Monthly Archives: June 2020

Seeking Jerusalem – Day 44 “Wrestling with God”

19 Friday Jun 2020

Posted by in Daily Devotionals, Lenten Season, Seeking Jerusalem, The Road to Jerusalem

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The Way of the Cross – Lenten Season 2018

“So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.  When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.  Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”  But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”  The man asked him, “What is your name?”  “Jacob,” he answered.  Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.”  Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”  But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?”  Then he blessed him there.  So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared” (Genesis 32:24-30 NIV).

“We know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.  I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.  As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.  I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.  For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do, no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing” (Romans 7:14-19 NIV).

Wrestling with God

When I first heard that the name “Israel” meant “he who struggles with God,” I was a bit surprised.  Why would God give that name to his people?  Why would he want to be known as a God with whom His people wrestle?  It seemed strange to me at first.

After all, God set this situation up in the life of Jacob.  He came to wrestle with Jacob not the other way around.  Jacob was trying to prepare for his encounter with his brother Esau the next day.  He had sent his family and goods over the Jabbok river and he stayed behind alone….to pray.

Jacob was worried.  The report that came from his scouts was that Esau was on his way with four hundred men.  Why four hundred men?  It sounded like he was coming to exact his revenge on his brother, Jacob, for treating him so badly years ago.

Do you remember the story?  Esau is hungry and Jacob negotiates a meal in exchange for the traditional blessing that would normally go to the oldest child.  Apparently, Esau didn’t really care about that part.  He just wanted his physical inheritance not the promises of future glory as a nation.  And then Jacob and his mother deceive his father, Israel, when he was old and blind by dressing Jacob up in sheep skins and smelling like a hunter coming in from the hunt.  Jacob was a herder and smooth of skin.  The deception worked and Esau was mad but Jacob was able to escape by the skin of his teeth with nothing but the clothes on his back.  No physical inheritance for him.

Jacob heads out of the country to live with his uncle, Laban, far across the desert north of the Promised Land while Esau continued to live in the desert region of Seir, south of the promised land.  Laban was no pushover either and he deceived Jacob into marrying two of his girls, Leah and Rebekah, by working for him for 14 years in total.  Jacob was getting some of his own back.

I often hear complaints from people who are new to the faith that some of the people in the Old Testament (and New) were not very good people and yet God chose them to be His people.  What gives?  We expect now-a-days that Christians ought to be good, moral, up-standing citizens.  If Jacob were part of our church with his deceitful ways and manipulative character, I’m not sure how long he would last.  Abraham was a tough old man but could also be a coward.  David killed a man so that he wouldn’t find out that he had slept with his wife…..and the list goes on.

Jacob was a guy who struggled to get what he wanted out of life.  He struggled with his brother as well as his uncle and now he had to pay the piper.  He escaped from Laban and struck out on his own, heading back to the land of promise.  He now had a large family and many possessions but he had no safe place to lay his head.  He had no home.  So he decided to head on back to face his brother Esau.

And now the scouts are telling him that Esau was coming to meet him, with four hundred armed men.  That doesn’t sound at all good.  What possible reason would you have to bring four hundred men with you to meet your brother unless you were bent on revenge?  That is what Jacob feared the most.  And so he came up with his strategies, and strategies within strategies.

He sent gifts ahead of him to his brother.  Loads and loads of gifts.  He wasn’t sure, of course, whether Esau would accept those gifts but it was worth a try.  He divided up his family starting with his two maidservants and their children putting them up front and then Leah and her children and, finally, Rebekah and Joseph at the rear.  To protect them of course.  His favorites.

But he was still worried.  When he had left home all those years ago with only the clothes on his back, he encountered God in the desert who promised to protect him.   Do you remember the staircase to heaven?  He called that place Bethel.  He was alone and God came to visit him and start a direct relationship with him, confirming that he was the true inheritor of the spiritual promise of Abraham, his grandfather.

Even though he had deceived and manipulated his brother, Esau, in order to get it, God confirmed that it had, indeed, passed on to Jacob.  Why?  I suppose if you had asked Jacob why he went to so much trouble, he might not be able to answer you either.

The truth is that he desired the blessing and Esau did not.  He wanted the spiritual promise with or without the physical inheritance and Esau wanted the physical inheritance with or without the spiritual promise.  The two went naturally together but Jacob ended up with one and Esau the other.

And God confirmed it.  He also blessed Jacob while he was with his uncle, Laban, turning the tables on his uncle a couple of times but only by divine intervention.  Jacob had to pay double the bride price in order to marry Rebekah but he survived and even thrived during that time.  He was starting to learn his lesson.  God would provide.  He did not need to be a schemer and a manipulator.  But Esau was a different matter.  You did not deceive your brother, attempt to steal his inheritance and think you were going to get away with it.  Not then.  Not now.

So Jacob prayed fervently and set things up so that he could be alone, hoping that God would show up again and promise to protect him.  And it worked.  Although, apparently, at the beginning, Jacob was not sure exactly who, or what, he was wrestling with.  The passage talks about a man, but later it becomes clear that it was God himself.  Wow.

There are so many questions that come to mind.

What is God up to?  Why did he allow Jacob to wrestle with him all through the night?  Did he come in the form of a human or an angel like he did when he visited Abraham that time?  What does it mean that the man (God) “saw that he could not overpower him (Jacob)” (vs. 25)?  When did Jacob realize that it was God (or an angel) that he was wrestling with and why didn’t that scare him half to death?  Totally fascinating to say the least.

But even more fascinating is the realization that this was all part of God’s plan and that he would characterize not only Jacob but the entire nation as a people “who struggle with God.”  And how apt that is given the history of the Jewish nation.  Their commitment to God was strong one generation and weak the next.  One group was on fire for God and another tribe would inter-marry with their heathen neighbors.  Very little consistency on any side.  The nation was given the Law, but they did not have the ability to fulfill it and continually failed to live up to the covenant that God had so graciously enacted with them.

In some ways, it sounds like us, don’t you think?

We, too, are faced with the Law of God, the holiness of God, and we find it difficult to live up to its requirements.  We started out seeking after God but then encountered the twin truths of the holiness of God and the wretchedness of our human condition.  The more we gaze into the Word of God, the more we see ourselves for who we truly are.  We now have eyes to see and ears to hear but we aren’t necessarily happy about it.

Paul concludes that “we know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.”  Strong words for a Christian to say out loud.  But true.  Some people claim that Paul is not talking as a Christian in Romans 7 but I disagree.  Sure it sounds a bit like an OT believer, trapped in the requirements of the law, but it also describes a NT believer who is confronted with that same law as he comes before the cross of Christ.

Some might agree that this is the experience of a non-believer who has not yet been saved, but once he passes on to the other side of the cross, where there is no condemnation, he no longer is a “slave to sin.”  Well, that doesn’t make any sense either.  How can a non-believer say that he “desires to do what is good” (vs. 18b) which is to say “what is in the law.”  That isn’t likely.

