ApprehendingGrace.com

God led me to write the last two blogs in our “Taking Hold of Our Eternal Life” series on being free from condemnation. (Here’s the first blog.) (Here’s the second blog.) As I finished the second blog, I became acutely aware that the blogs were full of encouragement and exhortation to believe God’s Word, accept His forgiveness and walk in freedom from condemnation, but short of practical ideas about how to do that. This blog seeks to give you some practical ideas for walking in the freedom you have been given.

1)  Speak and read God’s Word aloud.

Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.
Romans 10:17 (NIV)

If you want faith to believe that you are forgiven, speak and read God’s Word aloud so that you actually hear the Word as well as read it. There is something about God’s Word being spoken and God’s Word being heard that ignites our faith. My last two blogs contained many Scriptures you can use as a great starting place.

2)  Refute the arrows of the enemy with Truth.

Jesus used Scripture to fight the temptations of Satan – we can do the same thing and expect Satan to flee. For example, if the enemy begins to whisper in your ear that God doesn’t really love you, remind him that “God so loved me, that He gave His only Son to die for me.” (John 3:16) When the enemy whispers lies in your ear, respond with Truth.

3)  Study what Scripture teaches about who you are in Christ and how much God values you.

You can’t speak Truth against lies unless you know the Truth. Stepping out from under the shadow of condemnation and accusations can be difficult. When you become convinced about who you are in Christ and how very much God loves you – how wildly passionate He is about you – your healing will accelerate.

4)  Surround yourself with positive, affirming people.

The enemy does a good enough job trying to tear you down. Don’t hang with people who try to help him. If you can’t avoid it, you’ll need extra positive people around you.

5)  Share your need for positive encouragement with a few good friends and pray-ers.

In other words, be willing to be transparent with a few friends. I’ve always found that once I get some good friends on my side, especially those who pray for me, the enemy has a lot harder time getting through the prayer net they put around me.

6)  Practice positive, biblical self-talk.

While this is similar to reading Scripture aloud and refuting the arrows of condemnation with truth, it has a slightly different slant. Make it a habit to regularly drown out the negative voice in your head with a new positive voice. Wake up in the morning and remind yourself “I’m a child of the king, and a co-heir with Christ.” Throughout the day remind yourself of things such as:

• God has created me for His pleasure.
• He has a plan and a purpose for my life.
• I am created in His image and have eternity in my heart.
• I am fearfully and wonderfully made. God’s plans for me are greater than my hopes and dreams.
• God wants to use me today.
• I am the apple of His eye.
• When God looks at me, He sees His precious child.
• Through Christ, I can do all things He calls me to do.
• God has uniquely gifted me.

7)  Forgive yourself for past sins, inadequacies, imperfections and errors in judgment.

God already has. Unforgiveness toward yourself is fertile ground for the root of condemnation to take hold.

8)  As you begin to heal, minister to others out of your woundedness.

Condemnation shouts “Shut up! Sit down! You don’t deserve to be in the game!” But God’s Word says to comfort one another with the comfort we’ve been given. The truth is that some past situations gives us greater authority to help others heal in the same area. Additionally, many people will seek out someone who has already found victory in an area they are currently struggling. As you begin to heal, courageously step out in faith to minister to others. You’ll find that it helps your own healing to take hold.

We want to read articles or blogs and experience a changed life. It doesn’t work that way. It takes hard work to overcome unhealthy patterns, but your diligence will be rewarded! God is faithful. Begin to take steps that apply God’s Truth to your behavior, and He steps in with supernatural grace to sustain you and reveal Himself more fully.

One last tip: Don’t try to do all these things at once. Pick just one of these ideas and begin to implement it. Once you’ve got that one down, add another. Keep adding new behaviors as you become firmly grounded in each. Over-achievers may try to attack the whole list, but that usually results in none of them being implemented well and the over-achiever experiences even more condemnation from having failed to step out from under condemnation! Don’t let the enemy win this one!

Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
1 Timothy 6:12 (NIV)

Clearly, taking hold of our eternal life means more than accepting Christ and looking forward to an eternity with Him. Paul exhorted Timothy, the pastor in Ephesus at the time the letter was written, to “take hold” of his eternal life. This series looks at the fuller application of that exhortation.

Last week’s blog addressed the complete forgiveness of sins that comes with our eternal life. If the Creator of the Universe has fully forgiven our sins, and he has, we ought to walk in complete freedom from condemnation. To accept condemnation from the enemy is to be deceived. To accept it from ourselves is to call Jesus a liar. Scripture is clear that

But if we confess our sins to him, he [Jesus] is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong.
1 John 1:9 (NLT)

When we fully grasp that Christ has forgiven our sins, we can walk in the liberating freedom of being without condemnation. Such freedom is a wonderful thing, and it leads to a walk that carries with it a lightness of heart and spirit. Conversely, walking under condemnation is truly walking under condemnation. It’s like there is always a heavy weight on our heads and hearts.

Two analogies:

• You’ve seen the pictures of men and women in third world countries carrying their wares to market or purchases from the market in baskets on their heads. What a difference they must immediately feel when the heavy basket is put down and they can walk without the weight and without fear of causing the basket to become unbalanced and fall to the ground. That’s what it is like when we are set free from condemnation. We no longer walk under the heavy weight of accusations and we no longer fear that every misstep will lead to more guilt being piled in our baskets.

• My mom had a pacemaker put in last night. After surgery, they had a heavy, cold compress on her chest to stop any bleeding, reduce swelling and limit her movement. The cold, heavy compress reminds me of the weight of condemnation always pressing down on our hearts and spirits. Its coldness saps us of our passion for God and our strength. Its weight limits on our movement in ways that Christ has not limited us.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
Galatians 5:1 (NIV)

Christ has set us free from condemnation by forgiving our sins and declaring us righteous. The Galatians had forgotten this and Paul calls them “foolish.” The Galatians had forgotten the powerful grace that led them to repentance and faith in Christ. They had fallen back to relying on their own works for eternal life. Read what Paul wrote to them:

¹You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. ²I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? ³Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? ⁴Have you suffered so much for nothing—if it really was for nothing? ⁵Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

⁶Consider Abraham: “He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” ⁷Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham.
Galatians 3:1-7 (NIV)

When we carry a spirit of condemnation on our heads and on our hearts, we are truly not believing that we are forgiven. We fall back, as the Galatians had, to believing we must do better, look better, or be better for Christ to truly accept us and forgive us. Foolishness! God gives you His Spirit because you believed that Christ died for your sins. “Believed” in the biblical sense means you accept it as truth and you rely on it – you trust it even more than you trust the chair you are sitting in to hold you without breaking. God gives you His spirit because you believed that Christ died for your sins.

¹Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, ²because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. ³For what the [Old Testament] law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, ⁴in order that the righteous requirements of the [Old Testament] law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.
Romans 8:1-4 (NIV)

The conditions for your righteousness have been met if you believe in Christ. “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1, NLT) And because there is no condemnation, there is no need to accept any heavy baskets on your head or cold compresses on your heart.

Now, the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, he gives freedom.
2 Corinthians 3:17 (NLT)

The Spirit of the Lord gives freedom. Friends, receive God’s gift of freedom and walk in it. Or skip and jump in it! Or dance in it! Or shout “hallelujah” in it! But most of all, receive it and do not receive any condemnation that comes from external or internal sources. Condemnation be GONE in the Name of Jesus. And daughter or son of God, be encouraged and set free in the Name of Jesus.

Well, I thought this blog was going to be about being willing to take risks for Christ because He has set us free. I guess we needed to hear the message of freedom again. I’m certain a message about risk taking is coming, but I think God may have even another blog on freedom from condemnation first! Thank You, Lord, for directing my pen (computer keyboard) in Your direction, not in mine.

This morning as I looked at our Resting at the River’s Edge reading schedule for December, it finally hit me…2009 is almost over! Last year the Thanksgiving and Christmas season came in with a quiet, holy anticipation. I so enjoyed it. Yes, the season got busy, but because it had been ushered in so majestically (not by me, by the Lord working in my heart) the entire season had a holiness or a Christ-filled sense about it. I’ve been waiting for that holy anticipation this year. It hasn’t happened (yet).

