From Creature to Child

I listen to a lot of people discuss serious topics every day. No, I don’t live or work in a place filled with serious discussions. Rather, I listen to at least one most excellent talk radio program faithfully every day. And, I watch at least a couple of hours of Fox News on television every day. Now you understand. Right? I listen to a lot of people have serious discussions every day.

Almost once each week, I hear someone trying to close out a discussion, sometimes with resignation, make the remark, “Well, after all, we’re all God’s children.”

I always respond, “No. We’re not.”

Following the Lord Jesus Christ often forces one to face certain very inconvenient truths. One of those truths: “We are all creatures created by God. But, we are not all children of God.”

”What?” you say. “You’re nuts! Of course we are all God’s children!”

It’s easy to understand why most people would like to wish this were true. Most of our lives we’ve been conditioned to think the best of people, see the “good” in them, treat them equally and with fairness, allow them to be whoever they choose to be. I’m not certain that’s how God looks at humankind.

Oh, yes. God wants every person to come into a relationship with Him. As the Apostle Peter has written:

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

However, the status of moving from creature to child has a very serious and very important condition. As the Apostle John explains in John 1:12-13:

¹² Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—¹³ children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

”Let me see if I get your point,” you may inquire. “To move from ‘creature’ to ‘child,’ a person has to receive ‘Him.’ Is that right?”

You’ve got it. The Lord Jesus Christ is God’s great gift to humankind. God sent His precious Son to die on Calvary’s cruel cross that the shedding of His blood would, once and for all time, pay the penalty for our sin. God raised His Son, Jesus, from the dead to give us the assurance that in death, we, too, will be resurrected to everlasting life.

And, not only that, God sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in the heart of every person who will receive God’s gift of eternal life through His Son. In that “receiving” we acknowledge what God has done for us and, with gratitude, move from a creature to a child.

Once we acknowledge God’s gift, He sets us on a pathway that will lead us to ever-greater obedience to His will and His Word. But, we’re not on that quest alone. Remember? God gave us the Holy Spirit to dwell within us, to lead us, to guide us, to help us along our pathway.

So, when I say, “No.” to the idea that we are all God’s children, I am not being some silly, nasty old man who doesn’t like people very much. Quite to the contrary. I believe we must determine to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. And, even more, I want to do everything I can to prayerfully, carefully, and respectfully introduce people to the one person who loved them enough to die for them, the Lord Jesus Christ.

No matter what other paths I may temporarily pursue in the course of my life, in the final analysis, nothing else really matters.

_{Copyright © 2010 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.}

 

Are you a "Sunshine Christian?"

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. _{-Galatians 2:20}

Are you a “Sunshine Christian?” Have you ever sat down and given careful consideration to the degree to which you have committed yourself to following the Lord Jesus Christ? I don’t know about you, but as someone who has walked with Jesus for over 54 years, I have largely followed an admittedly pretty easy pathway most of my Christian life. Yes, I have had some significant difficulty in my life, but more often than not, deciding to follow Jesus has not required very much of me.

As an adopted child, selfishness seems deeply imbued into the fabric of my being. With no other children in my home, and growing up in a neighborhood where almost all the other children had grown up and moved out of their homes, I spent those early, formative years of my life in a completely selfish cocoon.

I’m certain I am not alone. Selfishness seems to assail everyone to some degree. It interferes with harmony in relationships. It affects an individual’s ability to get along at work. It stirs up conflict within the home. Wanting one’s own way sows seeds of discord and disagreement.

In contrast, when we listen to the quiet nudging, or loud shouting, of the Holy Spirit—as He convicts us of our sins and reminds us of the gift God has given us through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ—we can acknowledge God’s gift and start down a pathway of obedience.

We become obedient when we set aside our own selfish will and consciously choose to follow God’s will. “Not my will but Thine be done.”

The hardest thing we can do is surrender our will to God. Yet, He has sent the Holy Spirit to help us. The Paraclete comes along side us to aid us in our quest for obedience. The Apostle Paul understood this process. When he speaks of the crucifying of self and choosing to follow Christ who lives within us by the power of the Holy Spirit, he offers us the key to obedience.

Just as God has done everything to bring us salvation, He will respond to our conscious choice to follow His will and enable us to do so. He understands that following this pathway will likely be difficult for us. Our sin nature strives mightily against our desire to become obedient.

So, God shines His Light into our emotional being, our intellectual being, our spiritual being, and our physical being. That Light turns our darkness to day. He transforms us into “Sunshine Christians.”

Just as my upbringing as an adopted child imbued selfishness into the core of my being, when I acknowledged God’s claim on my life and received the gift of His salvation through the sacrifice of His Son on Calvary’s cruel cross, He breathed new life into my being. He imbued me with the very Life of Christ. I stopped being a child of darkness and became a child of the great King. I became a “Sunshine Christian.”

Have you sensed within your being a nudging to acknowledge your sins? Have you sensed a tug on your being to open your heart and your mind to the saving power of the Lord Jesus Christ? If so, all you have to do is say, “Yes.” Acknowledge your sin and your need of a Savior. Give assent to the fact that God loves you and that He has chosen you before the foundation of the earth to belong to Him. Welcome Him into your life.

