My first duty of the day – to make myself happy in God

September 25, 2016

Maria God's Purpose, Habits, Happiness, Idols, Joy, Love, Nehemiah 8, Obedience, Struggles, suffering, the Law, Thoughts , , , , , , Leave a comment

bible-reading-in-the-am

My hero in the faith is George Mueller, the 19th-century British pastor who together with his wife established and ran orphanages for four to five decades.  He intentionally journaled throughout those years in order to encourage the ordinary Christian to live and work by simple but powerful faith.  He wanted the average Christian to KNOW that learning to pray in reliance on Jesus was a tool and blessing that all could learn to do, with powerful results.

One of his personal resolutions that he followed to the benefit of thousands goes like this:

“The first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day is to have my soul happy in the Lord.”

Life may be falling down around us, but to be a Christian means to be the possessor of the most precious and lasting treasures imaginable.

It’s probably like this for you, but when that morning alarm breaks into my oblivion, it’s like I have forgotten all that is true and unchanging.  What hits me is the immediacy of the day’s circumstances.  And given this suffering and corrupted world, many days seem to loom difficult and heavy-laden when I get up.   If I let my feelings take their cue from those first thoughts, I will stay depressed throughout the day.  Or I will use something created to distract myself, what God calls an idol. (food, email, escape reading)

God offers an alternative if we but follow it.  Christian are called to rejoice always (1 Thess 5:16). Therefore, Mueller’s advice is not optional if we are to obey our Father in heaven.

I don’t intend to talk about how I go about making myself happy in God.  What I rather mention is why God wants his children to be happy they belong to him.  I’m learning the reason God commands me to exult in him is because joy in God is key to loving others.

Listening the other day to a sermon by John Piper I actually felt capable for the first time of LOVING OTHERS.  You remember how Jesus summed up the Law in Matthew 22:40 by saying in effect:

  • Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength
  • Love your neighbor as yourself

Because I seem to be wired more as a rational person than a loving, emotional person, I’ve struggled with what love looks like according to God.  I often feel guilty that I don’t FEEL love towards my neighbors.

But the way John Piper explained love, it sounded doable for a Christian empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Piper explained what God means by love like this: “Love is the overflow and expansion of joy in God, which gladly meets the needs of others”

Given THAT definition, making myself happy in God each morning is not only life-preserving to me, but equally necessary for those around me.  When I have re-established and reconnected with WHY I can be happy no matter how crummy the day’s circumstances may be, then I have strength and energy to move out of myself toward others.  That is the ONLY way to love others.

Have you ever had someone do something for you out of duty?  How does that feel?

It’s like when we tell a child, “Tell Sammy that you are sorry!”

and the child’s “Sorry” doesn’t satisfy at all.  It’s not from the heart.

Same with our deeds done to meet a neighbor’s needs.  If we help out of obligation, it’s not the same as initiating something out of the energy and God-given strength borne of joy in Him.

Joy in God is a pervasive and persistent theme in the Bible.  It doesn’t seem optional or healthy to neglect.

May this truth from Nehemiah 8:10b find its roots in you and me:

“Don’t be dejected and sad, for the joy of the LORD is your strength!”

 

If we’re not living by faith, how are we actually going through life?

May 31, 2015

Maria Faith, Galatians, Righteousness, the Law , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Now it is evident that no one shall be justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” – Galatians 3:11

I’ve heard that truth for years but it still puzzles me. It seems to run off the tongue of Christians like butter spilling off of hot pancakes.  Just what does God mean, day to day, by living by the law v. living by faith?

Walk by faith

Here are my specific questions:

  • Who are the righteous?
  • What makes them righteous?
  • Am I righteous? If not, how do I become righteous?
  • What does ‘to live’ mean?
  • What does the preposition ‘by’ mean and look like?
  • What is included in faith?
  • Where do we get that faith?
  • Faith in what, in whom?
  • How much faith do we need to ‘live’?

I’m not going to take time in this reflection to walk through, step by step, what ‘righteousness’ as defined by God encompasses.  I want to focus, instead, on what a life lived ‘by faith’ looks like, practically.

So ask someone else or search for yourself how the following facts are actually true. But in a nutshell Galatians 3:11 can be paraphrased like this:

When God declares that a man, woman, boy or girl is legally ‘justified or righteous’ that person is immediately enabled to live moment by moment – ‘ek pistis’ (by faith).  Of course something possible to do doesn’t mean we won’t be needing instruction and lots of practice.

The first step in grasping the concept of this new ability is to understand what that preposition ek/by actually means: The list below is copied word for word from the Blue Letter Bible.com Link here

By can mean:

  • Out of/from – a place of divine power
  • Proceeding from
  • From abiding with God
  • From the roots of
  • Utterly from
  • Alive after having been dead
  • In a supernatural sense
  • From the divine (new) nature
  • Fueled by the new nature and disposition derived from one’s (new) origin
  • As having one’s prototype in God and being wrought in the soul by His power
  • Out of the material of_________(what ever follows the Greek word ‘ek )
  • From the power on which any one depends, by which he is prompted and governed, whose character he reflects
  • From the supply out of which a thing is taken
  • Of the whole which anything is a part

If you were to draw a Venn Diagram, a circle that represents the entire life of a man declared righteous by God, that circle (his new life henceforth) would be placed inside the larger circle called Biblical Faith in God.

Venn Diagram

Our follow-up question should be: Where do we get that faith? Do we have to gin it up ourselves?

Thankfully, no! This faith is a gift from God, entirely. It’s alien to us before we are brought to new life spiritually. Biblical faith is given only to those God graciously chose before He created the heavens and the earth.

And once He has implanted that divine, supernatural faith in us, it is ours forever.

So, how now shall we live? Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcey wrote a book with this title  Link here

But if we take the plain text of the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Galatian church, we are to live from what I picture as the King’s Royal Cupboard of Faith.

As newly adopted sons and daughters of the King, we are given a set of keys to this cupboard that will never run out of spiritual grace for all our needs.

Key

Are you scared? Go to the cupboard and help yourself to God’s strength that is meant specifically for us to use – Psalm 37:39

  • “But the salvation of the righteous is from the LORD; He is their strength in time of trouble.”

Are you hard pressed to return kindness for your officemate’s meanness to you? Go to the cupboard and fetch divine might to respond with undeserved grace – Matthew 6:11-12

  • “Our Father….give us this day our daily bread (sustenance so that we can then)….as we forgive others”

Are you beset by worry? Go to the cupboard, by prayer, and fill up on God’s strength to hand over each specific circumstance that is weighing you down? – Psalm 112:7

  • They will have no fear of bad news; their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the LORD.

Are you struggling feeling enslaved to an ingrained habit of overeating/ sarcastic putdowns/ complaining/ impulse purchases using Amazon’s one click shopping/ addiction to social media / speeding / procrastination…….: Go to the King’s cupboard of faith and draw on strength to exercise self-control – Galatians 5:22-23

  • But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

This is what it means, I think, for the declared righteous (the born-again Biblical Christians) to live by faith.

The alternative is to live the ‘old way’, guided by self-centered feelings/desires/habits/patterns.  And we all know the genius of THAT!

Charlie Brown

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