On top of it all, we all know, from personal experience as well as from a LOT of different places in the Bible that our sanctification is progressive, not immediate.  Therefore, it is more likely that this struggle of Romans 7 is a normal and natural part of the Christian walk as we are faced more and more with an understanding of God’s holiness and our own sinfulness.

From a Biblical perspective that is a good thing.  But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t something that we can do about it.  Of course there is.  That’s the whole point of Romans 8 and it is when we live out the truths of Romans 8 in the context of the Romans 7 struggle that we become more and more mature in Christ because we are forced to go back to the cross and depend on nothing else than the grace of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We, too, are part of Israel, those “who struggle with God.”  We are the new Israel, Paul says.  But we still struggle with sin.  We still struggle with God.  It is the nature and quality of that struggle that defines our maturity in Christ.

Jacob had to learn the same lesson.  After all of his scheming and manipulation of Esau and his father, Isaac, he is left penniless in the desert with nothing but the promises of God.  After all of the struggling with Laban, his uncle, his only recourse was the divine intervention of God that made him wealthy in spite of Laban and gave him the opportunity to return home.  Even when he had to confront Esau again, Jacob had to learn the lesson.  It was God who would bless him and who would be the source of his providence, his safety, his future as a nation.

That doesn’t mean that Jacob wasn’t involved in the struggle.  One thing is to struggle with sin, another is to struggle with God.  Which one is it?  To desire what you know is evil (or unhealthy, or unloving) isn’t really struggling with sin is it?  You want to sin.  There is no struggle there.  The struggle comes the moment that God enters the picture and tells you what he wants – through the Law.  The Law is a testimony and guide to love.  Love God above all and your neighbor as yourself.  What is so difficult about that?

But it is difficult.  We want to sin.  We don’t want to obey God.  So are we struggling with sin or with God?  On the other hand, there is a new desire in us to please God, to do what is good.  There is now a conflict of desires.  What can we do about it?

When difficulties come, when Esau is out to get his revenge, when life throws a curve ball, we go to God and cry out to Him and call on His mercy and fervently pray for an outcome that is favorable to us.  We wrestle with Him in prayer all night long.  But why?  We desire what is good, as Christians, but we are also compelled to do what is evil at times.  And our evil and weaknesses get us into trouble.  God help us!

Yes, there are differences between the Old Testament and the New Testament.  Of course.  But we are here talking about Jacob, one of the patriarchs of the faith who, like Abraham, lived before Moses and before the Law was given.  He, too, lived by the faith of Abraham.  But still….yes, we are different because we are in Christ, the Holy Spirit lives within us and we have the resurrection power to deal with sin and temptation.  Of course. 

But the struggle is the same even if the solution looks a bit different.  Jacob had to learn how to rely on the blessing of God and His intervention so that Esau would not take his life and destroy his family.  God had chosen him for a higher purpose and Esau could not contend with God.  Period.  But Jacob would need faith.  And faith for a guy like Jacob was not an easy thing.

And there is a parallel there for us as well.

After all of our striving, our scheming, our manipulations, the truth of the matter is that we need to go to God, wrestle with Him and not let go until we receive His blessing.  He has a purpose for our life.  He will intervene and save us from our sins.  He will give us a new name, a new identity in Christ.  There is no more a “me”, only a “me in Christ.”  And that change makes all the difference in the world.

But, mark this well.  Jacob, for some reason, wanted the blessing of God.  He wanted the spiritual promises when Esau did not.  Jacob sought God alone and in the night when he was most vulnerable.  He turned to God in his anguish and wrestled with Him and would not let go.  And there, right there, is where Jacob “overcame” God Himself.  The Bible tells us that God “could not overpower him.”  Jacob would not let go.  He had a holy persistence in seeking God’s blessing.  He fought on until he got what he wanted, though the “wanting” itself was a gift from God.

And that is the beauty of it, isn’t it?

God works in us to will and to want Him but we still need to work it out, (Philippians 2:13) to struggle with it, to make it important, to wrestle with God until we get the blessing.  It is the grace of God that made Jacob who he was, and it was the grace of God that allowed a mere human to wrestle with God and “overcome.”  How do we “overcome” God?  By being persistent in our desire to seek His blessing.  By struggling with God and not just ignoring him and wallowing in self-pity.  By insisting on his promises and persisting in our seeking of His face, His favor.  God graciously allows Himself to be wrestled with.  Obviously.  But he favors those who take the nature and quality of their struggle seriously and won’t let go until they receive the blessing.

Not that wrestling with God is easy or painless.  After all, Jacob leaves the encounter with a limp for the rest of his life – a constant reminder of his weakness before the Almighty God.  We may be able to “overcome” God, by His grace, but He will leave us with a reminder that it was by His grace lest we become proud.

Paul had something to say about that as well.  In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Paul tells us about his own struggles.  He says, “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.  Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.  But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Do you see the connection with the story of Jacob wrestling with God?

Yes, we have that incredible privilege to wrestle with God and to “overcome” with a holy persistence that He, Himself, wants us to have.  Returning over and over again to the cross.  But we have the tendency to become prideful and therefore we are given weaknesses to deal with, difficulties, hardships because we need to learn to go to God and wrestle with Him in prayer in the midst of our weaknesses, difficulties and hardships.  That is our strength.

It is not a strength in ourselves but in God.  It is not about scheming, manipulating, trying harder, or the like.  It is about going to God and wrestling with Him until we come out of that prayer closet in new power because we focus our attention not on ourselves but on Christ’s finished work on our behalf.  And that is the key to our Christian walk, to dealing with sin, to our sanctification.  “Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:24b, 25 NIV)

It is beautiful in its simplicity, isn’t it?

If we focus too much on our sin, we can fall into spiritual depression.  If we think we have our “conscious sins” under control, we fall into spiritual pride.  God gives us weaknesses and difficulties so that we continue to come to Him, to wrestle with Him, to learn to focus on the finished work of Christ first of all, and in that power, go and make every effort to live out that life of faith.

So what am I saying?  Is it really that easy?  Easy?  Have you been listening to anything that I have been saying?  No, not easy.  Simple.  The answer to sin is always simple.  Take it to the cross.  Leave it there.  Go and sin no more.  But when you do sin, “we have someone who speaks to the Father in our defense – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One” (I John 2:1 NIV).  So you go back to the cross as many times as it takes.  How many times?  Seven times?  You know the answer to that one….

So stop struggling with sin and start wrestling with God.

Turn your focus from your sin and weakness to the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus, our Lord.  You will find the power to deal with sin and temptation only at the foot of the cross.

Stop thinking that you are in this alone when there is no more “you.”  There is only “you in Christ.”  And if you are hidden in Christ, in union with Christ, then God’s grace is sufficient for you.  In fact, it is your only source of power.

