Monthly Archives: March 2023

GRACE – PERFECTLY REVEALED IN THE FATHER’S LOVE

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GRACE – PERFECTLY REVEALED IN THE FATHER’S LOVE

“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him; for He knows how we were formed, He remembers that we are dust.” Psalm 103:13,14

The more I read Psalm 103, the more amazing the treasures I find in it. Perhaps what amazes me the most is that David understood and experienced God’s grace in a time when grace was foreign to the people of God.

How did David recognise God’s grace? He encouraged his soul and his inmost being to praise the Lord by remembering all His benefits. He enumerated the many blessings he enjoyed in his fellowship with God, the most obvious being the forgiveness of his sins. Perhaps he wrote this psalm after his adulterous relationship with Bathsheba and expressed the relief and gratitude he felt when he experienced the grace of forgiveness.

Like David, we are also the recipients of God’s unending grace. What are the benefits we enjoy which should call from us a continuous song of praise to God? Surely, God’s grace in the many ways we receive it from Him.

What is this grace of which we speak? God’s grace is certainly His unmerited favour, lavishing on us what we have not earned and what we do not deserve. But there is another aspect of grace which we may miss, that is, God doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves. It is by grace that we are rescued from our lives of self-destruction. We could never have done enough to save ourselves from our sin but, through Jesus, God did it for us and now, like David, we can say, “Who forgives all your sins…”

David must have also experienced something of God’s grace in the fatherly love and compassion He lavished on him. As I read the psalm, I can almost feel the tender embrace of a Father who knows we are frail, human and transient, like the grass which comes and goes in a day. David had only faint inklings of the Father whom Jesus came to reveal fully by living a human life as a mirror image of God. How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God. There can be no greater evidence of grace than this.

It grieves me that so much of current gospel preaching ignores God’s fatherly heart for His people. The story of the prodigal son puts it in a nutshell. God wants us to come back into fellowship with Him and to enjoy His love for us as our Father. It’s great to have our sins forgiven but it doesn’t stop there. God wants us home with Him, now and forever.

Many of us live as orphans. We are fatherless – not having either an earthly or a heavenly Father.  Jesus says, “I am the way…no one comes to the Father but through me. Let me take you to the Father.”

GOD DOES NOT BEND THE RULES

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GOD DOES NOT BEND THE RULES

“I the Lord do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty. Malachi 3:6, 7.

Why is there as much trouble, sadness, relationship, marital and family problems, and financial struggles in the family of God as outside? Is it because we ignore or try to bend the rules God has given us for a happy and fulfilled life?

God has built natural laws into the universe so that it will function efficiently within those laws. In the same way He has set moral boundaries for us so that we can live blessed, free and happy lives within those boundaries. Problems arise when we step over the boundaries to do what we want Our problem is that we choose to step outside God’s law and when things go wrong, we blame Him!

God IS love and because He loves us, He wants to protect us from self-destruction. He does this by putting protective boundaries around us which help us to understand His nature because His rules reflect who He is.

God’s laws also show us who is in charge. Adam chose to disregard God’s one prohibition and the result was chaos and disorder in the world. When God says, “Do this,” or “Don’t do that,” He wants us to know that He is in charge, not us, and He has the right to hold us accountable for what we do.  

God’s desire is that we live in unity with Him and with one another. By setting boundaries, He is showing us how to do that. Problems arise when we do our own thing because that creates chaos and discord when we disobey Him.

“But what about law and grace?” you may ask. God did not abolish the rules when Jesus came. Jesus showed us how to fulfil them by living in perfect obedience to His Father, not because rule-keeping would make Him righteous, but because it was natural to obey His Father to please Him and to show us how to live the blessed life. Jesus lived within God’s boundaries and then died as though He had broken every law. Why? He cleared our debt of sin out of the way so that we can live in unity with God.

God also gave us the same Holy Spirit who enabled Jesus to live a sinless life. When we choose to do the right thing, He provides the power for us to carry out our decisions. That’s called “grace”. Grace does not replace law. It gives us the power to obey the law – not all the details that are in the Old Testament but the principles which are repeated in the New.

No, God can’t bend the rules for us because He does not change. He gives us power to keep the rules so that we can enjoy life.

FOLLOW ME

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FOLLOW ME

As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed Him. Mark 1:16, 17.

Have you ever wondered why Peter and Andrew, James and John followed Jesus so readily without asking any questions? It was a far more significant reason than that Jesus had a magnetic personality.

Jesus was a rabbi – a teacher of the Torah – trained in the schools of His day. All Jewish boys began their formal education at the Beth Saphar – elementary school in which they learned and memorised the Torah. If they made it through Beth Saphar, at the age of twelve, they went on to study at the Beth Talmid, the school of disciples. They were taught by the rabbis who had authority (s’mikeh), a term given to those masters of the Torah whose authority to develop their own interpretation of the Torah was acknowledged.

