Experiencing God Day By Day (41 page)

“For whoever desires to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”

Matthew 16:25

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hristians are commanded to lose their lives. This means they ought to deliberately release their lives to God and His kingdom. One of the greatest hindrances to your being on mission with God will be your view of what constitutes your “legitimate rights”—that is, those things that you feel you have a right to experience and enjoy. It's not difficult to turn over to Christ those things that are not a sacrifice or that you would prefer to do without anyway. Rather, it is the things that are good and that are dear to you that may stand between you and God's will.

It's good to be near your grown children and grandchildren, for example, but God may want you to go to another city or continent on mission with Him. It's good to get adequate rest, but you may receive a call of distress in the middle of the night. You may assume that you have a right to certain material things, yet God may ask you to release all of your possessions to Him and His purposes (Matt. 19:21) .

Jesus modeled perfectly this attitude toward life. He had a legitimate right to enjoy the comforts of heaven. Yet, He did not look at it as a right He should hold on to; nor did He see leaving all that was His as a sacrifice too costly to make (Phil. 2:5–11). As a result, God highly exalted Him and brought salvation to a broken world. Has the world convinced you that there are certain rights you must protect? Are you trying to save your life? Have you noticed that in so doing, you are actually losing the life God wants you to have?

Moreover He said, “I am the God of your father—the God
of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.

Exodus 3:6

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od always speaks to you in the context of what He has done in the lives of those who have gone before you. When God encountered Moses, He did not give him an assignment independent of what He had done through those who had preceded him. God had made promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob hundreds of years earlier, and He was now going to involve Moses in His ongoing activity to fulfill the covenant He had made with Moses’ forefathers.

The God who led Moses, who worked through Elijah, who directed Paul, who guided each man and woman of God through the centuries, is the same God who approaches you to become involved in His work. Do you sense the significance of that? You are a vital part of something much bigger than yourself!

We tend to think only of the present. We want immediate results and lack a sense of eternity. We often act as if God had not been working at all where we were before He approached us. We expect that anything God does through us will be completed while we can see the results. We become impatient if God intends to complete what He began in us through another person or even another generation.

Moses came to understand that his involvement in God's work was in the context of hundreds of years of divine activity. When Moses came face to face with the same God who had guided his forefathers, he was deeply humbled. Do you sense that your life is a part of God's eternal purposes?

But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who
have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.

1 Thessalonians 4:13

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n Jesus’ day, a funeral was a time for an impassioned demonstration of grief. It was a sign of respect for the deceased to wail loudly at a funeral. A person grieving the loss of a loved one had no power to change what had happened. There was probably no time in human experience when people felt more helpless or vulnerable than at a funeral.

Jesus, too, wept at the funeral of a close friend, but His sorrow did not come from a lack of hope (John 11:35). Jesus knew that soon Lazarus would be alive again. He also knew that at His second coming, Lazarus and all of Jesus’ followers would be resurrected from death to spend eternity with Him in heaven. Jesus wept because He saw the hopelessness felt by the people He loved. His friends had the Resurrection and the Life right in their midst, yet they were grieving! (John 11:25).

When Jesus conquered death, He forever changed the way Christians view death. Christians still experience the sorrow of losing someone we love, but we have hope because we know that God can bring good out of any situation (Rom. 8:28). We have hope in the knowledge that nothing, not even death, can separate us from God's love (Rom. 8:38–39). We have hope because Jesus will bring us to join Him in heaven so that we might enjoy eternity in unhindered fellowship with Him (John 14:3).

Even though you are a Christian, you cannot escape life's sorrows. But you can temper your grief with the hope that Christ is risen, for He is your hope and your comfort.

He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.

1 Thessalonians 5:24

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od never calls us to do anything without faithfully keeping His Word and enabling us to do it. We are not always faithful to do what God tells us, but He remains faithful and stands by His Word to fulfill what He has promised (Isa. 46:11).

When the children of Israel reached the Red Sea, they might have concluded that God had abandoned His promise to them. The sea was barring their advance, and the murderous Egyptian army was racing to overtake them! Yet God proved then, as He has ever since, that He is absolutely faithful to every word He speaks to His children.

God may have spoken to you about something in particular—a ministry in your church, the way to raise your children, or what you should do in your job. You have obeyed Him, but now you face a Red Sea experience. It seems that what you thought God wanted to accomplish is not happening. Perhaps your ministry has not been well received, or your children are rebelling, or those at your workplace are criticizing your actions. Trust in the character of God. It is His nature to be faithful. The testimony of His people throughout the ages is expressed by the psalmist, who declared: “I have been young, and now I am old;
Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken,
Nor his descendants begging bread” (Ps. 37:25).

Regardless of how bleak your present circumstances are, do not lose hope. No one has ever experienced unfaithfulness on God's part! Allow time for God to reveal His faithfulness to you. Someday you will reflect on what God has done and praise Him for His absolute faithfulness to you.

“Be angry, and do not sin”:
do not let the sun go down on your wrath.

