New Thoughts: (07/02/15-07/05/15)
I want to take a few moments to consider this passage in light of the section in which it is placed. I have labeled this part of the text as addressing the nature of wisdom. The previous portion more directly addresses the matter of wisdom as it shows the foolishness of what men consider wise. But, that theme continues to hold as Paul turns to the nature of our election, and the unreasonable response of boasting. Boasting, we could say, demonstrates a lack of wisdom. It shows that we still don’t get it. Get what? The very same point Paul has made from the start. It’s all God’s doing and none of our own. He is the active agent. He is the cause. He is the means. We, however we may try to help things along, remain the passive recipients of God’s largesse.
Wisdom is found in recognizing this fact. Wisdom is found in internalizing this reality. Wisdom is found in not allowing that most wonderful truth to become an excuse for spiritual sloth. Wisdom must take in the whole counsel of God, and it’s clear from that whole counsel that God has no place for sloth. It’s all about Him, but we don’t, in the end, just ‘let go and let God’. We do. But, we don’t. If I can strike the balance: It is one thing to recognize that our battle against sin is futile unless our energies are directed to that issue upon which God is working. It is quite another to simply lie back and let sin take its course, since God is apparently not concerning Himself with it at this present time. There is a mutuality of labor here, but it comes with the realization that our labor really contributes nothing to the outcome. At most, it demonstrates our willingness and desire to be as He would have us to be.
I seem always to come back to the example of ‘helping’ my dad in the shop or the garage. He would allow me to be ‘useful’, mostly fetching this tool or that. But, my usefulness tended to consist in bringing the wrong tool, in taking four or five times as long finding the fool thing as he would have taken himself. My help consisted in adding to the effort, rather than adding effort to the solution. But, a gracious father accepts the cost of letting us try and help. A gracious Father in heaven does no less, desires no more. Do your best, little one. And, do it in the safety of knowing that I’ve got things well in hand.
Why do fathers do this? Because it’s training. We may not be doing the work, but we observe it. Our hands may not be upon the tools, but our eyes are. We are seeing how it’s done, and that may not produce skill in us, but it does produce understanding. When the time comes to do it ourselves, we have a knowledge base upon which to draw. In this labor of sanctification, the situation is much the same. We see what God does in us. If we have wisdom, we see that we didn’t really do anything at all. We were willing. We may have even been trying this and that to help the work along. But, the eye of wisdom looks back across what has happened and realizes that the best we managed to do was make God’s work a bit harder. But, He’s pleased nonetheless. Why? Because our effort shows we care; because as we try, and as we watch, we learn; because as we learn, there is a future payout in that we will be less prone to that particular sin. We may have cost God in the immediate effort, but in the long term, because He has cleansed and we have observed, the work is made less.
Never, though, will our hand in our sanctification become so sure as to bring about a basis for boasting. Never in this life are we going to arrive at a point of independence from God. To do so would bring us right back to the starting line once again! And, this time, we would find it necessary to go through the process without Him. Failure is assured. But, this is not the case. We do not become independent. We do not find it necessary to start over. What we find is God, start to finish. What we find is the One who began the work faithful to complete it. What we find is that our salvation is not the result of works, and neither is our sanctification. In neither operation shall we ever find cause to boast – not about ourselves (Eph 2:9).
Now, I know there is something of a dividing line found here. Salvation, assuredly, is all God’s doing. He chose. If He had not, there would be nothing for me. Some would suggest that He chose to offer salvation, and it remained for me to accept the offer, but that slides right back into making it my doing again – at least to the extent that my acceptance comes wholly under my own power. Let me come at it from the other side. If God chose, and He cannot fail, is it really possible that I was going to reject the offer? Is it really possible that my wit and muscle is capable of thwarting the determined plan and purpose of God? I think not. Does that mean I am just a puppet in this, my strings being jerked by the Almighty? No. To rely on God’s sovereignty does not require us to submit to fate. We enter into a communal work. God is at work (else nothing gets done). I am at work with Him. My efforts amount to nothing more than willingness, really, but I try. God is pleased to work around me where He must, with me where He can, in spite of me as often as not. But, success lies not in my effort. Success lies in His choice. Success is assured because it is His choice.
