Feelings or Faith

Things have been burdensome lately. One of the things that I have struggled with in my walk with the Lord has to do with feelings and faith. So often our culture focuses on how we feel about something. We use our feelings as the deciding factor on so many things from politics to our personal faith in God. Our filter on life cannot be based on how we feel because our emotions portray a distortion of what the truth is. This I know from first hand experience but also because I have observed it destroy the lives of many. What we do when we act and react to life with feelings does not just affect us, it affects those we are around. As a believer this is why we are commanded to love each other. We cannot in our own strength respond in faith, hope, and love which is why we need the Holy Spirit (Rom. 12:1-3).

I have been reading in Romans 12 and 2 John today and what they both have been speaking to is the life of a Christian and what I have noticed is how the consistent appeal is not to feelings but to faith...but faith not as we so often think but faith that has action. Consider what Paul is telling those in Romans 12:1, "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." Does he take them first to how they feel? No, he takes them to the character of God, "the mercies of God". Then he takes them to how to respond to this truth...sacrifice as worship.

In 1 John 5:1-3, we find John going to belief in Jesus and love of God the Father as an evidence of being a child of God. John continues in describing our knowledge of God by actions of love, "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome." He also gives us the promise that God's commands are not burdensome. Isn't this the opposite of what we think? This plays itself out in our lives in so many ways. How often do we despair because things aren't going the way we feel that they should? Don't we find ourselves complaining and whining about our circumstances? I know that I do and I have to repent of that sin in my life. But the glorious joy we can have is that Jesus paid for those sins and even more powerful that he overcame them when he rose from the dead! Thank the Lord for his overwhelming grace and his Spirit that we can call to when we need wisdom and strength (when I am weak, he is strong).
I've been going through what seems like a relentless cycle of the need to feel independent...that I can do things in my own strength and in my own understanding. That is a recipe for disaster (lean not on your own understanding). When I operate on my own I am alienating the body of Christ and even the Holy Spirit. God has given us the Church as a way to encourage and strengthen us. Many see the Church in an unhealthy way, and I have been there but by God's grace and the Spirit's work, I am seeing the beauty of the brokenness in the body of Christ. When we are commanded to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, we aren't left with a vague picture of what that looks like, we are left with a clear picture. Listen to Paul's words:
"Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

May the Lord continue to grow in us a faith that is sure and founded upon His Word. May we be obedient to what he commands and not fall prey to our feelings. When we do fall, may we repent. Most of all, let us glorify God in our love for him and our love for others.

Holiness and Redemption: God’s Choice, Man’s Response

Today God has been teaching me about the holiness and redemption of God, in a way that I have never understood before.

In redemption we see God sending Jesus to save us “from” our sin, but we must remember he saved us “unto” Himself.  Meaning, it wasn’t just a “get out of hell” free card, but more of a “hiring” into the pursuit of holiness that God is, has, and desires for us to be completed in.

It’s important to understand that as Jesus saved us from hell, he redeemed us back towards heaven.  So, in this we accept grace, unmerited favor and choice, that God so loved us that He chose us, FOR the purpose of being made perfect and whole before him on that day when Jesus returns.

Here we have truth: that God in his sovereign will and love, chose and redeemed us.  The key is our response and engagement in this truth.  If we don’t recognize, acknowledge, and respond to this truth, the truth has no power in our lives.  Now, that doesn’t make the truth less powerful, it just personally has no affect on the person.

Andrew Murray says it this way in his book “The Path to Holiness” page 44 “God has made us His own, and allows us to say that we are His, but He waits for us to yield to him and enlarged entrance into the secret place of our inner being so that He can fill us with His fullness.  Holiness is not something we bring to God or do for Him.  Holiness is what there is of God in us.  God made us His own in redemption that He might make himself our own in sanctification.  Our work in becoming holy is the bringing our whole life, every part of it, into subjection to the rule of our holy God, putting every member and every power upon His alter.”

He later goes into talking about truth and recognizing it subjectively.  “What God sanctifies is holy with a divine and perfect holiness as His gift.  Man has to sanctify himself by acknowledging this and then maintaining and carrying out that holiness in relation to all his life before God and man.  God sanctified the Sabbath day.  Man has to sanctify it by keeping it holy.  God sanctified the firstborn of His own; Israel had sanctify them by giving them over to God.  God is holy. We are to sanctify Him by acknowledging and adorning and honoring that holiness.  God has sanctified His great name; His name is Holy.  We sanctify or hallow that name as we fear and trust and use it as the revelation of His Holiness”

So, here we read words of man’s response to God’s holiness: “Yield to him”, “the secret places of our inner being”, “bringing our whole life, every part of it, INTO SUBJECTION to the rule of our holy God; putting every member upon his alter”, “acknowledging this”, “maintaining”, “carrying out that holiness IN RELATION to all his life before God and man.” "Man has to sanctify it by keeping it holy." and so on...

It is only with the help from the Holy Spirit that we can “respond” and fully live into holiness.  As much as it is our own pursuits and responsibilities, the Holy Spirit gives us the wisdom, knowledge, discipline and will to surrender our lives before the holiness of God.  Recognizing and adoring Gods full holiness is key to responding.

If we really don’t believe in faith God in His full truth and holiness, nothing else really holds power in our lives.

Let us pray that we will pursue with joy, obedience and discipline the Holy Spirit as it teaches us the pure and true Holiness of God.  In this, let us respond to our redemption in Jesus, with a subjective right view of God and his desire to acknowledge him as Holy One.  In our responsibility and putting off of all areas of our lives to His control, we become sanctified before Him, which is what our whole redemption story is all about, and what God meant for His people in the redemption of them to Himself through His son Jesus!

May our prayers be of “humble adoration….hungry for wisdom and truth, praying for complete surrender of all areas of our life.  To desire to be refined in our inner souls, made whole and prepared as the bride awaits the groom.  A mere desire to be righteous and holy, redeemed and new.  Amen.”