Nancy Wilson's Blog, page 12

Busy Bible Reading

When I was a young mom, reading the Bible regularly was always a challenge for me. I went in spurts and starts. I always loved reading the Bible, but not enough to make it happen every day. I remember I used to wonder what it was that hindered me. After all, I made dinner every day even though I didn’t always feel like it. I showered. I brushed my teeth. I did countless other duties day in and day out. Why was Bible reading so hard to fit it? Actually,  I  made it way too hard on myself and set up ridiculous and unrealistic standards and hurdles.

First of all, I was tempted to stop and analyze my problem. “Why don’t I read my Bible more? I wonder what the problem is?” What  I should have done instead was say to myself, “I know! Rather than trying to figure out why I don’t read my Bible more, why don’t I just pick it up and read it right now?” If only I had thought of that back then. Even if I had only read a verse or two, it would have been much better than contemplating the causes of my erratic Bible reading.

Second, I think I was coming to the Bible trying to be a super-Bible-reader. I was going to the Bible looking for a “devotional experience,” and I seldom had one. So I figured that I must not be reading deeply enough or thoughtfully enough. This just bogged me down so that I was trying hard to digest each word. That is not reading! It is sort of like taking each bite of the food on your plate and trying to taste it to the fullest, getting every bit of flavor out before pressing on to the next bite. This would be terribly tedious and wouldn’t improve your dining experience at all. In fact, dinner would be just so many bites and not really a meal at all. When I put such high expectations on my reading, I  kept going back and re-reading anything I thought I had glossed over too lightly. This made reading through the Bible more like a hard assignment than a time of refreshment, so no wonder I drug my feet.

Third, I had a perception about a daily “quiet time” that imposed a super-law on myself. If I read my Bible, I could tick off the box and feel good about my spiritual discipline. But if I didn’t read the Bible, I flunked. This leaves God entirely out of the equation. Who said I have to read my Bible and have a “devotional experience” every day? Daily Bible reading is a great idea, but it is not a work that we do to impress God. Rather than viewing it as a means of meeting with God and growing in grace, I saw it as an end in itself. “Whew! I did my Bible reading for the day.”

Fourth, I didn’t always know where to read. I used some reading charts that helped, but then I got stalled out by ticking off the boxes again. And when you are a busy mother with many distractions, who has time to read a whole chapter? I would lose my place and forget what I’d read the day before.

Finally, reading seemed like it was the ultimate bonus after getting all my work done. This was probably my biggest hindrance to regular Bible reading because when, oh when, was all the work done? And by that time, I’m was too tired to read.

All this sounds pretty dreadful, but I did keep plugging along.

Now I don’t know if any of you find that you are hindered by any of these things. But if so, let me just urge you to quit analyzing and start reading. Relax. Enjoy the story God has written for us. Put a bookmark in the OT and another one in the NT and just start reading a bit every day. Grab a moment here and there. Don’t worry about trying to find a chunk of uninterrupted time because you might never find it. Keep your Bible handy. Listen to it on tape. Sing it. Love it.

 

 

 

 

Abundant Life

Jesus said, “I am come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).

Christ came to bring us spiritual life where there was spiritual death. Not only did He bring life, but He brought life plus. Big-sized life. More life. Life is good, but abundant life is better.

Here I’d like to look at just three aspects of this abundant life: living fully, living completely, and living comfortably.

1. In Christ we can live fully, the way He intended in our creation. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). And in verse 16: “And of His fullness we have received, and grace for grace.” Jesus is full of grace and truth, and we receive his fullness. Do you feel empty? Receive His fullness, grace upon grace.

2. In Christ we can live completely, because we are made complete in Him.  “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him…”

“Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever, Amen” (Heb. 13:20-21).

All the fullness of God is in Jesus and in Him we are complete, lacking nothing, made perfect in Him. Without Christ we are incomplete, unfit for good works, but in Him we are fit to work His will. Do you fill incomplete? Ask God to make you complete in Jesus who rose from the dead. It is through His resurrection that we are made whole.

