Touching their earthly lives

Children are such a wonderful blessing from the Lord that they bring us much joy and enjoyment on earth. They enrich our lives so much and are often our first teachers on learning to deny ourselves and put others first.

Through our children we often learn to enjoy the Lord’s creation. Through them we learn to see the wonder in a caterpillar or in the rippling of water.

And through our children we are given our best chance to live out our faith before others. Our children learn from watching us and our faith…as true, born again Christians…will impact them.

It is a great privilege to be entrusted with such blessings.

What we often forget in our enjoyment and day to day encounters with our children is that we aren’t just raising these little people that bring so much to our earthly lives….we are raising souls that belong to the Lord.

While we pray for our children’s salvation, while we live the examples we want them to follow, we may forget to stop and remember that this child that belongs to us is actually a soul that doesn’t belong to us at all.

Their souls belong only to the Lord and it’s His place to do with them what he wants. We can only guide those souls in whatever small way the Lord will allow us.

I am a homeschooling mother. Have…in fact…homeschooled my children since before they were old enough to need any form of ‘school’. In the homeschool world there is great stock placed in curriculum. There are conventions where all manner of it are displayed. You can order magazines about it, get catalogs delivered to your door that can eat up hours and hours of your days. There are hundreds if not thousands of websites offering everything from single subjects to all-inclusive curriculums. There are ‘Christian’ curriculums, secular curriculums, and more. You name it if you want to teach it to your child you can probably find it.

There are whole models of education formed around certain ideas of how you should teach your children. And there are complete models formed around the idea that you can’t teach your child, that children learn when they are ready and not before no matter what…or how much…you pump into them.

Some families are ‘homeschoolers’. That is their identity. It’s who they are and it describes everything about how they live their lives, much the way other people describe being ‘doctors’ or ‘world travelers’. It is…quite simply…who they are. And they take pride in who they are.

There are many families among the homeschool world that homeschool for the sole purpose of being able to pump ‘Christian’ content into their children. They believe that it is their place to be the religious instruction for their children and that that should include their children’s education.

Let me say…I agree with that…to a point. I do believe that as parents we have a responsibility to teach our children of our beliefs, to live out those beliefs to them, and to give them the gospel.

I don’t however believe that we can instruct our children into salvation…which is basically what some among the homeschool world are attempting to do.

Being entrusted with children…with souls…by the Lord is a privilege that comes with the added privilege of being able to live out our faith in front of our children and the ability to give them the gospel as we will probably never be able to give it to anyone else. Part of that privilege is the joy of watching our children grow and learn.

I have met many a homeschooling parent and curriculum provider that believed that getting ‘Christian’ beliefs into the ‘Christian’ child was the single most important purpose of home educating them.

The trouble with this philosophy is that it completely misses the Biblical teaching that salvation is of the Lord and that we can’t work our way into it.

If we could…if we had to…if our children’s salvation rested in our hands and in how much of the Scriptures we could get into their hearts…we would fail. Miserably.

Because salvation rests in the Lords hands alone. He is the only one that can save our children and He will do so at His will regardless of what we do or do not do.

The vessels of God’s mercy (Romans 9:22-23) are prepared for eternal glory by the Lord and they are prepared according to the plan He has in place for them. When the time is right the Lord will draw (John 6:44) or more accurately according to the Greek text…draw…their hearts and souls to Him.

What has gone into their hearts and minds prior to that moment is only what was placed in their lives so that the Lord could get them to the place where He would save them.

If it was required of us…as parents…to put everything into our children that would save them…we would fail. We simply cannot put the love of Christ into their hearts so that they will love Him above all else. Sin lives in their hearts from birth and it will take root and grow despite our best efforts to weed it out.

This sin kills our children’s hearts so much so that they are dead in sins. Only the Lord can give them life from those sins and it’s His will to do so or not and there’s nothing that we…or they…can do to affect that. While our children are dead in their sins they are in complete darkness, lost to their sins, so much so that the darkness they live in will keep them from Christ…aside from a basic head knowledge that will allow them to profess a belief that does not reach their hearts.

That is the best condition that we can hope to ‘impart’ to them through anything that we…or they…do. Everything else…salvation…is in the Lord’s hands. It’s a gift that he pours out into those that He chooses to receive it. A gift is something that is freely given, not something we work to earn.

The educating of our children in the ways of the Lord may give them a head knowledge, it may restrain them in their sins, but it will not give them salvation.

Oh, but if we could. How great it would be to focus all of our earthly time and attention on our children’s souls and know that we were giving them their very salvation.

I would gladly spend every hour of every day working the Truth of Christ into my children’s hearts if only it would save them.