Forget about being perfect.  Jesus Christ is your perfection.  Now your job is to become mature in Christ.  Mature in your consistency in going to the cross.  Mature in your use of the means of grace – scripture, the sacraments, prayer – which brings you back to the cross.  Progress not perfection is the goal. 

That doesn’t mean you get lazy.  Far from it.  It means that you get powerful.  And, in that power, you now can deal with life from an entirely different perspective.

In order to “make every effort” to wrestle with God like Jacob did, sweating and grunting and struggling like a mad-man to get his blessing, his protection from the vengeance of his brother, Esau, in order to get the blessing of his power, his anointing, his glory in your life, we need to “make every effort” to surrender our wills to God and to consecrate our efforts to doing His will.

That is the secret to the Christian life.  Making every effort to surrender to his will. 

You may think that surrendering is easy but it is not.  As anyone who has ever had to do it (usually over and over again), it is hard work.  It takes blood, sweat and tears.  And if you don’t believe me, just look again at Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane who, even in his perfect love for the Father, had to wrestle with God until he got to that place of full surrender to the will of God.

Jacob finally got it.  He wasn’t just another scoundrel on his own, fighting with the world, trying to get ahead on his own.  He had to learn that he had access to God.  He had the possibility of wrestling, relating, praying to God because God, in His grace, chose him to carry on the line of faith.  He had purpose.  He had a future.  He was the inheritor of the promises of God.  Just like us.  As Paul said over and over again, “don’t you realize who you are?”

And what happened?

“Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him, he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him.  And they wept.”  Excuse me?  What just happened here?  Esau was on his way with four hundred of his men.  And all he does is hug his long-lost brother and they weep together.  If you don’t see the incongruency of that, then I don’t know what to tell you.  Something happened.  God intervened.  God gave Jacob favor in the eyes of Esau and saved him from his vengeance.  I have no doubt in my mind that when Esau left with his four hundred men, he had another agenda in mind.  But God blessed Jacob and intervened in his life to keep his promises to the one who would carry on the line of faith.

God will do the same for us when we bring our weaknesses and difficulties to him and surrender ourselves to his will.  Then, in the resurrection power of the Spirit who is within us, we can go out and accomplish mighty things in His name.

The Desert Warrior

Lord, thank you for making me your son (or daughter) and giving me a future and a promise for this life and the life to come.  I am important to you and to your plans.  Help me to make every effort to surrender fully to your will.  In your name I pray.  Amen.

 

 

Seeking Jerusalem – Day 29 “Enjoy Him Forever”

17 Wednesday Jun 2020

Posted by in Daily Devotionals, Lenten Season, Seeking Jerusalem, Steps To Maturity

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The Way of the Cross – Lenten Season 2018

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?…No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  (Romans 8: 35, 37-39 NIV)

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16 NIV)

“What is the chief end of man?  To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”  The Westminster Shorter Confession

Enjoy Him Forever (7)

What if I told you that God’s greatest desire for us and our most important obligation in the Christian life was the pursuit of joy?  Would you believe me?

Many wouldn’t.  For many good, dedicated Christians, the concept of sacrifice, dying to oneself, discipline and training, mortifying the flesh, all have a rather somber, serious tone about them that leaves little room for joy.

I understand them but I don’t agree.

Whenever I become too self-absorbed in the battle, or too focused on denial and sacrifice so that life becomes grey and dreary and the days long and burdensome, I have to remind myself that the chief end of all this discipline and training is JOY.

After all, an Olympian athlete doesn’t just train himself or herself for the sake of the training.  They have a goal to achieve, glory to experience, joy to lighten their days.  They want to participate in the Olympics, certainly, but they also want to win.  They want to be the best that they can be, certainly, but they also want to compete.  It’s only natural.

Yes, there is also joy in the fruit of the discipline.  A healthy lifestyle is it’s own reward.  Disciplining yourself and training your body gives you a sense of accomplishment and self-control that is very satisfying.  But there is still a desire for joy which comes from accomplishments recognized by others and valued and praised by those who matter most to us.  Nothing wrong with that.

The desire for glory and the joy that comes from a job well-done and recognized as such is as natural as breathing.  The question is not the process but the source of that joy.  For Christians, that joy is focused on God.  It is His words at the end of our journey that we desire.  “Well done, good and faithful servant…  come and share your master’s happiness” (Matthew 25:23 NIV).

This is such a deep and necessary subject for the Christian life that it is hard to know exactly how to explain it.  It’s like falling in love.  That should not be a dreary ordeal but a joyous experience – even if you are more like Gomer, the wife of Hosea, and need to learn how to love again after being a prostitute for so long.  Yes, there is work to do.  Yes, it will require discipline and training.  Yes, you will have to deny your baser instincts and desires.  But the reward is joy.  Wonderous joy.  Joy overflowing.

And there is a direct link between “glorifying God” and “enjoying Him forever.”  On the one hand, we take joy in what we value (or love) the most.  Our children.  Our marriage.  Our work.  Our accomplishments.  On the other hand, we have a natural desire to share our joy with others, calling their attention to the wonder of this thing or person that has given us such great joy.  Think of a father with his new-born son announcing the joy of a new child joining their family.  Both joy rooted in love (or value) and sharing that joy with others is part of what it means to glorify God.

C.S. Lewis puts it this way.

“But the most obvious fact about praise — whether of God or any thing — strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless (sometimes even if) shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world rings with praise — lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game — praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars. I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious, minds, praised most, while the cranks, misfits and malcontents praised least . . .” (Reflections on the Psalms).

Praise is everywhere and it is the spontaneous overflow of joy.  So much of our praise in church is forced and fake when there is no joy behind it.  So much of our discipleship is reluctant and half-hearted, when it should be full of joy.

C.S. Lewis continues on,

“I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise what ever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: “Isn’t she lovely? Wasn’t it glorious? Don’t you think that magnificent?” The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about. My whole, more general, difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed we can’t help doing, about everything else we value” (Reflections on the Psalms).

Do you see it?  Right there is the rub.  If there is no joy in our praise, then do we truly value our relationship with God?  Do we value God, Himself, who is supremely valuable?  Not just because we have to, but because it is true.  Has our heart changed?  Have our desires been transformed like a young man who falls in love and cannot look at another woman ever again (not out of obligation but out of joy for the gift of love he now has)?  And if that joy is truly there, if we truly value (love) God, then we most certainly will share that joy with others.  Now we are beginning to taste and see what relational evangelism is all about.

Finally, C.S. Lewis gives us a final word of wisdom about joy.

“I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.” (Reflections on the Psalms)

Wow.  “The delight is incomplete till it is expressed.”  It comes full circle.  Praise and Joy go together.  One as necessary as the other.  Joy expresses itself in praise and to praise God is to glorify Him.  Perhaps another way of saying this is that “we glorify God by enjoying Him forever.”  We need to replace the word “and” with the word “by” in order to be closer to the truth.

