Pressing On In His Footsteps

Ecclesiastes 12:9-14 MSG  Besides being wise himself, the Quester also taught others knowledge. He weighed, examined, and arranged many proverbs. The Quester did his best to find the right words and write the plain truth.  11 The words of the wise prod us to live well.  They’re like nails hammered home, holding life together.  They are given by God, the one Shepherd.  12-13 But regarding anything beyond this, dear friend, go easy. There’s no end to the publishing of books, and constant study wears you out so you’re no good for anything else. The last and final word is this:  Fear God.  Do what he tells you.  14 And that’s it. Eventually God will bring everything that we do out into the open and judge it according to its hidden intent, whether it’s good or evil.

Matthew22:37-40  MSG Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.”

Observation

Ecclesiastes is a book written by a grumpy old man, a man who has wandered from God and tried to find meaning in this life under the sun in every way humanly possible.  He had great wealth, power, and fame, many wives, servants and houses, access to all the knowledge available in his time, everything this world could provide, and, yet he felt empty because none of it could satisfy his soul and fill the void that only God can fill.  Now that he is old and facing death, the end of every human, “The last and final word is this:  Fear God.”

The Quester distills wise living down to trusting in and submitting to God.  We can make plans, gain knowledge, take care of our bodies, but our destiny, the number of our days, is in God’s hands.  All human wisdom, knowledge and understanding, all human attempts at true justice, all human accomplishments, every thing we get or do separate from God, is smoke (vanity) and spitting into the wind (wasted effort).   He encourages us to seek God, obey God and enjoy the gifts and blessings bestowed upon us by God rather than work long hours and bear heavy loads to accomplish our own human goals.  We take none of this with us when we stand before Jesus, the Judge, on that day.

Impact on Me

The book of Ecclesiastes has always been such a downer for me because of the cynicism I hear in so much of it.  I have often wondered why it is in the Bible.  I always envisioned a gruff, grizzled, grumpy old man who has nothing good to say about his life.  This time through it was different.  I kept seeing young people who have lost the joy of life because they have no experience or understanding of the void in them that only Jesus can fill.  So many today are chasing after the same smoke of this book, still spitting into the wind to accomplish something, and finding themselves empty and purposeless when they reach their goals.

This new perspective has given me pause to reassess where I have allowed the things I can see, feel, touch and obtain to replace the fear of God.  Where have I substituted human wisdom, knowledge, understanding, recognition for obedience and submission to God and His Word?  I am also concerned about the times I have stood silently by without sharing how Jesus is the only way to fill that emptiness so many who have no understanding or experience of God are experiencing, forgetting Jesus’ command to “Love others as well as you love yourself.”  If I want to present myself as a good and faithful servant to Jesus on that day, I need to reassess how my ways need to change.  “Eventually God will bring everything that we do out into the open and judge it according to its hidden intent, whether it’s good or evil.”

Prayer

Lord God, My Father, My Maker, My Redeemer, I worship You.  Forgive me for any time I have stood by silently as someone suffered the emptiness of life without You.  What value do I place on Jesus in me if I will not risk sharing Him with another?  Lord, examine me, search my heart, and crush any wicked intent that may lurk in me.  I want to love You with all I am and have and love others as well as I do myself.  Help me, Lord, to walk in the footsteps You place before me without wandering off on my own.  I ask this all in Jesus’ name.

Hebrews  4:11-16  JBP – Let us then be eager to know this rest for ourselves, and let us beware that no one misses it through falling into the same kind of unbelief as those we have mentioned.  For the Word that God speaks is alive and active;  it cuts more keenly than any two-edged sword:  it strikes through to the place where soul and spirit meet, to the innermost intimacies of a man’s being:  it exposes the very thoughts and motives of a man’s heart.  No creature has any cover from the sight of God; everything lies naked and exposed before the eyes of him with whom we have to do.  Seeing that we have a great High Priest who has entered the inmost Heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to our faith.  For we have no superhuman High Priest to whom our weaknesses are unintelligible – he himself has shared fully in all our experience of temptation, except that he never sinned.  Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with fullest confidence, that we may receive mercy for our failures and grace to help in the hour of need.

Observation

“No creature has any cover from the sight of God; everything lies naked and exposed before the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”  We forget this!  We think there are shameful and sinful motives and thoughts hidden within us that God cannot see and continue unrepentant in those areas either from arrogance or shame.  Arrogance misses the mercy and grace because it cannot lay down pride, release control, admit insufficiencies and the need for help; shame misses it because of fear that his/her value is so insignificant and that the offense is too great to be covered by the Cross. Both are foolishness and traps set by the Enemy to keep us from approaching the Throne.

