Romans 8:38-39, “For I am
convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any
other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, WHICH IS
IN CHRIST JESUS our Lord.”
As a child I was taught a
simplified version of this passage. That version says, “Nothing can separate us
from the love of God.”
NOTHING… did you hear that?
Do you want to understand
grace?
Then meditate on NOTHING.
There is NOTHING that can
keep us from the love of God… providing we also know where that love is found…
in Christ Jesus.
NOTHING… what a grand and
glorious summation of the barriers to grace for those who are Christians.
Are you a Christian? Are you
in Christ? Then NOTHING stands between you and God’s love. Name the most deadly
of sins, and it does not separate you from the love of God. Name your most evil
act, and it does not separate you from the love of God. Name you inadequacies…
they do not separate you from the love of God.
Deuteronomy 8:2, “You shall
remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness
these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what is in
your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.”
I have used the same
scripture for two consecutive post because I can’t get all its implications out
of my mind.
Over the weekend I engaged in
the American tradition of spring cleaning. For the most part the spring
cleaning has been done outside in the yard or at the barn. But Sunday was a day
of tackling a very large pile of papers on my desk that have been waiting for
filing, fixing, or some fairy to come along and make disappear. As I went
through each paper one by one I found tax documents that need to be filed, I
found a 3 year old letter from my son. I even found a copy of my marriage
license. But by and large the papers were bills, notices, and reminders of how
far past points of my life had deteriorated. How quickly we can forget… how
quickly I forget!
I grabbed a red folder. It
was full of bills that were once waiting on money so they could be paid. In the
trash it went. Every item that I once thought would never be paid is paid. I
found notice after notice on my property… all in the trash because there are no
more outstanding issues. I found legal threats and innuendos… all satisfied. How
shameful that I do not rejoice daily that the mail that now comes to the house
is expected. How joyful an experience to throw all that mail which came
unexpectedly carrying stress and frustration with it found a new home rotting
in some landfill where it belongs?
Why am I so focused on the
wilderness, and fail to see God right here with me. Why did I need such a poignant
reminder to remember all the way in which He has led me… these eleven years. Why
is the pain of yesterday so far removed by the complacency of today?
God does not need to “test”
my heart. He knows my heart. In the end I am so appreciative of Him using
everything possible to conform my heart to one like Christ’. Humbled? I
certainly was humbled by the experience. And I most certainly needed the
reminder of His leading.
Mostly I am thankful for a
different time, a better season of my life. I am energized by the progress and, wrongly wish for more. Wrongfully because I am here to walk each step with God.
It is His presence, not His relief that is worth keeping. To be undistracted by
storms or blessing, but to be wholly focused on Him and His will… that is what
I am being reminded of. Compliancy’s stare belongs on the problems, adoration,
joy, enjoyment, vision, excitement, love… these belong focused on God… that He
is with us.
Humble circumstances in
exchange for seeing God. Humility in exchange for creature comforts. I would
say all worth it. Though my circumstances are not humble to anyone except me,
and though most of the time only God sees my humility.
So Spring Cleaning not only
brought a new look to my desk, a fresh look to my property, but is dusted off
the self of my emotions and forgotten pains. It reminded me of how God has led
me.
Deuteronomy 8:2, “You shall
remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these
forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your
heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.”
I don’t play the Lottery very
often, but if I happen to have an extra $1.00 on me and someone else is buying
a ticket in front of me… I might on
occasion buy one. What I love about buying a Lottery ticket is thinking about
what I would do with the money, which always ends up being a close examination of
my heart and lengthy discussion with God.
For example, one thing that I
would like to do if I were to win the lottery is to set up endowments for some
minister’s I know so that they would never have to worry about money or a
salary. This sounds very noble and good, but as I look at my heart in
conversation with God I see that this could entirely be outside His plan. My
friend Jim for example recently found himself in need of $20,000 for medical
bills. If I won the lottery Jim would never have to worry about money ever again. He would not need to have faith; those who God calls to give would
not have to struggle with parting with their cash. I could completely interfere
with God working all things together for good for those who love Him because in
a small way I could be God. If even motivated out of godly compassion.
And so these thoughts have me
question God about compassion at all. Where is the line between doing good out
of compassion for others, and playing God in someone else’s life? Is it even something that we should worry
about?
