My first
thought this morning was that, when we face the broken things inside us, God is
not telling us to “Stop it!” as we might like to say to others. He confronts us
with things that he is speaking about because of the things he is doing. These
thoughts led to this Scripture:
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always
obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work
out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you,
both to will and to work for his good pleasure.[1]
1.
God is at work “in you”. This is the plural part, the
way we first think of ourselves in the context of the body of Christ. It is
like a jigsaw puzzle. We start by looking at the picture on the cover of the
box. We will figure out how we fit in if we know what picture God is putting
together.
2.
The fact that God is working
“in you”, the whole body, means he is
at work in me because I am in his body. I am one of the individual pieces of
the puzzle. God’s work is very personal for each piece.
3.
Once I see the picture
on the cover of the box, I can get a sense of where God is working in me. God
will not work in me independent of everyone else; neither will he work for the
whole church without having a precise plan for how I fit into this work.
4.
To both the body of
Christ as a whole, and the individual members of the body, God is working to
accomplish “both” of these, “to will and to work." This means
that a church walking together in the word will bring us to a corporate will
and a corporate work which draws our individual will and work to unity in
Christ.
5.
As we experience God’s
work within us, our heart-cry becomes, “your
will be done, on earth as it is done in heaven.”[2] We want to see God’s will exalted in his church because we long for
it ourselves.
6.
We must see God’s work
in us as leading us to work with him. Jesus said, “My Father is working until now, and I am working,”[3] and added, “Truly, truly, I
say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the
Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.”[4] Since Jesus was always doing what the Father was doing, never
working independently of his Father, we can expect that his body will do the same.
7.
The unifying
characteristic of the will and work that God is working in us is that it is “for his good pleasure.” This makes wonderful
sense when we tell our sarks (flesh) to be quiet so we can hear what God is
saying. After all, “in your presence
there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore,” so
why not seek God to “make known to me the
path of life”[5]?
This
is an amazing gift to me in that it directs me away from all my failures to fix
the pain of the broken-attachments of my life. It shows me that God is working on
far bigger things than my heartaches over worthlessness and rejection, but in a
way that fully meets these needs in the most satisfying and fulfilling of ways.
As I see that God is working in me “for his
good pleasure,” and that his good pleasure is an expression of his “fullness of joy,” and his “pleasures forevermore,” I see where God
is leading me so that I can experience healing for my inner pain while coming
to know him as my greatest pleasure.
It
is for good reason that God’s word says, “Delight
yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart."[1]
We were made for this. God is working for this. He wants us to know the desires
of our hearts, the new hearts he has given us in Jesus Christ. He has given us “the new self, created after the likeness of
God in true righteousness and holiness."[1]
We can now live differently because we are different. The desires of our hearts
are the “true righteousness and holiness”
of God, and of being like God.
Which
means that he is exposing the pain of broken-attachments in order to lead me
into the pleasures of eternally unbreakable relationships. I see this as a
common theme in what God is doing in his church; he exposes what is wrong with
us, not because he delights in the pain, but because he must engage our will
and our work to join him in the work he is doing. His work is to heal the
brokenhearted and bind up our wounds,[6] so he must expose what is broken and wounded. He works to give rest
to our souls, but he must first call out to those who “labor and are heavy laden."[1]
If anything describes the hopeless attempts to fix our broken attachment
issues, it is “labor” and “heavy laden.” If anything describes
grace, and mercy, and love, it is, “I
will give you rest.”
That
is as far as I am getting today. I can see where this is going tomorrow. It is
exciting.
© 2015 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.)
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