Temper Or Transformation

Tests of character are always unannounced. 

They arrive in full gear, ready to make a sweep of the house. Ready or not, these tests come. And it is here, in these random surprise provocations, where we prove our spiritual mettle. Last night, my spiritual mettle was tested when my teen shared with me that a fellow student spread a rumor that was untrue in an attempt to destroy a precious group fellowship. Lies were spoken and lies were believed, and “Momma-bear” wanted to immediately rectify. 

I’ll be blunt:  I was both furious and disgusted. Most of the evening, I consciously and willfully endeavored to maintain my repose. While at the same time, I mourned how un-Christlike both my reaction and thoughts were. I thought to myself, “O Lord, I still have so much further to go to be more like You!” But by the time I went to bed, I prayed for the child who spread the rumor, and the other two children who started it. And I prayed good things for them. 

This morning, when I opened my devotional, it began with the question, “Did you ever feel almost hopeless because it seemed so impossible that you would ever be in the least like your Lord?” The Lord, in His magnificent grace, saw fit to remind me this morning that His transformation of me into His image is both steady and faithful. “It is not the work of a moment [but] steadily as the growth of a plant goes on from hour to hour, for the Lord says it will.”

O Lord, may we fully embrace Your promise that You will perfect that which concerns us. May we remember that even though our transformation is gradual, it is no less sure. 

(Phil 1:4,6) In every prayer for all of you, I always pray with joy…being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

(2 Cor 3:18) And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into His image with intensifying glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

(Psalm 138:7,8) If I walk in the midst of trouble, You preserve me from the anger of my foes; You extend Your hand, and Your right hand saves me. The LORD will perfect that which concerns me; Your mercy, O LORD, endures forever; Do not forsake the works of Your hands.

Passivity Or Pursuit

Day after day, when the Israelites wandered the desert, the manna came. 

Day after day, the Lord was faithful to supernaturally rain down manna from heaven, but His children still had to leave their tent to gather it and make something of it. Sometimes when my teenagers get hungry, they complain, “Mom, there isn’t any food in the house, there’s only ingredients.”

I think many of us tend to have that same attitude toward God. We want Him to rain down fully formed loaves, but He gives us ingredients instead. Indeed, He supplies all our need, but there is still effort required on our part to gather what He provides and make something of it. Abiding in Christ is not accomplished in passivity, but by pursuit. 

During the week, when I get home from work, I’m exhausted. I don’t feel like gathering spiritual ingredients and making anything of them, I just want a fully-formed loaf. I want the bread of idleness to feed my tired mind and flesh. In moments like that, the Lord reminds me that conquering the “giants of the land” includes conquering my desire to feed my flesh with idleness, instead of the words and presence of Christ. In moments like that, the Lord reminds me that it is my pursuit of relationship with Him in which I find my rest. 

O Lord, help us remember that our vigor to persevere and conquer comes from abiding in You. We praise You for being our fountain that never runs dry. 

(John 15:4) Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.

(John 6:32-35) Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” “Sir,” they said, “give us this bread at all times.” Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

(Ps 62:1,2,5) In God alone my soul finds rest; my salvation comes from Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation. He is my fortress; I will never be shaken…Rest in God alone, O my soul, for my hope comes from Him.

Loving Extravagantly

I’m currently reading a stack of novels about the lives of different missionaries. 

For the nonfiction selections in all my English classes, I use novels about the lives of missionaries. Since I was asked to teach sophomore English next year, I now have to find a non-fiction selection for the class. As I read through these novels about the lives of people who poured themselves out for Christ, I’m seeing many commonalities that they shared.

In each book I’ve read thus far, I see the Lord reaching out through these individuals into the filth of the world, placing no conditions on the love they offer. I see people giving habitual drunks a place to sleep for the night and giving prostitutes money for bread with no guarantee that they will use that money for food instead of pleasure. I see servants of God doing things that seem unwise, unconventional, and reckless. And as I read about their actions of extravagant love that seem akin to wine poured out on the ground and bread thrown to the wind, I hear Judas in my own heart cry out, “The perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor!” (Matt 26:9)

But in all of what may seem to me as impractical, unreasonable, and vain, I also see God working through these servants’ lives to bring grace, redemption, and deliverance in ways that we couldn’t dare dream. I see my own lack of trust in the Lord to do things His unconditional way — a way which often finds itself at odds with our practical way. And I see why Jesus said that at the time of the end, when “lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.” (Matt 24:12)

O Lord, teach us how to minister Your way— to trust “unconditional”, to embrace “impractical”, to love extravagantly regardless of return— to be lives poured out onto the ground. 

