Behold Our God

You may have seen the recent news stories about revival at Asbury University. I hope and pray this is true revival and has lasting impact on all those involved. It reminded me of a similar event during my years at Bethel College (now University). We received word of revival experiences at other Christian colleges. A number of our students decided we would gather to pray for revival at Bethel. I won’t go into any details, but suffice it to say that the results were less than spectacular.

Here’s the thing—we can’t manufacture revival. We can hold “revival services,” we can pray for revival (and we should), we can play great worship music, but we can’t force God to do anything. There is a tendency among Christians to think that if we meet certain criteria, God is obligated to do what we want Him to do. For example, how many times has 2 Chronicles 7:14 been taken out of context:

“If My people who are called by My name humble themselves, and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

Certainly all churches should be pursuing humility, praying, seeking God, and repenting from sin. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ll see a visible movement of the Spirit in changing the multitudes, nor does it mean that He will somehow convert our nation into a God-fearing country. What we do know is that “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

There is a scene in the third episode of “AD: The Bible Continues” that really irked me, where the directors made it seem as though the arrival of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was solely due to the disciples praying the Lord’s Prayer over and over, louder and louder. God doesn’t come on command.

Are we truly humble if we think we have power to coerce God? He might be saying to us as He did to Job, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2). We don’t know how and when God will choose to work in our lives and the lives of those we love. We are responsible to pray for others and to share the truth in love when opportunities arise, but we have to trust that God will fulfill His own purposes for them and for us in His own good time.

Whether God will bring about life-change in a gathering that we would call a revival is entirely up to Him. Although it’s difficult to find statistics, I think it is safe to say that the majority of Christians were not converted through recognized revivals and awakenings. Most people come to faith through the everyday experiences of life, through encounters with faithful friends and family members praying for them and sharing the Gospel with them. God works in individual hearts and minds every day. This should be of great encouragement to us.

We don’t have to organize big events or get the conditions “just right” for the Holy Spirit to show up. As we follow the normal routine of obedience to God’s Word and guidance, we can trust that He is in control, present with us, and always at work. This is the God we love and serve, not one who comes at our command and obeys our wishes. “This God—His way is perfect” (Psalm 18:30).

“It will be said on that day, ‘Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, that He might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for Him; let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation” (Isaiah 25:9).

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Check out this hymn from Sovereign Grace Music, “Behold Our God.”

 © 2023 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Not My Strength

Although we as Christians should know that we are saved by faith and not by works, we often fall into the trap of trying to pursue sanctification by works. We think that if we just get the right combination of avoiding tempting situations and quoting enough Scripture we’ll be able to keep from sinning. We make our list of rules: don’t watch certain TV shows; don’t look at the magazines lining the checkout aisle; don’t buy ice cream and candy; put Covenant Eyes on the computer; avoid restaurants that serve alcohol; and so on. While those can all be good things, they are limited in their ability to stop the temptations that assail us. As the Apostle Paul wrote:

“If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulation—‘Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch’ (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (Col. 2:20-23).

The problem with external rules is that they do nothing to change the heart. “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Matt. 15:19). When rules and regulations don’t work, we may move on to memorizing Scripture:

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit? …So glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:19-20). “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions” (Rom. 6:12). “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation He will also provide a way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Cor. 10:13).

Scripture memory too is a good thing. However, if you’re like me, you may start thinking “OK, when temptation comes I’ll just quote five verses and I’ll be fine.” That is doomed to fail because you are relying on your own strength again. The same is true of the “power of positive thinking”— “I am dead to sin;” “I am a new creation;” “I can say no to sin.” Even though those things are true, simply adopting them as a new mantra doesn’t automatically stop temptation in its tracks.

Though I have done all of the above, the one thing that was most helpful to me has been to acknowledge to God my complete inadequacy to resist temptation and pray that He would guard me from its presence and power. It didn’t work to wait for temptation to come before trying to remember to pray. Rather, I asked that He would keep me away from sources of temptation. I am still a work in progress. We’re all still works in progress.