If you do that, He will give you Light to illuminate your pathway of obedience to Him. He will joyfully make you a “Sunshine Christian.”

If you’ve walked with God for some time, but find yourself adrift in a sea of selfishness, invite the Holy Spirit to lead you back into a place of full obedience to God’s perfect will. He will gladly take you by the hand and show you the way out of the darkness. He will return you to a place you once knew. He will restore you as a “Sunshine Christian”

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. _{-Galatians 2:20}

_{Copyright © 2010 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.}

 

Jesus' Teaching on Prayer—Part 2

Today I invite you to join me in spending a second blog entry as we work our way through this extremely important teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 6:1-18. Please take the time to pause and read this passage of Scripture.

Last blog entry, I suggested that you respond to the first portion of Jesus’ teaching by doing the following: “Get alone with God. Call Him “Father.” Sit quietly in His Presence. Acknowledge that He is Holy. And, submit your will to His. Ask Him to complete His will in your life here on earth.”

In a sentence, I attempted to share with you that “Jesus teaches us that the Holy Spirit uses our prayers to illuminate the pathway of obedience.”

You see, its all about “obedience.” The one and only “thing” God asks of us: obedience.

Jesus continues his teaching in this passage by instructing us to take the opportunity—while we wait quietly in God’s Presence and talk with Him—to ask Him to give us whatever we need for each day. “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Part of our acknowledgement of who God is—that He is our Father, that He has chosen us before the foundation of the earth to be His children—requires us to recognize that all that we are and all that we have comes from His mercy and grace. Nothing that we are—our accomplishments, our achievements, our successes, our reputations, our health—and nothing that we possess, comes as a result of our efforts. Everything we are and everything we have has come to us as a gift from God.

Every breath that we take, every beat of our hearts is a precious gift from God. Every bit of intelligence that we possess, every bit of cleverness that we exhibit, every bit of success that we enjoy, every sliver of recognition that we receive, everything we are and everything we have has come to us as a gift from God.

Last blog entry I suggested to you that “the very God of the Universe waits to welcome us into His Presence.” I suggested that “prayer is a fundamental, cohesive, and powerful component of our relationship with God. He is not only willing to have us talk with Him, He welcomes it. He expects it. He longs for it. He waits for it. He waits for us. He wants us to come and sit with Him a while and talk with Him. We have the authority of no one less than the Son of God, Himself, telling us to come into the Father’s Presence and sit a while with Him.

Along with His desire to have us call Him “Father,” He also wants us to act as if He is the “Giver of every good and perfect gift.” Time and time again, throughout the New Testament, Scripture tells us to sit in God’s Presence and present our needs to Him. Tell God what we need.

Just a few verses later in this very “Sermon on the Mount” we are looking at, Jesus tells us in Matthew 7:7-11:

⁷ Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find’ knock and the door will be opened to you. ⁸ For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. ⁹ Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰ Or if he asks for a fish, will given him a snake? ¹¹ If you, then, though you are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

So, as you sit quietly in God’s Presence, whatever you need for this day, ask your Father. He waits to grant you everything you need. Just remember, He gets to choose whether or not you really “need” it. And, also remember, you are asking for today. Not for yesterday, and certainly not for tomorrow, but for today. God expects His children to live very much in the present. We could talk about that at greater length, but that will have to wait for another warm August Sunday, because I need to press on to the hardest teaching of all.

In verses 12 and 13, Jesus instructs us to ask God to forgive our sins and to lead us away from temptation by delivering us from the clutches of satan, the evil one.


Peter tells us in Chapter 5 of his first epistle:

⁸ Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. ⁹ Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. ¹⁰ And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. ¹¹ To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.

Just as I shared with you last blog entry, when you first acknowledged that God had chosen you from the foundation of the world to belong to Him, when you responded to that gentle wooing (or not so gentle wooing) of the Holy Spirit and yielded your heart to God, He imbued you with His holiness.

When Jesus died on Calvary’s cruel cross and shed His precious blood to cover your sins, God took that blood and dipped you into it. He plunged you into that saving flood. And, when you emerged you were clean clear through. He sent His Holy Spirit to live inside your heart. And, you became a walking, talking vessel of God’s holiness.

And yet, until we pass from this life and enter God’s eternal kingdom—the process that Paul describes in Romans Chapter 8 as “glorification”—we remain “sinners.” Yes, our sins are covered by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. But, the sin nature that we inherited from Adam through our parents, grandparents and so forth, remains active in us, ever striving to drag us into the old patterns of sinful behavior. Our redemption comes through our relationship with God in and through the Lord Jesus Christ.

As an indication of our obedience to God, He asks us to mirror the relationship we have with Him by the way we relate to each other. Frankly, I think this is the hardest part of obedience. I am expected to relate to each one of you in the same way that God has chosen to relate to me.

My offenses against God condemn me to eternal death. At the moment of my birth, because I inherited the sin nature passed down from Adam through my parents, I started this life condemned to eternal death, separated from God. And, my conscious and active behavior from that day forward has only served to exhibit the sin nature within me. Charge upon charge has been laid to my account; sin upon sin.