I think of the man at the
pool of Bethesda who had no one to take him to the water when the angel stirred
it. Surely there were other sick and lame there, otherwise there would have
been no competition for the healing. But why did Jesus not heal anyone else?
Was there only one deserving of compassion?
How do we know if our gifts
or compassion, our attempts to alleviate suffering in someone else’s life is a
blessing from God, or our attempt to remove Christ’ cross from them? Do we
become a Peter forbidding Christ from going to the cross?
All of which says nothing
about how the lottery would change my life in a dramatic way. Today I work out
of necessity, but I meet that necessity at a place of God’s choosing. If I won
the Lottery there would be no necessity, and can say confidently I would not
work here once the check cleared. Would I miss something God has for me?
And once again, a one
dollar slip of paper with some random numbers on it and my heart has been tested
and found lacking. Though the wilderness humbles and test, though it is filled
with an abiding presence of God, there is still something very much a part of
me that wants to leave it far behind. If I won the Lottery I would be about alleviating
the suffering of the wilderness, not only that of others, but particularly that
of me.
And so I thank God that I was
not the winner of $49,700,000. Reality is that He has been here with me,
leading me, supplying my need, and one day I hope that I rest in remembering
all the ways He has done that, and understand it is an infinitely higher for of
love than any amount of money.
So I encourage you to go and
buy a Lottery ticket and dream about what you would do with the money. Then take
a look into your heart as you compare your dreams with God’s. You might be
surprised what you see.
Romans 8:36-39, “Just as it
is written, ‘For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; we were
considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ But in all these things we
overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created
thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord.”
A pastor wrote me today
regarding a business matter and said, “I feel defeated.”
My reply was the scripture
above. Oh what a glorious sweet taste defeat can be when seen from the
conquering perspective of Christ. I have died… but Christ has risen. I am
defeated, but Jesus has victory in mind… the victory of experiencing the love
of the Father as those things that separate us from Him are put to death.
Certainly when defeat is
first tasted it is very bitter. But swallow it with eyes wide open looking for
Christ in its shadow, and the sweet after taste can more than erase any
memories of defeat’s painful tartness.
None of it, no amount of
defeat or pain can separate us from the love of God. And though we so often don’t
want to admit it, so many times the defeat is actually the most perfect form of
God’s love. Our ways are defeated so that His ways can come through. Our
thoughts are shown imperfect so that His perfect thought can shine through. Our
inadequacies are revealed so that His perfect sufficiency can stand alone.
Using my favorite story from
the Bible when the disciples and Jesus were in the boat during the storm we see
that Jesus slept and the disciples panicked. The disciples were experiencing
defeat. They tasted the bitterness of the storm. They heard Christ’ rebuke for
waking him, but the sweetness of their defeat brought a calming of the storm. It
brought a new revelation of Who Christ is.
So there really is not defeat
in Christ, but defeat does lead us to Christ. We panic in a lack of faith, only
to see Jesus was perfect in His. We are defeated in our weakness thus allowing
Christ to be strong. We have troubles from our sins, and in that defeat begin
to not only see the errors of character, but see the perfection of His. In the
strangest of ways sin causes defeat, but if we are focused on and loving Jesus
that defeat ends up being the cross that actually crucifies the sin. So perhaps
sin, for those in Christ, is self-defeating in many ways.
God has good plans for you and
me today. If we are defeated it is because we have tasted of our plans, and God
is not going to allow our plans to separate us from His love. Praise God for
defeat. And thank God for the cross coming to bear on us so that we can be
shaped… conformed to the image of Christ.
For the pastor that started
this story… his “feeling” of defeat is because he wants something a certain way,
and it is not turning out to be so. God has a different plan; he simply needs
to stumble upon it.
As I looked for a picture to
symbolize the message I am trying to convey I came across a picture of Iwo Jima
and found it so appropriate. Because in every battle there are winners and
there are losers. The defeat that tastes so sweet is when God wins, and we
(that corrupt sinful man) loose ourselves only to find Jesus. For the men’s
group I attend that is called Iwo Jima I see us as a group of men willing to
fight, to lose our lives, to overcome ourselves that we might know Him more.
Yep… defeat tastes pretty sweet.
