The Perfect Way

How good it is to know we are made righteous, sanctified, and saved by the grace of God!  Many of God's blessings are conditional upon our obedience, but it would be a grave mistake to reduce our relationship with God to a business deal.  Trusting in Jesus is is not like a monetary transaction where the exchange of money confers rights to the buyer and responsibility to the seller.  We have no entitlements as children of God because we have earned them by our good standing with God or our efforts to please Him.  The blessings God supplies we have not earned but received by His grace.  All we deserve is judgment, wrath, and total destruction due to our wickedness, but God delights to bless those deemed righteous by His grace - as well as those who do not regard Him at all.

Those who are born again through faith in Christ and the Gospel will desire and aim to walk in God's ways, and God does reward the humble and obedient.  These rewards are not dependent primarily on our efforts, but these blessings come from a good, gracious, and merciful God.  There is often a visible correlation between obedience and blessing, and there are invisible, eternal guarantees God provides like salvation and fullness of joy.  The blessings seen and unseen we receive from God are all of grace, free gifts God offers to all who trust in Him.  Since God loves us we love Him, and because we love Him we delight to obey Him.  Love is the currency of heaven and the holy motivation God gladly accepts and rewards.

This seeming dichotomy between the grace of God and our efforts is a tricky balance to strike in our minds.  There is something in us which strives to meet God's conditions so the benefits may be ours, and the motivation can be more selfish than godly.  The knowledge of God's grace can also distort our perspective to drift from godly disciplines to lazy and aimless conduct.  We know we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies so our conduct doesn't really matter much, and the flip side is to think everything depends upon our ability to walk uprightly.  Both extremes leave a person depressed:  one can never measure up to God's standard no matter how he tries, and the other sees no need to even try.  The truth is we can never measure up to God's perfect standard through the efforts of the flesh, but at the same time God never is looking for perfection in us.  Perfection is His arena and is all of grace, and He is the one who works this in us.

See what David wrote in 2 Samuel 22:31-33:  "As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the LORD is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him. ³² "For who is God, except the LORD? And who is a rock, except our God? ³³  God is my strength and power, and He makes my way perfect."  We might think our reception of God's blessings have all to do with our ability to meet His conditions, but then we might as well be trading money for the benefits we want.  David acknowledged God's way is perfect, and because God was David's strength and power (not merely the source of it) He made David's way perfect too.  Was David perfect?  Hardly.  He needed to offer sacrifices to atone for his sin, and Jesus needed to die on the cross and rise again so we could be justified, sanctified, and saved.  God is a shield to all who trust in Him, and we could not trust Him except God help us.  How great is God's grace and goodness to those who seek and trust Him!  From beginning to end we are His workmanship, and He works in us to will and do of His good pleasure.  What a blessing this is!

Seek and Find

"And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart."

Jeremiah 29:13

My boys and I headed out to Mission beach early this morning for a little metal detecting.  The weather was overcast and cool, and before 9am we had cleaned the beach of tent pegs, coins, nails, bottlecaps, keys, and even a mobile phone.  We weren't the only ones scouring the sands of Mission beach:  because of the low tide many others searched the wet sand for hidden treasures.  I have found metal detecting to be a bit more consistent than fishing.  I have been skunked many times without a bite whilst fishing, but every time I have headed out with a metal detector I have found something - even if every target turns out to be junk.

I've had some interesting finds during my time detecting, but I'm still waiting for a discovery of monetary value.  This is in sharp contrast to the discoveries I have been blessed with when I have sought the LORD:  every discovery and revelation concerning our great God is beyond price.  You can't find buried treasure unless you put forth the effort to search and dig with persistence, and seeking God requires intentional effort as well.  Prayer, reading and study of the Bible, and fellowship with other Christians are keys which aid us in seeking the LORD.

God has chosen to reveal Himself to those who seek Him.  The great irony is we believers can drift from God and become a bit stale - even though we have sought the LORD and discovered Him in various degrees.  No matter how much a person knows of God and His Word, we have a desperate need to continue seeking Him.  We cannot look to our previous closeness with God to validate our current walk (or lack thereof!) with the LORD.  When we sense we are drifting from close fellowship with God, we must repent and return to God and seek Him as we did at the first.  Only then will we seek and find Him, when all our heart is captivated in the search.

