Tuesday, June 5, 2018

"Goodness... Greatness"


"Goodness… Greatness"
     

     "Thy gentleness hath made me great" (II Samuel 22:36).

     We might think that greatness begets greatness.  Not so in our relationship with God, and in the ongoing process of grace whereby He works in believers to conform us to the spiritual and moral image of the Lord Jesus Christ.  

    "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.  For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30).

    Goodness begets greatness in the Lord Jesus and in all who take His yoke of devotion to His Father and to others.  This flows with the Biblical current of Truth that emphasizes character first, and then capability.  The Heart guides the Hand in our Lord.  He seeks to birth the same order in us, first, by changing our hearts when we trust in the Lord Jesus.  "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba Father" (Galatians 4:6).  He then works to mature us in Christ by increasingly leading us to think, speak, act, and relate in accordance with our Lord's indwelling spiritual presence in our hearts.  "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit" (Galatians 5:25).  The God who dwells within us leads us in His greatness by directing our focused gaze on the wonder of His graciously given and sustained working in us.  The easy yoke and the light burden - "Thy gentleness" - empowers a life of faith and faithfulness that focus on power could never enable.

    Children count the cars of a long train, amazed by how many can be pulled by the locomotive.  Adults are rather fascinated by the source of such power.  In our relationship with God, the greatness of His wonders rightly amazes us.  However, the more we know such Divine ability, the more we find our attention drawn toward the character and nature of its Source.  Indeed, in His first advent, "Christ, the power of God" came not to condemn a wayward human race, "but that the world through Him might be saved" (I Corinthians 1:24; John 3:17).  Possessed of the greatness whereby no foe can stand before Him, God rather sent His to hang on a cross for them.  "For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life" (Romans 5:10).  Such goodness does not preclude the greatness of power that will be manifested in our Lord's second coming.  However, it did precede it for the purpose of redeeming grace.  This the Divine order, in God, and in those who receive His grace.  Goodness begets greatness.  "Thy gentleness hath made me great."

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing."
 (I Corinthians 13:1-2).
"Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."
(II Corinthians 3:18)
"We pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of His goodness, and the work of faith with power."
 (II Thessalonians 1:11)

Weekly Memory Verse
    "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.  For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light."
(Matthew 11:28-30)









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