God’s
word is very clear that the most significant transformation known to the human
heart happens “by grace through faith”.[1] It
is by God’s grace operating in our lives through the gift of faith that we are “saved,”[2]and
“made alive.”[3] It
is just as clear that “without faith it
is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe
that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”[4]
On
the negative side, God says that, “whatever
does not proceed from faith is sin.”[5] On
the positive side, he has written to tell us that, “The righteous shall live by faith;”[6]
that “we have been justified by faith,”
so that now “we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ;”[7] and
that we have “a righteousness that is by
faith;”[8]
so that now “we walk by faith, not by
sight.”[9]
This
morning I was led to another consideration of what the work of God looks like
in our lives. There are so many ways of looking at situations and experiences
we go through, and so we must seek to have discernment of what parts of those
circumstances are of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and what parts are
the work of God.
We
must know this difference because God can use good experiences to bless us, and
Satan can use good experiences to lead us astray. God can take us through
trials to purify our faith, while Satan pounces on our trials as a time to fill
us with fear, doubt, and discouragement. With all that running in the
background, today there was an increased clarity of the work of God in relation
to faith.
There
are many times when we pray about something, only to find that circumstances
seem to get worse. This happened to Moses when he went and told his fellow
Israelites that God had come to deliver them from their Egyptian slavery.[10]
At first the people worshipped God because they believed that he heard them
crying to him in their troubles.[11]
However,
when Moses went to the Pharaoh and demanded that he let God’s people go, the
Pharaoh doubled their workload so that they people of Israel were all angry
with Moses, and wished he had never come to them with his “good news”.[12] Moses
was shocked by this turn of events and went to God with his complaint, “you have not delivered your people at all.”[13]
God
then led his people through months of experiences where they saw him display
his glory through signs and wonders that clearly showed him as supreme over all
other gods. His lesson to his people of all ages is that when he says he will
do something, he will do what he says, but often through means we have not even
considered.
Our
faith is not in ourselves imagining how God will answer our prayers. Our faith
is not in a particular plan of action where God has to do things the way we
tell him to (usually meaning our way and as quickly as possible).
Rather,
the grace of God is working in our lives to lead us to have faith in God as
God, satisfied that God will do things the way God does things. He will let us
struggle through our determination to conform him to our image, to our plans,
to our choices, only to bring us to that greater experience of knowing him.
The
way this work of grace shows up in my life, quite regularly, is in the
discovery that I am trying too hard to do something for God, rather than
experiencing that soul-rest that keeps in step with him and what he is doing.[14] I
find myself frustrated because a lesson is not coming together, only to realize
(because grace just opened my eyes and mind) that God doesn’t want me going
into that opportunity so fully prepared with my words that there is no room
left for his.
I
have come to truly love this aspect of the Fatherly, Shepherdly, work of God in
my life, that his loving grace, and gracious love, compel him to withhold the
satisfaction of my childish whims and wishes until I feel that true blessing of
poverty of spirit. He does this because only when he awakens my soul to hunger
and thirst after the righteousness that is in him, that I can only experience by
faith, can he truly satisfy me with a greater satisfaction than my
sarky desires can imagine.
And
so, I return to this wonderful exhortation to my soul, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your
heart.”[15]
How did I arrive here this morning? Grace led me through the gift of faith. I
now have faith that I can join God’s work of keeping me here all day long.
© 2014 Monte Vigh ~
Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise
noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible,
English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway
Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)
[1] Ephesians 2:8-9
[2] Vs 8
[3] Ephesians 2:5
[4] Hebrews 11:6
[5] Romans 14:23
[6] Romans 1:17
[7] Romans 5:1
[8] Romans 9:30
[9] II Corinthians 5:7
[10] We are introduced to
Moses in Exodus 1
[11] Exodus 4:31
[12] Exodus 5:20-21 (read
whole chapter for context)
[13] Exodus 5:22-23
[14] Matthew 11:28-30;
Galatians 5:16-26
[15] Psalm 37:4
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