But Scripture tells us that isn’t the way salvation works and that nothing I do will save my children. The good news in that is that nothing I do…no failure on my part… will cast them into hell either.

They came into this world souls that belong to the Lord, to be used for His purpose…whatever that may be…and they will go out of this world the same way.

I can only touch their earthly lives to the extent the Lord allows me to do so.

 

Are you a fatalistic Christian?

I recently found myself in the midst of a conversation that eventually led to the other person asking me if I was a fatalistic Christian. I must admit the question stumped me because I had no idea what the term meant. After some research and a discussion with my husband I found myself before the computer trying to pull my thoughts and beliefs together as I pondered the answer I would give. I wasn’t intending to write out an answer at that time only to get my thoughts in order so that I could answer and in the end what I wrote was a reply.

 

You see…I believe what I see in Scripture…nothing more, nothing less. If what I see in scripture makes me a Christian fatalist then maybe I am but to me I simply believe what I see in Scripture.

 

The question as to whether or not I’m a fatalistic Christian wasn’t a question that came out of the blue. It was part of a bigger conversation (carried out through email) that had been going on for some time, gradually leading up to the point where the question was asked. That question and the conversation it was a part of has made me grow and learn as I wrote out my own answers. My own thoughts have been clarified, my own understanding taken deeper as I explained my position through each step of this conversation.

 

I believe that the very nature of how we approach Scripture affects what we believe and we get out of it. But it isn’t just that…those same beliefs are affecting how we see life and how we live out our faith.

 

In the last year I have done more studying and learning of scripture and the things of scripture than I ever have in my life. My beliefs have grown and changed as I’ve come to better understand my own beliefs. In all that learning I’ve learned that there are two ways to see the basics of God. We have God saving man or we have man working his way to God. And in those two ways of seeing it are two very different beliefs that affect pretty much all of how a person believes. It is what everything else boils down to. It’s the very basics of how we relate to all of Scripture.

 

As I see it…it is God saving us all on His own. There’s nothing we can do, have done, or will ever do that will or could have changed His decision to save us. On the other hand…the other way of approaching Scripture leads to a belief that something a person does places them into the position to attain salvation. That may be through their ‘choice’ to believe in Christ or it may be in their attempt to work their way into salvation in some way. But for me the only way I can see it is to start with God and only God. I can’t do anything but give all the credit to Him and none of the credit to me or anything I’ve ever done or will ever do.

 

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9 NASB)

 

 Either of those above views will affect not only how we believe but it will affect nearly every other thing we do in life. Those are fundamental beliefs that are the base of where so many of our other beliefs come from.

 

When I read Scripture I read it in black and white. As part of the conversation that led to the question about whether or not I’m a fatalistic Christian the topic of Eli came up. It was a rather long conversation that went back and forth for a while. But it was only a part of a much bigger conversation. The entire conversation spanned everything from Eli to marriage and the raising of children.

 

 Here is my response…

 

All I can see in Eli’s story is a man that was a priest…and so had to live an outwardly faithful and obedient life…who raised two son’s that sinned in adulthood. That Eli reprimanded them…possibly out of love…but failed to fulfill the duties of his position as priest and was punished for it. He took in a child that wasn’t his and possibly treated him as his own…shown in him calling Samuel ‘my son’…and in the end raised two son’s that ended up sinning and were destroyed as a result of it and one…almost…son that grew up to be righteous. That is what I see. And if you look to Eli’s story…that’s all that’s there. Nothing else. That is the black and white of Eli in Scripture.

 

If I were to take Eli’s story further I would have to point to Malachi 1:3 and Romans 9:13 where it says Jacob have I loved, Esau I hated. These were two brothers, raised by the same parents, what made the difference here? Why was one loved and the other hated? Did Esau gain the Lord’s hate because his parents failed to walk out an unfeigned faith in front of him? Did Jacob gain the Lord’s love because his parents did walk out an unfeigned faith? They were the same parents. It can’t be both ways…either the parents showed the kind of unfeigned faith you speak of or they didn’t. And yet they raised two sons that did not receive the same treatment from the Lord. One was loved, the other hated. Why? Because of something the parents did? Or maybe because…

 

What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! 15For He says to Moses, "I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION." 16So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy Romans 9:15-16

 

If you want to look to the old testament…

 

18Then Moses said, "I pray You, show me Your glory!" 19And He said, "I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion." Exodus 33:18-19

 

Here, in the black and white of Scripture, I see the Lord loved Jacob and hated Esau because He chose to have mercy on one and not the other. Per Romans 9:16… then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. There’s no room in that…that I can see…for any actions either of the person being saved or not saved or of the parents. It’s all in the Lord’s hands…I will have mercy on whom I have mercy. Where does the parents actions come into that? Where does even our own actions come into it?

 

From there I look to Romans 9:22-23…

 

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, ²³ in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—

 

I see no room in any of that for the outward displays of faith of any person in their salvation or in their children’s salvation. The Lord specifically said…I will have mercy on whom I have mercy. That’s it…all God…all Christ…no man. If that doesn’t spell it out enough I see in Romans 9:22-23 where it says he has prepared some for destruction in order to save those he has prepared for mercy. Again I see God…no man. It’s what He has planned, His design, His decree…nothing of man. Nothing of parents. Just God. 

 

Going back to Eli…we have three sons…three young men raised by the same man. Two were destroyed, one was chosen by God. Why? They were raised by the same person. If the dads unfeigned faith or lack of it was the reason for the sins of the two sons why didn’t the third one follow the same path? He had not only Eli as an example but Eli’s sons as well. Of the three if example was the reason for their destruction Samuel should have been the least likely to be saved. But the two sons were destroyed and Samuel was saved. Again…why? If the answer lies only in Eli’s unfeigned faith or lack of it…what made two wind up destroyed and the third saved?

 

If on the other hand we look at it in the black and white…we know nothing of Eli’s faith one way or the other beyond what we know of what it took to become a priest…and we know nothing of how he raised his children and Samuel and if we look first to God…His plan, His purpose, His decree, His choice…and know that He loved Jacob and hated esau, who had the same parents setting the same example for them and if Scripture tells us…I will have mercy on whom I have mercy…and that there are ‘vessels of wrath prepared for destruction’ and ‘vessels of mercy’…what do we have? Could it possibly be that Eli’s sons were vessels of destruction? If I were to look to Eli’s story again and if I wanted to read anything of great significance into his story it would be…Now Eli’s sons were worthless men. They did not know the Lord. 1 samuel 2:12…the kjv says… Now the sons of Eli were sons of Belial; they knew not the Lord. That wasn’t Eli’s failure. If the point of Eli’s story was to show us Eli’s failure as a parent to raise his children to have an ‘unfeigned faith’ would we not be told something like…Eli’s children were worthless because Eli’s faith wasn’t strong enough to point them in the right direction? If the purpose of Eli in the ot was to show us how not to parent our children wouldn’t we see that in the black and white of Scripture? Instead we see the story of the saving of one boy…which placed him into his place in the greater plan of God…and therefore of the salvation of the Elect…than we do of any other thing. We have two sons that were destroyed, one saved. Why?

 

I see vessels of destruction and a vessel of mercy. We know that only Christ was sinless therefore Samuel would have sinned. What made the sins of Eli’s sons any worse than the sins that Samuel committed? Were the sins of Eli’s sons so great that they earned them death while the sins of Samuel didn’t deserve the same? The only way that makes sense to me is to see it through the eyes of the black and white of Scripture…I will have mercy on whom I have mercy…and to see that quite possibly the sons were the vessels of destruction while Samuel was the vessel of mercy.

 

Does that make me a Christian fatalist? I don’t know. I guess it depends on how you see Christian fatalism. I do believe the Lord is sovereign in all, that’s it’s his creation…including people…to do with as he sees fit. I believe he will save His elect and won’t save the non-elect. I believe that there’s nothing we can do to become one of the elect and that there’s nothing we can do to keep from becoming one of the elect.

 

I don’t believe we can work our way to Christ. I don’t believe we can work our children to Christ. I don’t believe that if we just pump enough Scripture into them and set a good enough example we can get them to a place where God will ‘visit their hearts’. In Scripture we are commanded to teach the gospel…this is to our children as well as all others. We are to share it. Our faith…if we are truly regenerate should be a natural extension that manifests itself in ways that others will know we are different but I don’t believe we are to live out a system of works that will gain us closer access to the Lord. I don’t believe that if we can just act a certain way, teach our children a certain way, that the Lord will ‘visit their hearts’ or save them in any way. I believe that He will save them or not according to His will and not through anything we do or do not do. I don’t believe that if we can just live out a life of sinless perfection that He will in any way owe us anything where our children (or ourselves) are concerned.

 

If that was the way it worked neither my husband nor I would have been saved. Neither one of us ever had that ‘unfeigned faith’ lived out before us.

 

 To me…the outward showing of faith comes from an inward change. It’s the byproduct of what has happened in the heart and soul and has nothing to do with any physical or verbal actions on our part. If our salvation is real then the Lord will change our heart and our lives will show that but it will be because it is a natural manifestation of the changes of our hearts and souls and not a conscious, outward work that we do because we are trying to reach God.

