“The Excavation of God”

      “How much further do we have to dig to get to China?”
 
     I think my friend Randy was kidding long ago when he, myself, and a number of other neighborhood boys dug a foxhole (complete with tunnel!  Well, “tunnel” might be an overstatement…).  Our excavation extended about five feet down into the nether regions and recesses of the earth.  The project took so long to complete that Randy’s question actually didn’t seem as preposterous at the time as 45 years of hindsight now confirms.  We dug and dug, and then dug some more to create our fortress, and while we hit water at some point (hopefully, not a city pipe!), we never reached China.
 
      We had a great time in that foxhole.  I identify it as one of those childhood memories that helps define my youth.  I also think of it when considering the determination and diligence required to know God, as revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Holy Spirit.
 
    “He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6).
 
     This declaration of Scripture states and implies so much Truth that we could ponder it for a lifetime with little more than a cursory discovery of its meaning.  When reading the words, I think of grace – “He that cometh to God” – only grace makes possible our approach.  I consider faith – we must “believe that He is.”  I ponder promise – “He is a rewarder.”  And I sigh and bow my head in the realization that “diligently” too often does not describe my search for the living and true God.
 
    We spent time and energy digging that long ago and faraway foxhole because we believed we would find something.  Maybe not China (although it must be said that Randy was not, shall we say, the sharpest intellectual spade among our company.  Thus, he may well have believed we would ultimately dig our way to another continent).  The rest of us rather expected the reward of play and fun.  That we received, to the degree that I still smile when thinking about the war games and athletic contests made possible by our dig.  However, the memory also makes me wonder about my personal excavation of God to which the Bible calls those who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Would my Heavenly Father describe my search as “diligent?”  I am altogether certain that far too often, the answer to that question would not be pleasing to Him or to me.
 
    I’d like to go back to that foxhole of the past, but I can’t.  It no longer exists, a neighborhood having long ago sprung up and filled in our endeavor (moreover, a grown man playing army in a foxhole?  Well…).  More importantly, I cannot change the too many days gone by when I’ve failed to dig spiritually.  I can acknowledge them in repentance and the faith that God offers to me this day of diligence wherein His Spirit calls me to come, to believe, and to experience the reward of seeking the very Life of my life.  I won’t be disappointed, of course, and perhaps you join me in the realization of too many wasted days, but also, of the wonder of this day wherein the excavation of God beckons us to dig.  Indeed, we won’t be disappointed…
 
“Ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart.”
(Jeremiah 29:13)
 

“What If?”

What if we live anticipated lives, as it were? What if our Heavenly Father knows everything that will transpire during our earthly journeys, and has prepared the Lord Jesus Christ to be everything we will ever need in every moment?

What if God is working all things together for the good of them that love Him? What if the pleasures, the pains, and the mundane will all somehow fit together in conforming us to the image of the Lord Jesus?

What if the great fact of every moment, including this one, involves the presence, power, and working of our Lord by His Spirit? What if His presence is often in direct proportion to the appearance of His absence, and that we will one day see that God’s greatest doings transpired when He seemed nowhere to be found?

What if the worst our enemies can foist upon us will ultimately redound to our benefit and the glory of God? What if the worst thing that ever happened, namely, the unjust torture and execution of the Lord Jesus, was actually the hour of God’s best and greatest working on behalf of the race that killed His Son?

What if this moment finds us on the mind and in the heart of God as if we were the only person who exists? What if His interest in us is so loving and so devoted that He literally numbers the hairs on our heads?

What if those things that matter to us matter to the Lord? What if He rejoices in our joys, and sorrows in our sorrows? What if He is “touched with the feeling of our infirmities?”

What if our Savior prays for us in this moment, and forevermore? What if He presently offers intercessions for us in precise accordance with our circumstance, condition, and situation?

What if the hands He raises to His Father on our behalf are marred with prints of nails inflicted because our hands were stained with sin? What if His feet bear the same because our feet have too often treaded wayward paths? And what if the wound of a spear still exists upon His heart broken in order to redeem and transform our hearts?