Now you may be thinking that you don’t have that kind of love for God that creates joy which expresses itself in praise shared with others.  I get it.  I feel the same way.  But here are a few things to remember.

First, remember that faith, hope and love are given to us by the Holy Spirit in the moment of our regeneration.  They are a gift from God.

Second, remember also that we are responsible to use those gifts, and exercise them, in our daily walk with God as we live out His purposes for our lives.  No surprise there.

Third, our faith, hope and love grow not as we focus on them but as we focus on God.  That is the way love works.  Love focuses on the other, not on itself.

And that is the point of our passage today.  Paul tells us the final truth in Romans 8 that we need to learn to use in the midst of our sufferings and trials in the battle of Romans 7.  And this final truth is key to all of the others.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” (Romans 8:35 NIV).

Yes, life can be hard at times but joy comes in the morning.  In that sense, joy is rooted in hope.  It looks forward in anticipation of what is to come.  Our glorification.  The redemption of our bodies.  The time when God, Himself, will “wipe every tear from our eyes” (Revelations 21:4 NIV).

But joy is also rooted in faith which affects the here and now.  There is a joy that we receive that comes in spite of our circumstances because it is focused on God and eternity not on ourselves and our situation.  That takes faith.

That is why we say that peace and joy are the first things Christians experience from the gift of faith, hope and love they receive at their regeneration.  A peace that passes all understanding and a joy that knows no bounds.  This is the inheritance of our relationship with God.

But what about joy rooted in love?  Here we need to look at the example of Jesus.

After all, we are supposed to become like Christ and Hebrews 12:2 encourages us to “Fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Just a minute, you might say.  I don’t remember that part of the story.  I seem to recall that Jesus was in great anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane.  It was a difficult moment for him and he was sweating great drops of blood and his prayers were a fervent desire not to go to the cross and endure the wrath of God.  All of that is true.  After all, Jesus loved his Father so completely that his great temptation was to make his fellowship with God more important than his loving obedience of his Father.  That loving obedience was a statement of trust.  “Not my will but yours be done.”

So where is the joy?

Oh, did you expect to see Jesus smiling and laughing with his disciples while he anguished in the Garden or suffered the injustice and mockery of the Jews and Romans?  Did you expect him to be joking with the Roman guards who were nailing him to the cross?  Of course not.  We didn’t say anything here about happiness.  We are talking about joy.  And joy is rooted in love.  Joy often comes with tears and battle and pain.  Just ask any woman, about to give birth, about the joy set before her, enduring childbirth, scorning its shame (legs open, vulnerable to the world, crying out in pain, often with an unresponsive husband more interested in videotaping the event than supporting his wife).  You get the idea.

But here is the secret.

Yes, there was a deep, abiding joy that Jesus had that was not tied to circumstances but, in faith, hope and love, was rooted in his relationship with God.  But even that isn’t the real secret.  The passage doesn’t actually talk about Jesus’ joy but rather the “joy set before him” (vs. 2).  What does that mean?

Is the author of the book of Hebrews talking about the results that Jesus would accomplish by dying on the cross?  Is he referring to you and me and all those who would be saved because he was willing “to endure the cross, scorning its shame.”  Maybe.  But I don’t think so.  I believe that it is deeper than that and directly connected to his experience in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Many people think that Jesus was willing to die on the cross because he loved you and me – and that is true, but only indirectly.  Jesus died on the cross because he loved his Father and chose to obey Him and trust Him even when his soul shrank back from the idea of experiencing His wrath upon sin, becoming sin itself, and bearing the sin of the world upon his own head.  Jesus died on the cross because he loved his Father and wanted nothing more than to please Him.

So what are you saying, exactly? You ask.

What I am saying is that the secret that Jesus knew, that gave him joy, which allowed him to “endure the cross, scorning its shame,” was not his own joy but rather “the joy of the Lord.”

Nehemiah 8:10 says, “the joy of the LORD is our strength.”

There is great spiritual truth and power in that one small truth.  Jesus was strengthened in his most difficult hour NOT by his own joy but “for the joy set before him,” the realization that his choice, his actions, his obedience would bring great joy to his Father.  That is what matters.

Love is focused on the other.  Jesus obeyed his Father’s will and knew, deep in his heart, that his actions would bring great joy to the One he loved above all others.  That expectation of bringing joy to his Father is what strengthened him in his most difficult hour.  And that is the secret for us as well.

But who of us has that kind of love for God?

None but Jesus.  No doubt.  But it isn’t a question of quantity but rather quality.  Love is love.  Love isn’t love only when you have enough of it.  It is love because it is focused on the other.  The smallest act of obedience is an act of love.

If love is sincere, it is enough.  Yes, it can grow.  The circle of love can grow.  But love is either sincere or it isn’t and if it is sincere, it is enough to please God, just as the feeble attempts of a child are immensely pleasing to his father.  After all, it only takes the faith the size of a mustard seed to move mountains.  The same is true for love.

It may be challenged.  It may sometimes be overshadowed and choked out by the cares of this world.  No doubt.  Yes, we need to focus on faith, hope and love and exercise them and help them to grow in power in our lives, just like in marriage.  Love may be real but it may not be exercised in a particular circumstance because of competing desires or fears and concerns.  Yes, our love must grow but if it is sincere, it is enough to please God.

Still, there is a way for us to properly exercise our faith, hope and love.  Especially love.  In order to help it grow.  A simple of act of obedience is often enough to open the floodgates of love so that it grows and flourishes within us.  Of course.  But there is something that comes even before that simple act of obedience, that supports it, that empowers it.  And that is the love of God for us as demonstrated by Christ on the cross.

Paul tells us in Romans 8: 37-39 that “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Twice Paul talks about love in this passage.  But in neither case is he talking about our love for God.  He talks about Christ’s love for us and he talks about “the love of God.”

And this is the secret to growing our love for God.  The more that we focus on the love of God for us in Christ Jesus our Lord, the more our love for God will grow to dominate our lives, our actions, our decisions.

It was because Jesus loved his Father and absolutely knew that the Father loved him, that he was able to focus his attention on the “joy of the Lord” which gave him strength.

Focusing our minds on the seven truths of Romans 8

  • that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, (Romans 8:1)
  • that we have been given resurrection power to deal with sin and temptation, (Romans 8:11)
  • that we have evidence for the life of the Holy Spirit within us, (Romans 8:15,16)
  • that although we may suffer for the gospel, we will be glorified with Christ, revealing the glory of the character of Christ in us, (Romans 8:17,18)
  • that even when we suffer and “groan” under the curse of this life, we have prayer support, (Romans 8:26,27,34)
  • that everything matters to God and He turns it all into our eternal, spiritual good, (Romans 8:28) and, finally,
  • that there is absolutely nothing that can separate us from the love of God – nothing in all of creation, not our own sin and weakness, not any suffering or persecution, nobody and nothing.  Period.  (Romans 8:38,39)

All of these things are the love of God for us in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Focus on them.  Preach these truths into your own heart and mind.  Live by these truths and you will have discovered the power of bringing joy to the heart of the Father.

