This Week of "On This Day" Sharing (January 23-29, 2022)

This week added to my experience of disappointment with another surprising twist in relationships. It brought me back to the drawing board, so to speak, to evaluate and test whether God's way of relating to people who had disappointed him was wearing off on me. As I refreshed my journey through the prophecy of Zephaniah, I saw both what I had already learned that was encouraging me in the newest surprise, and how good it felt to want to learn even more. After this week in God's word I was again so thankful for the ongoing ways we can get to know God better than we have ever known him before. I share these daily posts with a thankful heart. 

Sunday: "The Quieting Comfort of Love"

 

Many folks want the drive-thru version of everything. The maturity skill of delayed gratification is not common. Advertisers count on this, that people will think they need what they want, and will go into all kinds of indebtedness to have that immediate dopamine excitement of having stuff now. 

People who give God a “try” are often disappointed that he doesn’t work with the immediate gratification of their childish whims and wishes. Whatever they think God is offering them, they want it all now, no relationship-building required. 

When it then comes to facing things that are broken, or sinful, or traumatized, and it is God’s love that does the healing and quieting and comforting, there are relational things that must be resolved before the quieting power of love can do its work. 

Here are a few thoughts about how God quiets us with his love, but on a first-things-first basis. If we are willing to relate to him with whatever is inside us, he will quiet whatever is wrong with his love. Meet with God and let him show you the first step.

Monday: "To ‘Be With’ in Disappointment"

 

Why does God want to be with people who disappoint him? 

Well, for starters, THERE ARE NO OTHER KIND OF PEOPLE!!! 

In fact, his Son, Jesus Christ, the Word who became flesh, is the only human being who did NOT disappoint his Father. 

As the perfect God-Man, Jesus satisfied all God’s disappointment in his children so that God could address disappointing relationship fails without treating us like disappointments. 

Does this delightful jumble of thoughts stir your interest in how to know the Creator who so lovingly addresses disappointments to lead us into relational delights? Then enjoy the read and let me know if I can help you know God in such a real and personal way. 

Tuesday: "To ‘Save’ in Disappointment"

 

When people are disappointed in each other, there is often an “I’m right and you’re wrong” mindset. We believe that our view of what happened is the best, and we want to hold out for the other one to admit they are wrong. 

When God is the one disappointed in his children’s behavior, there is only one way of seeing things. Not only does he see things better than us, but he sees things perfectly. We can only juggle the few bits of info we can consider from our side of the battle line. God has every bit of intel in his mind, not only as it relates to all the friendly-fire among his children, but including everything going on everywhere in the material universe and the spiritual realm. 

That being true, we learn to be like him by studying what he does with his children, not obsessing about what we would like to do to others. And when we stop and look at him, we are reminded that he comes into every situation of conflict and disappointment to save. It doesn’t matter how bad it is, he wants to be with us to save. He comes to restore. He comes to forgive. He comes to heal. But it is HE who does the saving. 

Are you in any kind of situation where you wonder if God is disappointed in how you are living? Are you overwhelmed by your disappointment in others and can’t even look at whether you are disappointing them as well? However you would describe it, God is powerful enough to save you today, and here are a few thoughts to encourage you to get to know him like that.

Wednesday: "To ‘Rejoice’ in Disappointment"

I realized this morning that I am a “living parable”. A parable is a short description of something people could easily picture to illustrate profound spiritual realities that were more difficult to understand. Jesus used parables to give illustrations from everyday earthly life of what life in his kingdom would be like for anyone who believed in him. 

The way I am a “living parable” is that Jesus uses my own situations of relating to people to illustrate how various aspects of relationship work in his kingdom. Many of these parables come in the form of experiences with children in our family daycare. I can see myself in the kids, and I can see God’s relationship with me in my relationship to the little ones (as an illustration, not a perfect example!). 