[07/03/15] How marvelously timely to come to today’s devotional in Table Talk! The subject is exactly what has been in view here. God chose. God directs. Man may plan, and he should. Man may pray, and he should. But, man may not by any means alter, subvert, or avoid the plan and purpose of God. Far from demeaning us, this is our greatest comfort and confidence. It is our assurance that what we know He has begun, we can know He will finish. That article, in its turn, sent me to Proverbs 16:9 – The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. Yes! That verse is the first of a very few that I ever highlighted in my Bible, and that event followed very closely upon the weekend of my conversion, that weekend when God decided to make Himself known to me in spite of myself. The whole weekend had been evidence of that very thing.
I should have to say that recent months have been a strong reminder of the same. In a period when I should be deeply concerned about my future employment, I find instead that I am quite comfortable in knowing God has my situation well in hand. I have made some small efforts in perhaps pursuing a new position at another company, but have seen the doors that seemed to be swinging open slam very clearly shut. The message, so far as I can discern it, is to stay put. It would not be the first time, and I know from previous times that heeding the message was the best thing I could do. And, I am quite frankly enjoying my work more than usual just now, in spite of being between contracts. I’m doing things I enjoy doing, exploring, designing, testing, coaching. I can’t claim it’s free of all frustrations, but it never is. The key note in all of this is that God remains fully in control. He knows where I am. He knows what’s up with life and labor. He chose to provide me with this time, and He chose to ensure that my employer could afford it, even if it makes no sense from a rational, capitalist perspective. God is good, and that is all my joy and peace!
But, let me return to the text. Throughout verses 27 and 28 we have this drumbeat of a message. “God has chosen.” Now, there is something implied by the language that gets lost in translation on this point. That choosing is a Middle Voice action, and Middle Voice presents us with some difficulties in shifting from Greek to English, because there’s no direct counterpart available. The sense of the Middle Voice varies, but in this case it reflects the idea that the subject, God, is acting for himself, doing something to support His own interests. We already have something of that sense of the situation established in that calling Paul noted in verse 26. God called. He selected us out of the vast array of possible beings. We were not there waving our hands, saying, “Me, me, me!” like some schoolboy with the answer to teacher’s question. We were not promoting ourselves in any way, were indeed incapable of doing so in any fashion that might work. That’s pretty much what Paul is driving home here. You were not the brightest, by any means, not men of might and valor. In plain point of fact, you were utterly incapable of accomplishing a thing. But, God chose, and He chose not because you were so wonderful. He chose because it suited His own interests. It furthers His plans, and satisfies His purposes to have you in His family.
What is that plan and purpose? To abash the self-righteous, and to render entirely powerless all those things the world considers great. You may not have been wise, yet in Him you are made powerful to proclaim a greater wisdom. You may not be a man of strength and valor, yet in Him you will battle victoriously. You may be a mere nothing in the eyes of the world. Yet, in Him you gain everything, and they, in turn, are left not only with naught, but as naught. It is, as I say, something God finds to be in His own interest, that His purposes be brought to pass by such means as ensure that we cannot discover even the slightest bit of a reason to claim credit.
There is something to that message of recent years: It’s not about you. It really isn’t. It’s about God. If you are truly found among the elect, it’s certainly not because you are something. It’s because He is everything. If you are being blessed with abundance by His Providence, it’s not a matter of you deserving it. It’s a matter of Him finding His purposes served by it. What, then, is your response? If you love Him, surely it will be that you seek ways to make this Providence of His serve Him through you. Yet, even in this we discover that it was not our strength of will that turned our bounty to His service. It is not our goodness of heart that leads us to seek His ways. Truly, we find that our best deeds are done in spite of ourselves. The greatest heroes act not because they have some heroic mindset. They don’t trod the earth looking for evils to overcome, wrongs to right, or any such thing. They merely respond, and most often in spite of fear, not for lack of it. They act because something within them urges action faster than thought can arise to counsel safety. So it is with our good works. The good works we think about doing and then get after are by and large wasted efforts that make us feel better about ourselves but do nothing to promote sanctification. The things that are done just because; the things we find ourselves doing much to our own surprise? There is sanctification in progress.
