Tag Archives: good works

LIFE – A TAPESTRY OF LIGHT AND DARK

Christian Life, ,

THE TAPESTRY

Life is but a weaving
Between the Lord and me;
I cannot choose the colours
He weaveth steadily.

Oft times He weaveth sorrow
And I, in foolish pride,
Forget He sees the upper
And I the underside.

Not ’til the loom is silent
And shuttles cease to fly
Will God unrol the canvas,
And reveal the reason why.

The dark threads are as needful
In the Weaver’s skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned.

He knows, He loves, He cares,
Nothing this truth can dim:
He gives the very best to those
Who leave the choice to Him.
(Attributed to Corrie Ten Boom)

Life is full of questions and few answers. Stuff happens and we try to ease our pain by finding reasons but, like Job, we hear nothing and are left floundering in the darkness of our own confusion.

I guess Corrie Ten Boom must have lived through much pain and God’s deafening silence during the years of her suffering in a concentration camp. Her testimony is to a good God who knows what He is doing.

The saying, “Life is lived forward but understood backwards” comes alive when we reflect on our times of hardship and suffering.

Imagine a painting or tapestry done only with light and bright colours. How pale and insipid it would be! Dark colours bring out the design, highlighting the artist’s skill with colour and contrast.

The late Thomas Kinkade became known as the”Painter of Light”. His quaint paintings emphasised the beauty of light against the background of dark streets, dark gardens, and dark houses.

Imagine the picture of our lives painted only in pastels, no dark colours, no hard times, no problems to solve, no obstacles to overcome, no weaknesses needing strength from above, no sorrow to comfort, no pain or suffering to endure to make our faith muscles strong. Our character would be as colourless as our picture.

Suffering is a contentious issue for those who have no faith in a good God. Suffering seems to confirm their mistrust. However, we who trust the God who said that He works IN ALL THINGS for the good of those who love Him, learn that hardships, trials, tests, and suffering are the very experiences He uses to strengthen our faith in Him, and hone our character. How can we ever know the greatness of His mercy and grace without the need to call on His name when life throws us a curveball?

Truly, God is weaving our life’s tapestry to reveal His skill and wisdom. Only He can produce the inner beauty of lives that endure, grow, and blossom out of an environment as dark as lilies growing in the dirt.

So, let’s not question His wisdom or His love. Let’s submit to His discipline and wait patiently for the day when He unrols the canvas to reveal His exquisite masterpiece.

Ephesians 2:10 NLT
[10] “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”

Handcrafted By The Master

Bible Study, , ,

HANDCRAFTED BY THE MASTER

For it is by grace you have been saved through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works so that no one can boast.  For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Eph. 2: 8-10).

What a different picture from the one Paul painted in the previous verses! We are no longer dead and stinking but alive to God and objects of His grace and favour. How sad that religion drives many branches of so-called Christianity. What do I mean by “religion”? Religion flourishes by rules and ritual. Religion is a “do-it-yourself” attempt to reach God or to satisfy the perceived demands of a god.

Even believers in Jesus often erroneously believe that their response to what God has done for them is to “work for God”. But God’s word tells a very different story. God sent His Son into the world to rescue us from the plight sin put us in, not for our sake but for His sake. He wanted a family of sons and daughters bound to Him by love, not a group of slaves bound to Him by fear.

He did everything necessary to bring us back to His original plan because of His mercy. We did nothing to deserve His grace and we can do nothing to earn it. He did it for Himself so that the minions who rebelled against Him would be confronted with the truth – God is love.

Humans find it difficult to accept a free gift so great that it transfers us out of the devil’s clutches and places us in the hands and under the care of a gracious Father. We would rather attempt to repay God for His kindness in some futile way which does not impress God at all. God is not a tit-for-tat God like the gods of the heathen. If you do this for Him, He will do that for you. Everything He did to save us from self-destruction, He did for Himself, and He gives is to us as a free gift of His grace.

But that does not mean that we simply take everything and give nothing back. As sons and daughters of God, there is a response He requires of us, but it is not a response of repaying our debt. It is the response of the children of God who adore their Father and serve Him out of love and gratitude.

A study of the gospels will reveal that there are five characteristics of a true son which Jesus mirrored in His life on earth.

  1. A son loves his father

A religious leader once asked Jesus, “Which is the greatest commandment?” to which Jesus replied, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.” Love for God is the atmosphere in which a son of daughter lives.

  1. A son trusts his father

If there is no trust between a father and his child, he then lives like a slave in fear. Love and trust are the bases of the other three characteristics of a son or daughter.