This is strongly emphasized to me in the whole area of returning children to joy after an upsetting circumstance. I have now watched the effect of this for years, so it has become very real to me what it is like from the adults’ side. However, I also see what happens to the children when we consistently practice this with them (yes, it does feel like constantly practicing this and getting better at it all the time!). 

When God addresses a very upsetting relational dynamic with his children, and describes the negative-emotion issues he must address, what he sets before them as the goal and aim is what I now understand as returning children to joy. If you are willing to admit to any negative emotions that may be going on between you and God, let yourself see how he wants to return you to joy, and then surrender to the “easy way” of following him home. 

Thursday: "To ‘Quiet’ in Disappointment"

My wife runs a family daycare out of our home, and I love to assist her in the care of the children. However, at the end of the day, when the last child leaves, we both love… the QUIET!

I have been through plenty of squabbles and conflicts and fights over the decades. I hate the attachment-pain that comes from anger and rejection. I hate the disregard of my feelings. I hate the guilt of knowing what I contributed to an argument. I cringe when I need to see that I was just as unloving as anyone else. 

But when people are willing to reconcile, especially when they are submitting to God to do reconciliation his way, and hearts are restored to love-relationship, there is a quiet that comes over the soul that is a treasure. In fact, the quiet after relational conflict is so… QUIET… that working through any of the negative emotions involved in a fight is worth the painful admissions and confessions that are required to get there. 

This is because the quiet we are talking about is relational-quiet. It is peace in relationships. It is enjoying attachment with someone who has worked through every bit of anger and wrong-doing with us so that there is no longer anything between us. Our relationship is fully restored, there is joy and love and peace filling the room, and a deep abiding feeling of being together to enjoy who we are to one another without any distracting conflicts or disappointments in the way. 

Today I share a few thoughts about the Quiet-Expert. Our Creator is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who are always at peace with one another. They have resolved the conflict between God and sinners. They invite us into their peace through Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.

God ministers his peace to me on a daily basis. No magic. No talent. No secret society. No pass-code. No secret handshake. Rather, through the gracious gift of the word of God and prayer, God ministers the food of his word to my starving soul and shows me day after day new puzzle-pieces of his love for me, his joy in having me, and his peace in relating to me. The quiet of his love is a distinctive feeling in a class all its own. And it is offered to you today if you have the ears to hear what Jesus is speaking into your heart.

Friday: "To ‘Sing’ in Disappointment"

There are a handful of songs I love to sing when I am
sad. I have written many songs of my own to express a fair range of negative emotions. I did a whole series following the general idea of the five stages of grief. I have cried my way into worship, and I have cried myself to sleep. Jesus was, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” so I know he both sympathizes with his brothers in our sorrows, and hears our worship when we entrust our souls to him in our grief.

However, when I find a song that expresses the joy of relationship with God, it feels like a longing that has found its home. Grieving may last for a night, as God’s word describes, “but joy comes with the morning.” We grieve when we must, and Christians should be the best and healthiest grievers in the world. But our greater longing is to know the return to joy that comes with God’s mornings.

The beautiful expression of relational joy in Zephaniah 3:17 tells us that, no matter how much negative emotions must be shared between him and his people, he wants to be with us, he wants to save us, he wants to rejoice over us, he wants to quiet us with his love, and he wants a fellowship of singing joyful songs about one another that fulfills Jesus’ words, “that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

Join me in a consideration of how God wants to relate to his children in such joyful delight to be together that he pictures it as a Father loudly singing over his beloved children who have come home. It is a very biblical, God-honoring reality, and we are invited to know him exactly as revealed. 

Saturday: "The ‘Complete’ Return to Joy"

I was going to do a summary of how the past five days of sharing culminate in a grand crescendo of God’s joy in his children. However, I had no idea how God himself would raise his baton for a stanza of love that was a total surprise.

It began with some familiar threads of harmony that reminded me of my starting place as a child. It quickly took me through some scenes of heartache and attachment-pain to set me on the viewpoint of that day when God will wipe away all my tears and fill me with his eternal joy. 