(John 12:24) Truly, truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a seed; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

(2 Tim 4:5-7) But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

(Jer 31:3) The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.”

(John 3:16,17) For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.

(John 13:34,35) A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.

Exposing What’s Buried

The sin of Achan was buried. 

When God led the Israelites to conquer the land of Canaan, their first battle— the battle of Jericho— was a tremendous success. The Israelites were wholly obedient to the Lord and the battle was won by faith. The Lord forbade the Israelites to take for themselves any spoils from their battle. Everything was to be burned, except for the precious metals which were to be deposited into the Lord’s treasury. 

After Jericho, came the battle of Ai , in which the Israelites suffered an abysmal failure. What they didn’t know, was that an Israelite named Achan took spoils from Jericho for himself. He took gold, silver, and an intricately woven Babylonian garment called a “mantle,” and buried them in his tent. In Middle Eastern culture, an intricately woven robe or mantle was a symbol of authority, position, and power. God told the Israelites not to take any of the spoils from the land they conquered “so that you do not covet them.”  Thus, we see by what Achan took, he coveted authority, power, and wealth. And it was deeply buried in his tent. 

Achan did a good job hiding these things from his fellow Israelites, and they would have been none-the-wiser that all of it was buried in his tent, unless the Lord Himself exposed it. The Israelites would have carried on in frustration at their continual failure to overcome the giants of the land, unless the Lord exposed what was deeply buried in their encampment. 

O Lord, cleanse Your encampment of the buried things. Open the eyes of the blind and pass our hearts through Your cleansing fire. 

(Josh 7:19-21) Then Joshua said to Achan, “My son, give glory to the LORD, the God of Israel, and honor him. Tell me what you have done; do not hide it from me.” “It is true,” Achan replied, “I have sinned against the LORD, the God of Israel. This is what I did: When I saw among the spoils a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”

(1 John 1:8,9) If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

(Luke 8:17,18) For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. Pay attention, therefore, to how you listen. Whoever has will be given more, but whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken away from him.

Sharing the Struggle

The Lord will meet us where we are, then bring us to where He wants us to be. 

When you read through the psalms, you cannot help but understand that whether you see David as faithful or flawed, he was utterly transparent. David hid nothing from God, and by writing down his innermost thoughts, struggles, and questions as psalms, he gave all of humanity an inside look at “becoming.”

Seeing other people’s struggles throughout the biblical account has often ministered to me much more than seeing their victories. Indeed, seeing the victories gives me great encouragement and much hope, but it’s seeing the struggles that truly ministers to me, because it’s the struggles to which I can truly relate. I need to know that Jesus wept, that Thomas doubted, that Peter stumbled, and that David hurt. It is in those places of struggle that humanity can deeply relate, so it is there— in the vulnerability and intimacy of human struggle— that Christ meets us and draws us upward into a new experience of victory. 

God made sure David’s psalms would be a part of the Bible, because we need to see this inner battle. We need to see and identify with the struggle. Those struggling out on the battlefield, need to hear from others out on the battlefield. “Like” only understands “like,” and we mustn’t get frustrated when we try to share our certain experiences with others who cannot yet understand them or relate to them. David’s life ministers to me because I can relate to him— and because seeing his struggles meets me where I am, rather than where others may want me to be. 

O Lord, teach us to be gracious and patient with those who are “becoming.” Thank You for meeting us where we are, and taking our hand to lead us into the glorious victory of where You want us to be. 

(1 John 3:2,3) Beloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when Christ appears, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as Christ is pure.

(Phil 3:13,14) Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

(1 Pet 4:13) But rejoice that you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed at the revelation of His glory.

(Rom 8:17) And if we are children, then we are heirs: heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ--if indeed we suffer with Him, so that we may also be glorified with Him.

(Phil 3:10,11) I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

(2 Cor 3:18) But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

The Caterpillar Sings

There are moments of beauty 

But they are fleeting 

And they just leave me hungry for more

I feel like I’m dying

I wonder, “Does a caterpillar hurt inside its chrysalis? Does it hurt to become a butterfly?” 

Yes, it hurts

I wonder, “Does the caterpillar fear inside its chrysalis? Does it fear becoming something else entirely different and unknown to what it was before?”

Yes, it fears

I wonder, “Does the caterpillar dread inside its chrysalis? Does it dread the jeers of those who will tell it, ‘You are supposed to be a caterpillar, not a butterfly’ “

Those who will say, “The chrysalis is your home, not the wind”

Yes, it dreads

Yet I wonder, “Does the caterpillar praise inside its chrysalis? Does it rejoice that it is fearfully and wonderfully made?”

