ARGUING WITH GOD
Bear in mind that our Lord's patience with us is our salvation. 2 Peter 3:15, N.E.B.
The devil is a great pendulum-swinger. He gloats over being able to entice people into the fire on one side or the ice on the other. Some Christians are too lax, caring little at all about their spiritual growth and about the details of their lifestyle. Some swing the other way, constantly uptight and bordering on the edges of despondency because they cannot grow fast enough.
Peter's message in today's text is for this second group. To be fair, their malady is an understandable one. They have caught a glimpse of the beauties of Christ's character, and then contrasted them with their own unflattering record. We can understand their desire to want to lunge into wholeness and joy and to turn steadfastly away from every failing. They are grief-stricken when their failings hurt others, misrepresent God, and blunt their own peace of mind. They loathe having to deal again with the same inner problems, and long to get on to higher ground.
The problem, however, is that Satan capitalizes on that very desire for holiness, turning it into a cause for discouragement. He gets God's children to become fruit inspectors rather than fruit trees. That is, we become more engrossed with the fruits of righteousness than with the root of righteousness. We measure our performance, comparing it with the previous day's performance (or worse yet, someone else's performance), then bow in discouragement. All this takes our attention off the real issue: building a friendship with Christ through beholding His character.
Discouragement is the anesthesia the devil uses before he cuts your heart out. For the perplexed Christian, failure to be Christlike seems to be such a legitimate reason to be discouraged! Yet Peter tells us that when the Lord looks at us He is not discouraged. Knowing even better than we do the long way we have to go, He still looks upon us with patience. He knows that we grow best with enticements rather than with pressures.
God remembers as well as we do how perplexed and distracted we become when our parents disciplined us by expressing their impatience with us. And He refuses to do it. If we are going to be impatient with ourselves, we shall have to argue with God! We shall have to insist that our opinion of ourselves is more accurate than God's. Fortunately, our Father's opinion is what counts!
Bear in mind that our Lord's patience with us is our salvation. 2 Peter 3:15, N.E.B.
The devil is a great pendulum-swinger. He gloats over being able to entice people into the fire on one side or the ice on the other. Some Christians are too lax, caring little at all about their spiritual growth and about the details of their lifestyle. Some swing the other way, constantly uptight and bordering on the edges of despondency because they cannot grow fast enough.
Peter's message in today's text is for this second group. To be fair, their malady is an understandable one. They have caught a glimpse of the beauties of Christ's character, and then contrasted them with their own unflattering record. We can understand their desire to want to lunge into wholeness and joy and to turn steadfastly away from every failing. They are grief-stricken when their failings hurt others, misrepresent God, and blunt their own peace of mind. They loathe having to deal again with the same inner problems, and long to get on to higher ground.
The problem, however, is that Satan capitalizes on that very desire for holiness, turning it into a cause for discouragement. He gets God's children to become fruit inspectors rather than fruit trees. That is, we become more engrossed with the fruits of righteousness than with the root of righteousness. We measure our performance, comparing it with the previous day's performance (or worse yet, someone else's performance), then bow in discouragement. All this takes our attention off the real issue: building a friendship with Christ through beholding His character.
Discouragement is the anesthesia the devil uses before he cuts your heart out. For the perplexed Christian, failure to be Christlike seems to be such a legitimate reason to be discouraged! Yet Peter tells us that when the Lord looks at us He is not discouraged. Knowing even better than we do the long way we have to go, He still looks upon us with patience. He knows that we grow best with enticements rather than with pressures.
God remembers as well as we do how perplexed and distracted we become when our parents disciplined us by expressing their impatience with us. And He refuses to do it. If we are going to be impatient with ourselves, we shall have to argue with God! We shall have to insist that our opinion of ourselves is more accurate than God's. Fortunately, our Father's opinion is what counts!
RSS Feed