What if “the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin?” What if God “delighteth in mercy,” and that the Son of man came “to seek and to save that which is lost” rather than to condemn?

What if the Lord Jesus is risen from the dead? What if He is a living Savior, whose Life beyond life infuses this moment, regardless of its earthly content and condition, with the glory of Heavenly reality and resurrection?

What if our Heavenly Father so loves us that if we have trusted in the Lord Jesus, He inhabits the innermost sanctum of our being by His Holy Spirit. What if we are His home, and He is our home?

What if we are going to live forever in the presence of One so sublimely wonderful that heavenly beings “rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come?” What if He exists in such goodness that we shall journey forever into the heart of God, but never reach the horizon of His love? What if the ocean of Christ’s wonder is without shore, and the starry heaven of His blessedness knows no boundary? What if every new discovery of God’s glory beckons us to venture still onward into the Infinite and the Eternal? Yes, what if? What if…

All these blessed possibilities exist as literal realities for the trusting sons and daughters of God in Christ. Our experience of them may wax and wane, but the reality abides both now and forever. This is written as a simple reminder, and as a prayer for your heart and mind, such as prayed long ago by the Apostle Paul…

“Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 1:15-20)

(Psalm 147:5; Acts 15:8; Romans 8:28; Ephesians 1:11; Acts 17:28; Genesis 28:16; Genesis 50:20; Acts 2:23; II Corinthians 5:19; Psalm 40:5; Matthew 10:30; I Peter 5:7; Hebrews 4:15; Hebrews 7:25; John 20:27; I John 1:7; Luke 19:10; Micah 7:18; Luke 19:10; Matthew 28:6; Matthew 28:20; Ephesians 2:22; Psalm 90:1; Revelation 4:8)

“Desperate Dependence”

(Thanks to my dear friend Fred C. for inspiration on this one.)

A dear friend and I communicated today by email about our first time preaching experiences. He fainted, and I nearly walked out in front of a congregation wearing a new suit on which I had failed to remove the price tags from the sleeve of the coat (caught it just in time!).

We’re both grateful that we’re many years past those first time experiences of standing before people in the attempt to preach the Gospel. Nevertheless, we do well to maintain always the sense of inadequacy and desperate dependence on the Lord that our maiden preaching opportunities fostered.

“And who is sufficient for these things? For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ… Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God” (II Corinthians 2:16-17; 3:5).

Foolish is the Christian preacher or teacher who feels confident in his own ability to apply God’s truth to the hearts of people. Certainly, we do well to prepare ourselves with much prayer, reading, study, pondering, and seeking to coordinate the “precept upon precept, line upon line” of God’s Word (Isaiah 28:10). We can and must do all these things. If, however, the Holy Spirit does not personally apply the illumination of Christ to the hearts of hearers, all is for naught. He alone knows the nature of each person’s need, and He alone causes necessary propositional Truth to become just as necessary personal apprehension of the living and true God.

I fully expect to discover when I get to Heaven that some sermons I believed to be have been among my best prepared and delivered will rank very low in actual effect for the glory of God and the benefit of others. Conversely, some messages that seemed stilted and barely comprehensible to my own understanding may have been the most effectual and graced of the Spirit. Indeed, when impressed with ourselves, we do well to recall the inadequacy of our ability to determine our own spiritual condition and performance. No less than the Apostle Paul confessed, “I judge not mine own self. For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord” (I Corinthians 4:3-4). Thus, we do well to maintain our sense of “desperate dependency” on the only One who can lead and enable us to fulfill our calling.

I share this with you because one of the best prayers we can offer for Christian communicators involves their growth in apprehension of God’s faithfulness, and their own weakness. No place exists in Christian ministry for the self-important or the self-confident. Again, no less than Paul informs our prayers and provides the example of the heart fully aware that those called to preach or teach possess no independent or inherent capacity for the task…

“I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” (I Corinthians 2:3-5) “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” (II Corinthians 4:7)