Made to ride the wind and drink from beauty

Not made to stay in the hurt, dread, and fear of darkness 

Yes, it praises

But the wind does not come before the darkness

And beauty can only be comprehended 

By comparison to that which is not

So I wonder, “Does the caterpillar sing inside its chrysalis? Does it have a butterfly song?”

Does it sing, “The sun must set and the dark night come, before we rise on the wings of the dawn!”

Yes, the caterpillar sings

(Ps 139:7-10) Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle by the farthest sea, even there Your hand will guide me; Your right hand will hold me fast.

(Acts 14:21,22) They preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples and encouraging them to continue in the faith. “We must endure many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said.

(Ps 84:2-4) My soul longs, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she places her young near Your altars, O LORD of Hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you.

Distracted In A Ditch

“A centipede was happy till

One day, a toad in fun

Said, “Pray, which leg goes after which?”

Which strained his mind to such a pitch

He lay distracted in a ditch

Considering how to run”

This was a poem from my devotional for today. Before I opened my devotional, I tried to pray but couldn’t. The words just wouldn’t flow. Frustrated, I asked the Spirit to pray instead. I asked the Lord to give me the right words so I could pray the right prayers, because I didn’t know how. I wanted to get everything right. I wanted to say all the right things, in all the right ways, at the right time. Then I opened my devotional, and here lay a poem about overthinking. 

Sometimes the Lord has to remind me to just “be” in Him. Sometimes the greatest stretches of my faith are moments when I have to trust that my steps are truly ordered by the Lord, even when my mind is muddled and my feet are fumbling. Oswald Chambers said, “The ministry of Christ is characterized by an abiding glory of which the servant is totally unaware,” and this has always been a great comfort to me on days when I feel oblivious. I pray it will be a great comfort to you, too. 

O Lord, may we truly abide in You by faith. May we trust that our days and moments belong wholly to You, and that our call is not to over-consider each moment, but to allow each moment to dwell within You. 

(Ex 34:29) And when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, he was unaware that his face had become radiant from speaking with the LORD.

(Eph 2:10) For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

(Ps 37:23,24) The steps of a man are established by the LORD, And He delights in his way. Though he falls, he will not be overwhelmed, for the LORD is holding his hand.

Conquering The “Ites”

God will not take it away, you must conquer it. 

Last week, I confessed some things to a trusted brother in Christ. Difficult things. Deep things. The kind of things that only God can reach, because they’ve been a part of you for so long. When I confessed to my brother in Christ, I told him that I just wanted God to take it away. And this brother said exactly what I needed to hear, the exact moment I needed to hear it:  “God will not take it away, because He wants you to conquer it.” 

When God brought the Israelites into the Promised Land, He didn’t “take away” the Canaanites, Hittites, Jebusites, and all the other “ites.” He told Israel that He would be with them as they conquered them. God had already delivered the Israelites from bondage to Egypt and carried them to the land they were promised, but it was up to them to take possession of it. They had to keep moving forward and keep pushing on, until the whole land was conquered. It was an outer, physical example of an inner, spiritual reality. 

God didn’t take away the “giants of the land” for the Israelites, and He’s not gonna take them away for us either. He’s going to teach us how to live in faith and conquer, rather than live in fear and cower. Maybe someone needs to hear that today. Maybe someone needs to know that you can love Jesus with all your heart and cling to Him for all you’re worth, and still have things within you that He needs to overcome. And beloved, He surely will. 

O Lord, help us to conquer every Canaanite, Jebusite, Hittite, and every other “ite” within us. O Lord, lead us into battle against the giants of the land, for we shall surely overcome them. 

(Num 13:25-30) When they returned from spying out the land, at the end of forty days… they told [Moses]: “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey… But the people who dwell there are powerful.. the Hittites, Jebusites, and .. Canaanites..” Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we will certainly overcome it.”

(Rev 2:7,11,17; 3:5,12,21) To the one who overcomes, I will grant the right to eat from the tree of life in the Paradise of God.. The one who overcomes will not be harmed by the second death.. To the one who overcomes, I will give the hidden manna.. also a new name.. he who overcomes will be dressed in white. And I.. will confess his name before My Father and His angels.. The one who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of My God.. To the one who overcomes, I will grant the right to sit with Me on My throne, just as I overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.

(Rom 8:37-39) No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Held By Nails

 

We got our 15 year-old a chicken coop for her birthday. 

I don’t know many 15 year-olds who would be ecstatic about getting a chicken coop for their birthday, but a brand-new-chicken-coop-of-her-very-own is definitely on my daughter’s list of “best birthday gifts ever.” That afternoon, as we put it together piece-by-piece, I kept thinking about the church. 