I wrote a little poem that I use to help me focus my ambitions on this one thing.  Pleasing God.  I’m not very good at it, but I can certainly focus on it and grow in it a little bit every day.  Enjoy.

The joy of the Lord is my strength.
Getting rid of all my small ambitions
to make this one thing the hallmark of my life.
To please God.
Whether I get what I pray for or not,
whether my circumstances change or not,
whether I am healed or not.
To consider every sacrifice a small price to pay
to obtain the pearl of great price.
His pleasure. 

The Desert Warrior

Lord, you know that my heart’s desire is to please you.  I’m not very good at it yet but you are helping me get there.  Help me to tear down every idol of desire and every tower of fear in my life that keeps me from this one ambition.  Pleasing you is the goal of my life and that brings you great joy.  Thank you.  In Jesus’ name I pray.  Amen.

Seeking Jerusalem – Day 28 “Everything Matters”

16 Tuesday Jun 2020

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The Way of the Cross – Lenten Season 2018

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.  And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

What, then, shall we say in response to this?  If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?  Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?  It is God who justifies.  Who is he that condemns?  Christ Jesus, who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.”  (Romans 8: 28-34 NIV)

Everything Matters (6)

I remember the day that I finally understood my Mother.

She was a strong woman that was a teenager during the Second World War in Holland.  Apparently she ran errands for the Resistance on her bike but she wouldn’t talk about it much.  Something happened.  We don’t know much about that time of her life.  At least I don’t.  But she met my Dad who was working in a shop and they got married, had two kids in Holland and then decided to emigrate to Canada in 1953.

Mom had a difficult character anyway, but life was hard and that didn’t make things any easier.  On top of that, she ended up having eight kids in total.  The house was always full.  I remember one Thanksgiving Day dinner when we were all sitting at a long table in our house at 6 Bond St.  The table was full of food and Mom had just placed the heavy turkey in the middle of the spread when the table collapsed and everything came crashing down.  What a surprise!

I was a middle child, three from the bottom actually, and I had Mom’s character in spades.  I could fight with her ’till the cows came home.  It was my sister, Jolanda, who really provided the love in the family.  She was going to become a nurse.  I remember one time when my Mom hit me with a pair of pants in the middle of one of our fights.  Nothing serious, of course.  What can a pair of pants do to you, after all?  But in this case, one of the pants wrapped around my head and a tip struck my open eyeball and I yelled in excruciating pain.

My Mom wasn’t having it and thought I was exaggerating but my sister, Jolanda, looked more closely and realized that I had to go to the hospital right away.  After the surgery, I had both of my eyes covered for over a month.  Blind as a bat.  But I remember getting my first Monopoly game as a present (though I couldn’t play with it) and lots of applesauce (which was my favorite).  Mom was contrite, of course, but we still had our fights throughout my teenage years.

It wasn’t until I was in my thirties, with children of my own, thinking about my Mom and her apparent lack of interest in me (she had eight kids after all), that it finally struck me.  You see, there are a couple of things that I haven’t told you yet.  Yes, she had a tough character and had issues of her own, but there was more going on that I knew about at the time but didn’t really understand the impact of those events on my parents.

When I was around 12 or 13 years old, Jolanda died of leukemia.

She was 17 years old.  She was at a Youth Event in London, Ontario, I believe, and her nose started to bleed and wouldn’t stop.  They rushed her to the hospital of course, but six months later she died.  I remember the Sunday Service when she gave her testimony of faith from a hospital bed rolled into the sanctuary for the occasion.  My family had Bibles printed in her memory and distributed them to all of her friends.

To this day, we have no idea of the impact of her testimony on the church and her school friends and friends of the family as they watched a brave, young girl demonstrate her faith in God in such a practical way.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

A couple of years later, my brother Steve had a terrible car accident and almost died.  From what I remember, he was driving an Austin Mini and slammed into the back of a truck late at night.  Apparently, his girlfriend was with him but he was able to swerve the car in such a way that his side of the car took the worst of the impact and she was saved from anything critical.  But Steve was in the hospital for months.  His frontal lobe was deeply damaged and for a while we weren’t sure that he was going to make it.  Finally, he left the hospital and began his convalescence in our home.  He had to learn everything all over again, how to use his fine motor skills, holding a spoon, drinking hot drinks, learning to walk again, and all of the other things that we take for granted.

Of course, his mind was still that of a teenager four or five years older than I was so learning everything all over again was a frustrating and humiliating process that had its own emotional impact.

After a year of so, Steve was on his feet and able to function more or less like normal.  He got involved with the wrong people, drugs were a problem, and he was more rebellious that I was (if you can believe that).  My parents decided to sell their store to a friend and move to Prince Edward Island on the East Coast of Canada to get away from the situation in Ontario.  But, at the last minute, Steve didn’t come with us and simply struck out on his own.  The rest of us made the move to PEI and started to work on a small hobby farm near Twin Islands.  I remember working with my Dad and my brother, Jim, cutting logs and growing peanuts.

But my Mom went into a deep, black depression.

I was forgotten during these formative years and I resented it.  That fueled my own rebellion and we had our shouting matches to prove it.  Our adventure in PEI lasted about six months and by October of that year we were back in Clinton, Ontario starting a new store and beginning a new life.  We needed to be close to Steve to help him whenever we could.  It all made sense.  But as a teenager, I had no idea of the impact all of this was having, especially on my Mom.

When I finally figured it out, that she was dealing with grief from the death of Jolanda and fighting off fear in the case of Steve, I began my own healing process.  Her kids were dying and she was terrified because she couldn’t do anything about it.  Life was out of control.  Her faith was in the balance.  She couldn’t think straight much less pray and it affected her relationship with the entire family.  Now I get it.  I think we all do.  Suffering and pain has touched a lot of families and each family reacts a bit differently.  But we get it.

So when we talk about suffering for the gospel or “groaning” under the curse of pain and death, and all the tragedies that befall us, we are not taking it lightly or treating it calmly.  These things matter.  Everything matters.

Faith matters.  Of course.  But that is something we discover, not manufacture.  It is either there or it’s not.  Yes, we can nurse that faith, and exercise it in those dark moments.  No doubt.  Faith matters.

Hope matters.  Of course.  That’s what we have been talking about when we dwell on our glorification, when we think about our mission and the anointing of God upon our testimony.  Jolanda understood that instinctively.  But not only hope in the context of suffering for the gospel but also when we suffer under the curse of decay and death and all of what that means.  In that case, our hope comes as we contemplate the prayer support we get from the Holy Spirit and from Jesus Christ, Himself.  He understands our grief, our temptations, our weaknesses so when He prays, we can rest assured that His prayers matter.  To God.  To us.  His prayers are powerful and effective and He is praying for me.  That gives me hope.