Jesus taught His disciples to pray “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Matt. 6:13). God is the only One who can answer that prayer. But again, we can’t just mindlessly recite the Lord’s Prayer every day and expect it to make a difference. Prayer is just one small part of a lifestyle of depending on God’s strength and not our own. The fact is, there is no five-step program to overcome sin. We can pursue all kinds of spiritual disciplines and yet still be enslaved to habitual sins. And different things may be helpful to different people.

We will all struggle with sin in varying degrees as long as we live. It is a lifelong process of being transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12:2) and becoming conformed to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29). Sanctification is God’s work just as much as justification was His work. But we can trust that “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).

“Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of hosts” (Zech. 4:6b).

© 2020 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Seeing Results

One Sunday recently in Sunday school we were talking about God sightings, and a few people shared ways they had seen God at work that week. This week I had a few answers to prayer. One was a specific solution to a technical problem that came to me during the night. The next day I found Psalm 16:7 (ESV), “I bless the Lord, who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me.” God had done exactly that.

Another answer to prayer was that multiple people came to basically the same conclusion on an issue independently. It seemed clear to all of us that God was closing that particular door. That led me to Psalm 38:15, “But for You, O Lord, do I wait; it is You, O Lord my God, who will answer.” God provided the answer when it was needed.

Earlier in the week I read 1 Thessalonians 5:11, “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.” I was really puzzling over how that kind of encouragement can be accomplished when so much of what I deal with from day to day is confidential for various reasons. But by the end of the week I knew that friends don’t necessarily need to know all the details of a problem in order to pray for you and thereby encourage you. Some prayer requests must be shared only in general terms, and prayer must be offered in faith that God knows all the details.

However, that doesn’t mean that prayers need to be vague. I always wonder what people mean when they pray “God, be with so and so” or “bless them.” God is always with us and He is always blessing us in one way or another, so what do those prayers accomplish? I know those phrases have become a kind of Christianese shorthand for “accomplish good things in that person’s life,” but we can tend to use words without much thought or purpose. Jesus said, “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words” (Matthew 6:7).

There are plenty of biblical prayers that we can pray even when we don’t know the details of what a person is dealing with. Praying for wisdom and guidance is usually a good idea (Colossians 1:9). Who doesn’t need wisdom in the complex decisions we have to make every week? Prayer for the right words at the right time is beneficial for the wide variety of relationships we have (Ephesians 6:19). And we could all use prayers for growth in faith (Ephesians 4:15-16). We may not know exactly what to pray, but “the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26).

In the situations I’ve mentioned, my primary prayer was for wisdom in what I should do. God gave clear direction in each case. If I had prayed only vague prayers, though God would still have done what He willed, I probably would not have noticed His answer. My faith was strengthened by seeing how God was at work not just in my own life and circumstances but in other people as well. “In all circumstances take up the shield of faith… praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints” (Ephesians 6:16, 18).

May we all be spurred on to pray specifically and persistently for those we know, and may we find encouragement in learning how God has answered those prayers.

“In the day of trouble I call upon You, for You answer me” (Psalm 86:7).

© 2020 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Small Drops

Christian news often focuses on megachurches and crusades, and there is often talk about desiring a great revival in our land. There’s nothing wrong with those things in themselves. However, I wonder if we’re overlooking the small things that God likes to use. Jesus used a boy’s small lunch (John 6:9) and He commended the widow’s small offering (Mark 12:42). He reminded His disciples that the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed or a little leaven in the dough (Matthew 13:31-33).

Half of churches have 100 attendees or fewer, and 90% have 350 or fewer (source). Most of the work of preaching, teaching, and discipling happens on the small scale—in small churches, small groups, and one-on-one—and yet churches and denominations often seem obsessed with “bigger and better.”

Moses said “May my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, like gentle rain upon the tender grass, and like showers upon the herb” (Deuteronomy 32:2 ESV). Charles Spurgeon commented on this verse:

“Let us try to be a little useful if we cannot reach to great things. The small rain is a great blessing. Let us try to be useful in little things. Let us look after tender herbs; let us try to bring boys and girls to Jesus” (Following Christ, ch. 15).

God has let history unfold at His own pace, and we’re more than two millennia past the birth of Christ. “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish” (2 Peter 3:8-9). It may seem slow to us, but God is not in a hurry to bring everything to completion. He may bring a great flood of conversions or it may be a slow trickle. It is not up to us to try to orchestrate a grand finale. He simply calls us to be faithful to the task at hand.