3. In Christ we can live comfortably. By this I don’t mean that we have comfortable homes and regular vacations. This is something far more valuable. This is soul comfort. “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort” (2 Cor. 1:3). In Christ we have consolation, solace, and peace. We find ease for our spirits when our burdens are lifted and our griefs and afflictions are lightened by the God of all comfort. He is the author of all comfort, the source of all comfort, and we are able to live comfortably in Him.

“Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, comfort your hearts, and establish you in every good word and work” (2 Thess. 2:17).  Do you need comfort and peace? Go to Jesus who has given us “everlasting consolation.”

In Christ we surely have abundant life. We have abundant grace (2 Cor. 4:15), abundant mercy (1 Pet. 1:3) which has “begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” This is not dead hope, but lively hope, resurrection hope. This is the abundant life He has for secured for us by means of His resurrection.

He is Risen!

 

Another Testimony

 Rachel wrote her testimony a few posts back, and I thought it was time to follow her good example.

My parents were good people who raised us four kids to be God-fearing Protestants. Dad had grown up Methodist, and Mom’s family attended the Episcopal Church. We attended church regularly, at least often enough that it was not foreign to me. My folks taught us to pray before dinner and at bedtime. I always believed that Jesus was the Son of God. We had no denominational affiliation because Dad was in the military, so on the air base we attended the Protestant service.

Dad retired from the military, and I started junior-high school in southern Texas. My family attended the Presbyterian Church, and I became actively involved in the youth group and the choir. In fact, I joined the church. During those years I remember going forward at a big revival meeting in a stadium that a friend had taken me to. It was quite an emotional event, and I really thought I had changed. But every day as I looked in the mirror, I was sorry to see the change fading away. But I continued to participate in church activities and youth group retreats. Church became more of a social function than anything else. I had many wonderful friends during those years, and some of them are faithful Christians today.

After high-school graduation we moved to Idaho, and I started college as an English lit major. I never even considered trying to find a church to attend; it just didn’t occur to me. Academics were never as important to me as the social life, but I managed to pull decent grades. I led a very self-centered, egocentric life enjoying my friends and parties, much as I had in high school. However, the 70′s were a time of social upheaval and students in particular were looking for meaning in what they saw as a meaningless world.

I was being fed a message of hopelessness and meaninglessness by my English professors. I remember one in particular my junior year who said, “Man is beyond redemption. He is merely an animal, a beast.” I wrote stupid me-centered poems, and started reading stupid trendy philosophical books that I didn’t understand. I became restless and discontent. It had happened very gradually. I didn’t like going to my upper division lit classes that had only six or eight students because I felt it was all over my head. They were talking philosophy, and I couldn’t answer my teachers. So I skipped class. Which put me behind. Which eventually caught up with me. Which made me more and more unhappy.

In my unhappiness I started feeling superior now, looking down on the girls who were happy about a boyfriend or a date (like I had been the year before). I was hungry for something more meaningful, but I didn’t know what it was. I thought maybe I just needed new friends, friends who were “deeper” and not so superficial. At that time there was a “free university” run by some hippies on the campus, so I went down and enrolled in some of their classes: transcendental meditation, wilderness survival, and leather tanning. Thankfully, wilderness survival and leather tanning were cancelled. But I went to hear about TM and signed up.

For my initiation, I was instructed to bring fruit and flowers, and when I arrived, someone took the fruit and flowers and put them on an altar of sorts in front of a picture of maharishi whatshisname. It wasn’t until then that I realized this was a religious thing that I was doing. So I began meditation exercises a couple times a day, thinking this would give my life new meaning and give me the identity and purpose I was longing for. It was a joke.

Being a natural evangelist of sorts, I tried to get my roommate to join it. I told her how cool and wonderful it was. And I will never forget her reply: “Why should I? You haven’t changed.”

Yikes. I knew she was absolutely right. I knew it was a stupid sham. She had pulled the mask off, and now I was back where I started.

Around this time, I summarized my spiritual condition by articulating three questions. The first was, “Why is no one happy?”   I actually asked people if they were happy, and I always qualified the question as a deep happiness that was not dependent on external circumstances. I never got a happy answer. Everyone was unhappy, just like I was.