  1. A son submits to his father

Jesus is the perfect model of a submissive son. Even when He faced His greatest battle in the Garden of Gethsemane, He submitted to the Father’s will, and not with gritted teeth but with love and trust.

  1. A son obeys the father

A son does not grudgingly obey or give in to the father under compulsion. Obedience is the hallmark of love. Jesus said to His disciples, “If you love me, you will do what I command you.”

  1. A son serves his father

This is not the service of a servant but the service of partnership, doing the Father’s will with Him to fulfil the Father’s greater purpose of establishing His kingdom on earth.

The good works of which Paul speaks are not random acts of kindness because we feel sorry for people in need. They are the integrated actions of God’s people which reveal His character to an ungodly world. When we live in harmony and fellowship with the Father, He will reveal His will to us and enable us to carry out His plans in partnership with Him to bring a wayward family back to Himself.

Whatever it involves in the way of acts of compassion and kindness towards others, God wants to reveal Himself through us so that those who have been deceived by the devil into hating God, will see Him in us and turn to Him in faith.

Paul said that we are God’s masterpiece, handcrafted by Him to carry out His will on earth by doing what He planned for us to do long before we were born.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

For more details, check my website:

http://luellaannettecampbell.com/

Have you read my blogs on www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com ?

Tell It With Your Life

Bible Study, , , ,

TELL IT WITH YOUR LIFE 

“Again His Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone Him, but Jesus said to them, ‘I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?’ ‘We are not stoning you for any good work,’ they replied, ‘but for blasphemy because you, a mere man, claim to be God.'” John 10:31-33 NIV.

How nonchalant could Jesus be? Almost with tongue in cheek He challenged them. ‘For which of the good works I did are you wanting to stone me?’

Slowly but steadily the case for blasphemy was building against Him — unless, of course, He was telling the truth. If the Jews had had their way, they would have stoned Him there and then, but for one thing — it was not His time.

As far as they were concerned, He was guilty and didn’t even need a trial. Unlike Nicodemus and the blind man He had recently healed, they refused to recognise the Father as the source of the miracles Jesus performed. He was evil because He “broke” their Sabbath rules by healing on the Sabbath and then compounded His guilt by claiming to do His good works through God. What more evidence did they need?

Unfortunately for them, their action only compounded their guilt and not the other way around. Jesus had already indicted them for being blind. It was their wilful blindness that exposed their guilt because they refused to recognise Him for who He was. They had the Scriptures; they knew the Scriptures but they chose not to believe Him although it was clear that He was the one the Scriptures pointed to from Genesis 1.

In order for Jesus to be the perfect sacrifice for the sin of the world, He had to be innocent of all sin, and especially the sins of law-breaker and blasphemer of which He sworn enemies accused Him so that His death would be a perfect substitute for sinners.

“Jesus answered them, ‘Is it not written in your law, ‘I have said you are “gods”?'” John 10:34 NIV.

What is the point of this quote from Psalm 82:6? In Hebrew rabbinic teaching, this is called a remez — a hint. It is a portion of a portion of Scripture that makes no sense outside the context of the whole portion. Psalm 82 is an indictment of God’s people for their idolatry. They followed the gods of the surrounding nations and became like them — cruel, unjust, and oppressors.

God’s law taught them to treat all people with dignity because they were all created in the His image. They were to reflect the nature of their God by the way they treated their fellow men.

“God presides in the great assembly; He renders judgment among the “gods”: ‘How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked? Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. The “gods” know nothing. They walk about in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are shaken. I said, ‘You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High,’ but you will die like mere mortals; you will fall like every other ruler.'” Psalm 82:1-7 NIV.

If the religious leaders knew their Scriptures, they would have understood that Jesus was turning their accusation back on them. They were accusing Him of blasphemy because He claimed to be the Son of God which He evidenced by doing what God required of a son.

They were supposed to be sons of the Most High by being generous and merciful, yet their very behaviour negated their claim. Like their ancestors, their lives displayed who their “god” was — their selfish and greedy selves. They were “gods” in the sense that they were being what their “god” was and doing what their “god” did. For all the vehemence of their accusations, their words did not stick because their behaviour spoke louder than their voices.

Instead of the case building against Jesus, it was building against His accusers. The day would come when they would put the final nail in their own coffins and the judgment of God would fall on them and their children. “His blood be on us and on our children.” Matthew 27:25 NIV.

Who is your God? Tell it with your life, not your lips!