Praise God, that before the foundation of the earth, He chose me to belong to Him. He sent His Holy Spirit to convince me—or, “convict” me, if you will—of my sinfulness and give me the opportunity to receive His mercy and grace by acknowledging His gift of redemption through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s a great mystery. Yes, it is! A very, very great mystery. But, its true, nonetheless.

So, God wants me to mirror His forgiveness by forgiving everyone who sins against me; every single, solitary person who offends me, who sins against me. He wants me to extend to them the same unconditional forgiveness that He has extended to me.

And, if that’s not enough of a challenge, He instructs me through the words of Jesus to comprehend the seriousness of this sign of obedience by reminding me that He has forgiven me first. Even though I did nothing to deserve His mercy, He has chosen to forgive me.

Not only did He choose to forgive me, He made the first move. He sent His Holy Spirit to speak to me through my conscience and draw me irresistibly into His mercy and grace.

Dear friends, this “forgive our debtors” requirement is serious business. God gets our attention by asking us, “How would you like it if I made my forgiveness conditional on whether or not you forgave those who sinned against you?”

“Wait a minute,” I hear you respond, “Isn’t that what Jesus did say? Didn’t He say that if I don’t forgive the one that sins against me, my sins won’t be forgiven?”

Well, if that is how you read this passage, let me ask you a question: “Why do you persist in bearing a grudge against those fellow members of the household of faith who have offended you?”

In Matthew 18:15-17, Jesus tells His followers:

¹⁵ “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. ¹⁶ But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ ¹⁷ If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

Did you notice that Jesus expects the one sinned against to make the first move? Astounding! Jesus expects the one sinned against to go to the one who sinned and attempt to make it right. That’s a far cry from our normal pattern of waiting until the one who sinned comes to us to apologize before we extend forgiveness. You see, God expects us to forgive just like He forgives. Paul tells us in Romans 5:

⁸ But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Examine your own hearts right now. Do you bear a grudge against a brother or sister in Christ who you believe has sinned against you in the past. Oh, you may not call it “sin.” You may say that “so and so” offended you, or did something wrong, or spoke ill of you, or questioned your authority, or challenged your judgment, or (you insert your favorite euphemism for “sin.”). Do you still hold that fault against the person who perpetrated the fault? Well, then, Jesus calls you to obedience and instructs you to forgive.

“But I can’t forgive!” you may respond in exasperation. “The hurt is too deep. The offense is too enormous. Why what ‘so and so’ did tore me apart. He or she ruined my family, defamed my reputation, stole my inheritance. You don’t know the awful things he or she did to me. How can I possibly forgive?”

The truth is, you can’t.

Remember how we talked about God placing the Holy Spirit inside your heart? Part of the reason God did that was to give you the power to be obedient.

No. You can’t forgive. You don’t have the power by yourself. You are too weak, too frail, too mired in your sin nature. But, God can enable you to forgive by the power of the Holy Spirit within you. With the same mercy and grace that God extends His forgiveness to you for your sins—which, by the way, are ever so much more horrible than any sin that any person here on earth could commit against you—God will enable you to forgive. All you have to do is let Him.

In a sentence, what I have been trying to share with you from the second portion of this passage is “Jesus teaches us to show our love for God by trusting Him to meet our daily needs, including our need to forgive others.” Let me say that again. “Jesus teaches us to show our love for God by trusting Him to meet our daily needs, including our need to forgive others.”

Are you wondering what to do? Here’s my suggestion for the week ahead. As you sit in quietness with God—if you took my suggestion for last week, surely you will want to continue to meet with God each day—ask Him to bring to your mind the name of one of your brothers or sisters in Christ who you believe has sinned against you. Then ask Him to give you the power to forgive. Just say to Him: “Father, please give me the power to forgive ‘so and so.’” And, speak that person’s name aloud.

It may even help you to name the sin that you believe the person has committed against you. “Father, please give me the power to forgive ‘so and so’ for doing (and just name the sin that you believe the person has committed against you.)”

Be careful to understand that I am asking you to start with one of your brothers or sisters in Christ, rather than someone who may not be a believer. I’m doing this because I am asking you to follow the pattern in Matthew 18.

Next, whenever you think of that brother or sister during the week, see that one in your mind’s eye as someone God is helping you to forgive.

Then, in obedience to Scripture, go to that person and talk with him or her about what you believe he or she did to you. Go humbly, go quietly, go patiently, and share the offense that resides in your heart: “You know, I have been holding a grudge against you for a long time because you did (and name the sin). I am asking God to help me forgive you. And, I just want to let you know that as far as I am concerned, you are forgiven.”

This may be the hardest thing you have ever done in your life. And, be prepared to learn that the one who you believe has sinned against you feels that you actually provoked his or her behavior toward you. During your conversation with this brother or sister in Christ, you may even find that the Holy Spirit is convicting you of sin in the matter. In that case, you will both have to ask forgiveness from each other. So, when you approach the one who you believe has sinned against you, make sure you to do so in a spirit of humility seasoned with great grace.