 

No matter how good we are, no matter how religious we are, no matter how many outward works we do…we can’t reach Christ, or get our children to Christ. Only He can save us (or them) and He will do that or not no matter what we do or do not do.

 

I don’t believe faith is inherited. I don’t believe we can live out our faith in a way that our children will ‘catch’ it the way they would the chicken pox. I believe that our children will be influenced by us, by our lives and actions, by our beliefs and faith but that they will in no way be saved because of them. Their salvation rests in the Lords hands and nowhere else.

People can show a belief they do not feel. This can show up in the way they dress, their commitment to a physical church building, the way they raise their children, the things they say or do. Just because they show an outward system of works that makes them look to be a Christian that doesn’t mean they have been saved by the Lord.

 

Everything we do should be in obedience to the Lord. We are to try and avoid all sin but when we fail…no if, but when…we are forgiven in Christ.

 

 

This brings me back to where I was before. My belief is that our faith comes straight from the Lord. It is not a result of anything we have done nor is it a result of anything our parents did or did not do in raising us. It is the Lord’s will to draw us to him and to save us and it is a gift from Him that should be seen as such. With no assumption that we can work our children into the same gift or that if we can live out a life of works that He will somehow owe us the salvation of our children. That was a very difficult point for me to get around. And to accept.

 

All of that to say everything I do, every view I have on life, stems from the belief that it is God that saved me and I can’t work my way to Him.

 

Is that Chrsitian fatalism? See it as you want to but for me it is nothing more than putting my life into my Lord’s hands and accepting whatever plan He has in place for me.

 

 I do not believe in free will. We are God’s creations. He does with us what He wants to do with us. That includes the miniscule things in our lives as well as the huge things in our lives. We are His whether we want to be or not, whether we acknowledge His existence or not, and He does with us what He wants to. (This was in response to a comment of us acting out of our own free will)

 

Either we believe God is sovereign or we don’t. If he is sovereign than everything…great and small…are within his command. If He isn’t sovereign than He really has no control.

 

If believing what I see in Scripture and believing that the Lord controls everything in His creation makes me a fatalist believer then that’s what I am. As I saw recently…’In the beginning God. Not ‘in the beginning man’. The Lord created all…people included…He saves who he wants to and doesn’t save who he wants to and all that we are is within His control and plans.

 

 

 

Hold fast

Trials and tribulations come our way. There’s nothing we can do about it but ride out the storm when it hits. We must simply get through it the best we can. I recently had a discussion with my daughter where I told her that it isn’t in the easy times that we grow and learn but in the midst of the hard times that we gain our greatest growth.

It’s in those hard times that so many cry out to the Lord, both the saved and the unsaved…the regenerate and the reprobate. Many people who won’t acknowledge Christ at any other time do so in the midst of trouble or despair. That seems to be something ingrained deep in our human hearts and minds. For many this reaching out to Christ in times of need is as natural as breathing even if they don’t acknowledge His existence at any other time.

For the regenerate though…what do we have to gain during the times of our greatest trials? It’s easy to hold onto our faith…whether real or only surface deep…when things are good, when life is easy. It’s during those times of great stress and personal pain that the truth is so often seen.

I know of at least one person that was saved, regenerated, during a time of deep personal pain. In crying out to the Lord in that pain this person was saved. It was instant. And this person felt the difference. How many people are saved by the Lord during their deepest moments of anguish?

But for those that have already been saved what do we have to learn and gain from that deep place of pain? The Lord has a purpose for all our trials and tribulations. There’s a purpose for everything we experience. What might He be trying to teach us in those moments of despair when we’d do anything to escape the troubles we’re going through?

He’s already saved us, already brought us to Him. That can’t be the purpose of the pain. There has to be something else there. Why would He put us in a situation to go through such hurt when our salvation can’t be the reason?

Is it to teach us a lesson? To punish us for something? To bring us to a deeper understanding of Him? To change something in us? To get us to do something that is in His plan?

We can’t know the answers to those questions until after the pain has passed, until after we have weathered the storm and come out on the other side. Even then we may never know the reason but we can know that there is a reason. We can know that He has a purpose and a plan. We can know that we are to hold fast to our Lord and our faith and ride out the storm.

And we can trust that He is taking us somewhere even if we would rather not go there at the time.

His sovereign love

His sovereign love!

Dear Sir,

I rejoice that the Lord has often refreshed your soul with that great word (Jer. 31:3), "Yes! I have loved you with an everlasting love! therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn you."