“Because he spoke with God’s authority, many people recognized Jesus as a rabbi with s’mikeh—one of the few exceptional rabbis with authority to teach their own interpretation of the Text. As Matthew 7 records, “The crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority.”” http://www.followtherabbi.com/Brix?pageID=2087

The rabbi’s authority included the right to choose their disciples from the Beth Talmid, from students who studied under the accredited rabbis with s’mikeh. Instead of choosing disciples from the Beth Talmid in the accepted way, Jesus chose men who were disqualified from the Beth Talmid and had been sent home to learn the family trade. Fishermen were disqualified because they were permanently “tamai”, unclean, because they worked with dead fish.

Every rabbi with s’mikeh had the right to develop his own interpretation of the Torah, his “yoke” which he “bound” on his disciples, making it imperative for every disciple to follow his interpretation and not create his own.  Jesus understood that the yoke of the rabbis of his day bound many requirements on the people and made their religious life an intolerable burden. His invitation, by contrast was, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30.

It was such an honour to be called by a rabbi that no-one would think of not obeying, especially those who would never have an opportunity to become a rabbi’s disciple because they were not students at the Beth Talmid. For those whom Jesus called, He had only one instruction. “Follow me.” As they followed, day after day, they would learn His yoke and learn to imitate Him. That alone, is the disciple’s calling. Nothing else!

DESIRES

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DESIRES

“Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4

For some strange reason, as a child and a young person, I believed that God would make me do what I didn’t want to do, for example, send me to China as a missionary! Somehow, I had the idea that God was a killjoy who definitely did not want me to enjoy life. I tried very hard not to have any desires in case He sent me in the opposite direction.

It is only as I have grown in my understanding of God’s character that I have come to realise that many of the desires we have are His way of directing our lives in His chosen pathway. God builds into our genes the gifts and talents that fire our desires, and bring us the pleasure and fulfilment in life that He wants us to have.

I have discovered that, instead of trying to squash my desires, God actually plants desires in my heart; He puts them there when He wants me to change direction so that, as I follow my heart, I fall in line with His will.

I have also noticed, in my study of John’s Gospel, how Jesus aroused desire in the people He interacted with, one on one, so that the appetite to know the truth He was explaining moved them towards faith in Him.

Take for example, His meeting with the Samaritan woman at the well outside Sychar. She came to draw water in the middle of the day because her lifestyle and the guilt and shame she felt, cut her off from the village women. Jesus’ request for water startled her. No Jewish man ever initiated a conversation with a Samaritan woman, especially one with questionable morals. Little by little He led her towards a desire for the water He was offering her. Although she still did not understand the spiritual implications of His offer, her blunt request, “Give me this water,” opened the way for Him to expose her heart. His instruction, “Go and call your husband,” caused her to blurt out the admission, “I have no husband,” and opened the way for her to recognise the real reason for her thirst.

Nicodemus is another example of awakened desire that prompted him to seek an appointment with Jesus. Unlike the other Pharisees who refused to recognise Jesus’ divine nature, Nicodemus saw something in Him that made him both curious and hungry. Hidden in his comment to Jesus, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God…” was a question, “We are both teachers. What do you have that I haven’t got?” Jesus explained, gently and simply, the process by which Nicodemus, too, could enter into the realm of life in the Spirit and enjoy the same power of the kingdom of God in which He operated.

Instead of being afraid of or squashing your desires, allow God to shape them into your future.

BLIND SPOTS

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BLIND SPOTS

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”  Matthew 7:3-5

What are blind spots?

Most motor vehicles have blind spots – those places in the rear view mirror where a vehicle behind you is obscured for a moment or on the sides of the windscreen that block your vision of an oncoming vehicle.   If you are not vigilant, a blind spot can be the cause of a serious accident.

We can also have blind spots in our characters or behaviour patterns, flaws of which we are unaware but which cause offense to other people; habits, attitudes, character traits, moods, reactions or responses to people or situations.

These blinds spots very often reveal themselves in the way we treat others. The things we don’t like in others are often a reflection of what is in our own lives. A judgmental attitude reflects a heart that is proud and sets itself above others without realizing that it is a mirror of one’s own life.

We may be moody, critical, sarcastic or angry and be unaware of the way our words or behaviour affects others.  We don’t see any wrong in the way we treat other people and we go on our merry way leaving a trail of emotional injury behind us.

How can we discover and deal with our blind spots so that we can foster harmony in our families, in the church and with friends and work colleagues?

I can think of at least three ways to deal with our blinds spots.

Firstly, we need to be honest. If we refuse to acknowledge our faults, we are fooling no-one but ourselves.  God’s grace will come to us when we are honest with ourselves and with Him. It is foolish to believe that we are above reproach. How much better to recognize that we, like everyone else, are capable of the very things we see and hate in others.

Secondly, we need humility, before God and men.  Pride refuses to acknowledge our faults and do something about them.  Humility allows God to change us. We are all on a journey towards transformation but it can only happen when we humble ourselves and are willing to repent and to respond to the need to change.

Thirdly, we need accountability, a loving, caring person who will help us monitor our progress. This will also take honesty and humility but the outcome will be peace.  

If we are really serious with God, dealing with blind spots will go a long way towards building unity in our families and in the body of Christ.