So as I pondered over our reading schedule for the remainder of 2009 (I’ll post it later this week), it finally hit me – the year is coming to a close. The wonder of Christmas hasn’t hit me yet, but the end of the year seems imminent. What a year it has been! Perhaps this pondering is especially appropriate for this Thanksgiving week. I hope you’ll indulge me as I look back at 2009.

To start, I thought I’d go to my pre-2009 blog. I didn’t remember what I had written, so I went looking and found a blog titled Trusting God in 2009. Without meaning to brag, I have to say that I was so blessed by reading the blog. Not because it was well written or incredibly insightful, but because God used it to allow me to see:

• that what I had written was God working in me to prepare me for the year to come; and
• that God had enabled me to live out the blog.

The blog was an encouragement for all of us to put our trust in God, not in ourselves or the economy or anything else on this earth, and it ended with Psalm 20, in which David prays for God to meet us in our times of need and to give us the desires of our hearts.

As I read the blog, I was reminded about the times in 2009 when I was enabled to trust God:

• When my husband had a major heart attack in February, I was able to trust God for Phil’s life and health. I am continually thankful that I am not a widow. And I am incredibly thankful that God enabled me to trust Him throughout the process.
• When we had little or no income throughout the year, I was able to trust God for His provision and over our finances. Our business has been exceedingly slow this year and Phil missed quite a bit of work with his heart attack. Yet God has somehow made it possible for us to pay our bills. He has a way of stretching money when there is no money to stretch! And He has enabled me to know that He will provide and I truly haven’t worried about the issue.
• When all the smaller things in life happened throughout the year – you know, all those little issues that work their way in between major challenges – God has been so very faithful and has enabled me to trust Him. Not perfectly all the time, but when looking back over the year, I can give thanks for seeing Him strengthen my faith! He has set my feet upon a rock and I have not been moved. What a great God we serve!

I was also reminded of God’s great goodness to me. He has given me a desire of my heart this year when He enabled me to complete my Master’s degree and be ordained.

Life is busy for me right now, and I’m guessing it’s busy for you. May I encourage you to take time and remember where you were last year at this time and all that God has done for you in the past year? It’s a great way to prepare for Thanksgiving.

As I shared with Phil God’s goodness in preparing me for 2009 by urging me to trust Him, I had tears running down my face.  I was rejoicing at God’s goodness when I said “and I was able to do that! Undoubtedly one of the most difficult years of my life, and as we near the end, I can say ‘I trusted God in 2009!”

Phil looked at me and said “Let’s do it again in 2010!” (I love having a husband who always challenges me to grow in ways that God wants me to grow!)

Will you join us? I know it’s an early invitation, but let’s agree today to trust God in 2010! He’s shown Himself faithful and trustworthy and good. As for me and my house, we’re going to trust the Lord. We hope you’ll join us!

This week, churches in our community have participated in a 24/7 prayer vigil. Each evening there were times of worship led by different churches. During one of the meetings, as a song ended quietly, the worship leader whispered “We need you, Jesus. We are desperate for you.”

The words that immediately popped into my head were “It’s when you’re quiet that I know you’re listening. It’s when you’re quiet that I know you’re listening. Exuberant praise is good and fun. Loud declarations based on My Word are important for building your faith and shattering the enemy’s camp. But it’s when you’re quiet that I know you’re listening.”

As I thought about that for awhile, an image came to my mind of the parent who takes the face of their active child, holds it between both hands and looks directly into it, eye to eye, to get and keep the child’s attention. The parent isn’t yelling to make himself or herself heard. He is waiting for the child to be quiet and listen. “It’s when you’re quiet that I know you’re listening.” I think God wants to take our face in His hands at times, turn our heads so that we are looking directly at Him, and then wait for us to be quiet so He can clearly communicate something to us. Something important. Something He wants us to understand and remember. Something very special because He wants to be sure He has our attention before He tells us.

