2002-01-01
Good Morning Faithful Readers,
I am led to share more of what God reveals to us concerning His mercy this morning. It might seem like an odd thing to spend time talking about God’s mercy when so much spiritual warfare is going on, but our Lord wants us to see the kindness He extends to us when we are faithful to Him. We do not fight our battles without being on the side of the One Whose power is so great that Satan can be defeated. We must be patient and endure whatever suffering is necessary, never forgetting that the strength we obtain in this battle represents forward motion in our road to sanctification. It’s forward motion on the path to perfection which He has prepared for us and which leads to eternal and blissful life with Him.
God has expectations for us, ones that we are fitted by Him to meet. He doesn’t promise us that meeting these expectations will be easy, because He knows that they require us to make changes in our lives and ways of thinking that will bring us to where He wants us to be. RO 12: 1-2, “So then, my brothers, because of God’s great mercy to us I appeal to you: Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to His service and pleasing to Him. This is the true worship that you should offer. Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete renewal of your mind. Then you will be able to know the will of God-what is pleasing to Him and what is perfect.” We must each examine our lives to see how closely they conform to God’s will for us. The only way to know this is to stay grounded daily in the Scriptures and in prayer. Through daily study of the Scriptures, we come to know God and love Him and His word enormously. That’s how the power of the Holy Spirit works in us. Through prayer, we establish and maintain active communication with the greatest Source of wisdom, compassion, encouragement, direction, provision, and protection available in the universe. With that kind of power working in one’s life, Satan doesn’t have a chance!
I have often thought that enforced idleness would be a terrible form of torture. When I didn’t know what I know now from the Scriptures, I had a question which I took to Les Feldick. How could heaven be bliss if we had no work to do? He grinned at me, and said, “Where did you ever get the idea that God didn’t have something for each of us to do in heaven? Our most important occupation there will be worshipping Him, but there will be other work for us to do too. That is why God has equipped each of us with special talents. They are not only to be used on earth, but will be used in heaven too.” I wondered why it was so important for us to be working, and the answer for this on earth is in 2 COR 4: 1. “God in His mercy has given us this work to do , and so we do not become discouraged.” Now that makes sense! If we are at work, doing something that has value to God, we’re too busy to let Satan make us feel discouraged or miserable. Understanding that God has a purpose for us, accepting His invitation to join Him in His work, keeps us in touch with His goal for us and allows us to experience Him by our obedience to His commands. The other huge advantage is that our work yields fruit that transcends the grave, in a way that no monetary wages paid or materials bought on earth ever can. Now, there, Dear Ones, is reason to be motivated! If we are following God’s commands, we will do only the amount of work that He wills for us to do. We won’t be over-committed and thus, reduce our usefulness to Him. We will share our work with others, so that they too can enjoy the benefits of the spiritual growth opportunity it provides.
God wants us to know Him well by following the model that Christ has presented to us. As we strive to be more like Christ, we get to know God better. MT 5: 7, “Happy are those who are merciful to others; God will be merciful to them.” Even when sorely tempted by Satan to be otherwise, Christ was always merciful to people-even the ones who gave him so much pain with their evil ways. Christ was no sinner. Even though we are sinners, God still loves us as long as we attempt to expunge the sin from our lives and work toward being as much like Christ as we can. Of course, there are negative consequences for not being merciful, as is revealed to us in JAS 2: 13, “For God will not show mercy when He judges the person who has not been merciful; but mercy triumphs over judgment.” Paul knew from Whom the strength for him to do his work came. 1 TIM 1: 12, “I give thanks to Christ Jesus our Lord, Who has given me strength for my work. I thank Him for considering me worthy and appointment to serve Him…” Our work doesn’t have to be as far-reaching as Paul’s was for God to genuinely appreciate it and extend His mercy to us. He does have something for each of us to do in working toward His purpose for the Body of Christ-that it should be edified and unified. None of the human barriers of rank or prestige matter. What does is our heart-attitude and willingness to obey and know God by making Him the center of our lives and His work our greatest pursuit.
PRAYER: O Lord, You have given us certain Scriptures that really help us to overcome the challenges Satan mounts to our faith. One such message comes to us from 2 CH 16: 9, “The eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him.” Another such message that helps us to place Your perspective on those we must trust to teach us Your ways. It comes in LK 6: 40, “The disciple is not above His Master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his Master.” Through Your mercy, You have given us Your Son on the cross for salvation, but You have also given us the example He set during his earthly incarnation. By His life, we know what Your will for us is. You have given us the example to follow that will take us on the path toward sanctification. You give our lives fulfillment and enrichment by empowering us with faith and reverent obedience to You in joining with You in Your work. You remind us through Paul in RO 8: 17-18 that we will one day be joint-heirs with Christ to Your Kingdom to rule beside Him, and You keep our perspective positive by letting us know that the suffering we must endure is so small in comparison to the glory that You will reveal and share with us once our earthly labors are over. We do not deserve any of this mercy, because we are sinners and were at one time Your enemies. Yet, Your love is so great that through Your grace You have brought us to You through the Son and given us the gift of the Holy Spirit. We are truly blessed and privileged to be Your children. We offer You praise, honor, and glory for Who You are and for what You do for us. We do offer our lives as living sacrifices to You, desire to always know and do Your will, and pledge to conform our lives to the standards that Christ has set for us. You have our eternal adoration, worship, trust, obedience, praise and thanks. In Christ’s name, amen.
There are some wonderful truths to mine in 1 TIM 1: 12-17. I am led to examine those truths with you in tomorrow’s message. We will see how they give us useful “combat intelligence” in our dealings with the adversary. When God speaks through Isaiah about His love for Israel, we can read that and take it in today’s context to include all believers. That is because the Gentile believers have been “in-grafted” to the Jewish ones, and that all those human-built barriers between Gentiles and Jews have been demolished in the Body of Christ [RO 11: 16-25; EPH 2: 16-18]. Read and meditate today on IS 54: 10, “’The mountains and hills may crumble, by My love for you will never end; I will keep forever My promise of peace.’ So says the Lord Who loves you.” Those are encouraging and merciful words when directed at ones as imperfect as we are. Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn