Category: presence of God

To Be Brave and Full of Faith

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In the book Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis writes of Reepicheep. He is a mouse of exceptional courage and with a strong faith. People seem to always misunderstand a talking mouse, especially one who dresses like a swashbuckler.

He is determined to reach the utter east and join the Lion, Aslan (a type of Christ), Reepicheep is heard to say,

“While I may, I will sail in the Dawn Treader. When she fails me, I will row in my coracle. When that sinks, I shall paddle east with my four paws. Then, when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan’s country, there I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise.”

Compare this to the Apostle Paul’s testimony:

“Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Philippians 3:13-14

Paul transmitted an example to his generation of Christians. He put himself as a model of what is to motivate a believer. The apostle Paul pressed into what the Holy Spirit had for him. Both Paul, and Reepicheep are great examples, they would rather die than to miss their calling.

Everything depends on what God allows of course. But I believe He makes a special place at His side to those who mix their faith with authentic desire like Reepicheep of Narnia and Paul of Tarsus.

God may be making you brave and full of faith. Deep down, this is exactly what your soul is really wanting. Give Him permission to do this work in your heart. Then stand back and see what happens.

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Can a Mother Forget? [Love]

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“Yet Jerusalem says, “The Lord has deserted us;  the Lord has forgotten us.”
Never! Can a mother forget her nursing child?  Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? But even if that were possible,    
 I would not forget you! 16 See, I have written your name on the palms of my hands. Always in my mind is a picture of Jerusalem’s walls in ruins.”

Isaiah 49:14-16, NLT

Some of us need to be persuaded of God’s love. We are unconvinced. But Isaiah understands. We grasp the theology, but not the meaning. Our own native ideas keep us in disbelief. Perhaps the greatest liability we have as believers is this doubt that God really feels this way about us. But, He does.

Isaiah claims the impossible, yet grounds himself in what is real. The Father loves us and we’re His very own. Even if we don’t seem as holy as we ought to be. In His out reached hands, we discover scars.  This is the price He has purchased us with. We once were blind, and very lost— but now we are His own children.

We are given the impression that He more than ‘loves’ us; He ‘likes’ us. That dear ones, is not a point I’m prepared to support with scripture— it doesn’t exist except in my own thinking. I know that He theologically loves me.

But I also believe God also likes me as well. Surely, there is such a fine line here, between ‘like’ and love. The more I walk with the Lord, and it’s been almost 35 years now, the more I do love/like Him. I have learned to like Him as much as I love Him. And if God doesn’t like me, I think it diminishes His love.

Some of us must be persuaded again and again of God’s love.

Regardless, Isaiah speaks for the Lord with tender things. Among the people they had the mindset that God had somehow forgotten them. They thought that they were ‘the lost ones.’ God uses the analogy of a mother. A nurturing mother. This metaphor is strong and sure. No, God hasn’t forgotten His people. Look at His hands, your name is ‘tattooed’ on them. You’re His, forever.

“In math, if you divide an infinite number by any number, no matter how large, you still have an infinite quotient. So Jesus’ love, being infinite, even though it is divided up for every person on earth, is still infinitely poured out on each one of us!” 

Charles Spurgeon

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A Downcast Soul

 

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“Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”

–Psalm 42:11, NIV

The things that truly tear me apart, will often start by intensifying my gloom and depression.  I certainly do avow a limited degree of freedom.  But even in the light of this,

1) depression hammers me,
2) dismantles me, and than it
3) devastates me

My own lostness goes on to confuse me, (not to mention it in the lives of my family and friends) and than I slide into further into my darkness.  The bottom just falls off, and I go even lower. I become mad. (In the psychological sense of the word.)

But the Father interjects His will on my behalf, and puts me into this critical place by a special grace.  I try to rest into this great big sea of a massive love, but I imagine I really don’t belong. In my dark depression, I turn to Him for a greater protection.  I understand my proclivity to depression that only sinks me into the darkness of sin. So I reach out, and grab tight.

In olden days, a ship in a overwhelming storm would attempt to lighten its load by throwing its cargo overboard.  When we are in this despondency, we often will do this as well.  Anything to just survive.  We are quite desperate.

My darkness is deep, and it is an intensely viscous evil.  It reaches out for me, and it entangles me.  You might rightly say that I am lost, but the Father does intervene, and He steps into my blackness, and separates me from it.  It may seem a bit melodramatic.  But He nevertheless carries me through.  And yet I will confess that He has behaved consistently concerning me.

When we have an opportunity we should simply reach out for it.  Our foolishness should not disconnect us into a confused place of being.  We will step out into this awareness of being made wonderfully complete, and incredibly sure.  His presence alters us, and sanctifies us.  We change and adjust ourselves.  Yet everything that does work into us will bring us to a purpose and significance.

I do return and earnestly seek Him to work in me.  Unless He does, I will be irrevocably lost.  I turn to Him, and so I must admit I am bold in this.  I say desperately, ‘Please Jesus, save me.’  I will only turn, and be very bold, entering into His salvation.  “Please save me dear Savior, and launch me into the world of salvation.  Give me a deep understanding of your deliverance.  Jesus, I surrender to your work.”  And in all the areas I surrender, He meets me and brings me to the place of rest.

“So our hope is in the Lord.
 He is our help, our shield to   protect us.” 

–Psalm 33:20, NCV

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Jesus is Our Centerpiece

The Gospel of John describes a wonderful image of the vineyard— branches and vine. This illustrates our relationship with Jesus.  We must abide and remain in him to be fruitful.  He is the vine, and we, we are merely the branches. He is the sole source of everything.

Notice the clear implications of John 15. (Come to Me, remain in Me, stay connected to Me.)  He didn’t advise or suggest we attend a seminar, go to Bible school, or attend a prayer meeting.

He said, “Come to ME.”  He, and He alone is the one we are to center on. He insists that He is to be our total focus. There is no other (Matthew 11:28.)

This is either an egotistical religious fanatic intoxicated with His power and self-importance, or He really is reality.  C.S. Lewis comments,

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.
He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

 

Jesus insists that we worship Him.  That much is clear.  “I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.  I am the only way to the Father.”  And of course, “He who believes in Me has eternal life, and he who doesn’t is condemned” (John 14:6.) We just breeze through these verses and never truly grasp the ramifications. A mere man could not say these things (at least not with straight face) and be considered sane.

He either was what He said He was, or a liar or lunatic.  And we must decide who He really is. 

As believers we need to realize Jesus’ His rightful position.  The One who sits on the throne is the center.  All things derive their life, meaning and essence from Him.  We must not forget that He is the Risen Lord.  We need to realize that He has asked us to worship Him.  Point blank.

Many of our struggles come when we try to reduce Jesus to something less than what is real. If He really is the only way to the Father, we had better pay attention.

“A rule I have had for years is: to treat the Lord Jesus Christ as a personal friend. His is not a creed, a mere doctrine, but it is He Himself we have.”

–D.L. Moody

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