This is note-form of my Sunday time with
God on a morning when our home church will not be meeting.[1]
I was free to focus on whatever new things Father was doing without thinking of
my usual responsibilities for getting ready for our church fellowship.
I share this as encouragement for you to
consider how your morning time with God can be a very real and personal
encounter with God’s word and his Spirit so that you know what God is speaking
to you about, you can see what he is doing in your life and around you, and you
have responded to your heavenly Father with an affirmation that you are setting
out to put his words into practice.[2]
The note-form of this post may also give
you a sense of how you could share your morning journey with your fellowship of
believers.
Prelude: so
much turmoil to work through to have a genuine experience of “the peace of
God, which surpasses understanding”![3]
Start: how
to “make every effort to supplement your
faith with virtue” when faith is taking a beating, insecurities are pounding
against the shore of my heart (so to speak), and virtue feels like the most
overwhelming obligation I have ever faced.[4]
Consideration: why not remind myself what comes before this to help my sluggish
mind tell the truth to a weary heart for the encouragement of a parched soul?[5]
Gift of grace: “in the sanctification of the Spirit”.[6]
Journey: in-between, “the foreknowledge of God the Father,” and, “obedience
to Jesus Christ,” is, “in sanctification of the Spirit”.[7] Wow! Between what the Father has determined for my
life in his foreknowledge, and what Jesus is calling me to live in my obedience
to him, is the personal activity of the Holy Spirit to sanctify me into the
image and likeness of my Savior. THAT is where grace wants me to look before my
faith can obey Jesus’ will!
What God is saying: what he calls me to do to make every effort to supplement my faith
with virtue is not dependent on me; it is dependent on the sanctifying work the
Spirit is doing in me. My part is to join a work in progress.
What God is doing: sanctifying me by his Spirit in such ways that my experience of
this sanctifying work of the Spirit feels bigger and greater to me than my
efforts to sanctify myself with virtue (and everything else Peter lists[8]).
How I am joining God in
his work: I am (present continuous) consciously
relating to the specific works the Spirit is doing in me for my sanctification
in order to take the next step of making every effort to supplement my faith
with virtue.
Conclusion: I feel like I have just read a chapter in which the gist of the
story is made clear (it’s about the Spirit’s sanctifying work before it’s about
my participation in that work), and now I will turn the page to the next
chapter where the personal details of my maturing in Christlikeness become very
real and personal as I pour my heart into attaching to the specific things the
Spirit is doing.
Whenever I share these
things, I am aware that there must be at least one person out there who would
gain encouragement from adding my sharing to their own. Perhaps you needed this
reminder from God’s word that, whatever God is calling you to do right now in “the
obedience of faith,”[9] the Holy Spirit is supremely ahead of you working
sanctification into your life in a real and personal way.
With that in mind, is
there something you have felt the word and the Spirit leading you to do that
you can now say “yes” to because you see that he is already doing that work in
you?
Perhaps Paul’s words would
make this clear:
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.[10]
Notice that, even though
Paul refers to us working out our own salvation with fear and trembling before
reminding us that God works in us “both to will and to work for his good
pleasure,” he means it works the other way around. The key word is “for”.
In other words, we do our work because (for) God is already working.
Today’s focus simply
encourages us that, whatever our heavenly Father is working in us “both to
will and to work for his good pleasure,” his Holy Spirit is already
sanctifying us to that end. By faith, let us join them in the personal specifics
of their will and work right now.
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English
Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition:
2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News
Publishers.)
[1] One of the benefits of
being a home church is the freedom to adjust to things that are going on in our
families so that we can meet at different times or places, and in different
ways than usual.
[2] Matthew 7:24-27 shows
the wise and foolish builders who both heard the words of Jesus but only the
wise man put those words into practice. James would give his “Amen!” to this by
reminding us that “faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead”
(James 2:17), and, “as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith
apart from works is dead” (James 2:26). Just remember that we are saved by
grace through faith without works so that our faith is made alive to now do the
good works God has prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:8-10 again).
[3] Philippians 4:7
(context: Philippians 4:4-9)
[4] For a few weeks, our
home church has been focusing on II Peter 1:3-11 where Peter first reminds us
that God’s “divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life
and godliness,” and then calls us to “make every effort to supplement your
faith” with the qualities of “life and godliness” that make us
increasingly more like Jesus. This week’s focus has been on what it looks like
for me/us to, “make every effort to supplement our faith with virtue…”
[5] Everything in the
Christian life begins with whatever God is doing by grace that we are called to
attach to by faith (see Ephesians 2:8-10). Many people who grew up in the
church developed a “works-based mindset” that focused on what we “do” in the
church far more than who we “are” in Jesus. Dysfunction in homes can produce
trauma that teaches us to always focus on what we are supposed to do to keep
the peace rather than how we live as the beloved children of God. I often need
to look at the things God is calling me to “do” and remind myself that
everything I do flows out of everything God has done and is presently doing. Jesus’
word-picture of himself as the vine and us as his branches makes this clear
(John 15:1-11). I must always know what Jesus is flowing into my branch before
I will be spiritually healthy within my own soul so I can then flow the same
things into the lives of others.
[6] I Peter 1:2 (context:
I Peter 1:1-2). There have been a lot of things going on that so easily tempt a
mind to worry and fret. I always encourage people to begin our time with God
admitting to God how we are really doing as deeply as we can identify it. We
then have the added blessing of discovering how personally God will speak his
word into our hearts regarding those very things.
[7] “To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus,
Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God
the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus
Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to
you” (I Peter 1:1-2).
[8] II Peter 1:5-7
[9] Romans 1:5; 16:26
[10] Philippians 2:12-13
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