Today a verse in Isaiah 30 reminded me of God’s Words from earlier in the week:

This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says:
“In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength,
but you would have none of it.
Isaiah 30:15 (NIV)

God tells the Israelites that it is in repentance and REST that they find their salvation – not in activity and loud praise. He tells them that their strength is in quietness and trust. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5) How much easier to lean on our own understanding than to trust God! (But that’s the subject of a blog that should appear next week.)

Rest…quietness…trust – words that all speak of a calm faith. That’s the kind of faith I want to live.

I love loud worship. Let me repeat that. I LOVE LOUD worship. And I firmly believe that my God is worthy of way more celebration than should ever occur for our favorite sports team (sorry sports fans). Yet I can’t help wondering – how many messages from God do we miss because we are celebrating and not resting in quietness?

Lord, teach us to wait on You in quiet faith, trusting that You will speak when You know we’re listening.

“Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” 1 Samuel 3:9b, 10b

One of the first verses that impacted me was in Job (yes, Job!). After losing his children, nearly everything he owned and finally his health, after his wife has told him to “curse God and die,” and after his three friends unjustly accuse him of sin, Job says the following:

¹⁹ All my intimate friends detest me;
those I love have turned against me.

²⁰ I am nothing but skin and bones;
I have escaped with only the skin of my teeth.

²⁵ I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.

²⁶ And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;

²⁷ I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.How my heart yearns within me!
Job 19:19-20, 26-27

“I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.” Wow! In the very depths of pain and sorrow, Job is able to make this tremendous proclamation of faith. When I first read this verse, my faith was quite new. Why was I reading Job? I have no idea – it seems such an illogical book to read for a new Christian. Perhaps, though, it was the hand of God who knew I would slog through the arguments found in chapters 2 through 18 until I came to Job’s proclamation of faith and that it would make an impression on me that would last forever. I remember pointing out the verse to Phil (“Look at this!”) and needle-pointing it on a gym bag.

I wanted, and still want, the kind of faith that says “I know my Redeemer lives” no matter what my circumstances are.

We find a similar verse in today’s Resting at the River’s Edge reading. Habakkuk cries out to God to save His people only to have God answer Habbakuk saying that things will get much worse – He will bring judgment on Judah. In chapter 3, you can hear the faith and the plea in Habakkuk’s heart:

LORD, I have heard of your fame;
I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD.
Renew them in our day,in our time make them known;
in wrath remember mercy.
Habakkuk 3:2

As I pray with others for revival in my heart, in our churches and across our land, I often quote this verse. “Lord, we have heard of the great things you have done. We stand in awe of them. Do them again in our day, Lord! Do them again in our day. Show Your mercy, Lord. Send revival to our land.” “Lord, I have heard of your fame. I stand in awe of your deeds. Renew them in our day.”

Habakkuk isn’t finished there, though. He finishes with his Job-like proclamation of faith:

¹⁷ Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,

¹⁸ yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.

¹⁹ The Sovereign LORD is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to go on the heights.
Habakkuk 3:17-19

“Lord, even when my life falls apart – when my business fails and my cupboards are bare, when what I’ve dreamed about and prayed for earnestly does not come to pass – I will still rejoice in You. You are my Sovereign Lord in whom I will find my joy.”

God is blessed and is honored by such a faith. Prayers like this demonstrate our trust in an omnipotent God – One who knows what we need better than we know it, One who loves us more than we can imagine and One who desires to bless us. When He holds back on what He has promised, it is not from capriciousness. It is not from folly. It is for a purpose.

I trust God’s purposes because I have come to know Him over many years. That inexperienced faith that recognized Job’s statement as significant has taken root and is learning to “rejoice in the Lord” – because I not only know He lives and that I will see Him, but I also now know His character and His purposes. (Well, some of them anyway.) His ultimate purpose (and my greatest desire) is to bring glory to His Son. Sometimes that means trusting Him when my world falls apart.

