Thursday, October 04,
2012, 5:13 a.m. – the Lord woke me this morning for the third morning in a
row with the song “For Our Nation”
playing in my mind. I get the strong sense that this is a critical message for
our nation at this time, going into the elections, which is why the Lord is
pressing it so much upon my heart. Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.
I read 2 Thessalonians 1 (NIV 1984):
Paul, Silas and
Timothy,
To the church of the
Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
Grace and peace to you
from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
We ought always to
thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more
and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing.
Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in
all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.
All this is evidence
that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the
kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. God is just: He will pay back
trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and
to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in
blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God
and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with
everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the
majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and
to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because
you believed our testimony to you.
With this in mind, we
constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and
that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act
prompted by your faith. We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be
glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Growing Faith
When we come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, by God’s
grace, through faith, our faith doesn’t stop (park itself) there. We don’t just
believe, live our lives, and then one day go to heaven, though many people are
living just like that is the reality of faith today. Nonetheless, true faith is
revealed as genuine through action. It is progressive. It should keep on
growing until the day Jesus Christ takes us to be with him for eternity. Not
only should we be daily growing in faith, but our love for God and for others
should be daily increasing, as well. And, the way we grow is through knowledge,
understanding, and then by putting into practice what we have learned. If we
are not daily in God’s word, listening to his voice, and then obeying what he
teaches us, our faith will stagnate. We must daily be putting into practice
what the Lord Jesus is teaching us through his word, applying its truths to our
lives in all practicality. Then our faith will grow and our love will increase.
Perseverance
Another aspect of growing faith is perseverance, i.e. not
giving up. To persevere means to persist in doing something; continue; stay the
course; endure; keep at it; and press on. Paul spoke of pressing on in his
letter to the Philippian Christians when he acknowledged that he had not yet
arrived, that he was not yet perfect, but what he did was forget what was
behind him (his past; past failures), and he pressed on (moved forward) in his
walk of obedience with Christ, and in his determination to not give into the
flesh.
So many people give up before they even begin. Others get
discouraged along the way and shrink back, or else they revert back to living selfish
and sinful lifestyles. Jesus addressed this problem in his parable of the sower
(four types of heart response to the gospel). The first seed of the gospel was
not accepted at all, the second and third had false start responses, and never
took root, and so dissipated with time, but the fourth response was genuine and
it reproduced. As well, throughout Paul’s writings in the New Testament, he teaches
us that true faith is enduring (continuing) faith that keeps growing.
The believers in Thessalonica grew and persevered in faith
despite persecutions and serious trials they were enduring. During these times
of trial, our faith is tested to see if it is genuine and/or enduring faith or
not. Persecutions and trials will either make us or break us, i.e. they will
either drive us to our knees in prayer, seeking God’s face for answers, or they
will reveal the holes in our spiritual armor, or that we are not truly fitted
with God’s spiritual armor, after all. So, these trials are for our ultimate good.
Pay Back
I think some of us are just more naturally the kind who want
to get even or take out revenge on those who have wronged us, yet the word of
God teaches that God alone is the one who has the right to execute “pay-back”
to those who have wronged others or who have refused his voice. We may not see
his justice fulfilled in our lifetime, but a time of judgment will come when
God will judge. He is our defense. We need to leave the revenge business to
him, because he is God. I thank God for his mercy and that I did not get
everything I deserved. Amen! I am so thankful that I serve a loving and
forgiving God who picked me up out of the pit of despair and that he chose to
use me to be his servant despite my past failures to obey his voice. So,
because Jesus Christ first loved me, though I am so unworthy of his love, I
must, in turn, love others, including those who have wronged me.
Worthy of the Calling
In and of ourselves, none of us are worthy of God’s grace
and mercy. While we were still sinners, the Bible says, Jesus Christ died for
the ungodly. We do nothing to earn or to deserve our salvation. Jesus didn’t
die for us because we are worthy, but because he is a loving, gracious,
compassionate and merciful God who desires that we be set free from our slavery
to sin, and that we have (possess) the right of passage into God’s holy
presence through the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross for our sins.