Through it all, we have this marvelous comfort of God. It is there in that ancient proverb. It continues to be there in Paul’s writings. “The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable” (Ro 11:29). What can be more comforting than this? Whom God calls, He does not later reject after all. God is not so fickle as we. But, let me note something else in that verse. It runs counter to another bit of common Christianese ‘wisdom’. There is that thought which runs along the lines of, “If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it.” This is supposed to be an urge to action, and I suppose urging to action is not in itself harmful. But, the idea that the irrevocable gift of God might be revoked after all? That would appear to run directly up against a very clear declaration of God to the contrary, wouldn’t it? If this is your mindset, I would suggest pursuing a Scriptural basis for it; something stronger than, “It’s what everyone says.” What everyone says is quite often entirely wrong: Wisdom of the world, perhaps given some sanctifying phraseology to make it palatable to the believer. But, still wrong for all its trappings of respectability. “The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.” That’s a strong, simple statement. The context does not alter the strength, but only reinforces it. Paul speaks it in concluding a discussion about the state of the Jews. “They are beloved for the sake of the fathers” (Ro 11:28), in spite of their present condition, in spite of the misshapen doctrines of the Pharisees, in spite of twenty centuries plus of rejecting Messiah. The calling of God is irrevocable. The gifts are irrevocable. He won’t take them back and you can’t give them back.
God has never, ever, found cause to mutter, “Recalculating.” The GPS may be find it necessary to rethink its course suggestions because you ignored its first offering. It may direct you into an unforeseen roadblock and have nothing to offer in terms of getting around it. Google may not know the answer, or may not understand the question. God is in no such predicament. Ever. His plans are perfect. His execution to plan is perfect. His choice of you is perfect. His care for you is perfect.
What is He doing? He is disgracing all that the world reveres: It’s best knowledge, it’s strongest armies, it’s most talented artists, it’s most connected pols. Everything that world holds dear, God will demonstrate His superiority through His capacity to utilize everything the world despises. As we look at this act of disgracing the world’s best and brightest, we hit another fine point of Greek syntax. This action is presented in the Active Voice: God is doing it, not you. It is presented in the Present Tense which, in Greek is a much more confusing thing than in English. But, the idea here is that this is a recurring action (where the Aorist Tense might give us a simple, one time action). It is something that is always going on. This is the constant. God chose you (Aorist indicating simple, completed past action), to disgrace the worldly (constant, recurring, ongoing action).
Now, this matter of disgracing the world is also presented in the Subjunctive Mood, which might suggest a degree of uncertainty as to this happening. We can see that creep into the NASB translation of verse 28: “that He might nullify the things that are.” In that case, we’re back to the Aorist Tense, but it’s the mood that I have in view here. There is another aspect to the Subjunctive Mood, as it applies to subordinate clauses. Sorry, to those who are put off by discussions of grammar, but it’s needful at the moment. As a subordinate clause, what the Subjunctive Mood provides is the purpose, the result. Subject did this, in order that… God chose, in order to shame. God chose you because in doing so, the great things of the world are shown worthless by comparison.
Notice what is said, though: God did not choose you because you were a great thing of the world. Quite the opposite. Of course, however one slices it, our fleshly minds hear that first part. God chose me. That must make me something, mustn’t it? I may not have been anything to brag about before He called, but not that He has? Let me put this in my own present-tense context. I am now in my third year serving as an elder in the church. Had you asked even a week or two prior to my agreeing to be considered, I would have told you outright that I had no business being an elder. For all that, as we are reading some materials pertaining to raising up elders to follow after us, I am inclined to reach the same conclusion again. It is (and should be) a humbling thing to consider the qualifications and consider the personal record. That comparison cannot, I think, result in concluding that God was clearly right to choose me. Yet, He did. Doesn’t that make me something? I mean, if He’s willing to trust me as an elder in His church, surely I must have something in me to recommend me to His attention. But, nothing could be further from the truth.
I need only think back across the ‘heroes’ presented to us in Judges. I need, for all that, look no further than this present passage. I was not chosen because of my rather excellent qualities. It is far more likely that I was chosen exactly because I possessed so little of excellence. If, then, I am able to serve as a fitting elder in the house of God, it can only be according as He empowers, as He informs, as He instructs and acts. I cannot, dare not, fall into thinking that I’m doing great things for God. I dare not (or oughtn’t to) act on my own opinions or preferences. God’s house is not about my preferences. If I start to say, “Look what I’ve done for God!” I’ve missed the mark. If I start to think, “It has been revealed to me,” I’ve come to a very dangerous place in my thinking. It’s about me. No, the language of faith says, “Look what God is doing!” The language of faith says, “Hear what God has always said.” Let us see how God is ministering in us, through us, and all around us. But, let us remove ourselves from the image. The ministry will be undiminished. Indeed, the ministry may well be improved. We must, with every bit of weakness we can muster, remind ourselves that it is all His doing. We can only rejoice to know we are His; that He has chosen; that He is faithful.
