FAITH FREES THE HEART

Moreover, God who knows men's inmost thoughts....He had cleansed their hearts by faith.  Acts 15:8, 9, Phillips.

A man had a well from which he drew all his water.  Because the water was brackish, he distilled it for drinking and cooking.  A neighbor dropped in one day during this process and inquired why the man did not dig a new well.  The man shrugged, saying, "I've done this for years.  It's OK; I'm used to it."

Sometimes we get used to a certain way of thinking.  Though we know that it is not totally suitable, we tend to consider such thinking as "right" simply because it is so familiar.  The practice is no different in the area of religion.  Many familiar ideas about God seem to be "right"--mostly because they've been around for so long.  However, we end up having to "distill" them intellectually before we can "swallow" them emotionally.

Take, for example, the ideas that surround the truth that God is our judge.  Hasn't He long been pictured as stern and/or exacting?  It can be an unpleasant thought, especially when tied to the concept of His omniscience.  Visualizing Jesus pleading His blood on our behalf allows us to accept the judgeship of the Father, but it does not help us accept the Father Himself!

Our text today tells us that God knows our inmost thoughts.  He knows better than we do how unsavory are some of our ideas about Him.  He also knows that unless our opinion of Him changes, we will tend to concentrate on acts of obedience rather than in having an intimate relationship with Him.  And no matter how many right things we do, misgivings about God will not have been purged from our hearts if we have not come to know Him as He really is.

Jesus said, "Anyone who gives heed to what I say and puts his trust in him who sent me has hold of eternal life" (John 5:24, N.E.B.).  As we come to know God our fears and doubts about Him are replaced by the excitement of discovering how real and relevant He is, how reasonable and reliable His plan for our lives.  In this way--by giving us understanding about Himself--God removes forever from our hearts any reasons we felt we had for not wanting to be His friends.  And as our faith in Him grows we are set free to enter into ever-deepening fellowship with Him.

NEAR TO THE HEART OF GOD

No one has ever seen God; but God's only Son, he who is nearest to the Father's heart, he has made him known.  John 1:18, N.E.B.


There is one memory that I vividly recall from my childhood--a memory that is triggered by certain sounds.  I can recall riding in the back seat of my dad's big chrome-toothed Buick, listening to the scratchy sounds of the AM radio as he would tune in that classic broadcast, The Voice of Prophecy.  Just before H.M.S. Richards would speak, their male quartet would always sing that familiar hymn, "There is a place of quiet rest, near to the heart of God, a place where sin cannot molest, near to the heart of God."

I am probably among thousands of listeners who, to this day, cannot sin that hymn in church without recalling the mellow sounds of the old King's Heralds Quartet reverently intoning the bliss of being "near to the heart of God."  But may I invite us all to go beyond our reverie, to probe for the deeper meaning of that experience of being near to the heart of God.

It is, after all, a biblical phrase.  Today's verse says that Jesus had the privilege of being the "nearest to the Father's heart."  Though John is using a very picturesque metaphor, we can see clearly that he is speaking of something more than just physical closeness to the Father.  He says that Jesus is qualified by that closeness to make the Father known to people who have never seen Him.

Being near the Father's heart, then, must have something to do with understanding the Father's character, with knowing the things that are important to God.  John's Gospel is filled with the theme of Jesus' coming to this earth in order to make the Father known to us.  He begins at the beginning: Jesus can tell us about the Father because He is nearest to the Father's heart.

We too are nearest to the Father's heart when we listen to what Jesus is telling us about the Father.  John says that Jesus' message about the Father was more than spoken; it "became flesh," a tangible, visible, personal presence.  In beholding Jesus' life we behold "the glory...of the Father."  In being drawn to Jesus we are being drawn to His Father, the source of eternal life.  And that is eternal life.

WHERE IS YOUR SECURITY?

Jesus Christ is always the same, yesterday, today and for ever.  Heb. 13:8, Phillips.


Many people find security in living predictable lives.  As such people group together, a kind of socially accepted rigidity may result, a conventionalism that defies changes.  This is true among Christians as well as in other levels of society.

With all good intentions, Christians tend to seek traditional concepts of systematic theology rather than a vital, spontaneous friendship with a Person.  Security often comes through behavioral conformity rather than in knowing that God is totally trustworthy (and fantastically innovative!) in His dealings with mankind.  Sadly, they limit themselves as they limit their willingness to see how infinitely ready God is to interact with His erring children.

We read that "Jesus Christ is always the same, yesterday, today and for ever."  Does this imply that He always uses the same methodology, always requires the same responses from His followers?  If so, here is ground for the endless calls to reform that include long dresses and primitive living styles as exampled by godly men and women of the past century.