And then I heard the lyrics singing into my soul, 

“Father in heaven, 

you are not only a joyful person, 

but you are a loving person! 

Love is who you are, 

and joy is how you feel about it! 

Love makes you happy! 

Loving me makes you HAPPY! 

Loving ME makes you happy! 

I tremble with wonder, O God!”

And, yes, this did complete my week with a wonderful return to joy. You are invited to know God’s love and joy for yourself through the gracious gift of faith in Jesus Christ our Creator, Lord, and Savior.

© 2022 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

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.)

God’s Joy in Loving His Children

  

The LORD your God is in your midst,

    a mighty one who will save;

he will rejoice over you with gladness;

    he will quiet you by his love;

he will exult over you with loud singing.

(Zephaniah 3:17)

 

I was delighted to wake up at my usual time so that I can make much of this Saturday morning with Father. I had no idea the wonders he had in store for me. 

First: it was the enjoyment of being honest with God about what’s going on in my life. It seems that age matures faith (if we are using it) so that a feeling of realness becomes… more REAL(!)… as our relationship with God grows stronger.[1] 

Second: this led into the contemplation of what it will be like to enter the divine presence that is fullness of joy, and see the pleasures that are at God’s right hand forevermore,[2] and know that I am not overwhelming anyone with my own unrestricted love and joy and affection and attachment to God as he wipes away the flood of tears and lets me feel what my heart has constantly longed for in this time away from home.[3] 

Third: I suddenly found myself in this viewpoint along the trail where I could see by faith that my heavenly Father is happy in loving me. Loving me makes God happy! 

It was like the expression, “God is love,” tells me WHO he is, while joy tells me how he feels in loving.[4] He is never not loving me, but my responses leave much to be desired. So, the pictures of the lost sheep causing joy because it is found, and the lost coin causing joy because it is found, and the lost son causing joy because he is found, all tell me that it causes God joy when I am found.[5] 

As weird as it sounds and feels, if God gets joy out of loving me, then I must see all his disciplines, and all the prophets calling God’s people to repentance, and the letters to the seven churches where God will let his churches sever relationship with him rather than carry on in pretense, as showing me how God has to get my heart home to him so he can rejoice over me discovering the joyful realness of his rejoicing love. 

I hate the seasons of my loved ones running away from home. I know the Beatitudinal Valley is necessary for us all.[6] God is using the prophecy of Zephaniah to comfort me that God’s kindness is leading our people to repentance so he can forgive them.[7] And he is telling me how the story ends so I will have hope in the present journey through attachment-pain.[8] 

But today, the voice of Father, impossible to imagine, is singing over me about a time when I will hear him singing over me in absolute realness and perfection. This morning, I am going to surrender to the honesty of being where I’m at in my growing up so I can feel the realness of God being happy to love me as he leads me to be more like Jesus Christ from yesterday’s degree of glory to today’s.[9]   

And I smile with the thought that this does not mean he will love me more, but that he will increase my joy as I delight in his joy. As Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”[10] I rest in this, and long for its greatest experience, knowing I will one day be satisfied in absolute perfection, and God will be so happy for me that, “then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”[11]

 

 © 2022 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

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.)

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[1] Paul’s description of a maturing church in Ephesians 4:1-16 is saturated with hope!

[2] Psalm 16:11

[3] II Corinthians 6:11-13; Isaiah 25:8; Revelation 7:17; 21:4; Peter refers to us as “sojourners and exiles” who are in a battle while away from home (I Peter 2:11), but we “rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (I Peter 1:8-9 in context of I Peter 1:1-9).

[4] I John 4:8, 16; all the Scriptures about God’s joy.

[5] Luke 15 with the three parables of the joy God feels when the lost are found (restored to love-relationship).