We sometimes start to think of ourselves too highly. “I must share the gospel with one new person every week… My church must have 10% higher attendance by the end of this year… We must plant five new churches in this city in five years…” Some of us may be trying to function as if we have five talents when God has only given us one (Matthew 25:14-30). And some of us may be trying to function in roles that we just aren’t gifted for (Romans 12:3-8). None of us alone can do everything, and that’s why God placed us within the Body. If each member does their part, God will provide the harvest in His own good time.

“Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much” (Matthew 25:21b).

© 2019 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

A Change of Mind

I came across this quote in Sheila Walsh’s book It’s Okay Not to Be Okay. In regards to Romans 12:1-2 she says:

“You might be tempted to ask, ‘What’s wrong with my mind?’ You’re smart, well educated, and computer savvy, with endless information at your fingertips—quite different than the audience Paul wrote to. The problem is not a lack of information; it’s a lack of renewal. We live in a fallen world, which means our minds are fallen too. We were made to worship, but unless our minds have been renewed, we don’t worship God, we worship what we want. The question remains, How do you renew your mind? The word renewal found in Romans 12:2 occurs only one other place in the Greek New Testament [in Titus 3:5], and it gives me great hope that this process is not something you and I can do by ourselves. We can’t. We need the Holy Spirit.”

She’s right—we can’t renew our own minds. Another sermon, another Bible study, another Sunday school class won’t cause us to be “transformed by the renewal of [our] mind” apart from the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit. As our pastor often reminds us, this is supernatural stuff we’re dealing with. We need to pray for ourselves and for our friends and family that God will do the work in our hearts and minds to make us receptive to His Word.

There are people who might be considered experts in the Scriptures. A recent book review on The Gospel Coalition raised the question of whether we can benefit from a non-Christian’s translation and commentary on the Old Testament. The answer is only to a limited extent. Without the work of God to connect us to the Messiah revealed throughout Scripture, all we are gaining is head knowledge. There are plenty of other people who struggle to read and understand the words in their Bibles, but they absorb all that they can because God has given them a thirst for Himself.

As we think about the programs and events we offer through our church, we need to bathe them in prayer, asking for the Holy Spirit to guide us to the right programs and the right message, but more importantly to work in the hearts of those who might attend. It is easy to get into a routine of doing the same things we’ve always done and not praying about it. We may wonder why people aren’t engaged in learning or why they seem so lackadaisical about their faith. But are we actually praying specifically for God to work in them? It doesn’t work to provide information without transformation by the Spirit. Certainly there are things we can do or not do that may facilitate learning, but the best teaching in the world will not change hearts or transform lives.

I’ve been convicted about this lately, because I can become judgmental about people who may not be at the same point in their walk with God. But as I look back over my own life, I remember the times when I was relatively disengaged from church and resistant toward where God was leading me. I had plenty of Bible knowledge, but it took a work of God to change my heart. Now I need to be reminded to pray for such a work in others’ lives.

So long as we are operating in our own strength and wisdom, we shouldn’t expect God to bless our efforts. I see an awful lot of churches that appear to be just going through the motions without really seeking God’s will and without praying for God’s work in individuals. Our fruitfulness is dependent on God’s power. Let us be diligent in praying for hearts and minds to be transformed and for lives that will abide in the Vine.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5 ESV).

© 2019 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Me Me Me

I read this the other day and found it to be quite true:

“To most people the greatest persons in the universe are themselves. Their lives are made up of endless variations on the word ‘me.’ What do people think of ME? How will thing affect ME? Will this make ME happy? Do people value ME as they should? …Have we not all, in our own experience, discovered that every endeavor that has ME as its center has no profit in it? You have set your heart, perhaps, on procuring something for the benefit or pleasure of your own great big ME, but when you have secured it, this ungrateful ME has refused to be satisfied and has turned away in weariness and disgust from what it has cost you so much to procure. Or you have labored to have the claims of this ME recognized by those around you and have reared with great pains and effort a high pinnacle on which you have seated yourself to be admired by all beholders. And right at the critical moment, the pinnacle has tottered over, and your glorious ME has fallen into the dust, and contempt instead of honor, has become its portion. Never, under any circumstances has it in the end paid you to try and exalt your great exacting ME, for always, sooner or later, it has all proved to be nothing but ‘vanity and vexation of spirit’ (Eccl. 2:11)” (God Is Enough, Hannah Whitall Smith, 132-133).