These words were spoken by the Lord to His Church and people of old, are spoken by Him unto His people now, and unto all who shall be called by grace unto the end of time. And concerning them all, even all His chosen who have been, are, or shall be gathered in to Christ from the beginning of the world to the end of it, as a collective body, and unto every one of them individually, the Lord says, "Yes! I have loved you with an everlasting love! therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn you." When the Lord (verse 2) had put His people in mind of the grace which they found in the wilderness, when, though chastised they were not utterly destroyed, as their sins had deserved—the Church, taken with that wonderful grace which was displayed in the wilderness in sparing and preserving such a God-provoking people, who deserved to have been cut off utterly, and not to have had the promise fulfilled gloriously in the land of Canaan, she begins, and says (verse 3), "The Lord has appeared of old unto me," that is, in the wilderness. "Oh," as if she should say, "what miracles of grace did the Lord work for me in the wilderness!"

Upon which the Lord speaks, and leads her to the origin, source, and fountain of grace in His own heart, from whence that glorious flow sprang through His hand which so greatly took her mind—"Yes," says the Lord, "you say truly, I did appear unto you of old gloriously—but behold, my love to you was older than that date! I have loved you with an everlasting love—with a love of eternity, that had its being in my heart towards you before time commenced—and therefore it was that I drew you thus with loving-kindness in the wilderness, and have drawn you likewise into the land of rest."

"Yes," says the Lord, "look forward also unto all that future bliss which I will cause you to possess—not for a day or a time only, but through all time—and unto all eternity. And behold it all secured for you, to flow down upon you in my heart-love to you—for I have loved you with an everlasting love—with a love that will last towards you through all the successive ages of time, and to a never-ending eternity. I have loved you, and therefore with loving-kindness I have drawn you—I do love you, and I will love you, and with loving-kindness will I draw you. The infinite fountain, the immense ocean of My love, shall still flow down upon you in copious streams of loving-kindness, by which I will still allure you and draw you, until I have drawn you up to and into Myself, for a full enjoyment of infinite love unto bliss unknown and ages without end—unto the heights of glory—in and to a vast eternity!"

If God's love to His people was an everlasting love as it respects eternity past, it must needs be a free love, in that it was fixed upon His chosen in Christ before they had done good or evil—yes, even before in God's eternal mind they were beheld as having any goodness in them, for there could be no goodness in any creature but what God resolved to give it from Himself—the infinite ocean of goodness. And His resolving to bestow goodness, special goodness, or special grace, upon one creature and not another, was from His sovereign love to one creature—when He passed by, or did not so love another, according to the good pleasure of His will; not because God's people were better than others, did the Lord set His love upon them and choose them, but because the Lord loved them. He loved them because He would love them, because He would be gracious unto whom He would be gracious, and show mercy on whom He would show mercy.

Oh, how silent would all flesh be before infinite Sovereignty, and how should they adore sovereign free love that are the happy objects of it! And as God's love to His people was free, so it was also distinguishing—I have loved you, says the Lord—and not others—"Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated," though Esau was Jacob's brother. Oh, the distinguishing nature of God's everlasting love when He chose a remnant in His dear Son unto eternal life and glory with Him—and left the rest in a state of fallen creatureship—to enjoy a perfection of natural life for a short time only in Eden's bliss, in their first father Adam; when He appointed His chosen to obtain salvation by Jesus Christ as fore-viewed sinners, and appointed the rest unto wrath righteously for their sins.

Oh, who shall reply against the sovereign Lord of all? "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" And what manner of love is this, that resolved to display the riches of its glory upon thousands of people—an innumerable company though a determinate number—in raising them to eternal glory, when all were equally sunk in the fall of Adam, and by their own sins into the desert of death, in eternal misery? Sovereign love, indeed! And as great as it was sovereign—it was great love that God loved His chosen with, even when dead in sins. And how is its greatness displayed in the great gift of His Son to death for their life, and the gift of the Spirit to them for their quickening!

Again, as God's love is an everlasting love with respect to eternity to come—it appears in this to be an unchangeable love. What is eternal must, with respect to that infinite duration, be unchangeable. And through the whole unbounded space, from eternity through time and to eternity—God's love to His people is immutable according to its own infinity and undiminishable glory—from the immutability of His nature whose name is, I AM THAT I AM!—who is the Lord that changes not.

Oh, dear Sir, God's everlasting love is a free, sovereign, distinguishing, great, and unchangeable love!

