Well, I pushed through my first thoughts and meditations on the word this morning and came to another genuine experience of God teaching me and ministering to me by his Spirit. It was one of those “brought tears to my eyes” moments, and I am so thankful.
It is interesting to reread my journaling and see how negative I felt about myself at the beginning of my time with God. This past year has done quite a number on me, not only with such a grievous loss, but also the pain of the horrid things people I have loved are able to believe about me.
So, I stood again on this foundational verse as of late:
“In a time of favor I have answered you;
in a day of salvation I have helped you;”[1]
I told God how I want to experience this, such an outpouring of his “favor” that we would see “answers” to our prayers for people’s salvation, revival, and spiritual awakening, and such an outpouring of “salvation” that our home church would feel “helped” to bring people to Christ.
And when I stood again on this scripture to see what the view looked like this morning, “Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain”,[2] I suddenly found myself feeling very personal with Paul like he was answering me himself about my longing to not receive the grace of God in vain. What he said was,[3]
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age…[4]
As I began meditating on this, praying it through with God, feeling amazed and delighted and thankful that he would speak such a clear answer to my soul, the Spirit of God taught me something in a very real and personal way. It was the deep realization that what it means to bear fruit in the kingdom of God is not measured by how many souls I save!
In other words, to NOT receive the grace of God in vain is seen by us learning to “renounce ungodliness and worldly passions”. It is seen by a growing and maturing reality of living “self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age”.
I can’t explain this well enough, but it was like a huge burden was lifted from my heart as Jesus’ teaching that “a tree is known by its own fruit”[5] changed from the weight of guilt and shame that I have no “fruit” of souls that I have brought into the kingdom, to the comforting grace of God that is at work to lead me in things THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ME!!!
In other words, to measure myself by what seems to be happening (or not happening) in others is a bad goal. It is okay to bemoan that the church is not winning souls, but the measure of how we are doing with God is just that, how WE are doing with God, not how OTHERS are doing with God.
I guess one more thing to add is that I did some processing of this through the Beatitudinal Valley[6] and was reminded that the “blessed are those who hunger and thirst” is not followed by “for soul-winning”, but, “for RIGHTEOUSNESS”. THAT is what the grace of God is working in me, and so it is clear how to avoid receiving the grace of God in vain, and how to receive it to the full, by letting it do exactly what Paul said it came to do.
I know I will be camped at this viewpoint for a bit as God
makes it all the more real to me, but I testify that God truly lifted my heart
as I admitted to him how I was doing, and his grace spoke into that need with “truth
in love”[7] so
I am feeling at rest that everything looks so different now that the Spirit
turned me around to see what I was missing. And I hope the encouragement of
this was worth the extra read!
© 2023
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]
I came across this in Isaiah
49:8, and in II Corinthians 6:2 is the only place it is quoted in the New
Testament, so I have been meditating on the context for weeks now.
[2]
II Corinthians 6:1
[3]
I mean this in a personified
way, that what I was learning from the word was like Paul teaching it to me in
person, or at least in a personal letter.
[4]
Titus 2:11-12
[5]
Luke 6:43-44
[6]
Based on the Beatitudes at the
introduction to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:1-12
[7]
God taught us to do this in
Ephesians 4:15-16 because that is who he is and how he communicates with his
children
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