5 January 2011

Psalm 2, 110; Joshua 1:1-9; Heb. 11:32-12:2; John 15:1-16

One of the things God commands everyone who follows Him at some point or other is “Be strong and courageous.” You would think that if you are following the God of all that is, the omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent God, that you would have nothing to fear. The reality is that He chooses to work through people like us to do extraordinary things. He could sovereignly do all that He wishes to do but instead He uses us on most occasions and in that we will have plenty to fear because we will be in so far over our heads on occasion that the only wise thing to do is fear. His promise to never leave or forsake us is our only hope, our only lifeline. He is good for that promise.

How do I abide in Jesus? The only way we have of knowing is to examine His life to see what it meant for Him to abide in the Father. He was not detached from the world while abiding in the Father but lived in the Father in the world. His communion was constant through prayer and because it was He was able to traverse this life in the flesh without sin. Is that life possible for us as well? GK Chesterton wrote that the Christian life had never been tried and found wanting, only found difficult and left untried. As Jesus commanded this manner of living it seems certain that we should be able to do as He commanded. It requires us to intentionally live by the Spirit of God and live for Him. In abiding there is no auto-pilot for life, it is a life that is lived rather than cruised through, every moment matters. That second command to love one another is, likewise, necessarily a commandment. We aren’t loveable all the time, we must choose to love and 1 Corinthians 13 tells us what that means.

When I read that litany of deeds, “conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, etc.” I am in awe of these men and women who have gone before me. When I realize, however, that they all struggled and had to be encouraged to persevere and all relied on the Lord for the strength necessary to do all these things, I see a group of men and women made exceptional through faith. In the world’s eyes they may be completely insignificant in terms of their accomplishments but for us they are champions and saints, people to be admired and whose examples we are to follow. Knowing God and putting our faith completely in Him is all that is required of us and yet we hold back in fear and doubt to trust Him utterly. “Let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

O God, you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing

mercy and pity: Grant us the fullness of your grace, that we,

running to obtain your promises, may become partakers of

your heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who

lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for

ever and ever. Amen.