My second question was my purpose in life. I reasoned it this way: “I’m in school so I can get a job, and I’ll get a job so I can eat, and I’ll eat so I can get up and go to work. Is that it? Is that my purpose? Is there nothing else?”

My third question was this: “How can I be free of myself?”  I saw how my “self” was always in the way, interfering in all my friendships. I saw the superficiality around me (feeling pompous at my great insight), but I saw no way out.

During this period God was plowing the ground, and I was getting more and more miserable and convicted of my sins. A couple of times I walked into a church on campus and just sat in the back and cried, not knowing what to do. I decided I would “get my head together” (a popular thing to do in the 70′s) that summer. That was the summer of 1973, right after my junior year of college.

After school was out, I moved in with my parents. I had heard that my older sister (who lived a couple hours away) had become “religious,” but I didn’t think too much about it. But after I started having collisions with my parents, I called her for some advice. The result was that I got a very long letter from her in the mail, laying out the gospel. I read it, felt awkward about it, and put it away. I didn’t think too much more about it.

Not long after that, my parents and I met my sister with her husband and kids for a picnic at a park. I was surprised at how different her family was. Where there used to be bitterness and fighting, there was now sweetness and kindness and peace.  I knew it would be rude not to speak to her about her letter, so I thanked her for it. She asked if we could go for a walk, so I went along reluctantly. She told me more about the gospel, more about forgiveness, more about Jesus. She asked me if I wanted to pray. I said, “NO. I don’t want to be like those Christians I know at school.” Then we left to go home.

I got into the back seat of my parents’ car, and on the way home I decided that when we got home, I would go for a walk and do what she said. I found a spot on a hill, sat down, and had a long talk with God. Then I walked home.

The change was immediate, and my parents saw the change and began to ask me questions right away. I received so much in Him. He lifted the burden of sin. I felt washed and clean and new. He gave me purpose for living, He delivered me from my “self,” and He brought me a true joy and soul-satisfaction that I had been hungry for.   

That was over forty years ago, and I am still experiencing the cleansing and purpose and joy of the Christian life. God graciously brought my entire family to faith in a short time, and they are all still walking with the Lord. Dad was ushered into His presence a couple of years ago. A little over a year after my conversion, I met my future husband who was going to be my future pastor, and now we have sixteen grandchildren. To God be all the glory!

Over-Hope

“I hope to over-hope and over-believe my troubles” (Samuel Rutherford).

Troubles can make a person feel very alone. Does anyone really know how you feel or what you’re up against? The answer is no, no one can really know. Except Jesus, who is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He knows your troubles, and He walks with you through them. He is the foundation of all our hope. We believe in Him. So when we hope to over-hope, it is not a vague kind of hope that is embroidered on a pillow or painted on a coffee cup with a little picture of a bird. We don’t hope in hope. We hope in God who raises the dead. We don’t believe in belief. We believe in God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth. In Him we can over-hope and over-believe our troubles because we know He works it all for our good and His glory. We wait expectantly to see the outcome He has for us in Christ. And this gives us gospel hope.

Two Things You Should Know About

One is that Femina now has its very own phone app! We are pretty thrilled about that.

Second thing to note is the Spring Sale over at Logos Press.

 

Work is Fruit

Recently, I think it was in answer to a question, my husband said, “Work is fruit.” We often think of the fruit as the result of our work rather than the work itself. We think the fruit is the harvest, not the plowing and the planting. So bend your mind around this with me.

When we are made new in Christ, we realize our redemptive and creation purpose, which is to do good works. Look at Titus 2:14: “Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.” He saves us from our bad works and sets us doing, eagerly doing, good works. That’s death and resurrection in a nutshell!

We work out what He works in (Phil. 2:13). We do not work in order to gain our salvation or to gain God’s good opinion of us. His good opinion is freely bestowed on us in Christ, while we were still sinners (Rom. 5:8). But having received grace and forgiveness, we are made to be diligent and fruitful, and both the work and the fruit are gifts from God.

For me, this means I can look at my day and the work I have to do in it with a different attitude. Zealous for it. Eager to get started, eyes open. Good works are not drudgery, not monotonous, not menial if I see them as fruit. What kind of works does God have for us? His ideas include those of the worthy widow in 1Timothy 5:10: “”if she has brought up children, if she has lodged strangers, if she has washed the saints’ feet, if she has relieved the afflicted, if she has diligently followed every good work.”

These are broad categories that include millions of opportunities and details. Hospitality. Child-rearing. Homemaking. Service to the saints. Reaching out to those who are hurting. And everything else. This gives us tremendous scope for understanding what we were redeemed to do. And now we have been made to be eager to get to work. We are His own special people, chomping at the bit for the good works He has laid out for us each day (Eph. 2:10). Each one is a gift, an opportunity, a sign that we have been made new and that we belong to Him.

This means we are to be outward focused with our eyes peeled for the good works that are waiting for us each day. Look at all the good works God has specially made for you. Be zealous to do them. Not because you have to. Not because you’ll feel guilty or look bad if you don’t. But because you are redeemed and purified, ready for fruit.

 

I’m not selling it.

Disclaimer: this post may bore you to death. Or it could save your life. It’s hard to say. It’s about the very mundane details of breakfast. So if the mundane details of breakfast are killing you like they were me, then this is for you!

Breakfast is a crazy time in our house, and while we have tried all kinds of different things, we had settled into oatmeal most mornings. While my kids love cereal, it isn’t really a great choice. It makes me think of when I passed out in the bathroom at school, and it is certainly not a cost effective choice when you have a pile of children who can eat. So oatmeal was our game. Old fashioned oats from Costco. And it worked. It was fine. Whatever. Sometimes we burned it while I was doing hair away from the stove. Sometimes we didn’t want to clean out the burned oatmeal pan. I tried a crock pot oatmeal thing but we didn’t like it, as it was super gluey and weird.

But there has been a revolution at my house. Maybe revelation would be a better word for this. Either way, I wish I had found out about this ages ago because it is working so ridiculously well that it almost makes me sick. And I’ll tell you the truth – this surprises me. It isn’t that uncommon for me to try to cook up a scheme that will fix some problem. And it is also not uncommon for the scheme to do nothing of the kind. So when this worked even better than I had hoped and dreamed, well… I’m pretty thrilled.

I happened upon someone on the interwebs casually referring to the porridge setting on a rice cooker, and I said to myself, “Hang on, hang on!” I had a basic 10 cup rice cooker that had been used and abused to within an inch of it’s life, so I thought I should look into this whole scene. I bought myself a new fancy rice cooker – a 10 cup fuzzy logic one from panasonic. This was not a super cheap rice cooker, but it makes great rice (noticeably better than the last cooker), great quinoa, I even pulled off a risotto in it the other night. I am confident that if I ever felt the need to use the cake button it would do what it is supposed to do. But none of these things have endeared it to me quite like the daily breakfast application.

What I do is load it up at night with steel cut oats and other yummy stuff, set the timer, and go to bed. It will soak overnight, but then turn on and cook it in the early morning so that it is ready and just keeping warm when we get up.

Now the reasons this is so brilliant are abundant. First, it only cooks the oats in the amount of time they need to cook (this was my problem with the crock pot method). Second, I bought a 25 lb bag of steel cut oats at Winco for $15. That is 50 breakfasts for all of us – crazy cheap. Even when I add tons of good stuff to it it still probably works out to a dollar a day. Feeding 8 people, that’s pretty great. Then there is the fact that this rice cooker has a battery in it. So it keeps track of the time and remembers the time that I set last time. So after I throw the stuff in, I select the porridge setting and then hit timer and up comes 6:10 like always and I hit start. So it’s not like I am reprogramming the clock every night, which would annoy me immensely.

