Willing for the Rescue

I was part of a discussion recently about the fullness of life that Jesus gives and why some people reject his offer. We might not know individual reasons, but several plausible explanations were given. Some gave personal testimony as to what had hindered them or someone they knew from coming to saving faith, thankful that God intervened and opened their eyes to His amazing grace.

But there are some who set themselves against God, who suppress the truth and are willfully ignorant, too often affecting our lives as well as their own. There are others who live in darkness because their deeds are evil, and these are those who bring fear and trepidation into the lives of other people.

But the ones that I feel most sorry for are those whose minds Satan has blinded, those who don't realize that they can't comprehend Jesus because the enemy of all things good has them distracted, unmindful, unperceptive, unaware. Deluded. Deceived. They have no clue that they need rescued.

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (2 Corinthians 2:3).

But no one is too far beyond reach, if they are willing for the rescue. So we pray, praying that God will draw them to himself, for no one can come unless God draws them (John 4:44, John 6:65). He is willing for all to come to repentance and be rescued.

The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).

I do hope you've accepted His amazing grace, dear one. I hope that if He is calling, that you are mindful of it. Be watchful. Be alert. You wouldn't want to miss what comes next. But, on the other hand, you may find later that you wish you had reached for the rescue. Come!

Painting~On Brighton Beach, Thomas Musgrove Joy (1812-1866)

Why Do We Love?

The sun is low in the sky, pouring into my sewing room where I sit and journal as homework for our Sunday School class. Sunlight floods the room, an object lesson for me for this evening's topic.

God's love toward me, and my acceptance of that love, permeates my being. It draws me, causes me to love Him in return. It's the Gospel, reminding me of His love, creating love in me. I love Him because He first loved me.

Do you know Him? Do you love Him? Have you seen His love through the Gospel? The gospel--the good news of His provision, Himself. That even though we are separated from Him, He draws us to Himself. Some of us have gone to Him, and we find love in Him, for God is love. Is He drawing you to love Him back? Is He drawing you to come to Him? I pray that is so. I pray that you go.

I am the way, the truth and the the life. 
No one comes to the Father but through me.

~ Jesus, John 14:6

We love because He first loved us.

1 John 4:19

Painting ~ Young Girl Reading, Johann George Meyer 1813-1886

This is the book we're using. 

You can see more about it here.

God's Purpose or My Dream?

I've often considered over the years God's purpose for my life and made plans and preparations to fulfill it. I think it might have been too often, rather, that I was following my own heart's desires, because little or nothing came of many of my preparations, whether it was as simple as taking a meal to someone who wasn't home, taking a class in writing children's literature, taking a few counseling classes, or obtaining a graduate degree. But over time, I've come to realize that much of what I've done has been working out my own desires. That's not to say the preparations were unfruitful, but that the fruit was found in the process rather than in the outcome.

Sharing a similar thought from Oswald Chambers today.

We are apt to imagine that if Jesus Christ constrains us, and we obey Him, He will lead us to great success. We must never put our dreams of success as God’s purpose for us; His purpose may be exactly the opposite. We have an idea that God is leading us to a particular end, a desired goal; He is not. The question of getting to a particular end is a mere incident. What we call the process, God calls the end.

What is my dream of God’s purpose? His purpose is that I depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay in the middle of the turmoil calm and unperplexed, that is the end of the purpose of God. God is not working towards a particular finish; His end is the process – that I see Him walking on the waves, no shore in sight, no success, no goal, just the absolute certainty that it is all right because I see Him walking on the sea. It is the process, not the end, which is glorifying to God.

God’s training is for now, not presently. His purpose is for this minute, not for something in the future. We have nothing to do with the afterwards of obedience; we get wrong when we think of the afterwards. What men call training and preparation, God calls the end.

God’s end is to enable me to see that He can walk on the chaos of my life just now. If we have a further end in view, we do not pay sufficient attention to the immediate present: if we realize that obedience is the end, then each moment as it comes is precious.

~ from My Utmost for His Highest

Painting ~ A Pensive Moment, Daniel Ridgway Knight 1839-1924

Wiki Commons public domain

On Following the Exceptions

I read in my quiet time where God told Abram, "Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father's house, to the land which I will show you" (Gen 12:1). This is a passage that My Beloved and I looked to when we made our moves halfway across the country and across the ocean several years ago. We felt God speaking to us through Abram's experience, and took a couple of short-term transfers. I know many other Christians who have left, holding on to this passage as a divining rod, just as we did.

Why is it that we claim some passages as God's direction for us and not other passages? For example, Jesus told the demon-possessed man who wanted to follow Him to go home instead and to tell people what great things He had done for him. He did that, and everyone was amazed! (Mark 5:14-20) How many times do we hear people saying that they're being directed by God to go home? I haven't heard many. Funny how we pick and choose our guidance passages.

My Beloved recently commented about the passage regarding Abram, that God was intending to make him a new nation (Gen. 12:2) and needed for him to separate himself so He could do just that. God's design on us is not to make of us a new nation. It seems to me that we have a tendency to want the exceptional examples in Scripture played out in our lives rather than tuning our lives to the life-patterns God sets before us throughout His Word. 

This is not to say that I think no one should ever move. Not at all. But I do think we should consider our reasons for doing so, what we're going to and what we're leaving behind. And that we take into account the whole counsel of God rather than one exceptional example and say we want God to work in the same way for us. 

We moved four times in a five-year period. The last move was to go home, which we didn't want to do. We liked where we were living and the church and friends we'd found--full of like-minded people. Little did we know how God was going to use that move home--to tell others what great things He had done for us. It was the beginning of an entirely new way of life. 

We were not the exception, just a family who wanted to live out God's ways.

Sunday Ponderings

My ponderings come from a statement I heard today about our need to obey when God calls us to do something. Examples were given of Moses and Abraham and Noah, and how their obedience showed their faith. So, the explanation went, our obedience also shows our faith when we follow through with what God calls us to do and when we obey His Word.

I totally agree about obeying Scripture. But wait a minute. God spoke directly to Moses and Abraham and Noah--they heard God's voice and they knew it was God calling to them and telling them what to do. They didn't have the written word. We do today--and all that is in it we should obey. It's the extra-biblical "calling" from God that often leads people where they should not go and to do what they should not do. It's sort of a "sense" that God is telling them this or that.

I was listening to an acquaintance recently as she told me how she had followed through with doing something she knew God had "told" her to do and how it majorly blew up in her face. Now she's blaming God because he sent her into such a volatile situation. Did he? As I listened to her, it was apparent that what she stepped into was of her own inclination, but she so clearly "heard" God telling her to do it.

What this gal didn't realize is that she was hearing herself talking to herself. We are our own strongest counselors. If we tell ourselves specific truth from God's Word, it will lead us in pursuit of God's paths, and that's good counsel. But we should be cautious that we may merely be talking ourselves into pursuit of our own inclinations down our own paths, and that's not necessarily good counsel--even if we think we heard it from God, and even if it doesn't blow up in our face.

Painting ~ The Shortening Winter's Day by Joseph Farquharson