[6] Matthew 5:1-12

[7] Romans 2:4; I John 1:9; this is in the context of my belief that God does not forgive us when we are unrepentant, but kindly works to bring us to repentance so he can forgive us. I believe this is borne out throughout the Scriptures with not one example of God or any of his representatives ever forgiving people while they are unrepentant, but always forgiving them when they are repentant. He wants me to see his kindness while I am being naughty not as an immature grampa winking at his grandkids sins, but as a loving Father leading his children to repentance so love-relationship can be restored and return to joy can be shared.

[8] The three chapters of Zephaniah tell the story, with 3:17 being the end of the journey, to live forever in God’s rejoicing love. It is also seen in the Book of Revelation where God shows all the things we will go through, culminating in him finally having the new heavens and the new earth where he will be with us and us with him forever.

[9] II Corinthians 3:18

[10] John 15:11 (in context of John 15:1-17; in context of John 13:1-17:26).

[11] I Corinthians 13:12

This Week of "On This Day" Sharing (January 16-22, 2022)

 

A central part of my walk with God this week was the desire to know how he does this:

The LORD your God is in your midst,

    a mighty one who will save;

he will rejoice over you with gladness;

    he will quiet you by his love;

he will exult over you with loud singing.

(Zephaniah 3:17)

The following daily posts reflect my journey in coming to know what God meant by this, and how it applies to life today. The conclusion of the week was that I want God to do what it takes for me to know him like this now, while looking forward to the perfection of this when I join him in our heavenly home. 

Sunday: "The Love That 
Quiets Our Hearts"

It is very common in our in-home daycare to find one of us quieting a child from some form of negative emotion. Whether it is hurt from an injury, or grief over a disappointment, quieting a child must be done in love. 

I am one of those people who has had a long journey in getting to know how much our Creator loves me. So many life-experiences have told me I am unlovable, so getting to know the unfailingness of God’s love has helped to overcome this message. 

One of the biggest ways God makes his love known to me is through my interactions with his word. As I connect to what he is telling me, I can attach to him and what he is communicating to me right then and there. 

This morning’s expression of God’s love filled me with wonder. I hope it sounds like an invitation for you to know God’s love for yourself. If ever we needed a heavenly Father to quiet us with his love, it is now.

Monday: "The one thing Missing"

We can’t seem to escape some talk about climate change and natural disasters, along with dangerous viruses and vaccines. Neither can we escape the dishonesty and corruption that saturates the world’s “elite” who are using such things for their deceived and deceptive view of what is good. 

So, what is the one thing missing? I don’t mean the little obvious things like sanity, love, understanding, wisdom, and peace. 

I mean the one HUGE thing constantly missing from everything the world tries to do because it is the world. As strange as it seems, the world keeps leaving out the knowledge, wisdom, insight, understanding, and love of the Creator, Jesus Christ our Lord. 

And, because the world leaves out the very source and explanation for their life, nothing in life makes sense. Unless, of course, a few of us turn back to the Creator in Jesus’ name and enter a mutual mindstate with him that makes sense of everything. 

Oh, and restores our love-relationship with the Creator. 

Tuesday: "Eternity in Our Hearts"

I am a few years into my seventh decade, and something is obvious: there is a consciousness inside me that is not growing old. It is not aging. It is not tired of life. It is not weary of love-relationships. It does hate that my body is betraying its desire to keep doing what it wants to do. But God’s Book explains both why I have that desire for unending life within me, and why my body is deteriorating at the same time. 

My parents are both still alive, so I might also have a couple more decades in me as well. However, when I think of the fact that I am over the hill, that the downside goes a lot faster than the upside, that there are viruses and diseases that want to speed up the process, and government is increasing its methods of doing us in, the one thing that gives me hope is called, “Christ in you the hope of glory”. 

In other words, that desire to live forever can be met by the one who lives forever! In Jesus the Christ is life, and his life is the light of men, and all who come into that light through repentance and faith receive the gift of eternal life. Don’t let anyone keep you from experiencing the eternity that God has put in your heart coming into the eternal life that is a gift from God’s heart. 