Now, just a word of caution: If the person that God brings to mind is a brother or sister in Christ who is continuing to sin against you, when you approach that one to tell him or her that you are extending forgiveness, you should also tell him or her that you are asking him or her to please stop sinning against you. “You know, I have been holding a grudge against you for a long time because you did (and name the sin). I am asking God to help me forgive you. And, I just want to let you know that as far as I am concerned, you are forgiven. But, I also want to ask you to please stop doing what you’re doing to me. Please, stop sinning against me.”

If the brother or sister in Christ that you speak to in this way is also seeking to be obedient to God, the sinning will stop. If it doesn’t, then follow Matthew 18. and the next time you go to the one sinning against you, take along a reliable witness. Follow the pattern of Matthew 18 all the way through to the end, if need be. But, if my experience over a life time in the church is reliable, you will almost never have to move beyond step one.

God asks you to forgive. In fact, He asks you to forgive everyone, whether a particular person is a believer or not. But, He has a special interest in maintaining harmony among the members of His household.

At the same time, don’t expect the instruction in Matthew 18 to work for a non-believer. Someone who does not belong to God through the power of Christ’s blood, someone who does not have the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, cannot be expected to behave according to the patterns of those who belong to God. You still have to forgive. But, you have no reasonable expectation of repentance on the part of the non-believer who sins against you.

God asks one thing of us. And, its the hardest thing. He asks us to be obedient.

As I shared with you last week, “Jesus teaches us that the Holy Spirit uses our prayers to illuminate the pathway of obedience.”

Now, there is so much more to glean from this passage. I haven’t even written to you about “fasting.” Let me simply say that fasting energizes prayer by illustrating true self-denial. Perhaps we will have the opportunity to share that some other time.

In your moments of quiet alone with God this week, ask Him to bring to mind the name of one of your brothers or sisters in Christ who you believe has sinned against you. And then, ask Him to give you the power to forgive.

“Jesus teaches us to show our love for God by trusting Him to meet our daily needs, including our need to forgive others.”

_{Copyright © 2010 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.}

 

Jesus' Teaching on Prayer—Part 1

Do you know that Jesus was the very best teacher when it came to learning how to pray?

In order to understand the very familiar passage of Scripture that will form the basis of this blog entry, Matthew 6:1-18, we must first of all examine a bit about the writer who captured these important words of the Lord Jesus Christ. (Before you read on, please click on the link above and read the Scripture passage.)

Purely on the basis of human expectation, Levi Matthew represented a most unlikely disciple. If a popularity contest had been held in Matthew’s day, he would not have even registered on the scale.

When Matthew walked down the street, people would cross over to the other side to avoid passing him. Those that were bold enough to approach him would likely mutter a curse under their breath or even spit at his feet. You see Matthew had a most loathsome job. He was a publican or tax collector.

His fellow Jews considered Matthew a traitor. He had reached into his pocket and paid a significant sum of money to the Roman government to purchase the right to collect taxes from a segment of his fellow Jewish citizens. The whole purpose of the Roman occupation was to develop an ever-growing base of people from whom Rome could extract taxes to support the spendthrift policies of the ruler in Rome. Talk about diverting funds from one geographic area to support another. The Romans had elevated that political maneuver to an art form.

And here was Matthew: part of the problem rather than part of the solution. Scripture does not record any specific accusations against Matthew. But, we do know that most publicans made it a practice to double or even triple the amount of money for which Rome was actually asking. This gave them a 100% to 200% markup that they could pocket for their own. As long as Rome got its required per capita tax, it really didn’t care how the publicans wrangled the money out of the occupied citizens.

When Jesus called Levi Matthew to become a disciple, this act must have truly shocked the people following Jesus. Matthew, himself, chooses not to even mention his calling. Fortunately we have a record of this event in Mark Chapter 2 and Luke Chapter 5. Luke gives the fuller account in Luke 5:27-29:

²⁷ After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, ²⁸ and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.

²⁹ Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them.

Did you notice the phrase “Levi got up, left everything and followed him?” Imagine that. So taken by Jesus simple invitation, Levi responded. And, it changed his life. Forever.

Based on the feelings of his fellow Jews, we could easily imagine that Levi Matthew might have become the first and most zealous missionary to the gentiles. After all, he had spent most of his life being despised by his fellow Jews.

Instead, Matthew becomes the disciple who specifically and intentionally reaches out to his Jewish brothers and sisters.

Some of you reading this may have heard me explain before that when God, in His mercy and grace, moved four writers to write the good news of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, He did so in order to create four very special points of view. Of the three “story” gospels, what Bible students call the synoptic gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—Matthew writes specifically to the Jews. He portrays the Lord Jesus as “King of the Jews” and creates a word picture very much like an oil painting. Filled with subtle brush strokes and showing the effect of light and shadow, Matthew’s gospel has a rich texture that captivates his audience.

Mark writes to the Roman mind, portrays Jesus as a servant, and gives us a series of candid photographs. Some old timers, remembering the Dragnet television series from the 1950’s and 1960’s, refer to Mark’s gospel as the “Jack Webb gospel”—just the facts, only the facts.

