Good morning, everyone.
This is not a place I would desire to be, but about two months ago, John asked me if I would share something. So I am believing that nothing happens by chance. I said, “Okay, Lord.”
The one word that I have kind of been meditating on is humbled. James 4:6 says:
God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.
There have been a number of things during this period of time, and that is where I am talking about this. My work truck transmission failed, and it was in the shop. While I had the loaner vehicle, I got a traffic ticket, which is not something I normally get. I thanked the officer as he was going back to his cruiser—I thanked him for doing his job. He probably thought I was a little crazy.
But through all that, I am trying to learn a new trade at work and everything. Have you ever been in a place where you felt like, “Okay, Lord, are You trying to say something?”
Because I know we can, because of our evolutionary thinking so much in the United States, think that things just happen by chance. But I do not believe that. I believe that God is a part of our everyday life. He is working, but can we see Him?
Are we humbling ourselves and saying, “Okay, Lord”? Or are we resisting what He might be trying to do and going around in circles?
Romans 8:28-29 reads:
And we know that God causes all things to work for good,
to those who love God,
to those who are called according to His purpose.For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined
to become conformed to the image of His Son,
so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.
Do we believe that? Do we believe that for ourselves? Do we believe that He is trying to conform us into the image of Jesus, His Son?
In thinking about preparing and all, I thought about other events from my past—major things. I had a head-on collision on my way to work, which took me out of work for a few weeks. I broke my arm on the weekend before I was supposed to start framing on a spec house.
I fell and broke my back after I had moved down here. You know, the timing of things sometimes. Do we stop and consider the timing of things? Or are we just so busy that we totally miss what God is trying to say or do?
I think He takes us and puts us on our back sometimes for a while just to try to get our attention. I do not think I always, even in some of these things, realize what God might have done or might have said. We may not always realize the change, but I think others may notice sometimes.
But I think sometimes it is just a part of removing our pride so the Lord is able to work in us and use us more.
Hebrews 12:5-6 says:
My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor faint when you are reproved by Him;
for those whom the Lord loves, He disciplines,
and He scourges every son whom He receives.
I think discipline gets a bad rap. We think of it as, “You did something wrong, so you are being disciplined.” And that can happen. The Lord does that. But sometimes He is trying to train us up. We are children; children have to be trained. It does not just come naturally.
Hebrews 5:8 says:
Even Jesus learned obedience through suffering.
You know, if Jesus can learn obedience through suffering, I think we are going to have to suffer some to learn obedience to the Father. It does not come naturally. It goes against our flesh. It goes against our desire. We want to be comfortable and at ease.
But the Lord has a better way. This life is not all about us, even though in our environment here, that is what the world tries to say: everything is about you.
I looked up “discipline” in Webster’s 1828 version. Webster said it means “to instruct or educate; to inform the mind; to prepare by instructing in correct principles and habits; as, to discipline youth for a profession or for future usefulness.”
That last part really kind of stood out to me: to prepare for future usefulness. The Lord has to work in us through discipline so that we can be used, so that we will be ready to be used.
Do we despise God’s discipline or chastening? Or do we even realize that is God working in us to make us into His Son’s image?
In looking some of this stuff up, I ran across Oswald Chambers from his morning devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, dated August 14. It says:
“Despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him.”
Some versions say “discipline” there. Chambers says it is very easy to quench the Spirit. We do it by despising the chastening of the Lord, by fainting when we are rebuked by Him.
If we have only a shallow experience of sanctification, we mistake the shadow for the reality. When the Spirit of God begins to check us, we say, “Oh, that must be the devil.”
Never quench the Spirit, and do not despise Him when He says to you, “Do not be blind on this point anymore. You are not where you thought you were. Up to this present, I have not been able to reveal it to you, but I reveal it now.”
So when the Lord chastens you like that, let Him have His way. Let Him relate you rightly to God. Scripture goes on to say, “Nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him.”
We get into sulks, or we have pity parties with God and say, “Oh, well, I cannot help it. I did pray, and things did not turn out right. I am going to give it all up.”
Think what would happen if we talked like this in any other area of our life. Am I prepared to let God grip me by His power and do a work in me that is worthy of Himself?
Sanctification is not my idea of what I want God to do for me. Sanctification is God’s idea of what He wants to do for me. He has to get me into the attitude of mind and spirit where, at any cost, I will let Him sanctify me wholly.
Some of us are more stubborn and thickheaded than others. I include myself in there. But thank God for His faithfulness. He keeps working on us. He does not give up on us. Thank Him for His unfailing love.
