When you really analyze it, nothing could be more exciting, fulfilling
and rewarding than God's desires for you. Fearing God's will is as
irrational as worrying about what the world's best mechanic might do to
your car, and as stupid as insisting on defusing a bomb for fear that
experts will not do it properly. The Almighty, your Creator and Savior,
is selflessly devoted to maximizing your long-term happiness. Moreover
he has infinite knowledge. When God asks you to do something, he is
granting you the unique privilege of tapping into the greatest Mind
in the universe. You have the opportunity to do something infinitely
smart. Explore that thought. It could add a whole new dimension to your
life.
Disregard your Maker's right to tell you what to do. He merely gave you
life and everything you've ever touched. He holds your atoms together
and gave you the brain cells you think with. Forget that Christ
purchased your allegiance by trading his life for yours, becoming the
devil's plaything on the cross so that evil couldn't touch you. And
overlook the power of God to determine your eternal destiny. Consider
merely God's infinite knowledge, perfect goodness, and self-sacrificing
devotion to your highest good. That alone is enough to force the
conclusion that disregarding God's slightest suggestion is the height of
stupidity.
Yet another exhilarating thing about God's will for you is that it is
not only perfected by infinite love, it is backed by infinite power. It
is not only achievable, it is unstoppable. For as long as you let Jesus
rule your life, nothing can thwart it. Do you believe God is
all-powerful? Then you believe he could over-ride your every weakness.
He could ask nothing of you that he couldn't do through you. And if he
has a speck of love, or any respect for his reputation, he's not going
to command, and then abandon you to your own resources. It's exciting
when God asks the impossible of you. A miracle is around the corner!
Since God, in his love, longs to see you reach your highest potential,
his desires for you will stretch you to the limit. But no matter how
Satan tries to distort that thrilling truth into something scary, there
is always something more frightening than doing God's will - not doing
God's will. The mere fact that we could fear God's beautiful will is
clear proof that God has a spiritual enemy who carpet bombs our minds
with malicious untruths. Nothing could be wiser, or better, than obeying
the God who has a sacrificial commitment to giving you the very best.
God telling you to do something is the Almighty Lord expressing his
desire for you to enjoy his best. And obedience is simply receiving that
love, delighting and rejoicing in the beauty, perfection and security of
God's yearnings for your welfare. We only disobey when we secretly
believe we are smarter than God, that his love for us is inferior, or
that he is so weak that our inadequacies could nullify his power.
Obedience is love made real.
It has rightly been said that God's will is the greatest good his
infinite wisdom can devise. Snuggle into it. Experience the exquisite
perfection of his love plans for you. Then luxuriate in the security of
knowing that of every possible alternative, you have chosen the very
best.
Note that submission to God is letting God be God - allowing Jesus to
assume his rightful place in your life. The emphasis is not on you
trying to obey, but on Jesus ruling. It is letting him do the work. It
is avoiding taking upon ourselves responsibilities that don't belong to
us. The Evil One would love to distort this into a dreary put down, but
it is actually a glorious relief. We're free to enjoy life as God's
children and leave all the hard work to Jesus. We don't have to prove
ourselves to God, Jesus has already done it. We don't have to defeat
sin, Jesus has already done it.
Submitting to God must never be thought of as obeying a set of rules.
That's dull and cold. And God is neither. Following a list of dos and do
nots is not following God the person, but something impersonal. It
brings with it the great danger of shutting God out. Submitting to God
is loving God the person, getting as close to him as you can, and
drawing strength and comfort and direction from him. It is driving with
God in the front seat with you, enjoying his companionship. From time to
time in your conversation he will say such things as, 'Turn left.
. . . . You'll need to slow down a bit here. . . . . Let me show you a
short cut. . . . . This next part is easy, drive however you choose, I
know you'll handle it well. . . . . Further on it gets tricky. Better
let me do the driving for that stretch.'
Now let's be brutally frank. God's directions are seldom that clear,
although when the situation demands that degree of clarity, he will give
it. Mostly, God leads by such things as vague feelings. That can be
frustrating, but it's our opportunity to let faith rise, trusting God to
guide with whatever degree of clarity divine wisdom knows is best, while
we play our part by drawing close and listening intently. God and I seem
to have an on-going argument. 'Speak louder!' I keep telling God. And I
think he keeps replying, 'Listen harder!'
*****
WHY GOD'S WILL IS EXCITING
When you have a critical decision to
make, what would you give for
access to someone with infinite knowledge?
He would know every fact in every
universe; all the future and all
the past.
He could keep you fascinated for weeks
just telling you things
about yourself you never knew. He could tell you how many inches the
nail of the third toe on your left foot grew in the last 6.34 years; how
many breaths you took on your fifth day of life; what your father
thought the day he first heard you were conceived; the real reason your
first romance ended the way it did; what forgotten incident caused that
peculiar fear that plagues you.
