Operating With Heaven In Mind

The great object of our life is to be brought into a perfect union with Christ and that does not happen along a straight line.  It comes in fits and bursts as we allow God's Word to conform us to God Himself. The universal law is that we are stubborn brutes and we fight tooth and nail to maintain our independence of God.  It is painful to let Him have a reaction, an attitude or a desire.  All of our stretch is corrupted by sin and because it has such hold of us, it is like separating our blood and flesh...it comes at great cost.  We think we are so very good and ready to live holy lives and yet let God take just one small object of love from us and we are cracking with frustration and confusion.  "How can God love me if He ruined that plan?"  "How can He be here if He is not reasonable in this?"  We do not recognize the sin strangling our faith and love but can see it plainly in others.  The Cross of Christ redeems our totality and God will not cease in re-working us until it is just as finished as Calvary is finished.  Our sin corrupted interests and desires and hopes must be crucified as well if we are to have pure and undimmed fellowship with God and one another.  It was painful for Paul and Peter and John and Abraham and all the rest of the "heroes of the faith" to be crucified with Christ.  Why would we think it should be less so for us.  We read the account of Abraham taking his boy up to Mt. Moriah as if it is some sort of fairy tale.  Was it not psychologically as devastating for Abraham and then for Isaac and for Sarah as our own "misfortunes" are?  Did not Sarah weep with bitter sorrow at the sight of Abraham leaving with Isaac?  Should we think sin is less treacherous for us than it was for Abraham and Sarah?  Do we really believe that God must be less the surgeon with us than He was with His finest saints?  God's scalpel comes without warning but the sin that makes us limp believers will be cut out of us and the health of Heaven will make us as lively as the greatest Christians the world has ever seen!

Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered … Hebrews 5: 8 NIV

The Effect of the Follow

When David danced wildly before the Lord as the Ark was being brought into Jerusalem, he offended his wife Michal.  In hindsight, most of us would look upon Michal as petty and childish but she had plenty of baggage she carried with her that may have inflamed her sensitivities.  Her husband used her to make his escape from her father.  David greedily married numerous other women rather than holding fast to his loyalty to Michal.  When Michal was forced by her father to remarry, she built a new life with her husband but had it ripped from her when David demanded her back into his harem as his condition for peacefully accepting command of the united nation of Israel.  All of David's faults aside, he was doing as the Lord directed when he took up his place at the front of the procession and held nothing back in his celebration of the Lord's presence.  The backlash of his obedience hit is wife Michal squarely in the face.  Abraham as he marched up Mt. Moriah to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice, had to stifle his own emotions but more importantly, let his wife suffer violently the horror of the projected outcome.  Paul never forced his young friend Silas to accompany him on the missionary journey but he did not shield him either from the brutal treatment he suffered as a result.  Our children may face terrible difficulties and our friends might suffer greatly when we do as the Lord tells us but we must not shy away from our obedience to the Holy Spirit.    Jesus knew Peter would suffer for following Him to the end but Jesus did not apologize to Peter for it nor did He waver in the call to follow.  The cross is not heavy just for us but for all those who walk with us as we heft it upon our shoulders and they heave their own crosses upon theirs.    If we are to be crucified with Christ, why would we try to prevent others from dying themselves?  Do we not want them also to have Jesus as Lord?  Are we more merciful than God Himself who lets others suffer alongside us as we take up our cross daily?  If God calls us, we must go regardless of the effect it has on others.  Jesus went to Calvary knowing full well the anguish it would bring His own mother but He did so because the Father beckoned Him onward.  If we are to follow in His steps, we cannot hesitate at the point at which we bring crises and trials upon others.  They are in God's hands just as solidly as we are and to not go would be to demand the Lord drop us and them too. 

A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. Luke 23:27-28 NIV