If the sameness spoken of by Paul refers to God's character, it is altogether a different matter.  Well might we find security in knowing that God always is waiting to forgive our stubborn ways, that He never tires of hearing our prayers.  No matter how far we've strayed from His good plan for our lives, no matter how long we've absented ourselves from His presence, when we desire to find Him again, we shall discover that His attitude toward us has never changed.  And, friends, that is security!

But what of "the old paths" we are admonished by God to ask for in Jeremiah 6:16?  Does this prove that conformity to established religious patterns will bring "rest for [our] souls"?  Or is this simply counsel for those who have lost their way, as had ancient Israel?  There is a difference between finding your way back and forging ahead with God as your guide.

Even "baby" Christians should be taught that their security rests in who God is, not in how He may have chosen to act in any particular instance.  To teach otherwise is to leave them vulnerable when God doesn't act in a manner that we think He should--according to how He acted in the past.  How much better to trust a Person, rather than to try to figure out what the Person may do next.

WHO CONVICTS OF SIN?

Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.  Zech. 3:1, R.S.V.


He sat on the forward edge of his seat, wringing his hands until his knuckles turned white.  He had failed to carry a certain responsibility that had been entrusted to him, and the other church members were aware of it.  Though we talked about the best way to move forward, he always seemed to come up against a very strong emotional block.  "Oh, I just keep feeling guilty!"

Though all of us have at times felt guilty, those who are truly conscientious are particularly prone to the convicting awareness that they have failed to measure up.  High personal standards and lofty spiritual ideals can expose one to constant feelings of guilt.

But it is worth noting that both Satan and the Holy Spirit are involved in the activity of convicting of sin.  Just as Zechariah reported that Satan stood by Joshua to accuse him, so Jesus also promised that one work of the Holy Spirit would be to convict of sin (see John 16:8, 9).  And because the effects are often so similar at the feeling level, many carry a Satan-loaded burden of guilt that they are certain was intended by God.

There are, however, vital clues that distinguish God's methods from those of Satan--methods that reveal His character.  For example, it is Satan's desire to crush with condemnation rather than to heal.  He longs to overwhelm the sinner with the awareness of his sins, asserting that he is beyond the scope of God's inclination to forgive, for then he will release his hold of faith in the Forgiver and--by that fact--be lost.

By contrast, God is intent on healing the sinner.  He never, absolutely never, points out our sin without at the same time uplifting the Saviour.  He exalts the surpassing excellence of a better way, rather than pushing the sinner's face into the despairing failure of his own past ways.

Our Father's goal is to heal, not to crush.  It is to establish a union by showing how well we can trust Him, not to destroy a union by showing how much we should fear Him.  For it is in union with Him that all healing happens.  The Spirit's convicting is a nudge toward wholeness; Satan's convicting is a large stone thrown at the already quivering sinner.

WHY YOU CAN'T KEEP A GOOD MAN DOWN!

For though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again, but the wicked are brought down by calamity.  Prov. 24:16, N.I.V.

He fell while going into the last turn of the race.  In a moment he was up again and running.  Though he didn't finish first, he won the hearts of the spectators.

What gives some people the pluck to get up and keep going after misfortune strikes, while others tend to "curl up and die"?  May I suggest that self-worth has a lot to do with it?  No doubt, being able to keep things in perspective helps, too.  In other words, having a good sense of who you are and where you are going can provide you with an inner dignity and strength with which to meet difficulty and failure.

Falling in one race, however, is different from falling in seven races in a row.  Repeated or multiple troubles have the potential of totally stripping you of any reserves of strength.  And those who might have cheered you on during the first fall, and maybe even the second and third, tend to grow silent if trouble persists.  Like Job's friends, they begin to wonder about you.

Our verse today speaks of a righteous man--a man who "has it together with God"--falling seven times.  Do we need to analyze his circumstances in order to appreciate the awful tragedy of one of God's own facing failure after failure?  What must his fellow church members think?  What must he think!  What enables him to get up again and again and again!  When all his own sense of self-worth has been dashed to pieces and his potential achievement seems thwarted, what is left that causes him to get up once more?

Only our understanding of the Father and the Father's perspectives can enable us to get up again after falling "seven" times.  God is not playing word games when He sees "uninterrupted victories" where we see only "failure."  He counts our recovery of more value than any temporary loss of footing.  Only when we refuse to be taught by an experience are we lessened by it.

Knowing that God is completely committed to restoring us to wholeness, we may confidently--under any circumstance--trust that He continues to cheer us on though everyone else has departed.  He knows what we may become, regardless of how many failures we might experience in the process.

LEARNING TO TRUST IN THE LORD

Many when they see will be filled with awe and will learn to trust in the Lord.  Ps. 40:3, N.E.B.