Luke writes to the Greek mind, portrays Jesus as a man, and provides a motion picture or movie of Jesus’ life.

John writes to all mankind, portrays Jesus as the Son of God, or God the Son, and gives us an X-ray of the life and teachings of Jesus.

So, Matthew, despised by his Jewish brethren, aims his gospel squarely at the Jews. And, particularly, he wants to make certain that he provides a contrast with the haughty teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees of that day.

In Matthew Chapters 5, 6, and 7, we have a lengthy discourse of the Lord Jesus that Bible students often refer to as “The Sermon on the Mount.” In the 111 verses of these three chapters, Matthew lays out the fundamental teachings of Jesus on a wide variety of subjects. The common theme that threads its way throughout this discourse: “obedience.”

Matthew records Jesus’ teachings concerning some very difficult and touchy subjects. He deals with how to fulfill the Law of Moses, murder, adultery, oaths, retribution, love for enemies, giving to the needy, accumulating treasures, worry, judging others, what to do when you find yourself in need (asking-seeking-knocking), pathways, fruit inspection, and building wisely.

Smack dab in the middle of this very precise and very scary list of teachings that lead to obedience, Matthew records Jesus’ teaching on prayer.

Jesus tells us, first of all, to get alone with God. Go into a place where we can be quiet before Him. Set ourselves apart from the hectic traffic of the day. Sit quietly in His Presence. And, simply, talk to Him. Talk to God. Talk to the Father.

Begin by acknowledging that God is our Father. He has chosen to adopt us into His Eternal Kingdom. We are not mere creatures that He has created, but He has chosen us to be His children. As children, chosen before the foundation of the earth, we have the rights and privileges of children. We come into God’s presence as His children and we rightly may call Him “Father.” Not only do we call Him “Father,” but we acknowledge that He is. He is not someone who once was. Rather, He currently exists in all His power and glory. And, He waits to welcome us.

You know we really don’t understand this. We don’t get it. The God of the Universe, the One who spoke a word and all creation came into being, has chosen us as His children. And, He waits to welcome us to come and sit with Him and talk with Him.

Prayer is a fundamental, cohesive, and powerful component of our relationship with God. He is not only willing to have us talk with Him, He welcomes it. He expects it. He longs for it. He waits for it. He waits for us. He wants us to come and sit with Him a while and talk with Him. We have the authority of no one less than the Son of God, Himself, telling us to come into the Father’s Presence and sit a while with Him.

Next, in verse 9, Jesus continues His instruction by telling us to speak to God about His holiness: “hallowed be your name.” “May your Name be Holy.” As we sit quietly in His Presence, Jesus implores us to wrap a cloak of God’s holiness around us. By speaking to God of His holiness, we allow the Holy Spirit within us to latch on to that holiness and begin to weave God’s holiness into the very fabric of our beings.

Now I know that some of you reading this are getting more than a little uncomfortable at this point. “Wait a minute,” you say. “I’m not holy. And, I’m not really sure that I want to be holy. That sounds way too much like one of thosescary kind of Christians. I surely don’t want to be one of them!”

Well, in that case, I have bad news for you. When you first acknowledged that God had chosen you from the foundation of the world to belong to Him, when you responded to that gentle wooing (or not so gentle wooing) of the Holy Spirit and yielded your heart to God, He imbued you with His holiness.

When Jesus died on Calvary’s cruel cross and shed His precious blood to cover your sins, God took that blood and dipped you into it. He plunged you into that saving flood. And, when you emerged you were clean clear through. He sent His Holy Spirit to live inside your heart. And, you became a walking, talking vessel of God’s holiness.

Paul tells us in Titus 3:3-7:

³ At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. ⁴ But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, ⁵ he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit,
⁶ whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, ⁷ so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.

So, Jesus teaches us to acknowledge the holiness of God, that we might acknowledge His holiness within us.

Then Jesus instructs us to ask God to bring His will to pass in both heaven and on earth. In this simple statement hangs the chief problem that you and I face each day in our lives. “Not my will, but Thine be done.” The trouble is, I want Mine, not Thine.

As I think about you magnificent people reading this blog entry, I know that every one of you represents the very embodiment of kindness, generosity, and good will. Right? Of course not!

Every one of you—and me, too—all of us are filthy, dirty, horrible, corrupt sinners. And, the worst part of it is that we cannot even take credit for this awful state we are in, for we inherited it from our parents. And, they inherited it from their parents. And, so forth, all the way back to Adam.

But, praise God, through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ we have been cleansed. Our sins are covered. The penalty paid. We have been redeemed. We have been adopted into God’s family as His precious children.

And, once again, we had no part in this salvation other than being the recipients of God’s grace. He redeemed us through the power of Christ’s death on the cross. He guaranteed our place with Him for all eternity through the power of Christ’s resurrection.

So, what’s left for us to do? Just one thing. And that “thing” is the hardest “thing” of all. God wants us to be obedient. He wants us to surrender our will to His. He wants us to do His bidding in this world. He wants us to reach out to those around us—not because we are really nice, kind people—but solely because of His love that He places in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

“Not my will but Thine be done.” That’s the watchword. And, Jesus asks us to say those words to God in prayer. He wants us to experience the power of sitting quietly in God’s Presence, surrounded by the solitude of our secret hideaway, and say those words of total submission. Jesus wants us to do that because He knows that out of obedience comes great joy.