But still there is a problem.  If the Holy Spirit is “groaning” on my behalf, expressing the emotional pain that I am going through, and Jesus is “interceding” with God earnestly because He understands what I need, then why does it seem that God remains silent.  I, myself, may not be able to pray but, supposedly, I have divine prayer support.  Why is God not listening?  Why doesn’t He do something?

It’s something that we all struggle with.  Sure, we can say, in faith, that the issues of life are bigger than our problems.  We can also agree with God that our testimony needs His anointing and that the salvation of our friends, our family, our neighbors is of vital importance.  We get it.  But it is still difficult to ignore the suffering and pain that we are going through.  Everything matters.  Everything hurts.  Everything seems to be falling apart.

There is no good answer to the problem of suffering and pain at that visceral level.  When a child is in pain, any parent would give their right arm to take their place and take the pain on their own shoulders.  I have felt that way and I’m sure you have too.  If God loves me, why doesn’t He take the pain away.  Maybe I can’t do it as a parent but God is all powerful and can do anything.  Doesn’t my pain matter to Him?  Why doesn’t He do something about it?

Part of the answer is that often God does do something about it.  He heals people.  He changes situations.  He intervenes and makes things better.  He does that far more than we realize, but not always.  Not always.  And that is the rub.  Why does he save some people and not others?  Why did Jolanda die but Steve did not?  Why was I ignored but my sister was not?  We may never know the answers to all of our questions.

Does God care?  Do I matter to God?  Is God at all emotional about me?  Does He like me?  And if He does, why doesn’t He intervene in my life and save me from my situation?  The Psalms are full of testimonies of David (and the other Psalmists) both asking this question and giving the answer that God does intervene, He does care, everything does matter to Him.  Jesus said that even the sparrows are important and the number of hairs on my head are numbered and cared for.  God is aware of it all.  He cares.  Everything matters.

But as a parent, I also know that sometimes my children have to suffer for their own good.  Sometimes the pain of a needle is a necessary precaution to fight off disease.  Sometimes eye surgery is a necessary evil.  Sometimes discipline hurts but it produces a better character in the end.  Yes, of course.

It is sometimes difficult to see the meaning in our suffering and pain.

That is so true.  We are not God after all.  He tells us a lot of things in the Bible about His priorities in this redemptive emergency.  He tells us about the horrors of the second death that awaits all of those who are NOT in Christ.  He tells us that this life is a drop in the bucket compared to eternity and that the dangers of the judgment far outweigh the suffering and pain of this life.  He tells us that our glory far outstrips anything we might endure in this vale of tears.  That is our hope.

But God goes even further.  He doesn’t just tell us things in general about His plans for mankind but He, Himself, endured the worst suffering and pain possible in order to save us and we are reminded that Jesus understands everything that we are going through.  He took upon His own shoulders the worse of the eternal suffering and pain that awaited us and saved us from that horrible experience of separation from God.

In the end, we have to accept that Faith Matters.  Hope Matters.  But what matters the most is Love.  Love Matters.  And that is what Paul is talking about here.

Remember that the prayers of the Holy Spirit and Jesus, himself, are interpreted by God the Father “according to His will.”  And that’s what we really want, isn’t it?  To please God.  To be in His will.  Just taking away the suffering and pain, if it means that my testimony suffers, or that my wife or children suffer, or are not saved, is simply not worth it, no matter how much I wish that I didn’t have to go through it.

Jesus understands that.  He didn’t want to go to the cross either but he found the courage within himself to say “not my will but your will be done.”  He could do that because he knew that His Father loved him.

Love Matters. 

Paul tells us that “we know that in all things God works for the good for those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (vs. 28).  We often quote those verses, a bit lightly, in those moments when we are NOT in a place of suffering and death.  But these are heady matters.

“We know….” Paul says.  Do we?  This is part of our spiritual maturity in Christ.  To agree with God that His redemptive will is good, pleasing and perfect no matter what it costs us.  We agree.  We know.  But here, Paul says that we know something about God.  Not just about His will.  We know something about His character.

This was the secret that gave Jesus courage.

He knew his Father and he never doubted that His will for him was good, pleasing and perfect.  He knew that his Father loved him dearly.  He could not doubt the love of God for him and that is why he could say “not my will but yours be done.”

Do you see the connection?

Yes, I know that Paul is talking about our love for God in this passage but look deeper.  Only love recognizes love.  I don’t consider myself to love God all that much.  I wish I did.  I long to.  But my love is rather weak.  Whatever love I have for God, I know was given me in the moment of my regeneration (together with faith and hope).  But it is there.  And because I love God, I know who He is.  I know His character.  I know that everything that happens to me matters to Him.  I know that He cares.  I know that He is paying attention.  I know that He weeps with those who weep.  Yes, we know this.  Paul is right.

But what is this “good” that Paul is talking about?

What possible “good” can come out of suffering and pain?  In the context of this world, quite a bit, actually.  But the “good” that God is focused on is described in the next verse where Paul points out the purpose of our lives “to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (vs. 29).

We have been saying this all along.

God is creating a certain type of person, someone like His son, who trusts his Father enough to go to the cross just because his Father asks him to do so.  Someone who loves God enough to obey Him.  Someone who can bear up under the sufferings of the curse and still bless God and follow Him even when there are questions and doubts and difficulties.  Someone who can reverse the original sin of rebellion and mistrust and change it into obedience and love.  That transformation is unusual and convincing and empowers our testimony that God is real and can make a difference in our lives.

Love recognizes love.  Love matters.

Our “smatterings” of love are enough to recognize that God cares deeply even though His agenda is eternal and He is willing to sacrifice our comfort to accomplish the salvation of real people.  Jolanda knew this truth.  She knew God loved her.  She used what little time she had to give her testimony and impact a whole generation of kids her age in our small town and beyond.  You see, that’s the thing.  We actually agree with God that it is worth it.

And that is what makes us More Than Conquerors “in all these things” as Paul points out in vs. 37.  In all what things?  We use this verse for everything from passing an exam to dealing with grief.  He had just quoted a text from the Old Testament talking about how “we face death all day long” and “we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”  Life is unfair.  Persecution will happen.  Suffering and death will happen.  We need to face reality for what it is.  But, in that context, Paul declares, “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (vs. 37).

Everything that happens to us matters to God.

The question is whether we trust Him even in the midst of suffering and pain.  If so, our testimony will have the anointing power to transform lives.  If not, we still have to suffer and endure pain but now it is meaningless and worthless.  Everything matters to God.  The question is whether everything that matters to God, matters to us.  The salvation of our family, friends and neighbors most of all.

