The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"Can God? Will God?"
Can God? Will God?
"And there came a leper to Him, beseeching Him, and kneeling down to Him, and saying unto him, If Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean" (Mark 1:40).
The Lord Jesus Christ could. And He did. "And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth His hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean."
What about you and me? Can God? Will God? The answer, of course, is yes and yes. Our Lord can do what we need Him to do, and He wills to do what we need Him to do. "My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:19). The born again believer in Christ can and must be sure of God's ability and intentions. Like all loving fathers - and infinitely more than any other - our Heavenly Father loves to provide for His children. Wonderfully, He also possesses omnipotent ability to fulfill His devoted inclinations regarding our well being.
The latter point provides a key element in our consideration: "our well being." Love, God's love, always seeks and finds the void in us that most needs filling. For the leper, the Savior addressed the obvious by healing the man's disease. Often, however, God's definition of need does not correlate with our own. The Apostle Paul, for example, sought removal of a painful thorn. His actual need, however, involved sufficiency of grace to endure the thorn because for that time in his life, the Lord deemed it best for the thorn to remain. Could God supply for Paul? Was He willing? Yes. Yes. He did supply, albeit according to His loving wisdom. Indeed, the Apostle discovered glories of God's heart that would never have been known had the Lord moved His hand to pluck the thorn as Paul desired. Moreover, the Holy Spirit incorporated Paul's experience of grace into the pages of Scripture. Thereby, millions of believers have been illuminated through the ages with a holy light that bears witness to God's willingness and ability, but also to His wondrous wisdom regarding how best to meet our needs, and the needs of others through us. "His understanding is infinite" (II Corinthians 12:7-9; Psalm 147:5).
God will. God can. God does. This is who He is to you and to me. This is what He does. Thankfully, He executes His willingness and ability according to His loving wisdom rather than our own. Such grace makes our way hard at times, and challenging to understand. If Paul could speak to us personally, however, he would tell us in no uncertain terms that that Lord's provision of grace rather than removal of the thorn was by far the perfect thing to do. We will know that one day. No, let us rather know that in this day. By faith, let us determine to affirm the loving willingness of our Father, and to declare with the Psalmist…
"As for God, His way is perfect."
(Psalm 18:30)
Weekly Memory Verse
"Because Thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice."
(Psalm 63:7)
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