In a sentence, what I’ve been trying to say to you concerning the first few verses of this passage is “Jesus teaches us that the Holy Spirit uses our prayers to illuminate the pathway of obedience.” Let me say that again. “Jesus teaches us that the Holy Spirit uses our prayers to illuminate the pathway of obedience.”

“Okay,” you might say. “I don’t like the fact that you called me a horrible, corrupt sinner, but I’m going to try to overlook that and ask you, ‘So, what?’ Exactly what do you want me to do about all this?”

Here’s my suggestion for the week ahead. First of all, start today, and find a time to get alone in absolute quietness with God. I know your lives are teeming with noise and busyness. In spite of all that, find a time when you can slip away to a place where you can get alone in total quiet to spend even a few minutes with God.

Then, talk with Him. Call Him “Father.” Just speak that word: “Father.” And then, wait a bit and just rest in His Presence. God has told us that He is everywhere present. So when you sit in quiet and speak His Name, you can be assured that He is there.

Next, acknowledge that He is holy. Tell Him that you realize that He is absolutely holy. “Hallowed be Thy Name.”

And, lastly, ask Him to make His will come to pass on earth, in your world, in your life, in your family, in your friends, in those you love and care about. Submit your will to God. Consciously. Quietly. Earnestly. Just submit your will to God.

That’s all I ask of you this week. Just those few things: Get alone with God. Call Him “Father.” Sit quietly in His Presence. Acknowledge that He is Holy. And, submit your will to His. Ask Him to complete His will in your life here on earth.

Once you do that, I will likely not have to convince you of the wisdom of doing it again. So, do it tomorrow, too. And, the next day. And, the next. All through the week. If you do, when we next meet back here on this blog, you will be a different person. And, so will I.

“Jesus teaches us that the Holy Spirit uses our prayers to illuminate the pathway of obedience.” That’s Lesson One from this passage.

_{Copyright © 2010 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.}

 

A Poem for Christmas

As Mary holds the babe in her arms,
The Wonder, wrought by God,
Makes her heart beat faster.

Wonderful Counselor, this new-born King,
Brings to all mankind
Salvation and Eternal Hope.

As shepherds huddle around the manger
On this star-lit night,
The distant background reveals a cruel cross.

Born to die! A terrible thought.
Yet, Mary knows that this very night
The door has opened to heavenly light!

—Dan Karroll Williamson

_{Copyright © 2009 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.}

 

What Christmas Means to Me...

Christmas can, and should, be a time of great joy and celebration. But, for countless tens of thousands of people, it can also have a few tinsel strands of sadness mixed in with the joy.

If you have lost someone you love at Christmas, that often heightens the depth of the emotions one feels. My dad passed away on December 15, 1981. And, my mom died on December 16, 1985. Christmas always reminds me of how much I miss them. Genuine sorrow is something that a person never really loses. Yes, with the passing of time the hurt lessens. But even now, all these years later, at the oddest moments I am overcome with grief at the loss of my parents. So, Christmas becomes a time of remembering those who are now gone.

Times of trouble in one's life at Christmas also can leave a twinge of sadness. I spent Christmas 2005 in the hospital fighting to live. By God's grace, and the care I received from many wonderful doctors and nurses, I pulled through. So, Christmas always reminds me of the healing I received at a time when I lay helpless in a hospital bed, unable to move.

Most importantly of all, Christmas is a time to remember the birth of the Christ child, God Incarnate. Out of His unfailing and undying love, God gave us the gift of His Son that we might move from mere creatures to become His children and joint heirs with Christ of the Kingdom of God. Everyone who has even a glimmer of understanding at the enormity of this gift should truly join with the choir of angels and sing, "Glory to God in the Highest and on earth Peace to all mankind."

_{Copyright © 2009 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.}

 

Abiding in Christ: In Affliction and Trial

Luke 15:11-32

As you can see, the title for today’s entry is “Abiding in Christ: In Affliction and Trial.” Said another way: “What in the world do we do when our world collapses around us?” Yeah. What do we do? How do we respond? Where can we find the strength to go on?

The concept of “Abiding in Christ,” is based on the words of our Lord Jesus Christ as recorded by the Apostle in John 15:1-2.

If I am to properly interpret the sense of these verses, the afflictions and trials that come into my life may well represent the pruning of God; pruning so that I “will be even more fruitful.”

Well, thank you very much! Pruning. Just what I needed to brighten my day!

It seems to me that the key to learning how to abide in Christ during times of affliction and trial rests in developing an understanding of how we respond to such events in our lives.

The truth is, I do not know any of you well enough to properly evaluate how you would respond in the face of affliction and trial. I do not know how you would act and react when your world gets turned upside down. So, I guess I will have to approach this subject by taking a really hard look at my own life.

Except for my wife of 41 years, most people who see me today have never known me other than as the man who has to walk with two canes, or ride in a powered wheel chair. But, I haven’t always been like this.

