Pain

Having a daughter with paralysis, I understand the blessing of pain. Without the ability to feel pain, both physical and emotional, we would run headlong into destructive situations. The pain of guilt is a classic example. We usually feel that something is wrong, because something is wrong. We often feel bad, because we have been. When our hearts feel those uncomfortable pangs, as with our feet or knees, it is important to stop and check things out. In our fallen world pain serves as a warning sign, and more often as a stop sign. The good news is, as with our coming resurrection, there is a solution for our pain. God is willing to grant repentance, forgiveness and restoration.  And that right now. I know we don’t like pain, but until our lives are glorified, we need the warning signal that pain brings. Perhaps we should thank God, that for the time being we are afforded the blessing of pain.

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The End

Part of the reason God gave us divine revelation about the next life is to motivate us in this one. Some have said Christians can be “so heavenly minded, they are no earthly good.” But as C.S. Lewis rightly pointed out, Christians are no earthly good until they are heavenly minded. Until we digest what God says about the end of this world and the beginning of the next, we will never truly embrace Christ’s values or live a Christ-like life. The New Testament repeatedly drives this point home, frequently exhorting us to “set our hearts on things above” (Col.3:1-2). Jesus calls us to punctuate our prayers with an ardent request for God’s “kingdom to come” (Mt.6:10). Because our decisions, our discussion and our disposition need that eternal perspective, may God empower us today to “fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2Cor.4:18).

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Fight

If you knew that you had to engage in a street fight with someone today, you’d prepare. Not wanting to fight wouldn’t help if the fight were inevitable. Ignoring the fight would only ensure your loss. The Bible says that you are in a daily battle for the control of your words. Scripture warns that your “tongue is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell” (Jms.3:6). James then goes on to say that it needs to be tamed, arrested and controlled. Each of us will battle today with that unruly, disruptive and powerful force. We must win this battle. We must prepare every day. We must start each day with a call for God’s help. We must seek the power of God’s Spirit to endow us with self-control (Gal.5:22-23). We must be conscious of this daily battle before it begins. May God give us the vigilance, the wisdom and the strength to mitigate the damage and marshal this powerful foe into submission. May we, with God’s help, successfully “offer the parts of our bodies to God as instruments of righteousness” (Ro.6:13) no matter how difficult the fight might be.

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All In

Life really does necessitate that we decide who or what we are going to serve. The words of Joshua are perpetually relevant as he turned to the people and said, “choose for yourselves this day who you will serve… but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (Josh.24:15). Without a resolute decision in this regard we will be driven and tossed by every whim, trend or pressure that comes our way. Our heart will be plagued with an emotional schizophrenia until we settle this question regarding our purpose and direction. We must come face to face with the timeless words of Elijah who asks, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him, but if Baal is God, follow him” (1Kgs.18:21). We cannot sanely drift through life without a decision. It behooves us to choose our “master”; Jesus said, two will not work. Lukewarm, he warned, is not a reasonable option. James warns that a “double-minded man” is “unstable in all he does” (Jms.1:8). So chose. Will the Triune God be your Master or something else?

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Help Me

As you read through the Psalms you will see the repeated, simple and effective prayer of a righteous man. It is a prayer I hope you pray regularly. It is a prayer that reveals your heart of dependence on God for your life, your protection and your future. I mentioned that this prayer is simple. Actually it is extremely simple – two words in our English Bibles. The prayer:  “Help me!” (Ps.38:22; 40:13; 59:4; 109:26; et al.) The inspired Psalms led God’s people to pray this simple prayer regularly in their songs of worship. It should be our song hour by hour. Few things are more worshipful than declaring our continual dependence on God as our Sustainer, Protector and Guide. To be consciously reliant on our Creator for all things is simply a truthful awareness of reality. Scripture repeatedly reminds us that we are finite, dependent and needy. For in reality, God “gives all men life and breath and everything else” (Ac.17:25). May God help us to always be mindful of this, calling frequently on God to grant us his wisdom and help.

Smallness

While the world works desperately to bolster our sense of personal significance and individual importance, biblical truth drives us in the opposite direction. A hallmark of biblical humility is the realization that we are infinitesimally small, juxtaposed with a growing appreciation for the magnitude of God’s love to stoop to care for creatures like us. Our need is not for an amplified “self-esteem” (that has been the source of immeasurable trouble in the cosmos since the inflated self-perception of a certain angelic being – Isaiah 14:13-14).  Instead, the real challenge is to get ourselves in perspective as we seek to know the transcendent and majestic God who made us and chose to redeem us.  David sang: “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” (Ps.8:3-4). When we are able to see our fleeting lives against the backdrop of our immutable and eternal God, our hearts find their dependant and appropriate place in God’s world – a prerequisite for fruitful living.  Again David typifies the godly perspective when he wrote, “He is my loving God and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer… O Lord, what is man that you care for him, the son of man that you think of him?  Man is like a breath; his days are like a fleeting shadow” (Psalm 144:2-3). May we learn to esteem our great God as we recognize our smallness.

Passing It On

The Bible has much to say about our responsibility to pass on our spiritual gains to those who will be here when we are gone. This is more than a parent’s responsibility to teach their kids the Bible. It is much broader and much deeper than simply communicating biblical data to children. In Scripture, the call usually comes from those who never had kids. It is, more fully, an urgent exhortation that has younger non-familial adults in view. By “spiritual gains” I mean the kind of sage counsel and practical insight that comes from successfully implementing and applying the truths of God’s word. If the goal was simply “passing on truth,” we could just hand out Bibles, but the objective of spiritual reproduction is to functionally train and instruct those younger in Christ to know how to do what God has said. Paul shows the breath of this task when he wrote, “Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me – put it into practice” (Phil.4:9). To his spiritual protégé Paul writes, “You know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions and sufferings… continue in what you have learned” (2Tim.3:10, 14). It won’t happen without being intentional. You and I must purpose to “pass on” our spiritual gains. At whatever stage we may be in the Christian life, we must meet with younger Christians, talk with younger Christians and share our insight with younger Christians. We must purpose to train others up in truth who will advance the cause of Christ for years after we have finished our work and gone on to be with the Lord.