“Thank You, Lord, that we can know of Your fame and Your awesome deeds and they can increase our faith. Thank You, Lord, that You enable us to climb higher when there seems to be no earthly reason for us to do so. Thank You, Lord, that You are my Faithful God.”

Bless and honor God today, friends, by trusting Him for something that you’ve held on to in the past. Trust Him with the solution you can’t find. Trust Him.

God is not discoverable or demonstrable by purely scientific means, unfortunately for the scientifically-minded. But that really proves nothing. It simply means that the wrong instruments are being used for the job.
J. B. Phillips (1906–1982)

In Saturday’s blog, one of the points I made is that when God wants to accomplish something on earth He usually inspires one person. What an awesome thing to be used by God to accomplish His purposes. Paul, in speaking to the Corinthians, goes so far as to refer to himself and his fellow workers for Christ as “partners with God.” I love that He doesn’t save us just to have us sit around and enjoy the free gift of salvation. I love sitting around and enjoying the free gift of salvation, but I love it even more that He values me enough to want me to partner with Him to accomplish eternal purposes while I am here on earth.

In the book of Ezra, we saw God use many people. The first (in this book) was King Cyrus, an unbeliever. God gave him the desire to help the Israelites rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. But a King’s decree is just that – an order for something to be done. And building a temple is a huge job. So God inspired and enabled the leaders if the Israelites to move to Jerusalem, settle there and rebuild the temple. Zerubbabel emerged as a leader and lead the building effort and stood against Israel’s enemies when there must have been great temptation to let them join in the effort. (After all, more hands would have meant easier work for everyone.)

The rebuilding of the temple was not a short-term or easy assignment. It took seven months just for the people to relocate. Then the rebuilding began. After building for some period of time, opposition forced the work to stop…for about sixteen years! Imagine how disappointed Zerubbabel must have felt. Imagine how defeated he would have been tempted to feel. But it was Zerubbabel who again started the building process sixteen years later.

The outcome would have been much different if Zerubbabel had not been obedient to the call of God.Zerubbabel’s life would have been much different if he had not been obedient to God’s call. There were many places in the story when he could have said “Me? No thanks! I’ll let someone else do that job!” At the beginning it must have seemed like an insurmountable task. When facing the attacks of Israel’s enemies, he must have been as tempted to be discouraged as everyone else. When work stopped, it would have been easy to give up hope. When it was prophecied that they should begin to build again, it would have been so tempting to say “been there, done that! It didn’t work the first time, why should I stick my neck out and try it again? Find another sucker.” But that’s not Zerubbabel’s story. His story is one of faithful servanthood.

God changes the world through faithful servants. People like you and me who say “Yes!” to God. I’ve focused on Zerubbabel, but each person who moved to Jerusalem and helped rebuild the temple and each person who provided finances to make it possible were used by God to accomplish His purpose. In each case, the outcome would have been a bit different if they hadn’t said “Yes.” Maybe a portion of the temple would have been built differently or wrongly. Maybe some of the work would have been delayed or altered because of lack of finances. God desires to use all of us, according to our gifts and talents. But he gives us the option. We can be the faithful servant like Zerubbel or we can hinder God’s work by saying “I think I’ll sit this one out.”

I hope you won’t sit this one out. Say “Yes” when you feel God stirring your heart about something. That’s how He usually speaks – by starting a process in our hearts so that we begin to feel a draw toward something that maybe we wouldn’t naturally pursue. Like relocating and rebuilding a temple. Like giving offerings of money and personal property to see the work of the Gospel move forward.

God wants you to partner with Him on an upcoming project. Will you join Him? The results will be God-enabled. And that’s a pretty cool thing! No, that’s a WAY cool thing.

Last week in this “Heart of a Worshipper” series (HWS). I wrote about how our willing heart leads to having a free heart. Freedom! What a concept worth rejoicing over. This article takes the concept one step further…A worshipping heart is a secure heart. Read on. If you missed any of the articles in this series, you can find them all listed here.