All your enemies' secrets would be open
to him. He would know what
that fabulous looking stranger in the bus thought of you. He would know
what your boss thinks while he's having a shower.
What if he also had the astounding
intellectual power to know
every ramification of every tiny event - every chain of events set off
for all eternity by every action? The implications of such knowledge
explode the imagination. And he could figure the exact mix of short and
long term happiness that would work best for you. If we pampered
ourselves all day everyday, our long term happiness would suffer
enormously, yet sacrificing everything for long term benefits could
leave us so dejected that we never reach our final goals. He would have
your perfect solution.
Suppose he also knows the true function
and purpose of everything.
And imagine the implications if his
integrity and moral judgment
are impeccable. He would be absolutely good and know how to maximize the
good in every situation.
Wouldn't having his input be the greatest
thing that could ever
happen to you?
So great is God's love for you that he
longs to marshal his
infinite resources to determine precisely what is in your best interest.
And he selflessly offers this incomparable gift, not just for ten
minutes, but for a lifetime.
How can we book a flight when we don't
know which one will crash?
And yet we regularly make far more dangerous choices by the hour,
knowing almost none of the pertinent facts.
We choose marriage partners, having no
idea how the ravages of
time will assault them, whether tomorrow they will be permanently
paralyzed or lose their mind or die; not knowing how wildly their future
income and expenditure will plunge or soar; not knowing whether their
unborn children will be deformed or hateful and how they will treat
them; not knowing, if or when, our prospective partners' kindness will
turn to cruelty and their love to disgust. Forgetting the future, we
know frighteningly little even about their past. A basic thing like
reading their thoughts is beyond us.
We repeatedly find ourselves trying to
solve million piece puzzles
when we rarely get to see more than a dozen pieces. We walk in a
constant fog, making life and death decisions, knowing nearly nothing.
So whenever the Almighty reveals his mind, we should erupt with the joy
of a man lost in a minefield suddenly finding a marked trail. At last
the light has shone. At last infinite knowledge has reached us in
infinite love. We should rush to obey, treasuring the slightest hint of
God's will, like the last drop of water in a desert.
****
YOU ARE LOVED!
When it comes to describing God's unfathomable love, even the Bible
admits defeat. God's love for you extends far beyond the bounds of
human comprehension. Yet through a spiritual miracle you can gain
personal insight into the incomprehensible.
I can easily believe the atom-holding, earth-spinning,
galaxy-sustaining, life-giving Source of everything
wonderful can do whatever he likes. Even the devil believes God's
power.
My difficulty is believing that God's special love for me makes him
long to use that power on my behalf.
Few of us doubt that God can do amazing things. The weak link in our
faith is believing that he would do such things for ordinary,
inconsequential you and me. We suspect we are not sufficiently special
in
the Almighty's eyes to warrant such attention. Oh yes, 'God loves
everyone,' but we have a hunch that by the time that love reaches us
it has spread pretty thin. I'm just one of millions. Why would God want
to focus his omnipotence on me?
If we could grasp the enormity of God's love for us, our faith would
sky-rocket. Pray for a revelation. (Ephesians 3:17-19 highlights the
necessity of such prayer. 'I pray that you . . . may have power . . .
to . . . know this love that surpasses knowledge . . . ' )
Awareness of how much we are loved is forever slipping from our
consciousness. Partially in sight for a few days, it begins to fade
again. The following suggestions might help.
When we let God down - even if we really foul things up - picture the
proudest father the world has seen. The baby screams, dribbles and
soils itself, yet Dad still glows with pride. God is like that.
When you feel a tiny blob in the seething mass of humanity, see the
shepherd of a hundred sheep frantically searching for one. If he can
be personally concerned for one, the omnipotent Shepherd of
our souls can love all humanity and still be devoted to you. In the
beautiful words of Isaiah, 'As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so shall your God rejoice over you' (Isaiah 62:5).
When you feel you can do nothing right, picture a child, paintbrush in
hand, gleaming with excitement. Enveloping her hand is the gentle hand
of the world's greatest artist. 'And what shall we put in this
corner?' asks the man, as his skill and the girl's imagination merge
into one. See the artist's smile and the child's delight as together
they create stunning beauty. Under God's guiding hand, your
possibilities are mind-boggling.
No matter how you feel, you are the focus of God's attention; doted on
as though you are the only friend God has. If ever a man wanted to
shower his bride with love, or his son with gifts, God longs to
lavish you with his extravagance. Expect great things from God.
Anything less is an insult to your almighty Savior. With your Lord
impossibilities are playthings.