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”!

Wednesday: "At Home in Eternity"

I have had many relationships end simply because we were separated by circumstances. Many others ended because people didn’t want to be in my life any longer. I have heard all kinds of justifications for why I am not worthy of someone’s friendship or love and I’m sure my stories would resonate with lots of others. 

I now look at the state of our world with corrupt governments deliberately harming their people, and laws being passed to discriminate against our long-cherished rights and freedoms. I see people divided over what is good or bad about viruses and vaccines, and no end of hypocrisy as the ongoing cry of “inclusion” only applies to some people while others are treated like second-class citizens. 

In the midst of so much division, heartache, attachment-pain, and even hopelessness, the Creator announces that he likes to be with me. No, not because I am good, but because HE is good. And the thing that draws him to me is that he has brought my heart to see that I can’t live without him, his kindness had led me to repentance, and his grace has drawn me to faith in his Son. 

Today, I simply marvel that he wants to be with me, and make his home with me, while never leaving the most high and holy place in all of eternity. That means I have the comfort of his love in me while knowing he sovereignly rules and reigns over all the evils and injustices in the world. Everything in-between he will work for my greatest good. 

Thursday: "The Antagonist, Disappointment"

For a while, I have been learning to think along the lines of, “how do my people relate to this kind of situation?” My people are the ones who live out in real life how God’s people handle things that come up. We find them in God’s Book, as he shows us when his people did not act like who they are, and as he shows us what it looks like when they acted consistent with who they are in Christ. The Bible calls these people “witnesses” of the life of faith. 

We also find “our people” in history as we read or hear of those who set an example of handling difficult situations while remaining true to their new identity as a child of God. Some of these examples are happening in the present history as it unfolds, children of God who demonstrate remaining true to their “in Christ” relationship with God while all kinds of circumstances challenge them to surrender. 

Last night I was hit with a disappointment of the “No! Not again!” variety. It’s what I brought to my time with God this morning, asking myself how my people have handled such experiences. As I considered what I have been reading in God’s word this week, it was clear that God himself wanted to show me how my people act. 

After some time of prayerful meditation on the word of God, I had a very clear prayer list about how I could act like who I am in Christ as the need to handle this disappointment awaits. I hope it encourages you as well.

Friday: "The Shame That Heals Shame"

Feeling shame has a good side and a bad side. The good side is that it is an appropriate response to doing something wrong. The expression, “you ought to be ashamed of yourself” is true. Our world is sliding into a love of wrongdoing because no one is ashamed of anything and parades their sins like a middle-finger salute to God. 

The bad side of shame is when we can’t escape the awareness that we have done something shameful, or have been treated for such a long time like we are a shameful person, that we can’t even find our real selves because everything within us seems to be a hopeless pus-ball of disgusting humiliation. 

We cannot avoid that, for us to enter the fullness of joy that is in knowing God, we must accept the healthy shame messages about what we are doing to replace him. We have to admit we have turned away from him if we will ever turn around and come home. 

I admit that people’s reaction to hearing of a “healthy shame message” is that it is an oxymoron (contradiction of terms) since they have never heard that there is a healthy side to feeling shame. Here are a few thoughts about why hearing a shame message from God is a good thing. I would be happy to share more!

Saturday: "Returning God’s People to Joy"

When I first began to learn how to return children to joy, it was one of the most hope-filling experiences of my life. I already knew that “weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning” (Ps 30:5 ~ NIV). However, I had no idea how much we could influence this by deliberately working to return one another to joy. 

Since those early lessons, I have been delightfully shocked to discover how God is not only interested in returning his children to joy, but that his word is saturated with his efforts to do so. Did not the birth announcement of his Son begin with, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Lk 2:10-11 ~ ESV)? 

Jesus himself told three parables in a row that showed how the joy people would feel in finding a lost sheep, finding a lost coin, and finding a lost son, is what it is like in heaven when God brings any of his children home. Jesus concluded these parables with, “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance,” and, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents”, and, “It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:7,10,32). 