And right there is the thing.  That is how we can transform our suffering under the curse into suffering for the gospel.  The bridge is our testimony.  The key is trusting God.  The purpose is to save the people we care about.  Transformation is painful but, in the end, it is more than worth it.  Don’t you agree?

The Desert Warrior

Lord, I know that everything matters to you.  You don’t let any details escape your attention.  Thank you for that.  I know that you will intervene whenever possible and at just the right time.  I also know that if you want me to suffer for the gospel, I am in agreement with you.  Please save my children, my family, my friends and make my suffering and pain worth something to you and to your kingdom.  In your name I pray.  Amen.

Seeking Jerusalem – Day 27 “Prayer Support”

15 Monday Jun 2020

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The Way of the Cross – Lenten Season 2018

“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.”  (Romans 8: 26, 27 NIV)

“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin.  Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”  (Hebrews 4: 14-16 NIV)

Prayer Support (5)

I have to say that this is my favorite “truth” in the seven truths of Romans 8.

We looked at the truth that there is now NO CONDEMNATION (Romans 8:1) and the truth that there are also NO EXCUSES since we have the power of the Holy Spirit within us (Romans 8:11).  Then the obvious question always comes up, “How do I know that I have the Holy Spirit in me?” and there we talked about the truth of EVIDENCE OF LIFE (Romans 8:15b, 16) which the Holy Spirit himself gives us.  And then we talked about the truth of SUFFERING and GLORY (Romans 8:17,18) which make all of us a bit uncomfortable (but maybe excited at the same time).  But I have to say that I am always blown away by this whole idea of PRAYER SUPPORT (Romans 8:26,27,34).

Now, I know that I have made a big point about the idea that our suffering needs to be a “suffering for the Gospel” to qualify as suffering with Christ.  The Bible makes that abundantly clear but, at the same time, much of the church only focuses on our general suffering “under the curse.”  That is a mistake.  It is a suffering for the gospel that is so often talked about in the New Testament – persecution, rejection, stoning, martyrdom.  This is no country for old men, as they say.

But, still, there is some truth to the fact that we also suffer “under the curse” and in that suffering we also need some comfort and hope.  And our passage today provides just that.

I call them the “groaning” passages because Paul tells us that “creation” is groaning (vs. 22), we are groaning (vs. 23) and the Holy Spirit is groaning (vs. 26) on our behalf.

It really starts way back in vs. 19 where Paul says that, “The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.”  He had just talked about our glory which will be created in the context of our suffering.  It is a progressive thing, as sanctification always is, which will come to its final fruition before the throne of God on the last day.

Now Paul says that that “revealing” is something that the whole of creation is waiting for (and will participate in) as well.  He personifies creation as if it was a woman giving birth and is in the middle of birth pangs (vs. 22) and that is a fitting image to use.

Way back in Genesis 3:16, the Bible tells us that one of the curses that God inflicted on creation after the Fall of man was the pain of childbirth.  God said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing, with pain you will give birth to children…” (Genesis 3:16a NIV).

And yes, the woman is part of creation.  Our bodies are part of creation.  Our bodies are subject to decay and death, just like the rest of creation. It is God’s continuous reminder that we come into this world of evil and sin through pain and suffering and that death is our final end and time will be our master all the days of our lives.

Of course, we have simply gotten used to it so it lacks the same impact that it had on the original couple who had just experienced the wonders of the Garden of Eden in the protective, caring presence of God.  Now that was over.

After the Fall of mankind, God spoke three curses that still continue to affect us today.  “Cursed is the ground because of you, through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.  It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.  By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground since from it you were taken, for dust you are and to dust you will return” (Genesis 4:17b, 18,19 NIV).

Sure, we have mitigated the effects of the curse with our technology and inventions.  Sure, there is much in this world that is beautiful and even breath-taking.  God has not left Himself without a witness.  The sun continues to shine on the righteous and unrighteous alike.  No doubt.  But the curse still stands.

Paul points out that the reason why creation was cursed was because of mankind and their rebellion against the reign of God in this world.  They had sided with the Evil One and now God had to find a way to separate them and save mankind from his own folly.  They were deceived after all but they are still responsible for their actions.  Creation was to be under the stewardship of mankind and therefore creation was cursed as a constant reminder that all is not well on planet earth.

Today we see not only the impact of the curse, the decay and death all around us that we have gotten dangerously used to, but we also see the effects of mankind’s misuse of the planets resources and the deterioration that is a result of the mismanagement, the lack of stewardship, that mankind has exercised over the centuries in their pursuit of power and resources.

So be it.  But the curses still stand as a mute (or not so mute) reminder that all is not well and we would do well to heed it’s call.

But Paul’s purpose is not to rebuke us but to encourage us who are in the faith.  Our glory will be revealed both in this life and in the life to come.  It is a continuous revealing that will find its climax at the end of time.  And since the curse on creation is closely linked to the Fall of mankind from grace, Paul makes the point that when the redemptive emergency is over, when our glory is finally revealed, the creation, too, will celebrate with us (so to speak) because the curses on it will be lifted.  In other words, creation will participate in our redemption and the renewing of the earth at the end of time.  When the rebellion is over, the curses will be lifted.  “No longer will there be any curse,” John tells us in Revelations 22:3 NIV.

So Paul personifies creation and tells us that the creation “waits in eager expectation” for that moment.  And then, to explain further, Paul says, “For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it…(vs. 20).  Of course Paul is talking about the curses in Genesis 4 and God’s decision to use the creation as a constant reminder of the absurdity of an abnormal situation that we experience every day if we have eyes to see and ears to hear.

But here are the interesting words – “in hope,” Paul says.  In hope, God cursed the world.  In hope, the creation waits eagerly.  In hope, creation puts up with their ongoing “frustration” and what Paul calls later “groaning.”  In hope.

Remember that these two truths go together.  Suffering and Glory on the one hand which is rooted in hope.  Our hope is that the glory of the character of Christ will be revealed in us here on earth to empower our testimony and finally in heaven where all will be revealed.  Our glorification gives us hope.

But there is more.  During this time of frustration and “groaning” there is also hope for creation.  All is not lost.  Global warming will not have the last word.  Pollution and destruction of the rain forests will not stand.  This world with all of its beauty and marvel is not destined for destruction but for renewal.

Paul says in vs. 20b and 21 that “in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”  That is a vision of the future to give us hope.  We are not alone in our glorification.  Even creation will be restored to its former glory and that will be something worth seeing.

In the meantime, there is still a lot of frustration, bondage to decay and ‘groaning” going on.  Paul says that “we know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time” (vs.22).  The image of childbirth is an interesting one.  Not only does it remind us of the curse on childbearing from Genesis 4 but many theologians have used this imagery to describe the process that world history (and creation) has been going through (and will go through) up to the time of the Second Coming of Christ.

