“God looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.They have all fallen away; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.” – Psalm 53:2-3 {ESV}
Amy opened Landon’s school folder yesterday and, for the third day in a row, saw a handwritten note from his kindergarten teacher.The words of Ms. Foster read, “Landon, please stop grading your own work!”It seems that for the last three school days my five-year-old had taken it upon himself to write “100” across the top of his work - a perfect score!Apparently quite impressed with his scholastic progress he felt compelled to alleviate the teacher of the formality of grading his paper.How thoughtful was my boy as he wrote in chicken-scratch penmanship the highest possible grade afforded to students.School is easier than he thought after learning this new technique. Ladnon Lyle is one of a kind.
Don’t we wish that we could grade ourselves before God?It would be an awesome experience to look up into His holy gaze and declare that we have passed His examination with 100% perfection.We would have no sin, no guilt, no blemish, no misguided thought, no deed of transgression, no self-oriented attitudes!What an amazing thought to ponder that we would be allowed to write “100” across the crown of our own proud heads.Interestingly, God’s Word declares the exact opposite;the Bible teaches that there is not a single person on Earth who has ever passed the test.There is no curve upon which we can be graded – we either score a 100 or a 0.Bad news, folks:we are all spiritual zeroes on our own.
My personality is an all-or-nothing type.When pondering this issue of our standing before God I find that this type of personality works well.Others will want to compare themselves to their fellow earthlings and come off feeling smugly secure due to the fact that there is someone else down here faring worse than they.The issue there is that God has already set the standard of comparison and it’s not the local sinner down the street; it’s His perfect, immaculately holy Son against whom we must stand compared.Needless to say, we’ve just scored the 0.If that were the end of the story we’d likely be in a state of panic, but remember, I said I’m an all or nothing guy and I’ve got some great news along those lines.As Jesus lived a perfect life, doing always those things which pleased the Father, He scored a 100 on behalf of Adam’s ruined race.He then, by His immeasurable grace, extended that perfect score to us zeroes.In effect, He said that He would write our names upon the exam that He aced and that His grade would become eternally ours if we would trust that He would do so.He passed my test for me.He doesn’t even want me to help out.He just commands me to believe that His perfect score suffices the Father and that I will graduate alongside all others who trust Him.I went from the zero to the zenith in one fell swoop.
I would really encourage all of you go-getters to give up on trying to establish on your own what Christ has already provided for.Quit trusting in your baptism, your pedigree, your morality, your religious zeal, your training, your denominational accolades.Your knuckles are going to be permanently white if you continue straining to hold on to things.Look, it IS an all or nothing deal.You either trust solely in Christ and gain all, or you continue to refuse to humble yourself and receive nothing.You can’t meet Him halfway – dead people cannot even move, much less go 50/50 with God for eternity.Even if you could work at it, what grade would you give yourself?Maybe you are 88% holy.Perhaps a handful rise to the 96% range while a meager few approach the upper echelon of 99.9%.Let me boldly declare that the .1% that you lack will damn you for eternity.You better turn loose of that proud desire to participate in your justification and fling yourself down before Christ who lacks nary a thing.Give it up…and get it all.That, dear friend, is true grace.
Landon will learn soon enough the folly of giving yourself your own passing grade.He could have engraved it in stone with all the might of his five year old frame and it still wouldn’t have been true.He might decide to write it down on every piece of homework between now and the end of the year but his teacher won’t be fooled.He will learn that there is another who grades him and Ms. Foster’s criteria is much more scrutinizing than my boy’s.In the end, he will graduate K-5 and enter the realm of first-graders.He will have to earn it on his own by hard work and diligent progress.
I’m glad we don’t have to life and eternity that way.My test was aced by the King and He welcomes all who will to sign their name to His flawless achievement to do so by faith.Thank You, Lord Jesus, for doing what we never could. My passing grade was written in blood with a nail-scarred hand of omnipotence. Who could ever contest that?
“Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.” – Psalm 117:7
Sometimes it lodges in pretty deep before we are even aware of it.Somewhat like a blemish that appears on the face overnight while we sleep – we wake up and discover something is gnawing at us.Often the result is irritability, or perhaps a blueness of heart that attaches itself to us like lint.We can’t quite define it nor are we quite able to shake it as the day goes on.It brings with it the fleeting companions of fear, worry and skepticism.What is this thing, anyway?It is the all too familiar presence of a disquieted spirit.Can I get a witness?
If you care about life, about God, about the Great Commission or about people then you have certainly experienced the occasional tossing and turning of your heart.What a blight this is to those of us who have been saved by immeasurable grace – to distrust the God who proved His commitment to us by dying on a cross.As if He would hold back the minor elements of life from us when He has blatantly revealed His reliability in the most precious of things.Truth be known, some of us just aren’t content unless we are experiencing a little discontent.If fully trusting God equals a life of carefree days then I humbly submit that few among us really trust Him fully.
God has blessed me so extravagantly that it saddens me when I recognize how often I am suspicious of Him.I suppose I could try and lessen the sting of what I’m saying by employing less direct terms but I feel the need to be brutally honest today.Many of us are the types of believers who readily acknowledge that “God Can” but falter when it comes to declaring “God Will”.We echo the words of the man in the Gospels who cried to Jesus, ‘Lord, I believe but help me with my unbelief.”That’s tough turf to dwell upon, isn’t it?We wrestle with doctrine meshing with practical life.We tout God’s grace but then limit that grace to the boundaries of our own merit (it is no wonder then that few people are actually walking in great grace!).We speak of His love to others but live as if we are unloved.We encourage the one next to us to take heart and look for the answer for it is on its way!At the very same time we harbor a sneaking pessimism that God will not likely come through for us this week.Above all, we are hesitant to make bold declarations about God’s willingness to be manifestly God-like through our lives.Our hearts ache to tell others what amazing things God will do…lest He not do them and we come off looking foolish for having proclaimed His awesomeness.
So Christians are shuffling their feet, stuffing their hands in their pockets and nervously darting their eyes while wondering if anyone else notices the conspicuous silence of the Almighty.
It occurred to me recently that God might be waiting for me to edge out on the limb before He allows me to witness His greatness.We can hug the tree trunk all day with the brethren but how many of us are willing to grab that lowest branch of promise and begin to climb?We want fruit, don’t we?Well…how much fruit can one expect to find while clinging to the roots?No, if we want fruit, we have to slide on out upon the length of the limb – the fruit is always found out on the limb.Those who are suffering from disquietness of spirit might want to explore if God has allowed it to remain because they are living in their own strength.Any time we are trusting in self there should be the expectation of some form of unsettledness.It could be as extreme as panic attacks or as mild as a smoldering dread.The result may be seen in depressed and fatalistic paralysis or overexertion of non-stop effort to try to handle things.I don’t know if anyone out there is relating but I have to confess that I am weary of Jeff Lyle.I want to experience more of Jesus.Jeff Lyle is so 1993 and I’m learning that he has little to offer himself or the world around him.Jesus Christ? Well He is an altogether different entity.When He’s in focus, there is a zero tolerance policy for the intrusion of disquiet. Dread knocks on the heart's door, Jesus answers...and nobody is there.
The Psalmist says simply, “Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.”To His inspired lyric I humbly reply, “Oh yeah.I forgot that for a bit.I guess I’ll honor Him by refusing to fret today.”