I share these thoughts in the hope that you will open your heart to the good news of great joy and discover how the heavenly Father returns his children to joy better than we will ever experience anywhere else in the whole wide world.

© 2022 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

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.)

This Week of "On This Day" Sharing (January 9-15, 2022)

A couple of months ago I began a certain style of sharing online that has expanded into what I now call my "On This Day" sharing. I will let it speak for itself, but here is this past weeks' worth of contributions. Perhaps they will give you things to talk to our heavenly Father about for your own encouragement in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Sunday: "The Joy of God’s Work"

I have no doubt that God did the work of creation just as he describes it in his Book because the evidence is all around us. The very creation sings of his glory.

I have no doubt that God did the work of judging the world with a worldwide flood because there is worldwide evidence of exactly that. The layers of sedimentary rock filled with fossils of dead creatures all across our planet declares the glory of God. 

I have no doubt that God did the work of salvation in the death and resurrection of his Son since the eyewitnesses have confirmed it with one testimony after another that are in agreement to this fact. And those who witnessed it were all willing to die for what they knew had happened.

But what about this idea that God is at work now? And that he is active in the world to apply the redemptive work of salvation to people like you and me today?

Well, I have no doubt that God is at work in our world right now, partly because he says so, and partly because I am his work! I share this in the hope that you will welcome his work for yourself.

Monday: "The Unique God and his Book"

People often picture God’s word like it is just one of the many options about understanding who we are, why we are here, and what life is all about. Growing numbers of people don’t even care to know whether the Creator has really made himself known through the words we can read for our benefit every day. 

What I love to share with people is that there are only two categories to choose from. One is all the writings, beliefs, philosophies, mindsets, and worldviews, that describe man doing whatever it takes to get it right. The other, found only in the Bible, is the revelation of what God has had to do for us to be right with him. 

In this primer of evidence for why the Bible’s uniqueness affirms God as the author, I share a few of the realities that cannot be found anywhere else. It is not only that we must choose between all the man-centered systems that require good works from sinners, and the one message that declares good news of great joy that God has given us a Savior. 

It is also about whether we will humble ourselves to admit that we need the Savior who is only revealed to us through God’s word, the Bible. When we know in our hearts that we are helpless sinners, the good news is not only easier to believe, but it does become our “great joy” that God has sent his Son to save us. 

Tuesday: "Love: The Creative Difference"

The English language uses the word “love” to describe everything from a husband’s committed love for his wife to someone’s feelings for a new flavor of donut. This means that love must be understood in context. The object and the subject of love determine the quality of love in each case. 

Many people miss out on being the focus of God’s love because they believe the world’s lies that he does not exist. Others who say they believe in God do not believe his love applies to them. And still others claim that God’s love is so universal and accepting that it really doesn’t matter what we believe or do, God’s love will scoop us up in the end. 

Because knowing God’s love is the highest and greatest experience ever, and because so many are missing out on his love through misunderstandings, doubts, and deceptions, here are some clarifications directly from God’s own word. His grace is at work to reveal his love to our hearts. Those who receive his love by faith come to know the greatest love that exists. And that is an experience we can’t afford to miss. 

Wednesday: "The Dominoes of Love"

The metaphor of domino patterns illustrates how one thought about God falls against another until whole arrangements of wisdom and understanding fill our minds and brains. Not only do we benefit from the specific truths we learn, but also from the way the realities of God move through our hearts. 

As the world goes from bad to worse, and my time in this earthly life winds down ever so quickly, the one thing I want to encourage everyone to seek is a constantly growing relationship with God our Creator. It is in attachment to our Father in heaven that we gain hope even in this hopeless world. And it is in our connection to Jesus Christ that we have hope about the certainties of life after death. 

