“Miracles In the Moments”

"Miracles In the Moments"     

    We do not live a lifetime at all once.  We rather live individual moments that accumulate to form a lifetime.  The principle also applies to this day.  We will not experience it as a whole, but rather moment by moment, including this one.  We do not think about this truth in most of those brief little passages of time, but it is good to periodically still our hearts and minds to consider the component nature of our existence.

    "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20).

    Note the "now" in the Apostle Paul's familiar affirmation of life in Christ.  Certainly we can consider this in terms of Paul's previous history of seeking to live according to the law.  Once he lived in the attempt to relate to God by an outward code and ethic.  Now he affirms himself to live according to the internal presence and life of the Spirit of Christ.  However, we can also narrow the focus of our brother's "now."  In the moment he wrote the words, he lived by the leading, motivation, and enabling of God.  This is the gift offered to all born again believers in the Lord Jesus.  We may live this and every moment through Christ.  As we trust our Heavenly Father and submit ourselves to His glory, will, and eternal purpose, the indwelling Holy Spirit reveals in us the character and nature of our Savior.  We may not feel such grace, and most of the time we won't.  Nor do we constantly see overt displays of Divine wisdom and might.  Indeed, when walking with the Lord, our left hand often has no idea what the right hand is doing (Matthew 6:3).  Heavenly life in Christ, as presently manifested, often looks very earthly.  Nevertheless, as we devote ourselves to the Lord, He dwells and walks in us according to His promise, accomplishing miracles of which we have no awareness, miracles in the moments.

    The best confirmation of such truth involves the Lord Jesus Himself.  When His ministry began, His own brothers did not know He was the Christ of God (John 7:5).  ??????  I find this to be, on the surface, the most shocking verse in all Scripture.  How could people live for decades in the immediate presence of God "manifest in the flesh" without knowing what He was? (I Timothy 3:15).  Certainly their own hardness of hearts accounts for a portion of the answer.  However, the greater answer involves the truth that the Lord Jesus lived most of His extraordinary life in the ordinariness of "the carpenter's son" (Matthew 13:55).  In thousands upon thousands of moments, the Light shined in the darkness.  It glimmered, however, in a manner that illuminated so softly that recognition proved impossible.  In similar manner, as Christ graces the moments our lives in us, we will most often not consciously realize the wonder we experience.  Nor will others know what - or Who - they see in us.  Our Lord will walk and work in us nevertheless as He fulfills His blessed promise to do so, and as we trust and submit to Him (II Corinthians 6:16).  He will accomplish miracles in the moments, the components of a lifetime that includes this moment to affirm our faith and devotion to God, and our confidence that "the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."

"My times are in Thy hands."

(Psalm 31:15)

Weekly Memory Verse 

   For Thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for Thy name's sake lead me, and guide me.

(Psalm 31:3)