It is an inseparable love. The happy objects of it can never, never be separated from it! Neither death nor life, heights nor depths, things present nor things to come, shall ever be able to separate those it fixed upon from the love of God! The love of God to His people is a bottomless, boundless, endless ocean, that swallows up their innumerable and mountainous sins in its infinite depths—that overflows all their great provocations, their vilest ingratitude, their utmost unworthiness—and that ever flows in its triumphant strength, and according to its infinite riches, to the full supply of all their necessities, until it has loved its beloved objects into its own image according to their creature-measure; until it has loved all sin out of them, and all grace into them; until it has freed from all death and misery, and raised them into itself as the element of their life; and then it will be to them, as vessels of mercy, an infinite ocean of joy and glory, where they shall live, and bathe, and dive to the praise of the glory of infinite love to the endless ages of a blessed eternity!

But oh, neither the tongues of men nor angels can express, much less the lispings of a babe set forth, the half—the thousandth part—of the infinite glories of God's everlasting love! Happy, thrice happy, for time and for eternity, are those blessed souls who are savingly interested in this everlasting love of God; who do and shall enjoy it to their ineffable and endless bliss, although a thousandth part of the glories of infinite love can never be expressed.

But who, O! who are those who are the OBJECTS of God's love—the darlings of God's heart, whom He has loved and will delight to love, and to love as God from henceforth and forever? They are all those who are enabled to believe in Jesus— who look, who come, who bow to Christ as the anointed Savior for their own salvation; who desire Christ above all things for their portion, and to give up themselves to the Lord, to be saved in Him with an everlasting salvation, to the praise of the glory of His grace forever. For this everlasting love of God, this free, distinguishing, great, unchangeable and inseparable love of God is in Christ Jesus our Lord. In Him it was fixed upon the happy objects of it, and in Him it is and shall be enjoyed by them. Not a single one, who is in Christ by faith, who runs in Him, the city of refuge, for its deliverance from the wrath to come—but is an object of God's love, but has an entire and eternal saving interest in God's everlasting love, and shall have the present and everlasting enjoyment thereof, to his present spiritual life in grace, and to his eternal life in glory.

And are you, brother, one of them that believe in Jesus? Are you one of those who desire Him above all things for your portion? Do you run into Christ for refuge from the wrath to come? And do you desire to be saved in the Lord to His present and eternal praise? It is you, you individually, who is an object of God's love. It is you as really as if He had loved none but you! It is you who has an entire and eternal interest in God's everlasting love! Would you give a thousand worlds if you had them, to be assured of your interest in God's unchangeable love? Are you thus athirst for that river, that fountain, that ocean of the water of life? Though you have not a thousand worlds, no, nor one mite of worthiness to give for the manifestation of God's love—Christ Jesus the Lord will give you of this fountain of the water of life freely. Oh, freely! though you may see yourself to be the most unworthy—though your sins and fears are innumerable—though you have done as evil things as you could against the Lord—and though you have dealt treacherously, and are bent to backsliding from Him daily—the Lord, your infinite Lover, will give you His love freely! He will satisfy your soul abundantly in this life with joy—and then—eternal glory! You who are athirst for the love of God, you shall not die for lack of it. No, brother, your soul is formed for love, and made thirsty in order to be filled, and with all the fullness of God, in love, shall you be delighted and eternally satisfied!

In love, then, to the God of love, doubt His love no more. Believe His love, and give up yourself to Him in love, and the God of love and peace shall be with you.

http://gracegems.org/Dutton/his_sovereign_love.htm

Resting in Him

The Lord hath prepared His throne in the heavens; and His Kingdom ruleth over all.”
Psalm 103:19

 

I’ve been told that I make life, so much harder than it has to be. I’ve heard it, in one form or another, from more than one person. I’ve been called crazy. And all because of my belief in Christ. More specifically because of the way I believe in Christ.

If that’s hard, if it’s crazy, then I’ll take it. There’s something so comforting in knowing that God is sovereign in all things, including me and my life. Who am I in the span of all time, in the working of God’s plan for people and eternity that he cares enough about me to draw me to him?

O Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
²     Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
    to still the enemy and the avenger.

³ When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
⁴ what is man that you are mindful of him,
    and the son of man that you care for him?

Psalm 8:1-4

Who am I that in all time He chose me to be one of His?

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, ⁴ even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love ⁵ he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, ⁶ to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. Ephesians 1:3-6

There is something so comforting in knowing that I am His. When I’m told that I make things harder I long to tell those saying it that it isn’t harder, it’s easier. Sometimes I do tell them that but it’s a concept I can’t seem to get them to understand. Life when lived on the Lord’s terms, by His commandments isn’t hard, it’s easy.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:29-30

But that is something that only those that live in Christ understand. Others just see what looks like a whole lot of restrictions. They don’t understand the contentment I find just being at home or enjoying my family. They don’t understand how I can get pleasure from studying a single object in nature, how I can sit and study a tree or a cloud and marvel that the Lord went to the effort to put it there for me. They don’t understand that my soul rejoices in knowing that my Lord controls all, that He has a plan and that I am just a small part of it.