If these thoughts stir up a sense of wonder at the dominos of truth that reveal God’s love to you, please don’t just enjoy the show and then move on to find another. You are invited to know the love of God in a real and personal way, and Jesus Christ is the door to enter that relationship. Please stop and get to know him today. 

Thursday: "Experiencing God in Love"

There are many things I believed about God before I could say I knew them by experience. From a young age, I have known that God was watching out for me. I knew that his word was true, and that it told me how I could know him. I believed his words and knew that they were slowly seeping into the deeper places within me even before I knew what those places were called. 

I now can say that I know God’s love by experience rather than just belief. Even this is still growing, but it is a settled thing for me that God wants me to know his love. His word overflows with invitations to experience him in real and personal ways. 

When we read about such things as this, it is good to admit it if we can’t say we have any connection to God’s love at all. It is okay to let ourselves feel the sadness of missing out on the Creator’s love because his love will comfort us. It is okay to know that we cannot fix what is broken inside us because it opens our hearts to what God has done to bring us into his love. And, it is okay to admit that we are desperate to know what it feels like to be loved by God because God promises to satisfy that longing. 

Friday: "The Pursuit of Knowing God"

Because God can be known, it both delights me to share him with you in every way I can think of, and it grieves me that knowing the Creator is so undesirable to so many people. 

Over the course of my six-plus decades, it is a settled issue for me that there is nothing in life greater than knowing God. That includes the things we might be afraid of as much as the things we might desire. Knowing God is greater than whatever good we have found anywhere else, and whatever we are most afraid of in getting to know him. 

I say this as personally as I am able, that if you see in yourself that it is fear that holds you back from opening your heart to Jesus Christ, will you let me share my hope with you? I have a been-there-done-that experience with fear and, no matter what I have ever had to face and work through, I have many stories of how the scariest things in life have helped me get to know God better than I have ever known him before. 

Whatever time I have left in this earthly life, I want the years to help people bring their fears to God so that faith can flourish. We are in a horrible scary time, but the joy of knowing God is as real and personal as ever, waiting to be received by anyone who admits that this is what their hearts are longing for.

Saturday: "The Unity and Uniqueness of Life"

I love music that presents wonderful harmonies for the enjoyment of both ears and hearts. I love song presentations that sound like groups of people singing their praises to God as one people, but with distinctions of instruments and harmonies that work together to lift our souls to God in the joys of worship. 

The world swings between its horrible expressions of unity that are aimed at destroying others and its exaggerated emphasis on the individuality of its players that ruins people with a false sense of independence. 

In the plumbline between, God sings his song of life so that people find unity in the Creator while discovering their unique place in the choir of God. We become equally concerned for what matters to us all as to our unique place of interdependence with God’s people. 

With the word-pictures of songs and harmonies helping us along, please consider how the Creator is inviting you to hear his invitation into the life of God, and then come to Jesus for the unity and uniqueness of life in Christ. 

© 2022 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

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.)

The Freedom of Trusting the Judge

 I can’t convey the awe and wonder I feel as I travel through this verse. Jesus was someone who was so real and pure and single-minded that, when he did not revile in return, it was because he was that kind of person. 

To revile means to express foul or abusive language to someone. The fact that Jesus did not revile when reviled took me back to my teen years when I did not revile someone who reviled me. Outwardly, it almost looked the same as what Jesus did. 

However, that did not make me LIKE Jesus, but DIFFERENT from him. 

How? 

Because Jesus did not revile as an expression of his real self, the Word of God in the flesh. His relationship with his Father was everything. He never lost sight of who he was, and never wanted to be different than who he was.

For me, not reviling when someone expressed foul and abusive language was because I was too traumatized to speak. I was protecting myself from further reviling by keeping my mouth shut. It wasn’t even a conscious strategy, but the crushing of a wounded soul. I was not different from Jesus because I reviled when I was reviled, but because I wasn’t my real self at all. I was a silent shell of a traumatized child. And that realization made me feel genuine worship because of who Jesus is, and how he relates to me. 