Leaving aside our particular view of the millennium for a moment, the idea is basically that world events (as described in the book of Revelations) will get increasingly worse until Christ comes back.

There is a note of judgment in all of this because, apparently, God is willing to allow mankind to destroy himself (and creation) as a direct consequence of his sinful rebellion and godless lifestyle.  The destruction of creation (and the self-destruction of mankind) is a direct result of the rebelliousness of mankind against God.  That very destruction will stand as a witness against the evil and sin of a world in rebellion against its Creator.

But this will happen in waves.  It will get very painful for a while and then it will ease off.  Then more painful, and then another respite until, finally, the self-destruction is inevitable and God has to finally intervene and bring history to a close and reveal what He has been doing all this time during the redemptive emergency.

Not that mankind will determine the day or the hour of His coming, that is entirely in the hands of the Father, but the imagery of childbirth seems to give us a good way to understand world history.  The Spanish Influenza during the first World War, as well as the atrocities of the Second World War would be seen as a time of great pain and the next fifty years, a time when the pain subsided somewhat.  But it will come again.  And it will be more terrible yet.

But that doesn’t mean that we are without hope.  Yes there will be pain and suffering but, in the end, a child will be born and that child is us, the children of God, and the revealing of our glory (as we revel in the glory of a newborn child).  It is a beautiful picture.

Paul is telling us that this is the nature of the beast.  To expect that there will be no suffering for the gospel is naive.  To expect that there will be no “groaning,” and frustration and bondage to decay in this life is naive.  There will be suffering for the gospel and there will be suffering on a creation level for all people in one form or another, either as an entire society or individually through cancer, decay and death.

In fact, Paul includes us in the very next verse (vs. 23) where he says, “Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”  Yes, there is a sense that everyone is “groaning” in the general, creation suffering and pain that is due to both the curse and the rebellion of mankind.

But there is another sense in which only those “who have the first fruits of the Spirit,” really understand what is going on.  Many people “groan” as those who have no hope.  We “groan” even more because we do have hope.  And that hope is not some “pie-in-the-sky” kind of hope that we will one day be in heaven as spirit-beings, playing harps and sitting on a cloud.  Far from it.

Remember that I told you earlier that the woman was also part of creation and therefore her curse was also a curse on creation?  Paul makes it clear that all of us, especially in terms of our bodies, male and female alike, are part of this great renewal of creation that will happen.  God did not create this beautiful world in vain.  He will complete the work that He started and the whole of creation, including our physical bodies, will be included in the process.  We suffer and “groan” in the body but we have hope that even our bodies will be “redeemed” and made new once again.

There is so much more to say on that topic but, for now, we need to move on.  Now we get to the good part.  Yes, Paul says, this may be a time of suffering and pain.  After all, we still live under the curse.  Our bodies are still subject to decay and death as is all of creation.  We are still in “bondage to decay” and there is no escaping that reality.  Later on, Paul will talk about our “bodies of death” that we still have to live with, our handicaps, our cancer, our disease, our temptations, our weaknesses.  There is victory and we are no longer under the control of that “decay” but it is still there and we need to manage it, fight it, be stewards of it, all in the “hope” of our adoption as sons and the redemption of our bodies.

So don’t be surprised that we will suffer, whether for the gospel or not.  Suffering and pain are a part of the reality of life.  But there is hope and that hope will not disappoint us.  In the meantime, in the middle of our suffering and pain, there is a further truth that will comfort us.  Paul tells us in vs. 26 that “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.”  Wow.  The Holy Spirit prays for me with “groans” that words cannot express.  Get your head around that for a moment.

We all know what it is like to have so much grief at the death of a child or the despair of facing an addiction, or the frustration of an entire lifestyle that seems self-destructive at best.  Life is sometimes very hard.  And prayer seems to be impossible.

I have had moments like that.  You just can’t put anything into words and, maybe, you don’t even want to.  All you can do is “groan” and weep and rail against the injustice of it all.  Maybe you are even tempted to blame God.  No worries.  He can handle it.  Talk to Him and weep before Him.  He understands every tear you shed and each one is precious to Him.

Just imagine the Holy Spirit within you feeling every “groan” and weeping every tear with you.  God is a God who weeps with those who weep.  The truth is that we don’t even know what to pray for, says Paul.  Some things just cannot be undone.  We need to learn to live with it whether we like it or not.  The Holy Spirit understands your dilemma.  He understands your grief and He groans with you, and for you, before the throne of God.  He knows what to pray for.

God, the Father, understands as well.  He is an active part of the process.  Paul tells us in vs. 27 that God “who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.”  That last part is interesting.

When the Spirit prays for us with “groans that words cannot express,” it doesn’t mean that there is only emotion involved.  The Spirit is “interceding” for us.  He is talking to the Father on our behalf.  He is “interpreting” our emotions but He is also praying for us “in accordance with God’s will.”

This fits in perfectly with the next truth that we are MORE THAN CONQUERORS and that all things will work out for our good.  That is what the Spirit is praying for, that God’s will be fulfilled in us and that it will work out for our good.

The Spirit doesn’t just feel bad for us, He takes it upon Himself to “interpret” our “groaning” to God and, at the same time, praying a “powerful and effective prayer” (James 5:16) that is in accordance with God’s will.  Remember that Spiritual Maturity means that we agree, even in our pain and suffering, that God’s eternal will and priority to save the people around us is “good, pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12: 2b NIV).  Just like Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, we can groan and suffer but, in the end, say “not my will but yours be done.”

Speaking of Jesus, Paul makes another comment, almost as an aside, about Jesus in vs. 34.  He says, “Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.”  So, not only is the Holy Spirit praying for us, but Jesus is also interceding for us at the right hand of God.  In the Book of Hebrews, we are told that “because he (Jesus) himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Hebrews 2:18 NIV).  He gets it.  He’s been there, just like us.  He knows what to pray for.

Now, that is what I call PRAYER SUPPORT and that gives me hope in the midst of my suffering and pain, both for the gospel and just the general suffering that we are all still subject to.  I sometimes try to imagine the Holy Spirit and Jesus praying for me and God listening carefully to what I really want in the Spirit.

And I tell myself that if they are taking the time to pray for me these “powerful and effective” prayers, it’s no wonder that I can be MORE THAN A CONQUEROR in the situation that I am facing.  It gives me comfort and hope and that is what I need the most.

The Desert Warrior

Lord, thank you for praying for me.  Sometimes my prayers are selfish and shallow but I know that you understand what I am going through.  On the one hand, I just want the pain to go away but on the other hand, I want to break through to the purpose you have for the pain and suffering.  I know that how I handle it in faith, hope and love will give power to my testimony which can change the lives of my children, my friends, my neighbors.  And that is worth it.  It is always worth it.  It’s just that in the moment, I am weak when I need to be strong.  Knowing that you pray for me and that you know what to pray for gives me hope.  Thank you Lord.  In your name I pray.  Amen.