Have you ever met someone whom you didn't think you were going to like very much, and in time that person became one of your most cherished friends?  Even in relationships where you start off liking each other, it takes time to establish trust and love.  It takes being together in different settings and sharing thoughts and feelings.  "Tried and true" friendships are not quickly formed or quickly forgotten.  Yet we tend to think that accepting Christ as our Saviour brings instantaneous closeness.

I firmly believe that accepting Christ is only the very beginning.  Like any new relationship, there is so much to learn, to experience together.  Our reservations are seen by Him not as sins but merely as the natural "in process" emotions we carry with us through all of life.  He is not offended when we feel a need to test His responses.  It is His delight to act out His part  in the bonding process.  "Test Me!  Prove Me!" He invites.  "See if I'm not the best friend you've ever known!"

"But it's a sin to doubt Him!" a concerned believer cries.  And so many struggling followers cringe in shame and self-reproach because they know they still have inner questions and lingering fears.  Trying to muster up the needed trust, they find they are paralyzed by their own efforts.  The fact is that no one can make himself trust another person--even if that person is God!  Trust is a learning response, not merely an intellectual exercise.

Jesus spent three and one-half intense years with twelve men who were still full of questions even on the night of the Crucifixion.  One continued to doubt even after the Resurrection--until Jesus accommodated him by allowing him to put his hand into His wounded side.  The point is not that these men were so terribly sinful.  Our attention is drawn to how the Master met their inability fully to believe.  He was not repelled by them!  He constantly worked to still their fears and give them reasons to trust Him.

To know Him is to love Him.  To know Him in part is to live Him in part, to trust Him tentatively.  The devotional life of the believer is not to prove his spirituality; it is to improve his ability to trust the One who is altogether trustworthy.  And that takes time.

HOW NOT TO SPARE THE ROD

A father who spares the rod hates his son, but one who loves him keeps him in order.  Prov. 13:24, N.E.B.

There is a lot of conventional wisdom going around about the meaning of that supposed Bible text, "Spare the rod and spoil the child."  This widely held wisdom firmly states that the rod is to be used by parents as a means of inflicting pain on disobedient children.  Parents tell their children what to do, and if they don't do it (as one parent told me), "You hit them, and you hit them hard."

And, of course, since this is thought to be Bible wisdom, children inwardly conclude that the Bible's Author is behind such an approach.  They fear that the rod that is spoken of is not the Shepherd's rod of the twenty-third psalm, intended to guide gently through difficult places and to ward off enemy, but a weapon to be dreaded, a way for irate authority figures to express their anger upon those who have affronted their authority.

Parents are indeed expected to teach their children to walk in the paths of blessing.  And sometimes a self-willed child may need to be brought back to his senses.  But all too often parents have not given priority to establishing a warm and vulnerable relationship with their children.  They have not experimented with the power of healing love, and they feel that the only influence they have over their child is through their "duty" to inflict pain on him when he does not dutifully obey.

Some openly rebel against this approach, and understandably so, for it is alien to the way God made His people to learn and grow.  Such a person is seeking to preserve some semblance of his personhood.  His rebellion is not only against his parents but also against the religion that led his parents to act the way they did.

On the other hand, a child may meekly submit to his parents' rod-oriented mode of discipline.  Since he is not rebelling, the parents assume that their method is working.  But the chances are high that some twenty years later, in some destructive mid-life crisis, the apparently obedient person goes off in search of his freedom and identity, leaving behind a religion that has brought him much anxiety and guilt.  Ironically, he also rejects his heavenly Father, who knows that one doesn't beat one's children into submission.

FALLEN SPARROWS AND THE FATHER'S HEART

Yet not a single sparrow falls to the ground without your father's knowledge....Never be afraid, then--you are more valuable than sparrows.  Matt. 10:29-31, Phillips


She sat alone, painfully thin and haunted-looking.  Her dark eyes were cast downward, her shoulders drooped.  It seemed hard to believe that this young woman had ever been excited about life.  Not so long ago she had been full of song and wonderful dreams.  Now she was like a little sparrow whose voice had been stilled, her head bowed in submission to the harsh winds and stinging rain that pelted her frail body.  She was slowly starving herself to death.  She suffered from anorexia nervosa--an often fatal disease that amounts to sophisticated suicide.

A frighteningly increasing number of young women are falling prey to the ravages of this perplexing disease.  Are they to be scolded into eating?  Force-fed?  Gravestones testify to the invalidity of such treatment.  The truth is that healing must begin from within the mind.  All other methods are transitory and ineffective.