In all of time, in all of eternity, out of the billions of people…He chose me to belong to Him. He placed wonders in His creation for me to discover and enjoy. He cared enough about me to give me people on earth to love and be loved by. He has provided for my every need. He guides me where I’m going even when my flesh wants to wonder and worry about what the destination is.

I can rest in Christ because I know His work in my life will be for my good, that it will all work out the way He intends it to. I can rest in peace because I know that my Lord is controlling my life. Even when bad happens I can know that He will work it for my good. I can rest in His plan knowing that He has worked everything out for me to have life and that He has supplied everything I need.

I can trust in Him and his plan for my life, for the lives of my loved ones, because I know that His plan was formed before the earth and that it will be completed as He intends. There is no person out there that can alter the plan of the Lord. It’s His plan, His creation, His will that will prevail through all of time, in all things. From the great to the miniscule…It’s all in the Lord’s control.

I am but a speck in that plan.

Thankfully He chose to be mindful of me, a mere vapor in the wind of His creation. For all of that…I’m given peace and comfort in Him. I can rest in Him. All of my faith is in the Lord, who controls everything.

Just think…the Lord that’s working out all of what is happening today is the same Lord that was there when Adam and Eve were placed in the garden, He’s the same Lord that caused a flood unlike any the world has ever known before or since, He’s the same Lord that rescued slaves, that came to earth to walk as man so that His plan might come to pass.

And He took the time to draw me to Him so that He could save me.

I didn’t ask for it, didn’t chose it. Didn’t ask to have this kind of faith in Him. And yet…He gave it to me anyway.

You did not choose me, but I chose you… John 15:16

He chose me…even when I wouldn’t have chosen Him. How much it hurts my heart to know there was a time I would have seen someone with beliefs like I have now much the way those that tell me I make things so hard do. I wouldn’t have wanted any part of that kind of belief, of that kind of life. And yet He chose me against all opposition I would have voiced if I’d known what was going on.

 “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.”
Proverbs 16:9

“The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD.”
Proverbs 16:31

There’s such peace in that. So much security in knowing He cared enough about me to choose me from all time. There’s nothing special about me, nothing that should have earned me favor in His eyes and yet He still chose me. It’s a comfort to my heart, to my soul.

The sovereign God of all time, of all of life, the Creator, the Savior, is directing my life for my good and to carry out a plan He set in motion long before I lived.

If that doesn’t make the faith…the rest…that’s found in Him, easy…what does it make it?

 “For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things
to whom be glory forever. Amen.” Romans 11:36

 

Our days are numbered

Someone close to me, a professing Christian, once disputed whether or not a persons days are numbered. I said something to the effect of…our days were numbered before we were born, the day we die was set long before we took our first breath. There is nothing we can do to change that. This person stood in front of me and said ‘yes, unless you’re murdered. Yes, unless you get in a car accident. Yes, unless you fall down the stairs and break your neck.’

The more I tried to explain there was no unless…our days were set before we were born, and were actually set long before that…the more this person argued that there was an unless. We may be supposed to die when we’re 60 but if we get pneumonia and stop breathing then our days were cut short. And on and on the debate went until I said…okay.

I gave up. It wasn’t worth it anymore. This person couldn’t see something I clearly saw in Scripture and it wasn’t worth continuing a conversation that was rapidly approaching an argument.

I gave up. I left this person to their unless. No matter how hard I tried to explain my reasoning, no matter how hard I tried to explain, they just couldn’t see it. So I let it go. I gave up. I mentally threw my hands in the air and walked away from the conversation.

This person that was important in my life, that had in fact had an effect on my own faith, couldn’t see something I considered so basic. Something that Scripture plainly said.

Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.  Psalm 139:16

How this person couldn’t understand that I still don’t know. In your book were written…the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. What in that isn’t clear? What of it is hard to understand?

If that isn’t clear enough the NIV puts it this way…

Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

It’s there. Plain as day. Black and white. Easy to read. Everytime I look at Psalm 139:16…there it is.

Our days are numbered.

There are other verses that speak of our days being numbered. Matthew 6:27 says…

And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?

Luke 12:25…

And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?

But this person was so sure. So set. So convinced that there was an unless. There is no unless. Our days are numbered. If we’re murdered today it’s because that was the way the Lord had it planned. That was the method He used to end our life. If we die in a car accident that was the Lord’s plan for our death.

No unless.

Just the end of the number of days we were allotted.