A Secure Heart

We’ve looked at many characteristics of the heart of a worshipper. We began by saying that the heart of a worshipper is a hungry heart – one that wants to know God more intimately. We’ve seen that being vulnerable to God and willing to follow Him leads to a heart that is free from condemnation and fear. I’d like to take that progression one step further: The heart of a worshipper is secure. It stands firm. It is established. As the worshipper comes face to face with the God who loves him beyond anything he can imagine, his heart becomes rooted and established in that love. Recognizing the depth of that love fills us with a certainty, a knowing, that God is on our side. Paul writes this to the Romans in one of the most significant chapters of the Bible:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?…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 demons, 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. 
          Romans 8:35, 37-39

Obviously, Paul is fully, completely and utterly convinced of his security in Christ. He knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he cannot be separated from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

In 1 John, the apostle John wrote:

God is love.
         1 John 4:8b

Notice that he didn’t write that God has love, but that God is love. His very essence is love. John continues to describe the heart that is established in and by God’s love.

     …God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins… And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
     God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
             1 John 4:8b-10, 16-18

David also had this certainty. In Psalm 62 he writes:

My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.
          Psalm 62:1-2

Never is a very strong word!

Job’s heart was secure. In the midst of his terrible loss and pain, He cries out in one of my favorite passages in scripture:

I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes – I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!
          Job 19:25-27

As a very young Christian, I read this passage, and I was blown away. Job lost everything. His wife told him to curse God and die. His friends told him that his sin must be exceedingly great for God to be treating him so badly. And surely God seemed far away to Job because his situation wasn’t getting any better. Yet, his heart was ultimately secure. He knew He would see God.

A few weeks ago, we looked at the first quality of a worshipping heart – having a heart that is hungry for God. Job’s heart yearned within him to see God. And in the midst of his greatest trial, he was able to say “I know that my Redeemer lives and that in the end He will stand upon the earth.” That is an established heart.

It makes me want to stand and shout praises to my God. Hallujah! If God could make a man in Job’s circumstances be such a worshipper and have such faith, there’s hope for me! My heart also yearns to see God with my own eyes.

Lord, establish my heart as you established Job’s that I might be able to say in times of distress and disappointment and confusion, “I know my Redeemer lives and that in the end He will stand upon the earth and I will see Him with my own eyes.”

It’s all about being transformed by the One who loves us and desires good things for us; the one who says He has plans for us – plans to prosper us and to give us a hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). Part of that transformation is becoming so dependent on the One that is supremely dependable that your security is forever in the Omniscient, Omnipotent, Loving One. And when your trust is in the One who knows all things, is all powerful, and is love, where is there any potential for being insecure?

I’m not there yet! I still have fears. I still forget to depend on God and depend on my own efforts. But I’ve learned that when I am consistent in worshipping God, pursuing to know Him intimately, I develop a greater understanding of His surpassing love for me. Then my heart becomes firmly established regardless of the circumstances that surround me. As you get to know Jesus more intimately, you can develop that same sense of security.

A Christian who walks by faith accepts all circumstances from God. He thanks God when everything goes good, when everything goes bad, and for the “blues” somewhere in-between. He thanks God whether he feels like it or not.
          Erwin Lutzer

Note: you can purchase each of the books discussed in this blog simply by clicking on the name of the book.

Having graduated with my masters a few weeks ago, I have been thinking a lot about “what’s next?” I want to pursue more speaking and writing, but I don’t think that’s the whole picture and I don’t have many answers to that question. I am, comfortable resting in God as He unfolds things before me, yet “what’s next?” keeps reverberating in my mind. It’s created in me a more watchful state about opportunities that might appear on the horizon (at right in front of my nose).

It’s also had me thinking very specifically about what I’d like my life to be. I am regularly and eagerly praying “Lord, Your will, not mine – where can You best use me in Your kingdom,” but I am also thinking through what I would like to do in this next phase of my life and asking God to fulfill those dreams.

