NOT OUR OWN
Left to ourselves, in our humanity alone, we are limited to what we can comprehend. This is not a curse, but a wonderful thing! For through the limiting apprehensions of our physical man, we are being given space for faith–for which God will credit to us a future beyond our wildest imagination.
And at the end of our ability to reason and then grasp what is true of us as God’s inheritance (Eph. 1:18), we must know God is the Author of our lives, as ones who are now found in Christ.
Life will buffet us. But it’s what we do with the instability of this world and of the fleshly man and woman that carries our new, inner creation in Christ that matters.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. – Romans 12:1
It may seem to some that really living into and reckoning continually upon whose we are, and whom we are no longer (the old, dead man who was buried in Jesus at Calvary) is a denial of ‘reality.’ But I beg to differ. Rather, it is in living only in this physical body of flesh (which can feel and see with human perceptibilities alone) that deals us a false hand of cards as true Christians. When we do so, we are denying our new reality–the one into whom we are now living as new creations.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. – 2 Corinthians 5:17
We cannot, nor do we want to, deny pain or sadness or health concerns when they appear in our natural bodies. There are things that DO befall us in this life which must not be met with some kind of ethereal denial–as if to make unreal what is happening to us.
Take, for example, my wife’s current diagnosis with breast cancer. The physical reality is that the result of sin in this fallen world is all around us. The earth, our bodies–all of creation is lumbering through the fallout of the decision Adam and Eve made in the garden…taking upon themselves (ourselves), through conscious election, the ‘right’ given them by God to follow their/our own path.
But thanks be to God, we have been given a way out of the dilemma–in Christ’s once-for-all act on the cross which brought us a righteousness and a return to a place where we can live anew and aright.
Let’s be clear, we are nowhere in the Bible asked to deny our God-given emotions. It is through these emotions, and our surrendering ourselves to God in the midst of such challenging and real circumstances, that we can consciously give ourselves over into our new reality, and into a life capable of worship unto the One who has redeemed us and to whom we owe all.
However, we do know it is not God’s desire that we wallow long in our self-pity and emotional turmoil. To do so for an inordinate amount of time would indicate a lack of trusting provision in God’s true place in our lives as Author. And I am not saying that even nearly debilitating sadness won’t recur as we walk through the valleys! I am simply saying that we must quickly return to the feet of God to reckon upon his sufficiency, grace and strength as we live over and over again into His life which worketh so mightily within us (Colossians 1:29).
God’s interaction with Samuel in I Samuel 16:1 came to my attention this morning.
The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go. I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” – I Samuel 16:1
Notice, God is not saying He was displeased with Samuel’s compassionate and natural disposition of grief over this development. But God did have some advice for Samuel after what we may assume to have been a season of crushing emotional turmoil. My paraphrase would be something like…
Okay, Samuel, even now I am with you. For a time, we have wept together. I have been with you in this. As you have sobbed and hurt, I have been allowing you to feel my hurt as well. This whole thing really stinks. O how I hate sin. And one day, if you could only see several hundred years into the future, you would know how much I hate sin, and how it is I will make a once-for-all and very personal sacrifice to put this sin thing to bed forever.
But for now, my heart has been grieving alongside yours over what has developed here–a development I would not have wished to have come about. But now it is time to accept my decree. You can trust me, Samuel. I am making a way to a brighter future. I am going to make beauty from ashes. Trust me in this. Let your mind and heart both come with me now to what is next. Grieve no more about what is happening, but look ahead to what I have planned–something that could not have taken place without Samuel’s rejection of me through disobedience.
Now, up we go! Fill your horn with oil and GO. I am making a way. In fact, this next thing I am going to do will blow you away. This David guy I have in mind…well, just you wait. It is through him I will make this way of which I speak to send my own Son into the turmoil and emotional grief of your world. But I need you to carry on now. Remember you are mine. I own you as my prophet. Rise up, and let me show you what is next. This is not only about Me, but you as well. I understand your emotion–remember, I created you this way! But now, bring me glory and demonstrate my power through your grief to an onlooking world by trusting into me as you walk where I am leading. I will strengthen you. Be faithful now. Here we go. Fear not. I AM.
So let’s remember through trial (an emotional reality not to be denied), that we are not our own. We are God’s to do with as He pleases. This IS NOT EASY. And to get through it (cancer, loss of a father or mother, Alzheimer’s, lost wages and jobs and material possessions) we must dwell upon what is true of us. And we must know that in our own strength or repetitious verbal rehearsal alone, we will not achieve any real peace in the midst of our storms. It is only through the authority of the Holy Spirit who lives in us that we are sustained - and in a way that does meet our emotion as well as our intellect.
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. – Galatians 2:20
Lord, let your word dwell richly within us – that we might be capable of reflecting our newness in you. For you. For us. For a world that continues to need Light.