing for the others to follow. We can pray together that this would get their attention enough to cause them to desire to change to more Godly behavior. Health care professionals are not the only healers in our society. Anyone who understands Paul’s teaching in RO 13: 9-10, knows the attitude God wants us to use in dealing with others. “Love your neighbor as you love yourself. If you love someone you will never do him wrong, to love then is to obey the whole Law.”
In a previous devotion I spoke about tearing down the barriers to effective communication between people. That would suffice for an example of what God could have meant in EC 3: 3 when He spoke of “a time for tearing down.” Of course this can have other contexts and meanings, but this is the one that came to my mind. Another tearing down that I believe to be the will of God was the tearing down of the Berlin Wall-a physical and philosophical kind of tearing down. That had huge implications in my own life, because members of my family were in the service back in 1961-2 when that wall was first erected, and they were told their hitches were open-ended. I didn’t know if they would ever come back from their service alive. That same was true for the Cuban missile crises that was going on during that very dangerous era of our history. Herein the tearing down refers to the threat to our national security that this situation posed.
Lastly, EC 3: 3 speaks of “a time for building.” I can’t think of anything more important to me than doing what I can to encourage the building of faith in others. While calling and electing those who will come to faith is God’s sovereign choice, we are not told who God has called. That’s important, because it puts the responsibility for engaging in faith-building behavior with everyone on our shoulders. In my opinion, that leaves the judgments up to God and the responsibility to be faith-builders up to us. If we have acted in a Godly manner, and someone else doesn’t respond to that with faith, God has given His attitude on that clearly in Ezekiel 3: 16-21 and feels it’s important enough to repeat it in EZK 33: 1-9. I hope you will read these passages to see it for yourself.
PRAYER: O Lord, the wisdom of Your timing is so great. You are to be praised for Your patience and compassion in persevering to teach us this difficult lesson. Guide us to better understand the crucial nature of our need to put our trust in You and help us through the Holy Spirit to see the implications of Your precious teachings on the matters of killing, healing, tearing down, and building. We dedicate ourselves to being examples to others of weak or non-existent faith of how wonderful it is to live “in Christ.” In His holy name, amen.
May you feel the warmth of God’s blessings as you go through this and every other day of your life.
Grace Be With You,
Lynn