“God chose what the world looks down on as common or regards as nothing in order to bring to nothing what the world considers important.” That’s how the CJB presents verse 28. God chose the utterly powerless, and did so in order to render world powers null and void. That is a powerful declaration. That is a shocking consideration. Sitting here on the morn of Independence Day, it’s hard to miss the connection between this truth of Scripture and the birth of this nation. America may or may not have been the product of Christian missionaries. I think the more accurate assessment is that those who first came to our shores were a mixed bag, spiritually. Those who shaped the foundations of the nation were likewise held a mixed assortment of beliefs. But, what cannot be rejected is the role that Christianity played.
The arrival of the Great Awakening was not coincidental to the demand for Independence. It was seminal. It lay at the source of men realizing this great truth to be True. The colonists may not have looked like much when compared to the forces of Great Britain. They may not have appeared on the lists of the world’s best and brightest. They certainly weren’t the most numerous of peoples. But, hear that message! God chose the powerless to overthrow power.
Down through the ages, the Church has had a rather varied association with that Truth. There have been those periods when the Church very much was the power. The force of rule and state was discovered to be under her direction. This, it must be said, has never proven to be good for the Church or for man. Indeed, it has been seen that in those periods, the Church was the very power that God chose the powerless to overturn.
It seems that in our time history repeats itself. For the most part, the Church appears powerless against the onslaught of worldly degradations and the abandonment of moral guidance on every hand. The Church, in many parts, appears entirely infected with the same degradations and abandon. The state appears prepared to begin the final destruction of this adversary to her power. And, in many corners, we find the Church reacting by becoming political in her thinking. Is that the correct response?
We must look back to that period in which Paul wrote these shocking points. Surely, if there was a time in history when the power of the state was violently and directly opposed to the Church it was then. Surely, if there was a society as morally corrupt as our own, it was the society of this period. And Paul says, “you’ve been chosen to nullify the things that are.” Revolutionary words! But, no call to revolution. This was not a call to the underclasses of Roman society to rise up and overthrow the Caesars. By no means! But, it was a reminder that God is greater than Rome. God is greater than Washington. God is greater than the LGBT activists. God is greater than the Supreme Court. They are supreme only as regards what remains to the rule of law in this land. They yet answer to a higher authority, acknowledged or not. The President of the United States may or may not hold the highest, most powerful position among men. That would not have been debated a decade ago, now I’m not so sure. But, it doesn’t matter. He answers to God, whether he chooses to acknowledge that Truth or not. Man answers to God, however much he may prefer to answer back to God. It’s not that the Church is set to govern the worldly. That’s where we get off track. The idea of a theocracy was tried back in Israel for a season. But, it was not the Plan. The Plan was a King. The King was a man who recognized his rule came under God.
The founders of America, whatever the nature of their beliefs, recognized this much. The Declaration of Independence was not a charter for anarchy. It was not, at its basis, even a call for armed resistance. It was a statement of what were seen as obvious truths. Man is entitled to such rights as are ‘endowed by their Creator’. Never mind entitled. These rights are ‘unalienable’. They cannot be taken away, and those laws of man which attempt to do so must be seen not to apply, for they stand opposed to ‘the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God’. Indeed, the call that closes the declaration does not call for armed resistance; not directly. “We therefore …, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do…declare…” The whole of the matter points to a higher Authority to whom these men, and those to whom they write, must all answer.
What Paul is saying is nothing new. It is a restatement of what has been true all along. The NET notes that his statements in this section follow the lines of Jeremiah 9, from which he quotes at the end. But, this is not the only applicable part of Jeremiah. Consider this passage. “He shows no partiality to princes. His regard for the rich is no different than for the poor. They are all alike the work of His hands” (Job 34:19). That is a necessary counterbalance to this elevating of the powerless. It’s not that you are made special by His choice. It’s not that you, being His, are released from the rules by which He governs the powerful. Not at all! God is impartial. Powerful or powerless (as men consider such things), we are all the same in this: We are the creatures. God remains the Creator. You and I, whatever our station in life, are the work of His hands and therefore answerable to Him.
