"The Navigator's Plan"

"The Navigator's Plan"     

  

  

   Frances and I recently rerouted ourselves in traveling to a service we conduct on a weekly basis.  The new course is actually longer in distance by a half mile or so.  However, we cut the time it takes to make the trip by at least 10 minutes.  The Eisenhower Interstate System paves the pathway for our expedited excursion as we miss a great deal of traffic by the far more efficient course.

    "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!  For who hath known the mind of the Lord?  Or who hath been His counselor?" (Romans 11:33-34).

   Our Heavenly Father often reroutes the way of His trusting children in Christ, leading us along a course that may seem strange if we merely consider the mileage, as it were.  The map of our own understanding and perception tells us that a longer journey lies before us.  The way may seem convoluted and destined to add more time and difficulty to the journey.  However, we do well to remember that the Navigator of our lives far knows the best course on which to lead us to the destination He determined for us long before we even existed.  Born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ travel appointed pathways as we walk with Him, many of which seem strangely out of the way.  The Navigator does not always explain Himself or His reasoning as He directs our journeys.  "His way is perfect" declared the Psalmist, and we know such Truth to be true (Psalm 18:30).  His way is not always understandable, however, and it is not always comfortable.  We will one day comprehend how efficiently our Lord led us throughout our lifetime for His glory, our best interests, and the benefit of others.  Nevertheless, the map we presently perceive does not always seem to confirm the perfection of the Navigator's plan.

    Those who sneer that the life of faith involves escape from reality and difficulty have obviously never attempted to themselves make the journey.  Trusting the heart and hand of God leads to a peaceful heart, but also at times to a bewildered mind - "We are perplexed, but not in despair" confessed no less than the Apostle Paul (II Corinthians 4:8).  Remembering and affirming the perfection of the One who guides us must fortify our confidence when His course seems to lead us in a way that challenges our understanding.  As the saying goes, "When we cannot understand the hand of God, we trust His heart."  The Navigator leads us in the best way - His perfect way - even if His purpose seems to add distance and even difficulty we might think it best to avoid.

"He is the Rock, His work is perfect: for all His ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He.".

(Deuteronomy 32:4)

Weekly Memory Verse 

   Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

(John 5:24)

    

   

"Two Paths"

"Two Paths"     

  

    Boil the matter of righteousness and acceptability with God down to its holy essence, and only two pathways exist.  Since His standard is absolute perfection, we can seek to be pristine in our thoughts, attitudes, words, and deeds from the moment of our conception and forevermore.  Or, God can impart to us the spiritual and moral purity of the Lord Jesus Christ as the freest gift we will ever receive.

   "Ye shall therefore keep My statutes, and My judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the LORD" (Leviticus 18:5).

   "He hath made us accepted in the Beloved" (Ephesians 1:6).

   The former path dooms us.  The latter path delivers us.  Our rightness with God originates and forever exists in the righteousness of our blessed Savior.  He justifies us, and then He indwells us by the Holy Spirit to motivate and empower in us the fruits of His holy character and nature.  The saving  message of the Gospel declares that Christ died for us.  The sanctifying and ultimately glorifying declaration of that same Gospel is that Christ arose from the dead and now lives in us.  He constitutes for us the reality of righteousness and acceptability with God.  "To live is Christ" affirmed the Apostle Paul who had sought to establish his own perfection, but who crashed upon the rocks of utter failure when He beheld the pristine Lord Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus (Philippians 1:21).  "I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord" proclaimed Paul thereafter (Philippians 3:8).  Those who join our brother of old find acceptance with God, freely given.  Those who don't, don't.

   In essence, the Lord Jesus is humanity as God made humanity to be.  If we can be just like Him, again, from conception until forever, God accepts us.  If not, some other way must be found, or rather, God must provide and reveal the way.  He has, and He continues to shine the spotlight on His Son as our hope - the only hope - of human hearts.  "This is My beloved Son, hear Him" (Luke 9:35).  

We must be as Christ, in every way.  

Or we must be in Christ, by wondrous grace.

One path to darkness, the other to light,

one to destruction, the other gives life.

By the way of ourselves, or the way of the cross,

only two options, of great gain, or sad loss.

As Christ or in Christ, of works or of grace?

We find the answer, as did Paul, when we look in Christ's face.

   From conception and forevermore in pristine spiritual and moral perfection - this is the standard.  "As for God, His way is perfect" (II Samuel 22:31).  We either achieve our own righteousness, or we believe in the imparted righteousness of God's Son.  The former is obviously impossible for all born of Adam's fallen race - "in Adam all die."  The latter is assured for all born of the Holy Spirit through faith in the Lord Jesus - "in Christ shall all be made alive" (I Corinthians 15:22).  Two paths, to futility or fruition.  Christ is the issue.  He achieved the fulfillment of the standard so that we might believe in the freely given righteousness of His saving grace.  We tread the path of the cross and the empty tomb to favor with God, or we follow the path of our own doings to our own destruction.

"He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."

(II Corinthians 5:21)

Weekly Memory Verse 

   Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

(John 5:24)

    

“Itching Ears, Needy Hearts”

"Itching Ears, Needy Hearts"     

  

  

    A preacher of old once remarked, echoing the Apostle Paul, "We live in a generation of people that have itching ears.  But I have no commission from God to scratch them!"

   "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables" (II Timothy 4:3-4).

   The pulpit and the page can become stages, as opposed to holy altars.  Fables entertain rather than minister, and those who communicate God's truth must know the difference.  Certainly, the Christian preacher and teacher seeks to make his message interesting to hear, as led and enabled by the Holy Spirit.  He finds words that faithfully and skillfully explain the truth of Scripture.  He illustrates with anecdotes pertinent to his congregation.  Emotional content, properly applied, graces his message for the purpose of touching the heart rather than titillating the fascination.  This may involve both humor and lament.  Most importantly, he realizes his privileged responsibility to proclaim the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, that is, the One who suffered and died for the Gospel the minister proclaims.  Such Truth slays any notion of being an entertainer rather than a disseminator of Truth far too serious to place in the hands of an actor.

   We do not need the scratching of our ears.  We do require the ongoing change of our hearts.  Entertainment scratches.  True ministry transforms us from fleshly to spiritual.  The former feels good, and may seem to meet needs.  The latter often hurts, and may even seem to damage.  And it may leave our ears itching, even as it sanctifies and redeems.  We must nevertheless seek to avoid mere entertainment from the pulpit or the page, whether our calling is to disseminate or receive.  We do well to pray for the preachers, teachers, and writers to whom we expose ourselves, that they may know the difference between ministry and entertainment.  And we do well to pray the same for ourselves.

"This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away."

(II Timothy 3:1-6)

Weekly Memory Verse 

   Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

(John 5:24)