Before we started to assemble it, my husband and I spent two days just making the foundation.   Most people wouldn’t spend that much time on a foundation. Most people would want to start building right away. But no matter how solid and well-designed a building is, it’s useless if it’s not built on some type of foundation to give it stability. Then, once we began to assemble it, we had to be very careful to follow the directions step-by-step. If we tried to hurry by skipping steps, then none of the other parts would have fit together correctly.

Each part had a specific purpose. There were big parts and little parts. Parts that braced, and parts that shielded. Parts that covered, and parts that held together. Parts you could see through, and parts that you couldn’t. Parts that looked the same, and parts that didn’t. Parts that were easily breakable, and parts that weren’t. But one of the things that stuck out to me the most, was that no matter what size the part was or what it looked like, they were all held together by the nails.

O brothers and sisters, let us not focus on our different looks and functions, but let us focus on the nails of our Lord that connect us and hold us together. 

(Acts 2:23,24) He was delivered up by God’s set plan and foreknowledge, and you, by the hands of the lawless, put Him to death by nailing Him to the cross. But God raised Him from the dead, freeing Him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on Him.

(Col 1:17,18) He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy.

(Rom 12:4,5) Just as each of us has one body with many members, and not all members have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.

(1 Cor 12:17,18) If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact, God has arranged the members of the body, every one of them, according to His design.

(Eph 4:15,16) Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Christ Himself, who is the head. From Him the whole body, fitted and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love through the work of each individual part.

The Glory Of Dirt-Working

I planted a pumpkin patch for no particular reason. 

I have an area near my garden that I can’t till because it’s the overflow from our water lines that come out from the house, so I just poked some pumpkin seeds into the ground over there to see if they would grow. 

As I poked seeds into the ground that afternoon, I thought about the spiritual implications of what I was doing. I was sowing seed, but it was in shallow, unworked soil. The seeds might sprout and grow for a little while, but once they reach more than a couple inches in depth, their growth will be stunted once they hit the layer of clay underneath. 

The truth is, I want a fruitful garden in unworked dirt, but that’s an unrealistic expectation. I’ve experienced this same unrealistic expectation in the church. I’ve noticed that everyone seems to want fruit, but no one seems to want to work the soil. There’s no shortage of people willing to plant seeds and harvest fruit. Even watering gives some immediate gratification, because you can see the water being absorbed by the thirsty ground. But there’s no glory in dirt working. There’s no immediate, measurable results when you’re on your knees getting your hands dirty.

Come to think of it, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that working dirt and praying look an awful lot alike. 

(Matt 13:3-6) And He told them many things in parables, saying, “A farmer went out to sow his seed… Some fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.”

(James 4:2,3) …You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask. And when you do ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives…

(2 Cor 10:3,4) For though we live in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh. The weapons of our warfare are not the weapons of the world. Instead, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

Resurrecting The Rotten

The other day, I made a post about praying over some duck and turkey eggs I was incubating. 

I prayed that the ducks would not die in their shell because they didn’t have the strength to make it out. I prayed that my turkey eggs were by some miracle fertile, despite the fact that the females who laid them continually avoided the male who could make them fertile. When I prayed those prayers, the Spirit shared with me that there was a spiritual lesson to be learned here. 

Muscovy duck eggs are notoriously difficult to incubate, for various reasons I won’t get into, except to say that 100% hatch rates are typically not very common— I’ve certainly never had one. But every single duck egg hatched that was in those incubators I prayed over the other day. Which is remarkable. But what’s really remarkable, is that one of those eggs was rotten when I candled it, and as I was about to throw it away, my husband said to leave it in the incubator just in case. I argued with him, and showed him the blood and rot that was inside. I shook the egg and showed him there was no responsive movement. But I listened to him and did what he said. 

The lesson the Lord shared with me, was that at its beginning, that egg was fertilized and healthy and full of life. But something happened at some point in its development that began to rob it of life. Death began to take over and rot what was inside. But then someone prayed. And prayer brought the life of Christ into the situation— the very life that has defeated death. And even though that egg was rotten, the life of Christ resurrected the initial fertilization and brought that egg to its intended fullness. 

Every duck egg hatched, but none of the turkey eggs hatched because none of them were fertile. The lesson here, was that none of those turkey eggs ever developed because they never entered the presence of the one who could fertilize them. So, no amount of me praying was ever going to restore life to something that never had life in it in the first place. Contact with the only One Who has life must be made for any life to begin. But just one, heartfelt prayer will restore life, even to a rotten egg. 

