More Love, More Power

The lyrics of a classic worship song go, "More love, more power, more of You in my life."  Often this is an echo of my own soul to God.  As much as I desire this request to be satisfied, this occurs in a way not addressed in the song.  When a person is born again, the Holy Spirit spiritually regenerates the one dead in sins and begins to reside within.  We do not receive only a fraction of God, but the Holy Spirit in overflowing fullness.  As we mature, we recognise our natural poverty of soul and our God-given supernatural hunger for more of Him grows.

To ask more of God's love, power, or presence insinuates He has not given us all, or He is in some way "holding out" on us.  This is not the case.  The fact is, it is always we who are holding out on Him.  It is useless for us to beg God to dole out more love toward us from His infinite stores.  We must submit more of ourselves to receiving and walking in His love obediently by loving others.  God has not only given us a fraction of His divine power or unction, for the power which raised Jesus from the dead is working in us through the Holy Spirit.  It is we who have refused to trust and commit our lives to Him completely.  God gives the Holy Spirit without measure, and the Spirit pours God's love into us.  It says in Romans 5:5, "Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us."  To ask for God to supply more of Himself is not really the point:  we are the ones who must draw near to Him in faith, for the scripture says if we will draw near to Him, He will draw near to us.

The core issue behind our lack of surrender, disobedience, and waning desire for God is because we busy ourselves seeking satisfaction in anything but God every day.  In Authentic by James MacDonald, a quote from Wilbur Reese's book made an impact upon me:  "I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.  Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine.  I want ecstasy, not transformation.  I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth.  I want a pound of the eternal in a paper sack, please.  I would like to buy $3 worth of God."  (Reese, $3.00 Worth of God, 1971)  We only lack love, power, and presence of God because we are not willing to cultivate it.  We do not want our lives to be disturbed or changed.  We hold onto our sins and are not broken in sorrow and humble repentance.  We want power for living a life we want, and we want it as conveniently and easily as possible.  God is wise to make life hard for it is in the hard, trying times when men and women of faith cry out to God in earnest.

One last thought:  when Jesus sent out the disciples two by two, He told them to bring the clothes on their back, a staff in their hand, and shoes on their feet.  They were not to load themselves with food, money, and supplies.  He was teaching them to live by faith for their day to day necessities.  When it comes to spiritual blessings, we are happy to have feelings of love and power beyond our needs for the day.  We too must learn to trust God for our daily bread and seek Him for a supply of love, power, and grace moment by moment.  Our stores of comfort and joy can be immediately exhausted in this life, and it is only through intentionally seeking God with empty hands and a humble heart in faith that we can be filled again and again.  To have more love, power, and the presence of God, He must have more of us.  He will not demand; He will not force.  Let us draw near to God with a true heart in full assurance of faith, seeking His perfect will by surrendering our own will to His.  We will find it is in Him alone we are satisfied and complete.

Avoiding the Invisible Web

I love how God uses simple things to declare spiritual truth. This morning I saw a small beetle hanging motionless in a spider's web. Seconds after noticing the bug, a spindly spider with a large abdomen slowly climbed down to its prey. I sat spellbound, wondering what was going to happen. Would the spider wrap up the bug? Would it slowly eat the beetle or lay eggs in it? Much to my surprise, after moving around the beetle a few times, the bug fell to the floor. The spider skillfully crept back to its hiding place out of sight.

That was anti-climactic, I thought to myself. How silly it seemed to go through all the trouble of spinning a web only to fumble your food to the ground and forget about it! But then it hit me: cutting loose the dead beetle was deliberate. One of the aspects of a effective web is to make it virtually unseen. A bird will seldomly fly into an obvious trap, nor will a beetle crawl into the mouth of a bird. A spider's web is nearly invisible until a moth or bug flies into it. As long as the beetle was hanging in the middle of the small web, it was much more noticeable. Removing the dead bug from the web reset the stealthy trap for future victims.

It occurred to me the scene was a picture of Satan's tactics. He holds forth the alluring aspects of sin but does not include the whole picture - that sin leads to certain death. He craftily cuts loose the corpses of those fallen into iniquity so the simple run headlong to their destruction. How thankful I am that God warns us of the devastating, destructive consequences of sin. Even as sin brings certain death, repentance and trust in Christ leads to eternal life. A fool looks at the fun or enjoyment laying just out of reach on the other side of sin's invisible web, yet the discerning believer sees the corpses littering the ground under the web as dire warnings to heed.  This depicts the truth spoken in Proverbs 22:3:  "A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and are punished." The souls that sins will surely die (Eze. 18:20), and those who repent and trust in Christ have a certain hope of life eternal in the presence of the LORD.

Our responsibility is to fear God and keep His commandments.  With the leading and empowerment of the Holy Spirit, it is not burdensome.  What is a burden is when we try to pursue the tantalizing offering of the world to satisfy our flesh and still walk in the way which fully pleases God.  Micah 6:8 reads, "He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?"  We cannot earn salvation through our efforts, but receive salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.  In light of the grace we have received, our faith can be demonstrated with works by denying the flesh, being renewed in the Spirit of our minds, and walking in obedience to the Spirit.  In this God is well pleased, and we can receive a full reward!

The Unmodified Seed

“And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.”