ME is an exacting taskmaster, never pleased for more than a few seconds. If your employer treated you the same way, would you not soon quit? Why try to please someone who just sneers and knocks you down every time? Why subject yourself to repeated frustration? And yet we do. “Maybe this time I’ll get everything just right and can enjoy success.” On the other hand:

“Jesus challenges us to forgive everyone we know and even those we don’t know and to be very careful not to forget even one against whom we harbor ill will. Right now someone exists who has disappointed and offended us, someone with whom we are continually displeased and with whom we are more impatient, irritated, unforgiving, and spiteful than we would dare be with anyone else. That person is ourselves. We are so often fed up with ourselves. We’re sick of our own mediocrity, revolted by our own inconsistency, bored by our own monotony. We would never judge any other of God’s children with the savage self-condemnation with which we crush ourselves. We must be patient, gentle, and compassionate with ourselves in the same way we try to love our neighbor” (The Signature of Jesus, Brennan Manning, 174).

We can either keep trying to perfect ourselves and build ourselves up despite constant failure, or we can accept God’s love and forgiveness and trust Him to do what only He can do. I find it interesting that the Apostle Paul’s list of the works of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21) all have self at the center: “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and things like these” (ESV). But it could reasonably be argued that the Fruit of the Spirit (vv. 22-23) is all focused on God and others: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” If we attempt to produce that fruit while focusing on self, it will be imitation fruit at best, quick to fall to the ground. Even self-control has to come from the work of the Spirit, not from self-effort. Only when we stop trying to grow our own fruit can the Spirit grow His Fruit in us. When we take our eyes off ourselves and our accomplishments and failures, then we can watch and see what God will do.

It’s time to dethrone ME and recognize that God is the King of kings and Lord of lords, and He is making all things new.

“Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:2-3).

  

© 2018 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com.

Risky Prayers

I woke up rather early this morning, and since returning to sleep seemed unlikely, I was praying about various things. After a while I found myself using phrases that I don’t normally use because they seem too risky. It is far easier to pray safe, benign prayers. Here is part of my prayer:

Lord, Creator, Sustainer… You raise up kingdoms and nations and You bring them down. You raise up those kingdoms that will glorify You, and You bring down those that don’t. And it’s not just the big kingdoms, but all the smaller “kingdoms” of our denominations, churches, homes, workplaces, hobbies… We build our own Towers of Babel for our own glory and satisfaction. But anything that doesn’t glorify You is an idol that must be torn down. Do what You desire with these things. We don’t want to stand in Your way. We don’t want to hold on to programs or traditions or habits or even the praise of man. While we don’t like to see the end of anything that appears good or beneficial, we want Your will more. It is Your name, Your kingdom, and Your will that matter, not ours.

I repeat, this is not my usual way of praying, and I’m sure I’m not alone. It almost seems crazy to give God free rein to do what He wants, but then again, He is God and is going to do so anyway. Surely it is better to admit to ourselves and to Him that we don’t know what is best, that we have mixed motives, and that we are not the ones in control of this world or our own lives. If we truly thought about the words of the Lord’s Prayer and its implications, we might be more reluctant to pray it frequently. It is no comfortable prayer.

Another risky prayer I encountered this week was Psalm 51. “Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean… Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (7, 10 ESV). If we’re honest, do we really want God to take away our bad habits, favorite sins, and wrong desires? There have certainly been periods of my life when all I really wanted from God was for Him to remove my guilt but not the desire to sin. “Clean up the outside, but leave my heart alone.” C. S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity:

“I think that many of us, when Christ has enabled us to overcome one or two sins that were an obvious nuisance, are inclined to feel that we are now good enough. He has done all we wanted Him to do, and we should be obliged if He would now leave us alone… But this is the fatal mistake. Of course we never wanted, and never asked, to be made into the sort of creatures He is going to make us into. But the question is not what we intended ourselves to be, but what He intended us to be when He made us” (174-75).

