I was up early and literally overwhelmed with how many treasures of wisdom and knowledge God was revealing in his word!
First, I still have in mind Paul’s prayer of Colossians 1:9-14. I have it printed out on 4x6 file cards to share with others. My copy is taped to the side of my computer where I pray through it on a daily basis. It is shaping my heart, and soul, and mind, to long for my heavenly Father’s name to be hallowed around me, his kingdom to come into everything I do, and his will be done in real life here and now as it is done in heaven always.[1]
Second, I am in awe of God regarding the way he is using the example of the evil king Manasseh to show how he will hear and answer the prayer of any sinner who repents and returns to God in faith.[2] I shared about this yesterday in my Vlog post about him.[3] It is so encouraging to know that God receives any sinner who repents and calls out to God in Jesus’ name.
Third, this uncovered a vein of gold in the book of Hebrews regarding how to relate to the hardship of hostility by attaching to God as the Father who lovingly disciplines me as his son.[4]
And, fourth, I suddenly found myself worshipping the Lord Jesus Christ for the gift of thinking! Yes, THINKING!!!
It came from the first word in this verse:
“CONSIDER him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.”[5]
Consider: to think about carefully v. — to think about actively, with effort and precision.[6]
I am in awe of God that he would let me feel the negative and positive of this at the same time. I feel like a seasoned veteran of the Beatitudinal Valley who bears with the downside of all the humbling that takes place because the reality of the upside of becoming like Jesus is such a treasure of grace.[7]
The negative side of this thinking and considering is to be reminded of all the hardships and heartaches people have gone through under my watch because they have not wanted to THINK. They have been so afraid of hidden and secret things inside them that they would rather turn off their mind and brain from thinking about anything to do with God at all than to endure the few moments of thinking about the festering pains of the past in order to know Jesus Christ as the healer of the brokenhearted and the binder of our wounds in the present.[8]
As a pastor, I grieve the damage that not wanting to THINK has done to people! I have experienced a lot of hurt from people who have rejected me because they were rejecting where God was taking them. However, that is minor compared to the hurt they have caused themselves by hardening their hearts against the mercies of God that are new every morning, even in our valleys of discipline.[9]
This is a huge lesson in life for me, that not THINKING causes far more pain than anything I have ever had to feel by letting myself think about what I have done, or what has been done to me, or how my relationship with God and people has been affected by the wounds and the sins of life.
On the positive side, this tells me how I can overcome the daily grind of hostility that tends to wear us down so we “grow weary or fainthearted”. It is by CONSIDERING Jesus.
Using the definition of “consider” as above (“to think about carefully v. — to think about actively, with effort and precision”):
- I am to think about Jesus “ACTIVELY”. In the Bible, meditation means to think actively about God and his word. It is like a cow chewing its cud, bringing up thoughts, thinking them over, coming back to them again, processing them through new experiences, so that we get as much spiritual nutrition out of the word of God as is possible. The writer of Hebrews is calling us to this meditation on Jesus, where we actively give ourselves to all kinds of thoughts about him all the time so that we are transformed through the renewal of our minds.[10]
- I am to think about Jesus “WITH EFFORT”. A fear-based identity that has never faced the pain of childhood trauma has difficulty with this. I get it. I know all about it. However, I also know the value of effort in pain. The older I get, the more I am aware that I need to put up with pain to maintain good health. My exercise routine gets more difficult with age, but I am regularly quite thankful that I put in the effort to press through something I wasn’t enjoying in order to get the good results. If there is a reward to effort in such mundane (and temporary) earthly pursuits, how much more in giving effort to our thinking about the hostility our Savior endured from sinful people so we will grow in our health for enduring the same kinds of things.
- I am to think about Jesus “WITH PRECISION”. This has been such a blessing to me as of late, that everything to do with God and his word is true. Even my hobby-horse of exploring creation science has repeatedly proven the world’s beliefs false while glorifying the word of God for being true. There is no benefit in people giving a lot of thought and consideration to Jesus when they are following the lies and deceptions of the evil one. We MUST let God change our minds from all that is false about Jesus and think hard about him with precision that holds to the whole counsel of God about our Savior (and everything, of course).