When I take this further into what it means that, “when he suffered, he did not threaten,” it is not like one sinful and wimpy speck of dust trying to scare off a sinful and bullying speck of dust by yelling loud and threatening words. It was the Creator, the King of the universe, the Son of Almighty God, not threatening the sinful specks of dust who were crucifying him when he had the power to command their immediate destruction if he so desired.[1] 

And that brings us to the reason he was not drawn to revile or threaten even though he is the Lamb of God with the two-edged sword coming out of his mouth.[2] It was because, in his perfect knowing of what was good, and his perfect love of his Father, and his perfect enjoyment of righteousness, he found pleasure in continuing to entrust himself to his Father who judges justly. 

When Christians have this hang-up of bitterness towards abusive people, and this bitterness includes God who “allows” unjust things to happen, they are unable to follow Jesus’ example because they are unable to attach to the Father as someone who judges justly. Perhaps they believe that God will not judge at all, or that when he judges it will not be justly. Out of such wrong beliefs they hang on to their grievances as if they are the only person who knows the right thing to do. 

But when we look at our Savior who faced the mocking words, and the cruel beating, and the piercing with a thorny crown, and the injustice of judges who would not act justly, and the crime of his crucifixion, we see that he did not revile anyone because he was not a sinful man. He did not exercise his authority to call legions of angels to come and destroy the mockers and haters with a display of his glorious power because that would violate the timeless plan of God. 

Instead, he lived who he was. What he was doing was a greater expression of glorious and predetermined love than we can yet fathom. He was not even inclined to act like a mere worldling. He was so in love-relationship with his Father that his mind was in perfect peace and rest that his death, burial and resurrection would satisfy the justice of God so that God could express perfect justice in condemning the wicked and saving the poor in spirit. 

I cannot express how personally this is touching me to know that when I have not reviled someone whose foul and abusive language was traumatizing my soul it was not because I was a good man, but that I was too wounded to speak. When I did not threaten someone who was hurting me, it was not because I was a good man, but because I was too crushed inside to face what might happen if I dared to stand up to a bully. 

But when Jesus did not revile those who were foul-mouthed and abusive towards him, it was because he was holy and righteous as both God and man. When Jesus did not utter threats against his abusers, it was not because he was afraid of what they might do to him if he stood up to their bullying. He was already LETTING them do the very worst thing in the world to him! 

The fact is that Jesus had such a perfect attachment to his Father, and a perfect knowledge that his Father would not and could not act unjustly, that he could endure the very injustice of the cross that would satisfy the justice of God… AGAINST ME AND MY SIN!!! 

Which brings me to this grand conclusion, that “now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law,” because everyone God wanted as his child had already become unrighteous by the law. And now there is this “righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe,”[3] because, “for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”[4] 

This morning, God ministered such things as this to my heart in a real and personal way. I face a world of injustices that are far worse than the stealing of our rights by governmental wickedness. Just as God describes in his word, even though the world “knows God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.”[5] The reviling and persecution from the world is sure to increase as Satan fulfills the Scripture, “the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”[6] 

But “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.”[7] I can now learn to never revile when reviled, but out of a heart that is becoming like Jesus instead of one that is severely afraid of pain. I can learn to respond to cursers with blessing instead of threatening, not because I am afraid of what will happen to me if a bully calls my bluff, but because I have a genuine desire to find the lost sheep for whom Jesus died. 

While I know I am a work in progress about this, my comfort is in God’s own description of what he is doing. “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”[8] And that “degree of glory” will not only look the same as Jesus on the outside; it will also feel more like Jesus on the inside, and that is what gives me joy.

 

© 2022 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

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.)

 

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[1] Matthew 26:53

[2] Revelation 1:16; 2:16; 19-15; 19:21

[3] Romans 3:21-22

[4] II Corinthians 5:21

[5] Romans 1:32

[6] Revelation 12:12

[7] I Peter 2:21

[8] II Corinthians 3:18