Morning Sharing: God in Four Levels

I began my day really feeling the heaviness of the morning. I poured out my heart to God about it, telling him everything, and, at the same time, considering his word in Paul’s example of “patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love”.[1] 

I realize that, with all the rejections and disownings I have experienced, even from older pastors I thought would have wanted to mentor me, I have this filter I must fight against when I think of what Paul would have been like with me if I had ever met him. Let’s just say that there is a lot of “blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted” associated with such things.[2] 

As I meditated on Paul’s example, I realized that there were four levels of relationship involved: God, Paul, me, others. What that in mind, I had to admit to myself that I know God is perfect in the way he expresses “patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love” towards me even when it clashes with negative feelings and wrong beliefs. I also know that Paul would surely have been this way towards me if I had been in one of the gatherings where he was teaching because I fully agree with God’s word that he was exactly as described. This makes me acknowledge that God is faithful in these things through his Spirit, and through his apostles, so that I can freely receive them by faith in submission to the authority and love of Christ to help me freely give them to everyone I meet today. 

My short sharing is worth looking at to supplement this. 

I am asking God to let me have some experience of this working out with my coworker 😊,[3] the daycare kids and parents, my son and daughter however they will need it today, my Muslim opponents who are not patient or kind towards me, do not have the Holy Spirit in their “super apostle” version of religion,[4] and show no genuine love (of the agapè-hesed variety), and yet keep giving me opportunity to share the gospel with them! And, I hope for some surprise divine appointments as well! 

I believe the “Deeper” I began with this morning will lead to a “Higher” in due time,[5] but serving God from the “Deeper” is worship, as the psalmist expressed, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Yahweh!”[6] And so, I seek to do the same in spirit and in truth all the day long, and wait in expectation for God to show me the work he wants me to join.

 

© 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.)

 

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[1] II Corinthians 6:6

[2] From the Beatitudes of Matthew 5:1-12

[3] I work with my wife in helping her with our family daycare

[4] Paul sarcastically referred to the false teachers in the church as “super apostles”, and the term seems fitting with other false religions as their proponents always imagine themselves superior to the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.

[5] I explain my discovery of what I now affectionately refer to as the “Higher and Deeper” experience in this blogpost: https://in2freedom.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-higher-and-deeper-of-transformation.html

[6] Psalm 130:1