God is no respecter of persons.  Salvation (being in Christ) is available to whosoever will come (John 3:16).  Nonetheless, all humans are fully known, all humans are welcome at the throne of grace and all who are in Christ will be represented there by Jesus, our High Priest and Advocate. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit stand ready to pour out on us the “mercy for our failures and grace to help in the hour of need” – fully cognizant of our current condition, our past, our rebellions, our arrogance, our shame, our sin.  When we sincerely repent and approach the throne, they will embrace us in our failures and helplessness and release us restored and redeemed to wholeness – forever changed by the contact and, hopefully,

• hungry for more and deeper relationship,
• seeking opportunities to bring joy to God’s  heart,
• alive with gratitude and love for God’s redemptive sacrifice and
• searching for ways to respond to that love so other’s will have the courage to approach the throne and experience that same embrace.

Impact on Me

Before I gave my life to Jesus, I saw my interior self as a place full of closets with doors that lock.  All of my shameful and sinful thoughts, motives, intentions and acts were safely stored and locked away in a closet, unseen and unknown by those around me.  When I gave my life to Jesus, He asked me for the keys to all those locked closets so He could clean them out.  I was ashamed for Him to see what was inside until this scripture opened my eyes.  There was nothing I had locked away that He did not already know and for which He had provided forgiveness and redemption.  He died to redeem me from everything of which I was ashamed before I was even born. 

I have been to the throne room and found grace, mercy and help in my darkest hours and when I fail.  One sure way I find my way there is by soaking in the Word of God.  His Word will expose my innermost failures, my hidden faults, my unrepented sin and provide grace to cleanse and restore me.  His Word “strikes through to the place where soul and spirit meet, to the innermost intimacies of a man’s being:  it exposes the very thoughts and motives of a man’s heart.”  I have found that I do not need to be afraid to humble myself before that throne because I stand there in Christ, assured of the reception I will receive.

Prayer

Father God, when we are in Christ we are Your own children, favored in Your sight, able to approach even Your very throne when we fail or are in need, assured that we will receive grace and mercy.  I ask You to use that sword of Your Word on me to expose and cut away fear and all the unlovely, unproductive, clanging cymbal distractions of this life.  I desire to please You – first, foremost and always.  May I be ever more like Christ as He walked this earth – confident and humble, obedient and bold, servant and sacrifice – focused only on fulfilling Your will and purpose no matter what cost to me.  In Jesus’ name, make it so.

2 Cor 10:3-5  JBP  For I am afraid otherwise that I shall have to do some plain speaking to those of you who will persist in reckoning that our activities are on the purely human level.  The truth is that, although of course we lead normal human lives, the battle we are fighting is on the spiritual level.  The very weapons we use are not those of human warfare but powerful in God’s warfare for the destruction of the enemy’s strongholds.  Our battle is to bring down every deceptive fantasy and every imposing defense that men erect against the true knowledge of God.  We even fight to capture every thought until it acknowledges the authority of Christ.

1 Cor 10:3-5 The world is unprincipled. It’s dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn’t fight fair. But we don’t live or fight our battles that way—never have and never will. The tools of our trade aren’t for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ.

Observation

The church in Corinth was splitting.  There was a faction that were faithful to Paul’s teaching and spiritual authority and an opposing group who denied Paul’s authority.  Chapters 10-14 are Paul’s reply to those who accuse him of operating “on the purely human level.”

We need that reminder, too.  We can’t choose to battle on a purely human level.  Our human tendency is to let what we see – the immediate results or circumstances – be signs of great victory or defeat.  However, this short-sighted view will distract us from the rest of the war, keeping our participation and prayer focused narrowly on our own wants and needs.   We will find ourselves expecting God to bless our approved plan for fixing and the acceptable final results.  This is likely contrary to God’s battle plan.  Warriors don’t always know why they are fighting a particular battle, having nothing personal to gain, but they trust their superiors to determine that it is a worthwhile fight toward winning the war. 

“The very weapons we use are not those of human warfare but powerful in God’s warfare for the destruction of the enemy’s strongholds.”  Because the really important, eternal battles are spiritual, unseen, and outside our human comprehension, we should not be surprised that the unfathomable power of the weapons for battling in the spiritual realm is also incomprehensible to us.    We must remember that all we can humanly do is powerless compared to what Christ can do in and through us – if we will conform ourselves to His plan and direction.   Just obedience, doing what He teaches us to do, rather than following our flesh, what we want to do, has a high impact in the spiritual realm.  If we will really be so gracious and forgiving as to turn the other cheek rather than strike back out of offense, the enemy has lost his power and control over us in that place!

Impact On Me

“Our battle is to bring down every deceptive fantasy and every imposing defense that men erect against the true knowledge of God.  We even fight to capture every thought until it acknowledges the authority of Christ.”  So, I see from this that much of the battle is in my mind, what I believe, what I hear and accept, how I hold the line against anything that opposes the authority of Christ.  When Jesus walked this earth, He did this by filling His mind with the Word of God and doing only what He saw His Father do.  This was the weapon He used very effectively against the tempter in the wilderness.  I have never gone wrong by following His example. 