John 5:7, “The sick man
answered Him, “Sir, I have not man to put me into the pool when the water is
stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”
I heard someone quoting Pat
Robertson as he tired to answer why America does not experience miracles from God like third
world countries do. He said, because the “people overseas didn’t go to Ivy League school…
that we are too sophisticated… to skeptical…”
I would argue, particularly
in light on the imminent availability of my book God Heals, that the reason we
see less miracles in America is twofold. First is that God moves at the very end
of ourselves. Miracles happen when there are no other human powered options
available. Just like the sick man at the pool of Bethseda. He had no other
options, he had no other help, and that is when God chose to move.
Just like the woman who had
been hemorrhaging for twelve years in Matthew 9. She had suffered much, doctors
had tried everything… she was at the absolute end of what man could do, and
what she could bear. It was then she received her miracle.
Think of the Israelites at
the Red Sea. When did the miracle occur? It occurred when they were out of
options. Walls left and right, the Red Sea in front, the Egyptian army behind…
God moved.
Those people in Africa,
Central America, and other third world countries do not have the limitless
abilities of America. They don’t have doctors to see, clean capable hospitals.
They don’t have food pantries at their churches. They don’t even have
transportation to get to them if they did. They live at the very end of
themselves every day, and therefore God moves showing Himself real.
And this happens not just
with healing. Leading us to the second misconception about God not doing as
many miracles in America. We are distracted and blind to what God is doing
miraculously. We do not see the murmuration, the act of God moving everything
in our life to draw us closer to Him. We get offended by a church and blame
God, when God allowed us to come to the end of that system, to the end of an
individual interpretation so that we can find Him at the end of what man has
created even though it has been created in His name.
We come to personal and
corporate economic collapse so that we can discover and see God as the
Provider. We come to unsolvable pressure so that Jesus can be seen as the
Prince of Peace when we have lost any hope in ourselves.
In the end that is where
faith is… at the very end of our human abilities. We try everything and either
succeed, give up, or turn it over to God. In all cases, He still moves to work
everything together for good. (Rom 8).
John 16:21, “Whenever a woman
is in labor she has pain, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth
to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a
child has been born into the world.”
Have you ever considered how
the memories of pain fade?
I consider it all the time,
for example why did I eat those chili peppers again knowing that 8 to 12 hours
of pain is going to follow? Why does my body, still years later, crave tobacco
knowing the weeks of pain I endured to quit? Why did God make it so that pain
would fade?
Some pain comes with a social
stigma attached that more often than not build a wall of protection or shield
of denial so that the pain is avoided again. Some pain comes from learning and
common sense protects us from touching fire or the hot stove for a second time.
Addicts remember the pain and burdens they have felt and caused, but somehow
those pains fade too much, and the lure of some pleasure overrides them time and
time again.
Failure can be an awful pain
that delivers its sting time and time again year after year. But so very
quickly fades with even a little success. Rejection is no pain at all, but for
our mind magnifies and complicates it into some of the worse pains of all. Being
rejected by one when there are four billion others truly is unworthy of
irritation, unless of course that rejection is a father, or mother, or sibling,
or object of affection, target of greed. Lack is painful, but live in it long
enough that pain too fades.
Pain shapes us, and if we
will allow it speaks volumes to those areas of our soul out of touch with God.
Always two directions to pain… away from God… or into it with God… to share in
Christ’s rejection, lack, physical harm, cravings. To share in His overcoming…
to share in the pain of the cross that has long since faded even in His memory.
“Therefore you too have grief
now: but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will
take your joy from you.” (John 16:22) Because you will be impervious to pain.
You will have joy knowing that in the pain you have the opportunity become more
like Christ. You will remember that pain so quickly fades. You will see Christ
with you in the pain. “In that day you will not question Me about anything.
Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He
will give it to you.” (John 16:23) He will give it to you not to because it
will change the situation. He will give it not because it will remove the pain.
But He will give it because you did not question His decision to have you share
in Jesus’ pain. He will give it because you see the Father and what He is doing, and in that you see His will, and You ask because He is asking you to ask.
The lesson of the fading pain
is dependence upon God, and in knowing that in all the pain He is birthing in us
the character of Christ. Sit in it, without question, but rather look to see
Jesus in it so that your heart might rejoice.