With that as a backdrop and having been released from “required reading,” I’ve read three fiction books in the past month (!). Interestingly, each has lent its perspective to the process and has made a strong impression on me. Curiously, I didn’t choose any of these books:

• My husband, Phil, picked the first book – one that had been sitting in our library for quite some time and neither of us had read yet. It didn’t appeal to me at first, so I laid beside my bed and it stayed there several days – until I was leaving for an appointment and wanted to something to read should I have to wait. I quickly grabbed the book and was out the door.
• A few days after finishing that book, I picked up another book at the retreat house I stayed at for a couple of nights. Having read Scripture and a devotional book, meditated, prayed and worshipped, I felt ready for something lighter and found a basket of books. I picked up the one by an author I had read a book by almost thirty years ago.
• Finally, two weeks ago, Phil stopped at a discount store and for only $1.99 they had a copy of the first book in a six-book series by my favorite fiction authors. Who could resist such a bargain! Being side-lined a bit after my knee surgery, I’ve had plenty of time to read it.

I’ve provided this detail because it’s so interesting to me that I truly had little to do with choosing the books I read, and each has challenged me in the same way, while weaving stories across three continents and sixty years.

Can you say “God speaks?” One of the way God speaks to us is by the repetition of a theme – it comes up in a conversation with a friend, then we read an article that touches on the same topic, then our Scripture reading that day reinforces the message…or perhaps we just read three books in a row with the same message. Clearly, God is speaking.

Each of these books has made me very aware of the blessed life I lead and even more aware of how warped my definitions of a “blessed life” and “success” are. But I’ll get to that. First, a little about the books I’ve read:

Safely Home, by Randy Alcorn, was the first book I read. It is a story about a Chinese man, educated in the United States and on the fast track to becoming a professor and famous thinker of his time. He is also a Christian and upon returning home, he finds all opportunities closed to him…except that of a lock maker. He becomes the best lock maker, living a life that challenges the reader to make sense of the world in which we live and the purposes of God in one man’s life. “Is this the day I die?” the lead character asks every day as he lives for eternity instead of for himself.

Secret Believers: What Happens when Muslims Believe in Christ, by Brother Andrew and Al Janssen, is the fictionalized account of real people who live in Muslim countries and come to faith in Christ. How are the people in the story to fulfill their calling to strengthen the Church when it is illegal for the Church to exist? It is a story about how believers live, struggle, and glorify God when the place to which they are called is hostile toward them and their faith.
    
    

Jerusalem Vigil, by Bodie & Brock Thoene. The Thoenes are masterful authors of historical Christian fiction. Jerusalem Vigil is the first book in the Zion Legacy series and begins with the creation of Israel is a nation. Jews and Christians attempt to make their home in the war-torn city of Jerusalem as neighbors on all side seek to destroy the nation before it has a chance to live. It is a gripping novel about the lives of those transplanted from safety to a place requiring all they have to give and more – all the compassion, all the strength, all the love, and most importantly all the faith.

In all cases, the main characters lived with great fear and sadness. In all cases, the main characters redefined for me the phrase “blessed life” and the concept of “success.” Both have little to do with circumstances and everything to do with perspective. I am blessed to serve God in my circumstances. Success is a life lived for God with integrity and purpose…regardless of whether that life is lived out in a place my “dreams” would never take me, or exactly in the place my dreams would take me.

I’m reminded of what Paul said:

²⁰For I live in eager expectation and hope that I will never do anything that causes me shame, but that I will always be bold for Christ, as I have been in the past, and that my life will always honor Christ, whether I live or I die. ²¹For to me, living is for Christ, and dying is even better.
          Philippians 1:20-21 (NLT)

²⁰I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. ²¹For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 
          Philippians 1:20-21 (NIV)

As I recall, there is also that phrase in the Bible about sharing in Christ’s sufferings:

¹⁷Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
          Romans 8:17 (NIV)

Wow…we are His children IF we share in His sufferings. And sharing in those sufferings is living for Christ, seeing Him exalted in our bodies. Somehow I think that message gets lost in American Christianity. Lord, forgive us.

Can you pray this simple prayer with me?

Lord, continue to shape and mold my understanding of success and blessing. I submit to Your will for my life…where ever it leads.

On Monday, a blog about destiny…..hmmm, I see a theme here!