God knows about sparrows--both kinds.  He sees the hearts of His tired and distraught children.  Whether our problem is anorexia or alcoholism or anything else, He sees us huddled against the chilling winds of this earthly life and takes pity on us.  He knows that it is no use to scold us or to force us.  What we need is His healing love.

And so He begins.  Little by little He wins our confidence.  So as not to frighten us any further, He speaks to us in a still small voice.  Soothingly, He gently draws us to Himself.  We discover He understands us, that He cares--that He likes us!  Gradually we are able to let go of our death grip on whatever "branch" we are clinging to.  He is able to free us from being trapped in the storm.  He encourages us to sing again and then to soar.  And the joy of His presence becomes our reason for living.

Well might we consider each other as He considers us, how He deals with us.  Perhaps it would temper our anger at one another's failures.  Certainly it offers us valid suggestions as to how to respond to the circumstances in our own lives and other people's lives that are beyond our control.  (Force does not bring control!)  Having experienced His healing love ourselves, we know that there is no better way to treat each other.

ALL SHALL LIVE IN CHRIST

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.  1 Cor. 15:22, R.S.V.


At first glance, this verse is unqualified good news.  It is the assurance of the resurrection, the promise that Christ has provided life for all the condemned children of Adam.   What is more, it affirms that all shall be made alive!  According to Revelation 20:5, even the wicked shall be brought back to life at some point in the future.

But since those wicked shall be brought back to life, only then to receive the sentence of eternal death (verses 9, 10, 12-15), it could raise the question of whether such an event is necessary.  Why bring a lost person, one who may have suffered terrible pain during his life and died a tragic death, back to life, only to let him live a brief but traumatic span and then cross the dark abyss again?

The graves of this planet are filled with the remains of both the righteous and sinners.  In most cases the wicked have died from the same causes as have the righteous.  The huge bombs of war, the crumpling of car metal, the ravages of terminal diseases, and the onward march of old age dismantle the bodies of the good and the bad alike.

Some could wonder if being on Christ's side has offered any benefit to Christians in the face of death.  For they die too.  So Jesus has promised to bring all mankind back to life in order that the spotlight could be focused upon the real issue: What has one done with Jesus, the Life-giver?

For it is at the time of the resurrection of the wicked that each person's ultimate choices shall be revealed.  This is when all people shall get what they have really wanted.  The righteous shall get eternal fellowship with the One they have loved and admired.  With no lingering involvement with the great controversy, they shall be with Him forever.  God shall also respect the free choices of those who have avoided and rejected Him.  He will not force His life-giving presence upon them.  Separation they wanted; separation they will have.  They shall die the second death.  They will not die because of their sinful behaviors.  Jesus' death on the cross covered those; their own resurrection is proof that "in Christ shall all be made alive."  But they shall die because they have rejected the Life-giver.

FOR SHEER JOY!

The kingdom of Heaven is like treasure lying in a field.  The man who found it, buried it again; and for sheer joy went and sold everything he had, and bought that field.  Matt. 13:44, N.E.B.

Telling Bible stories to children can be fun.  For one thing, children need more word pictures because their vocabulary is limited--which, of course, tends to make the lessons more vivid.  And more simple, which is equally important, because youngsters respond to simplicity.  Unfortunately, by the time we reach maturity we seem to have "graduated" to more complex (and often obscure) religious terminology.  For a lot of people, this takes the fun out of Bible study, and out of knowing God.

I have good news: God too enjoys storytelling!  Most of the Bible is written in story form.  Jesus, who was "God with us," loved to gather a cluster of people around Himself and tell them parables.  One such story-lesson involved a man who found buried treasure.  Though the Scripture record is but one text in length, I can easily imagine Him describing the incident with relish.  Knowing how dreary and uninviting the priests had made spiritual things, Jesus sought to underscore how exciting it can be to "discover" the truth about God and His ways.

By portraying this knowledge as buried treasure, Jesus gently offered comfort to His listeners.  He implied that they were not at fault for not readily seeing how exciting and enrichening it is to know God--such truth had been buried under mounds of ritual and falsehood.  But there was hope!  Hidden in a common field, the treasure lay, waiting to be discovered.  I can just see Jesus pausing here in the narrative, smiling slightly, waiting for them to notice His lowly garb, His sandaled and dusty feet.

Then, not to keep His listeners in suspense, He quickly assures them that the treasure is indeed found, but not without some price to the finder.  The man who found the treasure sold everything he had to purchase the field in which it lay--but it was for sheer joy that he made such sacrifice!  And who would doubt that he lost nothing by doing so?  What a contrast to their feelings of being taken advantage of by the priests--and consequently, by God!--during the rites of sacrifice in the Temple service!

Friend, our exciting God is waiting for you to find Him!  And finding Him will bring you sheer joy!