I must remember that human weapons are powerless against spiritual enemies, useless in eternal battles.  Jesus tells me that His word and my  trusting obedience, regardless of my circumstances or experience, what I can see or hear, the Goliath size challenge that I face, are far more powerful, even capable of “demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture…for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ.”   The challenges I face in this world, this culture, this life, would be overwhelming without the structure of life shaped by Christ in me.

PRAYER

Lord Jesus, Father God, Amazing Holy Spirit, teach me to war with Your weapons.  Let my hope be in love, peace, grace, mercy and Your power in and through me to bring down everything in my life that is not rooted in the true knowledge of You.  Cause me to choose You to be my Commander.  I want to be faithful and accountable to you in all things.  Help me be intentional in the  weapons I choose for each battle, led and guided by You in how I fight, when I   fight, and the battles I choose to fight.  In Jesus’ name, make it so.

2 Corinthians 6:3-10 PHILLIPS As far as we are concerned we do not wish to stand in anyone’s way, nor do we wish to bring discredit on the ministry God has given us. Indeed we want to prove ourselves genuine ministers of God whatever we have to go through—patient endurance of troubles or even disasters, being flogged or imprisoned; being mobbed, having to work like slaves, having to go without food or sleep. All this we want to meet with sincerity, with insight and patience; by sheer kindness and the Holy Spirit; with genuine love, speaking the plain truth, and living by the power of God. Our sole defence, our only weapon, is a life of integrity, whether we meet honour or dishonour, praise or blame. Called “impostors” we must be true, called “nobodies” we must be in the public eye. Never far from death, yet here we are alive, always “going through it” yet never “going under”. We know sorrow, yet our joy is inextinguishable. We have “nothing to bless ourselves with” yet we bless many others with true riches. We are penniless, and yet in reality we have everything worth having.

When It’s All Been Said and Done
Robin Mark Songwriters: Jim Cowan. For non-commercial use only.

When it’s all been said and done
There is just one thing that matters
Did I do my best to live for truth
Did I live my life for You

When it’s all been said and done
All my treasures will mean nothing
Only what I’ve done for love’s reward
Will stand the test of time

Lord Your mercy is so great
That You look beyond our weakness
And find purest gold in miry clay
Making sinners into saints

I will always sing Your praise
Here on earth and ever after
For You’ve shown me Heaven’s my true home
When it’s all been said and done
You’re my life when life is gone
Lord I’ll live my life for You

Observation

The Apostle Paul went through it without going under (2 Cor 11:22-30).  “ I have faced danger in city streets, danger in the desert, danger on the high seas, danger among false Christians. I have known exhaustion, pain, long vigils, hunger and thirst, going without meals, cold and lack of clothing.”   He encourages us to respond always “with sincerity, with insight and patience; by sheer kindness and the Holy Spirit; with genuine love, speaking the plain truth, and living by the power of God” – whatever the circumstances we face, trouble we meet or sacrifices required of us.  We could say that this is impossible, but Paul actually did it “living by the power of God.”

The power of God is the same power that flowed through Jesus to redeem, heal and even raise the dead – when Jesus was walking this earth in human flesh.  When we receive Jesus Christ as Messiah, Savior, the Love that Redeems, we begin to become like Him.  He was and is God in human flesh and, because He lives in us, we can choose to allow the power of God to change us into one who lives a life with and for Him.  How deep, wide and full we allow Him to live in and flow through us is up to us alone.  He died so we could be transformed from sinner into saint, finding His strength in our places of weakness and bringing out the gold from the miry clay of our lives.

Impact on Me

I have been considering how to be proven as “a genuine minister of God” when it’s all been said and done in my life.  While I don’t expect to share many of Paul’s experiences and sacrifices, there will be experiences and sacrifices I must have and make to live a life of integrity that honors and serves God and others.  I am sure my pride and selfishness will take a beating because they are major barriers to living with humility, integrity, generosity and kindness, to putting the needs of others before my own, to that patience endurance of which Paul speaks. 

When it’s all been said and done in my life, I want to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”  Servant (or slave) is not a popular word today.  It is seen as a word that strips us of rights and the ability to control our own lives.  In Paul’s time, slaves were completely subject to and at the mercy of their masters.  There was no guarantee of a good master.  As I submit each aspect of my life to Jesus and lay aside my rights in that area, I do have a guarantee of a Master Who I can trust absolutely because did the same for me on the Cross.  Why do I ever hesitate?

Prayer

Almighty God and Father, Redeemer, Loving Savior, I worship You and give You praise.  Help me to find and empty those pockets of pride and selfishness in me that keep me from submitting to You in all areas of my life.  I pray that I will be one who listens carefully for You to speak and quickly chooses to obey regardless of the cost to me.  Help me to live my life by Your power in and through me.  Make it so in Jesus’ name.