It gets a little dangerous and uncomfortable when you start praying the words of Scripture. It is easy to pray “bless them,” “be with them,” “protect them,” but those phrases are almost meaningless in the way we tend to use them. Do we dare to pray things like:

• With my whole heart I seek You; let me not wander from Your commandments! –Psalm 119:10
• Incline my heart to Your testimonies, and not to selfish gain! Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in Your ways. –Psalm 119:36-37
• Reprove and discipline me according to Your love. –Revelation 3:19
• Show Your greatness and Your holiness and make Yourself known. –Ezekiel 38:23
• Lord, look upon their threats and grant to Your servants to continue to speak Your word with boldness. –Acts 4:29
• We pray to God that you may not do wrong… Your restoration is what we pray for. –2 Corinthians 13:7, 9
• Open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to the power of God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith. –Acts 26:18

If we want to see God at work in our lives and in the lives of those we love, let’s stop praying comfortable prayers. I yearn for God to be glorified in my life through the visible evidence of His grace and mercy in justification and sanctification. I don’t want to settle for comfortable Christianity.

“To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of His calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by His power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” -2 Thessalonians 1:11-12

© 2017 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com.

Renovated

As I’ve spent entirely too much time painting rooms this week, I find encouragement in the fact that when God makes us new creations, He doesn’t just patch a few holes and throw on a fresh coat of paint. His work won’t have to be redone in a few years, but at the same time He will continue renovating us throughout this life. C.S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity:

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

It is encouraging to know that one day we will no longer have any cracks, blemishes, or weaknesses, but the process of getting there may not be quite what we expect. As Lewis says, it hurts to have our facade ripped off to reveal the structural damage underneath. We’d be content for awhile to just cover everything up with a nice paint job, but eventually the real problems have to be fixed. And often God sees problems that we don’t even know about. When He starts poking around in the shadows, it can make you question the decision to trust Him as Lord.

We’re just temporary tenants in this body, but He is the landlord. This is a frequent theme of the Apostle Paul:

• “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ESV).
• “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
• “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:22-23).
• “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling” (2 Corinthians 5:1-1).

The more years that go by, the more anxious I am to be done with the groaning of this life (and manual labor adds a few groans!). The day is coming when all of God’s renovating work will be completed and we will get to enjoy His perfect creation for eternity. Until then, I hope and pray that I will be a willing participant in whatever renovations He wants to do in my heart, soul, and mind. He certainly knows what is needed far better than I do.

“Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; He will surely do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).

Unlimited

I’ve been inspired and challenged lately by reading Lloyd John Ogilvie’s book Autobiography of God, which studies the parables Jesus told as a reflection of who God is. One chapter is on the parables of the “new patch and new wine” in Luke 5:33-39. In these parables, Jesus is not very subtle in pointing out that the Pharisees were so absorbed in what God had done in the past that they missed what He was doing in the present through Jesus. Although we tend to judge the Pharisees for missing the Savior, we can be guilty of the same thing today. Ogilvie writes:

“There are Christians who can recount with elaborate detail how they first discovered God’s grace in some experience of need or challenge. Often the treasured memory becomes more important than God Himself. His question is, ‘What have you allowed Me to give you and do for you lately?’ ...Many of us have built a whole theology on our personal experiences of God. Soon our experiences build us. They become limitations to further development and expansion of our understanding. We become rigid and immobilized. We insist God must always do what He’s done and be for us what He’s been.”

Holding on to past experiences may result from complacency, a satisfaction that what’s gone before is sufficient. It can also become a comfortable place that’s free from risk. If God has free reign in our lives, there’s no telling what He may do in us and through us. Ogilvie says:

“The false security of the familiar constantly must be replaced by trusting God with the complexities and uncertainties staring me in the face today... The Lordship of Jesus Christ cannot be poured into the old skin of our settled personality structure, presuppositions about life, prejudices about people, plans for the future, and predetermined ideas of what He will do or how we will respond.”