Before he concludes this part of his thought, Paul returns us to an earlier thread – one that he has never really left, but which gets woven back into the argument now. You are God’s doing. Lest we have lost sight of Who initiated our faith, here it is again. “By His doing you are in Christ Jesus.” It’s because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, as the TNIV puts it. Or, if you care for The Message, “Everything we have … comes from God by way of Jesus Christ.” There is no other Way. You cannot come to the Father but through Him, and you cannot come to Him except the Father calls you. There are the twin truths of salvation. Father and Son both need to sign off on your acceptance, else neither has agreed to claim you.
The other portion of verse 30 might cause a bit of consternation for us. Christ Jesus becameto us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Was He, then, not these things at some point in time? Was there a point in eternity when Jesus Christ was not the wisdom of God? Was He ever, for even the briefest of moments, not righteous? The answer should be evident. Of course not. You can as well suggest that God ceased to be God for even that briefest of moments. But, if God could cease to be God then He never was God. He is, by that act, demonstrably changeable, and God, to be God, is unchanging. No, the key to grasping Paul’s point lies in the conditioning descriptor he inserts into the thought. He became to us. He was and is always all these things. But, apart from God’s calling us, they are not applicable to us. The wisdom of God is always there. But, to the worldly wise, its wisdom cannot be perceived. It is foolishness to them. The righteousness of Christ is not given indiscriminately to every man, woman and child. It is given to the called. Sanctification does not come to those upon whom God does not choose to show mercy. Redemption will not be universal. Christ became these things, in that the things He is were applied to our account. They were made not merely accessible to us, but our assured possession.
That word, became, has this idea of being made to have certain qualities, to be rendered as having a particular condition, or even being assigned a rank. Again, it’s not as though the Christ of God ever lacked these qualities. What was lacking was our recognition of that Truth, and our ability to avail ourselves of all His benefits. Now, what results? Is it still up to us? These benefits are set before us, and do we now control events, depending on whether we will, moment by moment, accept His wisdom, lay hold of His righteousness, stand firm in His redemption? Oh! We should certainly do all these things. But, the most glorious truth here is that we do, we will, we cannot but do so. It’s not us. It’s God’s doing. It’s God’s doing, and He cannot fail of His purpose. Therefore, you cannot fail of His purpose. That’s no cause for a lazy grace that presumes upon God’s mercy. As Jesus reminded Satan amidst His own temptations, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test” (Mt 4:7). He wasn’t saying never try Him or count on Him. He was saying don’t be presumptuous. Don’t think that, having been redeemed, you can just sin with abandon and count on His unchanging will to clean you up. To pursue such a course must surely demonstrate that the call was never extended to you in the first place, that you are a wolf set amongst the sheep.
But, for those who are the called, there is a name our Redeemer bears. It is the one Jeremiah declared from afar. “This is the name He shall bear: ‘The Lord our Righteousness’” (Jer 23:6). It’s been there all along, hasn’t it? Your righteousness – were we even able to discern such a thing – is nothing. It will never suffice. It won’t even register. The Fall was too complete, and you are too impotent to counter its effects. Your righteousness, such as it can be found at all, is Christ. It is, in truth, His righteousness. He is our Righteousness. He is the lens through whom the Father looks upon us, and thus sees us clean, sees our end rather than our present. He is our Sanctification. We could no more clean ourselves up than we could redeem ourselves. If we could, then maybe, just maybe, there remained that slimmest chance that a man might come who would walk in righteousness apart from Christ. But there is no such chance. It’s Christ alone, given by God’s grace alone, believed in by faith alone, and that, too, given by God’s grace.
It seems to me I’ve been here before: that on this day we call Independence Day, nothing is more evident in these morning devotions then that we are never independent. We are ever and always wholly dependent upon God. If we are called, it is because He called. If we are saved, it is because He saved. If there is any good to be found in us, it is because Christ is in residence, having saved us, having taken upon Himself the task of sanctifying us, and having sent the Holy Spirit to us to take up residence in this temple of our flesh. We’re just building blocks – living stones. But, the stones do not build themselves. The Lord builds, and because He builds, the result is glorious. But, the result gives the stones no place to boast. He did it!
So we come to the closing verse of this section. But, as Paul is reflecting back on Jeremiah’s words, let us do likewise. “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom. Let not the mighty man boast of his might. Let not the rich man boast of his riches. Let him who boasts boast only of this: That He knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness on earth. For I delight in these things” (Jer 9:23-24). You can hear Paul’s message coming from this, can’t you? You think your wisdom has brought your success? You think your armies suffice to keep you safe? Do you suppose that you have provided for yourself with these riches? They are all of them together as nothing! There is nothing to boast of in any of these things. They all point back to self, and self is utterly worthless. Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord!