Eleven years ago, I was a man who moved like the wind.

“That rumble you hear once in a while,” someone at the insurance company where I worked back in Connecticut was heard to say, “that rumble is Dean Wilson charging up and down the stairs. I’ve never seen anybody move up and down stairs faster than Dean.”

Then one week, while I was on a business trip in Cincinnati. I came down with what I thought was the flu. And, then I found a blister on the bottom of my right foot that I did not know I had. Diabetes had long ago robbed me of the ability to feel any meaningful sensations from my feet.

Getting sicker by the minute, I boarded a plane to return to Connecticut. By the next morning, I was so sick that I had to call a friend to take me to the hospital emergency room because my wife, Shirley, was already at her school teaching. In God’s Providence, my doctor was already at the hospital attending a seminar. He took one look at my foot and called for his friend, a surgeon.

Blood tests showed that infection had spread into my bloodstream and was coursing through my body and starting to attack my organs. My doctor later shared with me that he was fairly certain I was going to die.

Massive doses of antibiotics, and significant surgical debriding of the wound, brought some healing. But, I was not “out of the woods” by any means. And, my life as I had known it was over. Forever.

Throughout the course of the next months, I ended up having the outside two toes on my right foot amputated. I was placed on seven months of twice-daily intravenous antibiotics, followed by a three-year-long course of powerful oral antibiotics. The wound on my right foot became re-infected twice more before it finally closed. In all, I suffered for over two and a half years with an open wound that would not heal.

Then, just when I thought I was getting better, my knees gave out in the Baltimore Airport. My doctor diagnosed me with progressive, profound osteo arthritis of the knees and hips. Soon, I could hardly walk, could not climb stairs, and within two years, had to end my career as a fire protection engineer and retire on disability because I could no longer perform the necessary field work.

In the midst of all of this, the wound on my right foot opened up again. I began a long period of wound care that included two hospitalizations. Fortunately, I received excellent care from a host of doctors. This time it took almost three long years before the wound would finally close.

Then, throughout the summer and fall of 2005, I began to have a shortness of breath. In December of that year, I was rushed to the hospital by ambulance and declared to be in congestive heart failure. By God’s grace, I survived.

Gastric bypass surgery followed in the summer of 2006. But my recovery couldn’t be simple, could it. No, I had to go into kidney failure. The treatment for the kidney failure put me back into congestive heart failure.

I think I’ll stop talking about my medical woes now. First of all, you didn’t come here to this blog for an “organ recital.” And, secondly, your story is probably even more horrific than mine.

After all, I only lost a couple of toes and a way of life. Maybe you have suffered through the death of a spouse, or a child, or some other loved one. Maybe you have seen your career tumble into shambles because someone at work decided to treat you unfairly. Maybe you have watched your financial security evaporate in a falling stock market, or a bad investment scheme of some kind.

I just don’t know what you have experienced in your life. But, I know this for sure: you’ve had afflictions in your life and you’ve had trials in your life. The question for you and the question for me is “How do we respond?”

Frankly, we respond in anger.

Anger is a very interesting emotion. It comes in all varieties. Sometimes anger appears like a pot of slowly boiling water. Over time, that kind of anger gets hotter and hotter until it boils over. That boiling kind of anger can last a very long time before it boils over. It can last hours, days, even months and years. Once it boils over, it can take a very long time to cool off.

Sometimes anger appears like a stick of dynamite with a very short fuse. Once the torch hits the fuse, an enormous explosion erupts that flattens everything in its vicinity. That kind of explosive anger can have a short fuse or a very, very short fuse. Once it explodes, the anger itself can wither away to nothing in an instant. But the damage around the site of the explosion may never be repaired.

We really don’t like to talk about anger, unless we can do so in the abstract. Said another way, most of us will gladly talk about anger, as long as we are talking about someone else. We don’t like to confront our own anger, or even admit we become angry. And most of all, we do not like to talk about the fact that from time to time every single one of us becomes angry with God.

“Oh, now hold on,” you may say. “Angry with God? Are you kidding? Who in the world would ever admit that he or she would become angry with God?”

Okay. Here’s the deal. I frankly don’t have enough time or space in this blog entry to try to win you over to my way of thinking. So, I’m just going to lay it out for you and then let the Holy Spirit either confirm that what I am saying is the truth, or take my words and cast them away into the wind.

You see, I believe that every single one of you has been angry at God at some point in your life. In fact, I believe that some of you have been angry at God for a long time and are still, to this very day, angry with Him.

That’s right. I’m talking about being angry with God. Our God. Our Father. The God of the Universe. The One who created us. The One who chose us before the foundation of the earth to belong to Him. That God. Angry with that God. Angry with Him.

I cannot possibly address today’s topic: “Abiding in Christ: In Affliction and Trial” unless I deal with the most pervasive aspect of this subject. When you and I face affliction and trial in our lives, at some point in our processing what’s happening to us, we will feel anger toward God.

Why some of you regularly shake your head and wonder what God is doing. How can he possibly allow 416 children to live in an environment in Texas where they are subjected to physical and sexual abuse, all in the name of honoring what the cult members are calling “God’s Law.”