“And when the musician played, the hand of the Lord came upon him. And he said, "Thus says the Lord, 'I will make this dry streambed full of pools.' For thus says the Lord, 'You shall not see wind or rain, but that streambed shall be filled with water, so that you shall drink, you, your livestock, and your animals.' This is a light thing in the sight of the Lord. He will also give the Moabites into your hand, and you shall attack every fortified city and every choice city, and shall fell every good tree and stop up all springs of water and ruin every good piece of land with stones." The next morning, about the time of offering the sacrifice, behold, water came from the direction of Edom, till the country was filled with water.” - 2 Kings 3:15-20 {ESV}
One of the things we Christians struggle with is the concept of God leading the way God chooses to lead.We, if we are honest, prefer to tell God what we wish He would do and then gladly commit to following Him as He leads us according to our own plan.You let our plan begin to experience circumstantial hiccups and we often balk at taking that next step in the journey of faith.Let me illustrate this principle from my own family life.
My two children are precious.Alicia is my soft, sensitive child who has a heart for things being precisely done.She’s a detail girl with an impressionable heart and she is FILLED with questions which often seem overwhelming and complicated to those she is asking.Landon is my thunder-child.He doesn’t have as many questions as his sister, he has PLANS.Alicia wakes up on summer mornings and asks a series of questions about the day’s events; Landon wakes up with a long list of how things are going to be for that same day. Alicia wants to experience order, Landon wants to give orders.When we load the family up in the car for a day that Amy and I anticipate will be leisurely and liberating, the children serve as alternating voices of inquisition and instruction from the back seat.We’ve not even pulled out of the driveway before Landon is insisting that we fulfill his agenda and Alicia wants to know what we will be doing at 2:12 PM and where it will be taking place and with whom.Amy and I glance at each other and wonder when these two precious ones will come to place where they can sit in their seats, look out their windows and rest in the fact that their mother and father have a plan that is better than their own.
That must be what God desires for His own kids.
In the opening passage from 2 Kings 3 above we find God’s awesome answer to an impossible situation.Three kings had come together with their armies to defeat another king.Plans had been made; battle strategies had been agreed upon, a massive military contingent was now mobile.These kings were tanked up and ready for the fight but they didn’t plan on how to keep their men and horses alive in the arid region through which they marched.They were going to die of thirst out there and had no remedy to the circumstance.Long story shorter:Elisha speaks on behalf of God and declares to them that God was not intimidated by their impossible circumstances.He was going to move in a sovereignly supernatural manner and afford them everything they needed to survive the drought and conquer the enemy.The Hebrew text reveals that they were commanded to dig ditches and that God was going to fill those ditches with abundant, life-saving water.He did not give them the courtesy of explaining how this would be accomplished – as a matter of fact He seems to imply that they didn’t need to worry about HOW when He told them that they would hear no windstorms nor see any rain.His words to them reveal that it doesn’t have to make sense for it to be possible.God reserves the right to be fully God whether you think He can or not.In my and Amy's world, Landon prefers his own plan above ours and Alicia needs a syllabus before the class begins.God sometimes says to all of us, “Put your plan in your pocket and throw away your need for a syllabus – this one is on Me.”
God is doing some incredible things in my heart these days.Good things.Things I don’t understand and I can’t fully explain.It would either bore you or frustrate you for me to try and formulate words about it.In essence, the ditches I’ve been digging for two years were full of water one day about three weeks ago.I didn’t see the rain nor hear the wind.I just arose from ditch digging one day and saw the fullness that God provided without any fanfare. He never said, 'Jeff, here it comes! Your heartfelt prayers will be answered tomorrow! It's going to be amazing!' He didn’t let me participate, He just let me benefit.I’m going to predict that He’s going to do the same for some of you.Ditch digging is boring…but it is essential.Keep doing the right thing and try to whistle while you work.Don’t demand explanations, sing His praise instead.Go beyond you.Put your immediate plans in your pocket and risk a slow-down as you ask Him anew what He desires for you.Keep checking the ditches for water because He’s going to fill them.What – do you think He’s going to let you die of thirst?No way.He’s the God with the plan and He has a specific one for you.I love Alicia and Landon more than words can tell.When their demands (Landon) and interrogations (Alicia) get a little too much, I just tell them to sit back and let daddy drive.
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