And see the cause we have for boasting! This Lord God is not some vain and vengeful power. He is not some capricious spirit. He is the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness on the earth! These are the things He delights in. These are the things He does. These are the things He seeks in you. Have you, then, a steadfast love in yourself of which you might boast? Has your hand upheld justice? Is your life the record of a righteous man? If you can say yes to these things, then perhaps you have room to boast. But you cannot. God can. His love is perfect, even for such imperfect beings as us. His justice is perfect, bent for no man. His righteousness has no least stain of sin. Here is a God worthy of boasting. Here is a God worthy of worship. Here is the God Who Is!
All this other junk is self-promotion, self-centered, self-loving garbage. There is a belief often stated today that we cannot love others until we love ourselves. There may be some truth to that, but in the times in which we live, the greater issue is that we cannot love others if we are overly in love with ourselves. The world system as it stands today is all about self-love. Nothing matters but me. If I can get what I want, then the harm it may do to you is inconsequential. If it cramps my style it has to go. I will care about you – care deeply! – so long as the cost remains zero. If caring for you can make me feel better about me, great. But, if caring about you carries a cost? Sorry. I’ve got plans.
We are ‘graduating’ folks with an education that doesn’t even suffice to explain to them the duty of repaying their debts, that a comfy life isn’t owed to them. We have become a nation of adult children, and even with that, the term implies a greater maturity than is present. We have leadership, if we can call it that, who supposes that being entertaining counts as leading. We have governance by spotlight. Look at me! I’m the leader of the free world! Ain’t I just something? But, let it come to serious work, and again: Sorry. I’ve got plans. Let it come to the effort to uphold justice and, well, that’s not doing anything for my popularity, so no.
But, it’s not the leadership that needs concern us. Yes, I know. The old saw insists that the fish rots from the head down. But, who put the head on that fish? There is another saw that applies: We get the government we deserve. We are too in love with ourselves, with our comforts and entertainments to be bothered with the hard work of self-rule and self-reliance. We are too consumed with self to worry about others. And that sets us at odds with our true King. Two commandments He sets before us: Love God, and love others. Notice what’s not there? There’s nothing there about loving self, except as the measure by which to assess if we are loving others enough. If we cannot look upon our neighbor across the street as the object of the same love and care we have for ourselves, we’re not there yet. If we look upon the fallen world around us with hatred and suspicion rather than compassion and mercy, we have failed as ambassadors of God’s kingdom. If we are too preoccupied with our own needs and circumstances to be bothered with even the others who constitute our family here (whether blood or spirit), we are yet the merest babes in this kingdom, unfit to claim any sort of dignity or place.
Now, all of this may sound like a call to works. It’s funny that way. This life of faith demands that we rely not on self, not on our capacity to obey. And yet, it simultaneously demands obedience. “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (Jn 14:15). Peter, if you love Me, feed My sheep. Demonstrate your love for Me by caring for them. Yet, we don’t do so as striving for acceptance. We don’t do so to prove ourselves righteous in His sight. We have nothing to prove, and no capacity for proving it. We are a people saved by grace. What remains to us is to live a life of gratitude for what God has done. It’s time to get over ourselves and start getting into others, but even here, unless the Lord builds, our labor is in vain.
Let us, then, rejoice to do His will. Let us, then, be committed to be willing. Let us be attentive to hear His leading, and swift to pursue where He leads. As we go about this life of faith, let us join our prayers with Paul’s. “May I be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ” (Php 3:9). It’s no call to stop working. Clearly not! Paul never stopped. But, it must aid us in keeping a proper sense of proportion, of seeing our place in that work, and knowing His will is being done.
Help us, Lord. Help me. My love for others, I must confess, is not as it ought to be. My care is too greatly shaped by the world around me, and I find myself satisfied to know I am saved. This is not as it should be! Holy Spirit, grasp hold of my heart. Peel back the veils from my eyes that I might see things as You see them, might care about those things that concern You. Work upon me, oh my God, to work according to Your will. Let me not presume. Let me not shrink back. Let me love as You love, as best I may. Let me be faithful to Your leading, as best I may. Let me be about the things that You are about.