So, what does it mean, or why must we, or how can we be
counted worthy of God’s calling on our lives? First of all, only by the grace
of God and the power of the Holy Spirit within us working to transform us daily
in heart, mind and attitude, can we be counted worthy of God’s calling upon our
lives. To be counted worthy means to be commendable, praiseworthy, or
creditable. When we believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we are credited
with Christ’s righteousness, so in that sense we are made worthy because of
what Jesus Christ did for us. And yet this is speaking to followers of Christ,
and Paul’s prayer is that they may be counted worthy of God’s calling them to
faith in Christ.
In this context, I believe this has everything to do with
growing in faith and love, and persevering in faith in spite of strong
opposition, persecution and severe trial. It has everything to do with our
faith being proved genuine. This is not works-based salvation or trying to gain
brownie points with God through our good works. This is faith in action,
proving itself to be genuine faith in spite of severe trial, which is
commendable, not so much so for the believer, but with all thanks and praise going
to God for the work he has done in the believer’s heart and life.
Yet, what Paul is saying here is that our lives should be a
reflection of our calling to holiness and godliness. We should not have stagnant
faith. We should not live like faith is something we do once and then we live
our lives and then one day we go to heaven. We should be continually growing in
faith, love and perseverance, showing our faith to be the real deal. Our daily
lives, decisions we make, our attitude and behaviors should all reflect God’s
holy and righteous character living within us. We will not do this perfectly,
because we will never be perfect until Jesus takes us home. Yet we should daily
be putting our past sins behind us and we should be pressing ahead in taking
hold (appropriating to our lives) that for which Jesus Christ took hold of us,
i.e. to make us Christ-like.
Every Good Purpose
God wants to fulfill every good purpose of ours and every
act prompted by our faith that is aligned with him and with his will and
purpose for our lives. How do I know this? – Context! If we are counted worthy
of God’s calling, then that means we have already aligned ourselves with God’s
word and with his will and his purposes for our lives. We have yielded to the
cross of Christ in our daily lives, we have surrendered our wills to him, we
are listening to his voice, and we are following him wherever he leads us.
Thus, “our good purpose” is actually “his good purpose” for which we have taken
ownership, have valued it, and have appropriated it to our lives. Essentially,
he wants to fulfill his good purposes in and through our lives as we make them
our own and we allow him to do his work in and through us.
Also, he included in this “every act prompted by your faith.”
Faith involves believing God to be who he says he is and that he will do what
he says he will do, and then acting upon that belief by obeying what he tells
us to do. So, he is both the initiator of the “good purpose”, as well as he is
the initiator of the “act prompted by faith.” God has a mission or a purpose
for each and every one of us. We all share in a common purpose of becoming holy
and Christ-like, forsaking sin and the pattern of this world, and being
transformed in heart and mind, yet he also has very individual and specific
purposes for each one of our lives that is unique only to us. And, these are
what he wants to fulfill in and through us.
So, in order for him to fulfill his purposes in our lives,
we must know what his purposes are, and we must make them our own through
obedience and through surrender of our lives to his will. Have you surrendered
your heart to him? Have you taken ownership of his good will and purposes for
your life? In all honesty, do you believe you would be counted worthy
(commendable) of the calling you have received from God to live and walk in his
holiness? In other words, if put to the test, would your faith be shown to be
genuine faith?
If you have not given him your all to God/Jesus Christ,
hook, line and sinker, I pray you will today, while you still have today, for
the night is falling, i.e. time is running out. None of us knows if he has
tomorrow. We must live every day as though it may be our last day on this earth.
For Our Nation /
An Original Work / September 11, 2012
Bombs are bursting.
Night is falling.
Jesus Christ is gently
calling
You to follow Him in
all ways.
Trust Him with your
life today.
Make Him your Lord and
your Savior.
Turn from your sin.
Follow Jesus.
He will forgive you of
your sin;
Cleanse your heart,
made new within.
Men betraying: Our
trust fraying.
On our knees to God
we’re praying,
Seeking God to give us
answers
That are only found in
Him.
God is sovereign over
all things.
Nothing from His mind
escaping.
He has all things
under His command,
And will work all for
good.
Men deceiving: we’re
believing
In our Lord, and
interceding
For our nation and its
people
To obey their God
today.
He is our hope for our
future.
For our wounds He
offers suture.
He is all we need for
this life.
Trust Him with your
life today.
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