Let faith mushroom by seizing the fact that the Omnipotent Lord is
powerful enough to use you - over-riding your every inadequacy - and
loving enough to want to. Everything God touches is destined
for glory. Even now, you are God's 'filthy rags to heavenly riches'
success story.
Do I need a flock of angels on my roof, or an all expense paid trip to
heaven and back before I will accept that God thinks I am important to
him? Christ's shed blood proves God's pledge of total commitment to
me. Am I to pronounce that sacrifice inadequate and demand additional
proof? Must God send a bolt of spiritual electricity through me before
I'll believe he wants to bless me?
In his grace God might send me some special confirmation of his love,
as he has done for thousands, but to so focus on this possibility as
to not believe unless he does it, is the height of impertinence.
If every non-Christian on this planet had amazing (though phony)
spiritual encounters and every Christian received divine visitations
everyday, and I alone in all humanity experienced nothing, it could
never diminish the infinitude of God's devotion to me. If in his
wisdom God decides to cut me off from such experiences in order to
toughen my faith - that essential ingredient of spiritual life, more
valuable than earth's treasures - it is yet another demonstration of
his love.
Faith in the unchangeable character of God is the only bedrock upon
which a person's spiritual life can be founded. We have no need for
God to write in the sky because he has written in a book. And Jesus
taught that people who fail to believe the Bible would not believe
even if they experienced the ultimate miracle of someone they knew
returning from the dead and speaking to them (Luke 16:27-31).
I dare not slacken my quest for a deeper spiritual experience. I will
welcome any manifestation of the Spirit of God in my life and not
proudly assume I don't need it, but if God decides not to use such
means to prop up my spiritual life, it merely proves the depth of his
confidence in me. He obviously believes I have the grit to tough it
out by raw faith.
Our life needs not spectacular confirmation but spectacular
commitment.
What more could the One who died for you do to prove his love? Let's
not slander the Holy One by imagining infinite love is so fickle that
it fluctuates according to a person's physical attractiveness,
popularity or talent.
Whenever we eat, a child smiles at us, or we walk from stifling heat
into an air-conditioned building, we are experiencing God's provision.
Each day we receive literally millions of love gifts from God, and yet
our hard heart and dull mind rarely overflows with awe at each
expression of God's personal love for us. If we could only open our
eyes and begin to each day notice just a few of God's innumerable love
gifts to us, our enjoyment of life and awareness of how special we are
to God would rocket heavenwards, bursting through the clouds into
endless sunshine.
Suppose a man gives the love of his life a beautiful engagement ring.
She is so thrilled she can barely contain her joy and thankfulness and
love for the man who would express his devotion in such a romantic
way. Later, the man comes into great wealth. Remembering how much
that gift meant to his darling, he decides to give her fifty carefully
selected rings every day for the rest of her life. Each day's gift of
rings
would soon begin to mean less and less to her. As time wears on, she
could walk passed her daily pile of rings, wondering if her husband
really loves her.
That's like what has happened to us. Our Lord has been so extravagant
in his display of love to us that we have become jaded to the real
significance of the gifts he showers on us.
When you snuggle into bed, hear a bird chirp, switch on a
machine that takes some of the slavery out of washing, do you marvel
at God's love gifts to you? When, like the most faithful servant, a
clock
wakes you at just the right time; when your bare foot touches carpet
instead of dirt; when you switch on a light that would have astonished
everyone who was ever born until relatively recently; and when you
look in a small mirror that King Solomon would have paid a fortune to
own, does your heart skip a beat at the lengths your Father in heaven
goes to say 'I love you'? Or, like the worst spoilt child, do you just
complain about how much your brothers and sister get?
By making you feel as if God loves you less than certain other
Christians, it seems as if Satan is attacking your self-esteem, but he
isn't. He is attacking the integrity of God. He is hissing that God's
love is so inadequate that it is only people who have certain
qualities whom God can love or be gracious to. That's a lie! God's
love toward you is perfect. God is for you. He's cheering you on. He's
on your side!
In this world, success is often relative - the closer the relative,
the higher you go. Don't decry the system: remember who you call Father.
Christian, you are the focus of divine love; filled with the majesty
of Almighty God; spiritually enthroned with Christ in his heavenly
palace; granted the highest level of access to the greatest Person,
and the holiest place. You are the work of divine hands, made perfect in
Christ Jesus. And enshrined within your being resides the infinite
power of the sovereign Lord.
Top fashion model Claudia Schiffer has been nominated the most
beautiful woman in the world. Yet as a teenager, she concluded from
her lack of popularity at school that she was not beautiful. We make a
similar mistake in assuming that if we are not popular with people, we
lack what it takes to make it in a big way with God.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Lord bless you, Carlotta!
In Christ's love,
Grantley
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