Then there is the fact that it is totally delicious and actually full of protein. The oats themselves are high in it – about 7 grams per adult serving, almost as much as a glass of milk. But I throw in flax seed and chia seed (both protein rich), as well as a little  PB2. We put a little salt, vanilla, brown sugar and cinnamon in, and then when it is out top with Craisins and nuts if we have them – or my favorite, frozen raspberries pushed into the hot oats with some pecans. I’ll know tomorrow if the honey nut version was a good idea or not.

Guys. I’m telling you. This is solving problems for me I didn’t know I had. Luke summed it up nicely when we were in the kitchen one night and he patted the rice cooker and said, “This thing has paid for itself in the spiritual and emotional benefits alone.”

So now you know. I’ve got new problems to solve, but this one… case closed!

 

My Testimony

(I was asked to give my testimony at our monthly Ladies Fellowship meeting.)

In the sense that we have come to think of testimonies, I do not have one. I can honestly say that I do not remember a time when I did not know God.

I do remember when I actually prayed with my mom – I was lying in bed in my little pink bedroom that was in our tiny blue house right here in Moscow. I was afraid of the dark and she told me not to be afraid because God was everywhere. I said He was in my heart too, and she said no He wasn’t, and I prayed on the spot. I was three when that happened – but I am fairly certain that I already loved the Lord and that was just when I made it “official.” 

I was baptized when I was five at Laird Park – in the freezing cold water, wearing a short and tank outfit that my mom had sewn for me. It was the same day my brother was baptized, and we arrived with our legs stuck to the brown vinyl seats in the back of our huge old Buick. My mom assisted my Dad in the baptisms – something that still cracks us up when we think of it – but I think it may have been back before we even had elders in our church.

I never rebelled, and neither did my brother or sister. Sure, I can think of times through my young life when there were opportunities to sin in ways that would have destroyed something. Sin that would have clouded my relationship to God and to my family – but I am thankful to say that by God’s mercy I did not  fall away. The reality is that through those times I loved the Lord, and I did not desire anything else.

Looking back I see a lot of mercy in my parent’s faithfulness. There was no hypocrisy in our home. My parents talked with us through all kinds of things and the reality of our faith was very obvious in these conversations. Scripture was authoritative over our lives, my parents were in the Word, they submitted their own lives to the Word of God.

In fact most of the trials in my childhood or young adulthood had to do with this. In fourth grade I had friends tell me that they could no longer play with me because my Dad believed in predestination – a hilarious childish outworking of the time that my Dad was becoming reformed. Starting then, I did not really have close friends until high school when some new kids who could handle the idea of predestination came along. I sometimes wondered why the kids in my class wouldn’t be my friends – I felt like I was pretty friendly. But then I would get some kind of an “invitation” into something that repulsed me, and I would not wonder any longer. Like the time when a boy who wasn’t a believer was “inviting” me (lucky me!) to be his #1. It couldn’t have been clearer when those kind of things happened how much I loved my family. The raspberries were blown with a strength that surprised even me.

By this point in my story I am sure that you are all ready to hear about my incredible self righteousness or closet sin of some kind. And there wasn’t any. Obviously I sinned and struggled along like any Christian, and like I still do, but I did not at any point get eaten alive by sin, public or private. I did not come back to the Lord dramatically at any time because I was His all along.

But what is the point of a testimony? Especially this kind?! A testimony is a witness account. It is the word of a person about what they have themselves witnessed. This is the humbling part of my story – this is the part that chokes me up and wrings my heart. I know that you could hear what I have already said as arrogant, like I haven’t struggled enough or hurt enough, or needed Jesus enough. But I want you to listen, because this is beautiful and terrifying and bittersweet and glorious all at the same time. And I want you to hear it because it is precious to me, and because it is precious to God.

Every day when I drive my kids to school we drive past a little strip of grass behind the Kibbie Dome and beside the old arboretum, where the sunsets look hot and the shadows make the hills look like velvet – and as we pass that spot my kids sometimes yell, “There’s where Nana became a Christian!”  My mother – a miserable college student trying to make sense of her life sat down there and prayed with a letter from her sister in her hands. A few days later she met my Dad’s parents – in her quest to get her first Bible and go to her first terrifying Bible study. There – on that little strip of sunny grass, my physical life as well as my spiritual life began. All of us who have faith have it as a gift – and how humbling it is to know that the very fact of your faith, as well as your life, is  part of God’s faithfulness to others.