Praise the LORD He delights to be found!  Unless He revealed Himself personally, we could never discover or know Him.  We never need to be empty handed or without hope of a future with a great God like ours, for He knows our every need.  Should He be concealed from our gaze or seem far away, this should quicken us to draw near to Him with increased tenacity.  For us, He is our life!

Embrace the Season

When God created the heavens and the earth, He placed the sun, moon, and stars in the heavens.  He established days, months, and years - but that wasn't all.  He made the earth to experience seasons which are opposite in the northern and southern hemispheres.  The varied seasons are a part of ordinary life we can almost take for granted.  People usually have a reason for their preferred season, yet if a season went on forever, it wouldn't really be a season.  There is blessing in the contrast.  The earth experiences a cycle of seasons, and church ministry does as well.  It is easy to ignore this and assume everything should continue as it has in the past - only more, bigger, and better.

Let us read again what Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, and it would be a shame to reserve these timeless truths for funerals:

"To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: ² a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted; ³ a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; ⁴ a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; ⁵ a  time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; ⁶ a time to gain, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; ⁷ a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; ⁸ a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace."

There is a time for winter, and a time for summer (spring and autumn too).  God has built into nature growing seasons and a time to harvest.  If there was only planting and no growing there could be no harvests!  We get how this is essential for nature, and we ought to recognise the seasons of life and ministry serve God's good purposes.  How freeing it is when we realise even dry times have their purpose, as well as blazing bush fires and freezing cold.  All of our times are in God's hands, and He has designated different seasons and times of life to serve His purposes.

Reading through Solomon's list, I suggest we would all have our preferences which seasons we like and why.  We like gaining more than losing; we likely prefer dancing over mourning, and laughing over weeping.  But even losing, morning, and weeping can be redeemed and wisely employed by our good God to fulfill His purposes - not ours.  Let us embrace and enjoy the current season God has ordained, whether we prefer it or not.  The upcoming season always brings with it great reason to rejoice because God's plans are greater than anything for which we can ask or think.  He has made everything beautiful in its time, and the future is ever brighter for children of the living God.

From Sorrow to Joy

"Many sorrows shall be to the wicked; but he who trusts in the LORD, mercy shall surround him. ¹¹ Be glad in the LORD and rejoice, you righteous; and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!"

Psalm 32:10-11

Negative symptoms help accurately diagnose illnesses in those who are sick.  There can be sorrows of heart where the cause is not physical but spiritual in origin.  The psalmist said "many sorrows" shall be to the wicked, but the one who trusts the LORD shall be surrounded by mercy.  The weight of sin is a heavy burden the wicked do not realise they carry.  Other times people experience guilt due to their sin and sorrow over being in bondage.  Even followers of Jesus experience sorrow and suffer, for Christ Himself was described as a man of sorrows.  Suffering is not reserved for the wicked, yet they have no healing balm to ease their pains.

In contrast to the wicked whose sorrows are increased, those who are righteous have profound gladness and joy.  The joy of the believer is enabled when we are brought into a healthy relationship with God through repentance and faith.  David began Psalm 32 with saying in verses 1-2, "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. ² Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit."  No one is righteous by their own merit, and only the blood of Jesus Christ can wash our hearts clean of sin.  In David's day sins were atoned for by the sacrifice of animals according to the Law of Moses.  Blessed was the man to whom God did not impute iniquity, and more blessed still is the one to whom God has imputed righteousness through faith.  God has sealed every Christian with the Holy Spirit who indwells our hearts, God's glorious presence contained in these earthen vessels.

The Holy Spirit convicts of sin, righteousness, and judgment.  The conviction He brings is not to be sorrowed of because it produces the fruit of repentance.  Psalm 32:5 says, "I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD," and You forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah."  Think about this!  To plead guilty to sin in a human court of law means a lesser sentence but the perpetrator remains guilty as sin:  when we confess our sins and repent of them before God we are forgiven and deemed righteous by faith.  We are sinners who God declares righteous on account of Christ's sacrifice, and this is something to celebrate and rejoice over.  There is nothing we must or can do to earn God's approval:  we are accepted into the beloved when we admit our sin and forsake it.  Even when we fall as God's precious children He is merciful to draw near when we cry out to him.

Let's be glad in the LORD, all you His redeemed!  What joy is ours when we trust in the LORD.