But try as I might I couldn’t convince this person of that. I couldn’t get them off the thought of unless. Our days are numbered unless…

Is the Lord not soverign? Is it not within His power to stop someone from harming us? Is it not within His power to keep us out of an accident? Is it not within His power to keep us from falling down the stairs?

I’ve heard of accidents that left the first responders shocked that someone survived them. They tell the person there’s no way they should have lived through the accident and here the person is standing in front of them unharmed. There was no unless that day. That person’s days weren’t up yet, it wasn’t there time to die. So they didn’t. The Lord kept them safe when they shouldn’t have been.

My grandmother used to tell me that when my day to die came there was nothing I could do to stop it. That if I stayed home because I might get in a car accident then if it was my day to go an air plane would fall out of the sky and land on top of me. As a child I think those statements held part worry and part morbid fascination. What child truly believes they’re going to die? Certainly not me. Death was an abstract concept. People spoke of death but I, like most kids, didn’t grasp the full concept. And I certainly didn’t think about my own death.

As I grew older the idea of death became more real. I began to understand it a little better and eventually I began to fear it.

Somewhere along the line I lost that fear.

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. Philippians 1:21

Now the only concern I have over death is the pain my loved ones would feel at my departure. I’ve made peace with the fact that my days are numbered. My Lord has my life in His hands and that includes my death.

But as a child the thought of avoiding a car accident only to be smashed by an airplane was a bit…worrisome. Car accidents bring pain. And I couldn’t fathom being crushed by an airplane falling out of the sky. Did airplanes fall out of the sky? I know they do now…but as a child…I’d never heard of such a thing happening until my grandmother said it.

So the seed for knowing my days were numbered were planted in me in childhood, long before I ever began to grasp the Truths of Scripture.

And then came the day that this person, who should have known our days were numbered better than I, stood before me all but ready to do battle over…unless.

Hard as I tried there was no getting past the unless with this person. I wanted to. I truly did. I wanted to help this person see this small Truth. It’s not big. It’s not hard to understand. Many people speak of ‘the days we’re given’, ‘the days of our life’ or other statements that mean the same thing. I thought for sure this person, who had heard my grandmother say those same things I had heard her say, would be able to understand.

But they couldn’t.

Finally in frustration and sadness I mentally threw my hands up and let it go. I left this person with their belief in unless. That day…for me…that was all I did. I let them go on believing in unless.

But looking back…knowing what I know now…there was more to it. There was an underlining issue that I couldn’t see at that time.

When I said our days are numbered, what I meant was the Lord has assigned me a certain number of days. He’s already decided my end. He made the decision for my life. He set the course. He wrote the plan. He is in control.

He is in control.

And there was the big difference. There lay the problem.

This person was saying…God gave us a certain number of days but if a bad person does something to cut those days short than we die before our time. They were saying…God gave us a certain number of days but if an accident happens and we die then our days were cut short. They were saying…God gave us so many days but if we’re careless and we fall down the stairs and break our neck than we loose out on some of those days He allotted for us.

What this person was saying was that God gave us so many days but that circumstances outside His control could cut those days short. In effect this person was saying that man had more power than God. They were basically saying that God might have a plan but man could override it. Man could change the plan. Man could make the choice to commit murder, drive a car into a ditch, or carelessly fall down the stairs and therefore cut their allotted days short despite what God had planned.

They were saying man’s choices could override the plan of God. Man could choose to do something that would change the plan God had planned.

So while I was standing there trying so hard to show this person that the Lord had planned our days and assigned the final moment we would draw breath this person was standing there believing that man can affect the plan of God.

This discussion happened years ago, back when I didn’t realize what I was seeing in Scripture. Back when I didn’t know that people see Scripture in either a man centered or God centered way.

What I didn’t know then was that the discussion I thought centered only around our days being numbered held a deeper difference than just how we saw that. And the sad thing is…I didn’t see that that difference all came down to God or man centered until I was writing this post.

That single discussion with this person has affected the last several years. Ever since that discussion I have tried very hard not to discuss anything Scriptural with this person. I avoid discussions like that if at all possible because that day…for me…I understood that I couldn’t see things the way this person did and that to try and show them how I saw it would create an argument. So I stopped discussing anything Scriptural with this person.

I could talk about the basics but only if I kept it very superficial because to go beyond that would create strife and differing opinions.

I understand why now…have for a while…but until today I didn’t fully understand what had happened during that conversation. It wasn’t about the topic…it was about God vs man.

Our days are numbered because Scripture tells us they are. Our days are numbered because the Lord planned our lives and our deaths. Our days are numbered because to say they’re changeable would be to take God’s sovereignty, His power, His divine nature away from Him.