Oh, and one more thing….guess how many ducks hatched? Twelve…

(John 1:3,4) Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

(John 11:25-27) Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies, and whoever lives by believing in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

(2 Tim 1:10,11) And now He has revealed this grace through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has abolished death and illuminated the way to life and immortality through the gospel, to which I was appointed a herald, and an apostle, and a teacher.

Surrendering In Secret

Satan was defeated in Gethsemane. 

Many Christians understand Satan’s defeat as happening when Jesus died on the cross. But the truth is, that Satan was already defeated before a nail ever pierced my Lord’s blessed hand. Oswald Chambers says, “Our battles are first won or lost in the secret places of our will in God’s presence, never in full view of the world.” The cross was the physical carrying-out of what had already taken place between Christ and the Father the night before in Gethsemane. 

That night, Jesus didn’t wrestle the dragon of Satan. He wrestled the dragon of “self.” He faced the full-force of temptation to acquiesce to His own will. I don’t know the full extent of what Christ experienced that night, but I do know that it was the sinful desire of human autonomy that He overcame. Chambers says, “I must first get the issue settled between God and myself in the secret places of my soul…Then I can go ahead, knowing with certainty that the battle is won.”

The night of Gethsemane, Jesus asked the Father three times to consider His own will: “Let this cup pass from Me.”  Each time He asked, He also acknowledged that the Father’s will looked different from His own: “Yet not as I will, but as You will.” There is a great struggle here that often goes overlooked. A struggle Jesus warns His own disciples about: “Watch and pray so that you will not enter into temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” That night, Jesus Himself experienced a willing spirit struggling under the weight of fleshly weakness. But the next day, His victory was shown on the cross in full view of the world. 

O Lord, may we allow Your Spirit within us to overcome all temptations of the flesh, especially the temptation to do as we will, rather than what You will. 

(Gal 5:24,25) Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us walk in step with the Spirit.

(Rom 6:6) We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.

(Col 2:13-15 NLT) You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.

A Time For Silence

“But Jesus gave no answer, not even to a single charge…” (Matt 27:14)

There is a saying: “You do not have to attend every argument you are invited to.” If there is one thing I have learned about my humanity, it is that my flesh much prefers arguing, more so than silently allowing someone to be wrong. No doubt, we must not be silent in proclaiming the glories of the Lord or in sharing the spiritual morsels we are given by Him. But at some point in our spiritual maturity, we will have to learn how to allow God to expose someone’s heart…and remain silent as He works. 

Often times, God will expose someone’s heart through their argument. Spiritual blindness and deafness must be exposed before they can be dealt with. And once exposed, Jesus only ministered to those who realized they were blind and deaf. For those who accepted the truth of the state of their own heart, the Lord poured out Himself and His wisdom to them from an overflowing cup. For those who didn’t, He said, “Disregard them! They are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”

There is a time to speak and a time to be silent, and discernment between the two must be given by the Lord. There are times I’ve had to ask myself if I trusted the Lord enough to allow someone to be wrong? It may seem like a silly question, but it boils down to whether we truly trust in God’s sovereignty? Do we trust God enough to watch individuals, nations, cultures, and systems self-destruct, because we understand that God is the one shaking them and exposing them…

…and we need only to remain silent while He works. 

(Eccl 3:1,7) To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven: …A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silent, and a time to speak;

 

(Prov 17:27,28) The one who has knowledge uses words with restraint, and whoever has understanding is even-tempered. Even a fool is considered wise if he keeps silent, and discerning when he holds his tongue.

(Matt 26:62,63) Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, “Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?” But Jesus remained silent.

(Heb 12:26,27) At that time His voice shook the earth, but now He has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth, but heaven as well.”The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.

Same As The Shirt

“Momma, am I brave and kind?”

I pulled this shirt out for my daughter to wear the other afternoon. When she saw “Brave and Kind” printed on the front, she hesitated before putting it on. She looked up at me while holding it in her hand, and asked if she reflected the qualities she was about to advertise on her shirt.  

After I assured my daughter that she was indeed brave and kind and that it was safe for her to put on a shirt that said so, I began to think of this in a spiritual context. I began to contemplate our tendency to wear “shirts” that say we belong to Christ, but live as if we have no concern about living up to what that should actually look like. 

My baby didn’t want to wear that shirt if it wasn’t true. She didn’t want to walk around with something that said she was brave and kind, if she did not live up to those things. It meant something to her to wear a shirt that communicated she was a person of a certain integrity. It meant something to her to be what her shirt said she was. 

O Lord, may it mean something to us too. 

(Rom 13:13,14) Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in quarreling and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.

(1 Pet 4:3) For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry.

(Luke 11:39,40) “Now then,” said the Lord, “you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not the One who made the outside make the inside as well?”