When I look at the hostility that has been expressed in churches over the decades, I see a pattern of people suddenly deciding they do not want to THINK. They do not want to FEEL. They do not want to THINK about FEELING. This is particularly painful for me because one of my earliest lessons about pastoring included the warning that God’s people would be more committed to self-protection than to knowing and doing the will of God.[11] I will just say that I have felt this as personally as anything could be felt as people beloved to me have walked away because the pain of thinking was greater than any benefit of attaching to me, or to God with me.
However, the grace of God continually calls me to THINK about Jesus, to CONSIDER him, and to let myself FEEL the weight of the hostility he experienced against himself. And in the consideration of what HE endured, I will find his strength keeping me from growing weary or fainthearted on one side, but then leading me in the positive focus of “running with endurance the race that is set before us” while, “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despise the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”[12]
Do I wish that the hostility was outside Jesus’ church rather than inside? Yes.
Do I wish we were enduring the world’s hostility together as local expressions of the body of Christ and letting God’s discipline make us like Jesus? Yes.
However, does God reward us individually as we press on to keep THINKING hard about Jesus and his suffering so that we can endure the injustices we face even when we are disowned, slandered, and rejected? Yes.
Here is Jesus’ invitation in his own words:
“Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”[13]
My time with God this morning was gladly opening the door to Jesus so I can consider what he endured for me to help me endure hardship and discipline for him. I know the fellowship with my Savior will grow stronger as I persevere. However, I share this in the hope that it has helped you consider our Savior with me, so you can also “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.”[14]
© 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.)
[1]
Encouraged by Jesus’ model prayer for his disciples in Matthew 6:9-13
[2]
II Kings 21 and II Chronicles 33
[4]
Hebrews 12:1-11, with continuing applications in Hebrews 12:12-29
[5]
Hebrews 12:3
[6]
Bible Sense Lexicon from Logos Bible Software
[7]
The Beatitudinal Valley is the way I see the Beatitudes Jesus taught in Matthew
5:1-12. The first four are like traveling on the downside of the valley as God
shows us our poverty of spirit, leads us to mourn what is wrong with us, brings
us deeper where we meekly know we cannot fix ourselves and so we find ourselves
surrendering to the authority of Jesus Christ, and finally hitting rock bottom,
so to speak, where we hunger and thirst for the righteousness of what we could
be in Christ by grace through faith. This leads us up the upside of the valley
where we become the merciful who have already received mercy, and continue to
do so as we express mercy to others. We become the pure in heart as the
opportunity to “seek first the kingdom and righteousness of God”
(Matthew 6:33) consumes us through and through. This leads us to climb up into
the realities of becoming peacemakers who have an insatiable longing to see
people come to have peace with God through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And,
this brings us to the place where we have so experienced the grace and mercy of
God that we consider it pure joy when we are persecuted for the glorious name
of our Savior and the good news of great joy that he is still in the world
seeking and saving the lost.
[8]
Psalm 147:3
[9]
The famous expression about this, “The steadfast love of the LORD never
ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is
your faithfulness” (Lam 3:22-23), is in the context of Jeremiah grieving
the horrible trauma his people were going through under God’s discipline
because they refused to THINK about what the prophets were saying and RECEIVE
the word of their God to bring them to repentance and faith.
[10]
Romans 12:1-2. Note: worldly meditation is not to think actively, but to think
passively. In other words, the world’s way of meditating is to try to empty the
mind so that Satan can fill it with his thoughts. This is in contrast to biblical
meditation that considers the words and thoughts of God that are already
revealed to us and letting them overtake our hearts, and souls, and minds by
our determined willingness to “let the word of Christ dwell in us richly”
(Colossians 3:16).
[11]
This came to me around 1990 through Larry Crabb’s book, Inside Out. ©
1988, 2007, 2013 by Lawrence J. Crabb Jr. through NavPress Publishing Group. I
had never heard of self-protection before, but the book turned out to be
prophetic in its warning that more church people would idolize their own
abilities at self-protection above their desire to know and do the will of God.
[12]
Hebrews 12:1-2
[13]
Revelation 3:19-20
[14]
Ephesians 6:10 (in context of Ephesians 6:10-20)
No comments:
Post a Comment