Ephesians 4:26

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ew things are more destructive to Christians than anger. Anger causes us to lose our self-control and to say and do things we would otherwise never consider. Anger, if allowed to remain, turns into bitterness that eats away at our hearts. Scripture consistently commands believers to put away anger and lists it as one of the sins of the flesh (Eph. 4:31). At times, we try to defend our anger by citing Ephesians 4:26. As additional proof we argue that Jesus cleansed the temple in “righteous indignation.” Ephesians refers to anger that does not lead to sin. Jesus was capable of being angry without sinning. When Jesus cleared the temple, Scripture does not indicate that He was angry (Matt. 21:12–14; Mark 11:15–18; Luke 19:45–46).

We must be careful not to justify our anger with Scripture. Ephesians 4:31 commands us to put away
all
anger. That does not mean that we cease to have strong convictions or lose our desire for justice. It does mean we refuse to allow others’ sins to cause
us
to sin. Anger does not bring about God's redemptive work; far more often it hinders what God is working to accomplish.

If you feel that you have a righteous anger because of something that has happened, see if you are holding anger in your heart without sin. Is your anger turning into bitterness? Is it causing you to speak in an unchristian manner to someone or to gossip about them? Is it causing you to make excuses for your own ungodly behavior? You must examine any anger within you and allow God to remove any sinful attitudes that your anger may have produced.

“Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and
you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”

Luke 6:37

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here is a significant difference between judgment and discernment. God sees people's hearts and knows their motives (Prov. 16:2). Only God can accurately judge those who deserve punishment. Ultimately, Christ will sit in judgment upon us all in the day of judgment (2 Cor. 5:10). Our problem is that we like to sit in the judgment seat and pronounce condemnation upon those whom we think have sinned! Scripture commands us not to judge or condemn others, for we cannot be judgmental and redemptive at the same time. It is difficult to pray sincerely for someone while we are judging them. Scripture reminds us that God will treat us with the same grace or severity with which we treat others (Luke 6:38).

God commands us not to judge others, but He does want us to be discerning. Jesus said we would know people's spiritual condition by the fruit of their lives (Matt. 7:16). He said grapes are not produced by thorn bushes. If a person's life produces thorns, we can assume that person is not a grapevine! Are we being judgmental? No, we are being discerning. Scripture commands us to avoid associating with scoffers or fools (Prov. 22:10; 17:12). Unless we are able to identify scoffers and fools, we cannot obey God's command. As Christians, we have been instructed to observe the lives of others so that we can help them while avoiding any sinful influence.

You will be helpful to others only if you see them as God does. If you have been judgmental of others, ask forgiveness and pledge yourself to let God use you as His minister of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18).

For you yourselves know that the day of
the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.

1 Thessalonians 5:2

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n the Scriptures, the exhortation to prepare for the day of the Lord is usually given to God's people, rather than to unbelievers. Christians must be prepared for Christ's return, so that they can properly respond to Him. The most important thing about the day of the Lord is clear: it comes unexpectedly.

In Scripture, there are several references to the day of the Lord. Often this refers to Jesus’ first coming or His second coming, but it can also refer to any time God comes to His people, either in salvation or judgment (Isa. 13:6; Joel 2:11; Mal. 3:2). Amos had predicted that the day of the Lord would be far different from what the people expected (Amos 5:18). The people of his day thought it would come with joy and singing, yet Amos said there would be grieving and judgment of sin. When Jesus came the first time, His coming caught people by surprise. Because they were expecting the Messiah to come in a different way, many did not recognize Him.

The final day of the Lord will be at Christ's second coming. Meanwhile, there will be times when God will come to you, your family, and friends. You need to be watching for the signs of God's convicting work in your children, your friends, and your coworkers. You must take notice when God begins to do a special work in the lives of the people in your church. It may be that you have an unusual sense of God's presence in a worship service and you begin to intercede for those who are present. Prepare yourself now and pay attention to what is happening in the lives of those around you. You may discover that the day of the Lord is at hand.

But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she
approached Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister
has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.”

Luke 10:40

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artha loved Jesus dearly and would have done anything for Him. Her struggle came in being still! Martha spent so much time serving Jesus that she had no time to enjoy His company or to get to know Him better. The harder Martha worked, the more frustrated she became with her sister Mary. Mary was sitting at Jesus’ feet while Martha scurried around the house to make sure everything was in perfect order for Jesus. Martha's service, though it started out with gladness, deteriorated into resentment and envy.

It is good to want to serve Christ as an expression of love for what He has done for you. Yet when your activity consumes your time and energies so that you have no time for Him, you have become too busy! You may think, as Martha did, that if you don’t do the work, it won’t get done. That may be true, but Jesus taught that your highest priority must be your relationship with Him. If anything detracts you from that relationship, that activity is not from God. God will not ask you to do something that hinders your relationship with Christ. At times, serving God and carrying out His mission is the best way to know and experience God. At other times, it is more important to sit quietly at His feet and listen to what He is saying. We are not called to continually sit at the feet of Jesus; otherwise our service for Him would cease. Neither are we called to serve Him incessantly, without taking time to find restoration in His presence. Have you been serving God so diligently that you have not had time to spend with Him?