My Grandpa Jim gave us all Valentines roses this year, my girls too, and in his very formal but increasingly shaky hand, right before he signed off, he wrote, “You are part of Exodus 20:6, ‘But showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.’”

My faith is a story of faithfulness – the faithfulness of our God.  It is a story of God doing what He promised He would do. My life and my faith and my prayers for my children are all part of a beautiful and intricate story of God’s faithfulness to His people.

From the place that God has put me in this story, I have a pretty good short-range view.  I know I am here because God is keeping His promise to a motherless Canadian girl who went forward at a tent revival. I know, because the man she married wrote it to me on a Valentine’s card, and he has asked God to keep those promises. I know that I am here because of God’s love for a Wyoming socialite and a stubborn California boy. We drive by the house where those two accepted Jesus shortly after my mom did. I know that My life now is part of the love that God has for them – part of His faithful love towards His people.

And further back too – I have a ruby ring that I am the fifth generation to wear. The gold on the sides is worn down on the band because it was worn next to a wedding ring for so many years, right next to vows that made my life possible. And I will see all five of those women in heaven. I think of their hands – working for their families and the kingdom. I think of the prayers in their hearts, because some of them had unbelieving children, or husbands.

My faith is not mine, but His. How then could my life be mine and not His? My faith is nothing but a weak reflection of the faithful love of God, poured out through generations. How many times in our family line did people think that God was not hearing them? How many heartaches were there? How many times did fear overshadow faith, or was worry bigger than hope? And yet God was faithful. He shows His love to a thousand generations.

Sometimes this kind of faith makes us uncomfortable. We would like to see a little more desperation, or a little more flash, even those of us who believe that God shows covenant kindness – we who baptize our children in infancy with a faltering faith. I recently saw an article about how to know if your children are simply borrowing your faith. It made some good points about wanting your children to be asking questions – but it has this horrible overarching assumption that each person’s faith has nothing to do with the faith of their parents, as though our faith is supposed to spring out suddenly and live only in us. But the reality is that I haven’t borrowed my parents’ faith, but I share it. Because  our faith is not ours, but rather the faithfulness of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

This passage is a beautiful portrait of this very thing:

Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began,  but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,  to which I was appointed a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles. For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day (2 Timothy 1:8-12).

 

Time for a Falling Out

James tells us not to be on friendly terms with the world: “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?” (4:4). It is as though he is saying, “Don’t you get this?  Don’t you know this yet?” He goes on to finish the verse: “Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

He is not being very diplomatic here. He is not trying to strike a bargain between God and the world so that we can be chummy with the world and still be on good terms with God. It’s all or nothing. We have to think of this as a war. The world is the enemy. If we are consorting with the enemy and wearing its uniform, then God is against us. If we are friends with God and wearing His uniform, the world is against us. Which way do we want it?

The Apostle John tells us the same thing: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).

So here we are living in the world, which is just where God wants us, and the world’s apostles and evangelists are forever preaching and pushing their agenda on us. Are we listening to them? Are we a captive audience? Are we being “conformed to this world” or are we being “transformed by the renewing” of our mind (Rom. 12.2)?

How do we become conformed to this world? It comes of listening to the world and letting the world define for us who we are and dictate to us what we are to be. Just for starters, it has plenty to say about women and marriage and children. Truckloads of worldly advice. Don’t let the world instruct you in this or anything else. Is the world frowning on your choices and children and methods of bringing them up? That’s a good sign. But a little bit of worldliness goes a long way in hardening our hearts and getting us to drift and compromise. And once we start trying to please the world, the target is always shifting.

God our Maker has defined who we are, and He has designed us for God-glorifying purposes. “For all that is in the world — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life — is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:16).

Have you made friends with the world? Then it’s time for a falling out.

“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:18-19).