When a hurricane and resulting flood sweeps across the Gulf Coast and leaves thousands of the poorest people in that region without homes, some of you have at least thought about how you would take care of such matters if you were God. And, you are most certainly not at all pleased with the way He is taking care of the situation, or even that He permitted it to happen in the first place.

Or when people you know, or know about, die because radical-thinking adherents to some religion crash airplanes into the World Trade Center, or the Pentagon, or a field in southwestern Pennsylvania, just for a moment—or maybe from that day to this one—you feel a bit of anger toward the God who would permit such a tragedy.

And what if your theology holds to the orthodox belief that every thing that happens can only happen if God so ordains it?

Well, enough of the abstract.

What about you? What about those times in your life when things have not gone the way you wanted them to go? Did you respond by being angry with God? Of course you did!

What was the issue for you? What pushed you over the edge? Did you get sick? Did you watch someone you love battle illness, get weaker and weaker, until they died in your arms? Did you experience the sudden death of a loved one in an accident or because of a heart attack? Did you lose a child during childbirth? Did you want to have children so badly that you would do almost anything, but years passed and you remained childless? Did someone steal your reputation? Did you lose your fortune? Did an unfair supervisor at work make your daily life miserable, but you just could not afford to give up your job? Did a fire claim all your possessions? What was the issue for you?

Oh, I know I probably haven’t even come close to naming your issue. But, if you will only be honest with yourself, you will have to admit that sometimes the kinds of things that happen in your life have pushed you to the point that you have been angry with God. For some of you, that anger may have only lasted for a moment. For others of you, hidden in the deep recesses of your heart, you still harbor anger—even resentment—toward God.

In the moment of our anger, every one of us turns and runs away from God. Yes, we run away from God. It’s the only logical thing to do. When we believe someone is hurting us deliberately, we turn and run. We run as far away and as fast as we can.

But, do you know what? God understands. That’s right. God understands. He understands our frustration, our heartache, and He understands our anger. He understands our anger, even when it’s directed at Him.

And, what is even more amazing, He loves us just the same. Unbelievable. But, it’s true.

One of the most amazing parts of the parable from our Scripture text for this blog entry takes place in Luke 15:17-24.

The son came to his senses. In the Greek text for this passage the sense goes something like this: “when he returned to his proper thinking” or “when his mind began to function clearly” or “when his reason began to rule his emotions.” Wow! Imagine that. When he came to his senses he did the only thing he could possibly do: he acknowledged his sin, turned his back on that sin, and returned to his father in a spirit of humility.

But, the part of this parable I like the best is the part where the Scripture tells us that “while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”

Did you get that? While the son was still “a long way off,” his father saw him. Did you ever think why the father saw his son? It didn’t just happen. The father didn’t just happen to walk by and see his son in the distance. He saw his son because he was looking for him. In fact, I believe the father stood looking for his son every single day since the son left the father’s side.

In responding to the afflictions and trials in your life, has your anger, or your sorrow, of your unbelief pushed you away from the abiding presence of the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you know that every day since you stormed away, or walked away, or crawled away from Him, He has been looking for you, watching for you, waiting for you to come to your senses and return to Him?

In a sentence, what I am trying to share with you today might go something like this: “When our anger at afflictions and trials pushes us away from God, He lovingly waits for us to come to our senses and return to Him.” Let me say that again, “When our anger at afflictions and trials pushes us away from God, He lovingly waits for us to come to our senses and return to Him.”

If you are looking for a way to respond to the truth of what I am saying, let me offer this suggestion: starting today, read the passages in Luke 15 and John 15 again.

After you’ve read those passages, ask yourself whether or not you harbor any anger against God.

If the answer is “yes,” then let me respectfully suggest that you stop, bow your head in prayer, and ask the Holy Spirit to guide you to a place where you can come to your senses and return to God.

So, my suggested assignment has three parts:

First, reread the text from Luke 15 and John 15.

Secondly, examine your own heart to see if you harbor anger or resentment or disappointment with God.

Then, thirdly, ask God in prayer to send the Holy Spirit to guide you to a place in your thinking where you can come to your senses and begin to make your way back into the shelter of God’s Presence.

One day a man waited expectantly to join his wife and four daughters who had sailed across the ocean ahead of him. He had recently lost his only son and then seen his fortune destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire. He had planned to holiday in England with the hope of rebuilding the life of his family there. But, a business matter delayed his departure. As a result, he had been away from his family for an extended period of time. His heart ached at the thought of them. He longed to be with them once again.

Then the horrible news of a shipwreck reached him. Fearing the worse, he waited for days and days to hear whether or not they had survived. Finally, he received the news from his wife—two simple words—“Saved, alone.”

All four of his beautiful, dearly loved daughters had perished in the shipwreck. He had lost his fortune. And, now, he had lost his family.

Out of his broken heart, Horatio G. Spafford, penned these words to a familiar hymn:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

“When our anger at afflictions and trials pushes us away from God, He lovingly waits for us to come to our senses and return to Him.” Amen.

_{Copyright © 2009 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.}