Through this whole process, for the last few years, I have been reading clear through my Bible, starting in Genesis and going straight through. During this time, I just happened to be reading through the book of Job. I recently finished it this past week.
Some might think Job is just a story, but it is believed to be the oldest book in the Bible. It is only mentioned in two other places in the Bible that I know of: Ezekiel 14:14 mentions the righteousness of Job, and James 5:11 speaks of the endurance of Job.
But surely it could also be said that he was humble. He could not have gone through what he did otherwise.
Job said in Job 2:10. Remember, this is after God had this conversation with Satan: “Have you considered My servant Job?” He is an upright man, and there is no one like him in all the earth.
Satan said, “You have put a hedge all around him. I cannot touch him. You have blessed him. You have prospered him. But take that all away, and he will curse You to Your face.”
So God said, “Okay, but you cannot touch his life. You cannot touch his body.”
In one day, four things happened. Basically, all of Job’s possessions were taken. It talks about the donkeys, the camels, and the sheep—thousands and thousands that he had. One thing after another happened, and before one messenger was finished talking, the next messenger would come.
The last messenger said that a great wind came from the wilderness, struck the four corners of the house where his children were, and they were all dead.
Then Job says—let me read that. I forgot; I have another verse. But Job 1:20 says:
Then Job arose, and tore his robe, and shaved his head,
and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped.
He worshipped God. He said:
Naked came I out of my mother’s womb,
and naked shall I return thither:
the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away;
blessed be the name of the Lord.
Through all this, Job did not sin, nor did he blame God.
It is easy in our lives to blame God when bad things happen. We can respond that way, or we can worship God like Job did here. He realized that everything he had came from God, and God took it away. But he had nothing bad to say. It was God’s to begin with, and he trusted God even though all these things happened.
So I just want to encourage myself and encourage others. When things happen in our life, we have to give God worship. We have to thank God, because we cannot necessarily see past the situation that we are in.
But He said He works all things together for good. God is not a man that He can lie. We have to stand on the truth of His Word and not give in to what the enemy would want to put in our head.
Then there was the second round. God said to Satan again, “Have you considered My servant Job? He is an upright man in all his ways.”
Satan said, “Well, touch his body. A man will give anything for his physical body.” What can he give? There is no money in the world that can heal you of everything. But touch his body, and he will curse You to Your face.
So again, God said, “Okay, but you cannot take his life.”
Satan put boils on Job from his head to his toes. His friends heard about it, and when they came, they said they could not even recognize him. He was beyond recognition. It was so bad.
Later in Job 2, even his wife said, “Do you still hold to your integrity? Why do you not just curse God and die? Get it over with.”
But his response to his wife was:
Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?
I think a lot of us, in our easy gospel, think God is just going to give us all good things. Our life is supposed to be rosy and easy from here on out. That is not what He said.
Our life is not just about this short time on earth. We are being trained. We are being conformed to spend eternity with Him.
Job complained later on. He complained that he was even born: “Why could I not just not have been born?” He goes on about a lot of things, and we could complain about those things. But in the end, God rebukes him for some of the things that he said, which he did not know about, because Job was just a man. He did not know the ways of God. He did not even know the great plan that God had for him from the foundation of the world.
But in the end, God rebuked his three friends, who tried to say that it was because of sin—some terrible sin in his life—that all these things were happening.
Like Enoch spoke of last week about the blind man, the disciples asked, “Whose sin was it? Was it this man’s or his parents’?” And He said, “Neither,” but that the glory of God might be revealed.
God wants to reveal His glory through us. He wants to reveal it to encourage each other, and He wants to reveal it to the world, because the world will be confounded by it. It goes against the flesh. It goes against the natural mind: the glory of God.
But will we be willing for God’s glory to be revealed in us? He has to do a lot of work in us for that to be revealed.
You know, we read in our study in Corinthians that we are the temple, or the sanctuary, of the Holy Ghost. It says we are not our own.
That part of the verse stood out to me when we were going through it: we are not our own. I was thinking, what is Paul saying here? We are not our own because He is now living inside of us.
Do we realize that? I think we have to remind ourselves. I have to remind myself of that. God is living inside of me.
I have to lay down my will for Him to be able to do that. I have to lay down my desires and even believe that His desire for me is better than what I can imagine for myself.
You know, I have been walking with the Lord—or started, anyhow—over forty years ago. I am a little slow. I can say that. I say, “Where has it all gone?”
But I can at least be thankful that I can see He has shown me that the Lord is working in me. He has humbled me some, enough that He can be seen sometimes by others.
It is my desire that He could humble me more, that I would not be seen so much, but that others might be able to see God’s glory through me.