Genesis 1:12 

In the beginning God created plants which brought forth seed after their own kind.  In simple terms, the seed of each plant is produced in the fruit.  Fruitfulness increases future fruitfulness as more plants grow to maturity.  Seeds produce plants which grow more plants which will bring forth additional fruit of the same kind.  Over the years, plants have been “engineered” or genetically altered to improve aspects of the fruit.  Seedless watermelons and mandarins, sweeter corn with more kernels, and firmer tomatoes are all examples of such efforts.  Whilst many of these engineered crops have various benefits, in many cases they are rendered unable to reproduce themselves.  The alterations have made seedless watermelons but removed the capacity for future fruitfulness from the same vine.

At camp this week, we have talked about the importance of answering questions by sharing the pure Word of God, the Bible.  In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus compared the Word of God to good seed which falls on different soil conditions which represent various conditions of the human heart.  Even as many plants and crops are genetically altered to make them more palatable or to remove those annoying seeds, the same can be done with the good seed of God’s Word.  If we alter the Word or the message, we strip the text of the power to be fruitful in the hearts and minds of others.  Pressure from scientifically minded people have sought to introduce man’s ideas into the biblical account of creation of the earth by God.  In doing so, the text may be more acceptable to our finite, biased minds and make it unfruitful.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ shared without the necessary seeds of man’s sinfulness, need for repentance and atonement, and that Jesus is the only way of salvation, rob souls of kernels necessary to spring into new life.

How important it is therefore to preach the Word without modification!  We live in a day where the tweaking of the Word and denial of literal interpretation is common.  2 Timothy 4:1-4 says, “I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: ² preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. ³ For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; ⁴ and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.”  The Bible is not a platform for us to espouse our own beliefs or interpretations, but gives us a charge to hold forth the true doctrine of scripture even if it is mocked or wildly unpopular – get this – even amongst professing Christians.  Modify the scripture even so slightly to make it more palatable to the unbelieving soul, and our vain efforts work to rob it of saving power.

Riding Along

During recent months I have been cycling for exercise and to strengthen my surgically repaired knee.  These days I am on the lookout for new routes to try.  While I usually stick to the bike paths, it is fun to take on new roads and challenges.  I have often quipped Jerusalem and Riverstone have some similarities:  regardless which way you came from, it seems you always "go up" to Riverstone!  Pushing hard up the hills provides a welcome challenge, but I still prefer racing down them!

The other day my sons and I went fishing with a good friend.  We headed down Boundary Road to Wiseman's Ferry, and the scenery was beautiful.  Cows lounged under the shade of spreading trees, and green fields stretched out for kilometres.  "This would be a good place to ride," I thought to myself.  There wasn't a true bicycle lane, but there seemed like enough room to comfortably stay out of the way of passing traffic.  The gentle rise and fall of the terrain would be a good challenge as well.  One the way back I had decided:  Boundary Road was my next cycling destination.

A few days later I embarked on my new path.  It wasn't very long before I was white-knuckling those grips!  The hills which seemed hardly to rise in the Toyota Kluger seemed to stretch on and on whilst cycling.  I am basically new to cycling distance and I had to concentrate furiously on the edge of the road.  Many areas had no room at all, and the drop off the edge of the bitumen was severe at times.  The ride also happened during afternoon peak hour, so cars and trucks whizzed past me.  It wasn't too long before I was a bit saddle sore.  Towards the end of the ride, I began to lose circulation in my right hand - likely gripping too hard due to intense concentration and physical exertion.  I actually experienced more adrenalin on that ride with "close calls" than ever before.  At the end of the 53 minute ride, the Strava cycling app on my phone told me I had traveled a distance of 18.2 kms and climbed 215 metres.  I am looking forward to improving on my time and distance.

As I cycled, I was amazed how different elevation seemed from when I rode along in a car.  It occurred to me we often "ride along" with others in their pain and struggles, the hills they are tackling gentle and easy - kind of like when my mate drove me along Boundary Road.  His car was doing all the work.  I enjoyed the comfort of air conditioning and was not winded at all.  Needless to say, it was a massive difference when I took to the road myself on my bicycle.  It was hot.  It was perilous and cars swerved around me and at times I was mere centimetres from sliding off the road into gravel.  One time I even threw the chain and had to stop and fix it.  There was pain and discomfort I experienced on that bike I couldn't have imagined from the plush seats of a vehicle.  This is the truth:  you never know what someone is going through until you are in the saddle yourself.  It is easy for us to dismiss the pain and struggles of others, thinking that our "ride along" gave us real insight concerning how they should cope or what tactics they could use.  It seems quite easy until we climb into the saddle ourselves and go through the exercise ourselves, as the road stretches on and the uphills seem to go on forever.

If you know someone who is going through a tough uphill experience - whether it be divorce, illness, depression, loss of a job, chemical dependency, or family strife - demonstrate compassion and loving support.  Even if we have driven down that road plenty of times, it takes climbing into the saddle to open our eyes and receive a deeper appreciation of a struggle we couldn't have grasped otherwise.  One aspect of the Christian life which is so lovely is whatever suffering God allows, He provides greater consolation and comfort still.  The comfort we receive by faith is not only for us, but to give to others when they suffer.  2 Corinthians 1:3-6 says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. ⁵ For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. ⁶ Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation."

We don't have to experience all the suffering in the world to offer the consolation and salvation we have in Jesus Christ and God's Word.  Jesus has suffered for our sakes, and when we share in the sufferings of one another as faithful friends, we can rejoice and endure through Him.  We can never know how much someone else is suffering or how they are doing it tough.  But God does, and He is able to deliver and save.  He is able to comfort, heal, and restore.  He's the One who protects us as we push up the challenging hills of this life.  Should we fall, it is He who will lift us up and bring brothers and sisters along to strengthen us in Him.  Let us bless the LORD, thanking and praising Him, for our God is the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.