That’s a challenge when we’re not certain where our path will lead. It seems easier to rely on what we’ve experienced of God in the past than to trust Him to do whatever He wants in the present. Not that the past is bad. Throughout the Old Testament the Israelites were reminded to consider how God had been faithful in the past in order to trust Him in the future. But we can’t let those experiences define how God will always work. God is not limited by history or tradition, or by human understanding and expectations. God is “able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20), so why would we want to limit Him to what He’s already done before? But fear of the unknown is a powerful demotivator.

Thinking through this for myself, I see various areas where I’ve tried to limit God by my own limitations in knowledge, experience, personality and wounds. Ed Tandy McGlasson writes in The Father You’ve Always Wanted, “One of the devil’s main goals is to convince you to name yourself by your brokenness. He wants your future horizons to be completely limited by lies... But God loves to change broken stories and make the impossible possible!” Sometimes God is just waiting for us to say “Your will be done.”

As we were reminded in Sunday’s sermon on Proverbs 3:5-8, our role is to be faithful to God in our everyday life, and trust Him to reveal each step of the path as we come to it. That doesn’t sound too spectacular until we acknowledge and accept the fact that God may do something new and unexpected.

Ogilvie comes to a conclusion that is worth considering:

“I have learned a great deal through study of Scripture and years of fellowship with the Lord. But I suspect that my most exciting years are ahead. How about you? If so, I want to surrender any false pride or dependence on the past and make a fresh beginning. My past experience of God can never substitute for the experience of God today. ‘Lord, here is a fresh wineskin; fill me. Here is my naked need; clothe me with Your character.’ Now I can’t wait for what the Lord will do!”

“Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” -Isaiah 43:19

-Photo by Dawn Rutan from parking lot of Dulin’s Grove Church 1/30/15.

A Rocky Start

One of the arguments for the historicity of the Bible is the fact that the writers didn’t sugarcoat the narrative. They portrayed people with all their faults and failures. I was thinking about that particularly in relation to the Apostle Peter. The transformation that takes place in his life between the writing of the four Gospels and when he wrote his epistles has to be attributed to the grace of God. In addition, what he wrote in his letters takes on greater meaning when you remember the experiences behind it. Consider just a few examples:

“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:6-7 ESV). This comes from the man who denied Jesus three times when the heat was on. Luke’s gospel tells us that Peter wept bitterly over his denial (22:62). He was indeed grieved about failing the test.

 “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution… For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly” (1 Peter 2:13, 19). And yet Peter was known for having drawn a sword to fight against Jesus’ arrest in the garden (John 18:10). Jesus rebuked him and then set the example of enduring sorrow while suffering unjustly.

“And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1 Peter 5:10). Peter got a taste of this graceful restoration after Jesus’ resurrection when He met them on the beach (John 21:15-17). I’m sure he also remembered Jesus’ words prior to the crucifixion, “I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:32). Peter continued to do this through his preaching and writing until the end of his life.

“As you come to Him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:4-5). Peter was the one that Jesus told “on this rock I will build my church” (Matthew 16:18), and yet he did not claim any special authority greater than that of any other believers. He said we are all being built together into God’s house.

Peter experienced all the highs and lows of following Jesus, from the transfiguration to the crucifixion, from walking on water to breakfast on the beach. He had a lot to teach from what he had learned along the way, and we can still learn from him. If God can take someone like Peter—brash, speaking before thinking, easily swayed by circumstances—and make him a valuable contributor to the church, how much can He do with each of us? What lessons have we learned that we need to share with others? We tend to think that our lessons are too personal or too painful to be shared, or that we have nothing new to say. But God will work through anyone who is willing to be honest and open about what He has done and is doing in their life. Each of us has a different circle of friends who need to hear the truth. Our lives become the continuous, living testimony to God’s existence and ability to transform people.

Peter could have denied Jesus and then disappeared from history. On the beach he could have told Jesus, “Yes, I love You, but I’m done with this fishing-for-men thing. I’ve had all I can take.” Instead, fifty days later he was boldly proclaiming who Jesus was, and thousands of lives were changed as a result. Perhaps a bit of his boldness can rub off on us as we trust God to use us for His kingdom.

 “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” -1 Peter 2:9

© 2014 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.