Fight for Us

When we are suffering in a difficult situation, or working through a trial, or tempted by a besetting sin, one of the first things that we think is how alone we feel. We feel alone because we are the only person we know who is struggling with depression. We feel lonely because we don’t see other people dealing with chronic illness. We feel lonely because we want people to be right beside us as we work through something. And the easiest thing in the world is to blame the rest of the church for not knowing. For not understanding how we feel. For not struggling the same struggle with us. For saying things that were unfeeling. Do they not love us?

I’m sure all of us are familiar with the illustration that Paul uses about our different gifts being like different parts of a body. Some are gifted with one thing, and they do that on behalf of the whole body. But today I’d like to write about another aspect of this that we often don’t think about – suffering, temptations, afflictions, and any other kind of struggling. Whatever part of the body of Christ you are, your gifts are unique. And so are your struggles.

It is easy to find an abundance of articles accusing Christians of not handling the problems of others the right way. Whether it is “20 things to never say to a woman with a dirty house,” or “15 phrases to avoid using around childless couples,” or “10 mean thing churches do to single people” – it is easy to busy ourselves with itemizing the ways that other people failed to help us in our time of need.  These sorts of articles always hit some kind of a mark too. People gather around them with praise and comments about how many stupid people said just this thing to them when they had just this problem.

Now I’m not differing with some of the actual advice in these articles – it may or may not be helpful. And I’m certainly not trying to say that we shouldn’t bother ourselves with trying to understand other people’s trials. We should. I’d just like to try to paint this picture differently for a minute.

The body of Christ is full of people who have problems. Each of us has our own unique burdens. Some of them might be obviously visible to anyone who looks – but it may very well be that you are carrying a tremendous burden and  even your close friends don’t notice.

But here is the beauty of this – whatever burdens you are carrying, you are carrying them on our behalf. The fight you feel alone in – you are fighting it for all of us.

When the sorrow of infertility is pressing in on you and you turn to Christ, you are being Christ to us.

When you face depression, and turn your mouth to praise the Lord, you are being Christ to us.

When you lose a loved one and yet still bless His name, you are being Christ to us.

When you get the victory over petty sin – you are being Christ to us.

When your marriage falls apart, and though your are embarrassed and humbled, you faithfully confess and repent of your sins – you are being Christ to us.

When you fight through cancer in the joy of the Lord – you are fighting the physical battle for yourself and the spiritual ones for all of us. You are being Christ to us.

When some infection takes over a small part of the body – there is one place that the battle rages, but it is a battle that is being fought on behalf of the whole body. When that victory is won through the grace of God, it is won for all of us, and it ministers to all of us.

Often times in the wake of some tragedy, we are all shocked by the way the people closest to it bear up under it. A widow grieving, and yet still comforting her comforters. A mother of a child in a graveyard, ministering to the whole body of Christ not just through her bereavement, but with it. The way you handle the sorrows in your life is a means of ministering to others.

The truth is that the role of comforter is not the only way to be Christ to others. The role of the afflicted and still victorious is exactly what Christ was for us. Tempted in everything that we are, and yet not falling.

We need you. Not after you get over whatever thing it is you are dealing with and you feel ready. We need you to be getting through your burdens now, for us. We need you to fight faithfully, now, for us. We need you who have the best view of that threat that we are all facing – to fight it for us. This is a means that every Christian can use to minister to every other Christian.

Depending on your circumstances, this may sound harsh to you. Chances are good that if you have felt embarrassed of your temptations, or embarrassed of your situation, or simply alone and tired of fighting, that you don’t want to hear about how you can help us. You want to read a list of things that everyone is doing wrong to you. But remember – this principle means a lot more. You are part of the body of Christ – your problems are very literally our problems. We need your victory because it is ours, and you need ours because it is yours. We all have the victory - because we are His.

This is not something that we can attain to only if we are black-belt level Christians. All you need for this is Christ. He literally took all the battles we will ever face and ultimately won them for us. Never forget that He is the head of this body – he does know exactly what you are dealing with. He does feel the pain in a way that the rest of us simply can’t. He does know, and He is with you.