Power Perfected in Weakness

Like anyone who would contemplate the power of God and the suffering of mankind, I have often thought about the question of why God allows suffering in this world.

Many people turn away from God when they are confronted with suffering because they cannot (or don't want to) find an answer to this question.

There are many reasons why people suffer, mostly because we live in a world broken and cursed by sin. The apostle Paul understood suffering more than most, first by causing many saints to suffer in his brutal pre-Christian zeal, then by suffering the same fate from his fellow Jewish zealots and their merciless Roman rulers.

Paul also understood the grace of God and the power that comes through suffering for Christ's sake.

And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.  Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Why is power perfected in weakness? Because our testimony is polished by turmoil, and shines brighter against the dark backdrop of tribulation and distress. As a follower of Christ, suffering can be a Force Multiplier for our testimony. God is glorified and his righteousness is demonstrated even more fully when we develop and maintain our testimony through trials and the death of our flesh.

The suffering and death of Christ is the ultimate foundational testimony of God’s mercy and righteousness, through which we are reconciled to God and introduced to grace.

To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. Ephesians 3:8-10

Who sees this testimony? Not only those on earth but “the rulers and authorities in heavenly places!” 

My conclusion is this:

Whether we stand before kings or walk before kids, whether we preach to multitudes or suffer alone, our lives testify to the host of heaven against the forces of darkness!

“So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. His going forth is as certain as the dawn; And He will come to us like the rain, Like the spring rain watering the earth.”” ‭‭Hosea‬ ‭6‬:‭3

Faith #1: The Holy Spirit in Me

I suppose the top reason for faith in the life of any follower of Jesus is the Holy Spirit of God.

Without the sovereign grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ we would not have access to the Holy Spirit who convicts us of our need for forgiveness and plants the seed of faith in our heart.

I was not born with faith, nor did I receive it by growing up in a Christian home. When I was old enough to reason I dismissed the existence of God based on my ignorance and the deception of the enemy. I even rebelled against God during a summer golf camp, run by Christians who wanted me to accept Jesus.

This skepticism grew in my early high-school years, in spite of friends reaching out to me and inviting me to church and fellowships. My analytical mind could not grasp the concept of an invisible God and his supernatural influence on people around me. The Bible seemed to be written in a foreign language that I could not understand. (Actually it WAS foreign in more ways than I knew).

All that began to change later in high school when a friend on my high school golf team began to question me about my eternal destiny. "Do you know what will happen to you when you die?" he would ask me on the tee box while we waited to tee off. I had no good answer, but this did provoke much concern in my adolescent mind. I was beginning to think long-term and the thought of mortality could not be satisfied by parties and shallow relationships.

Though I never stopped going to church with my parents, I began to accept invitations to fellowship and Bible study meetings with friends. I listened to Christian music and tapes by evangelists and teachers at my friends' churches and houses. During this time I began to sense the presence of the Holy Spirit, and the warm love of believers in fellowship with each other.

The conviction of the Holy Spirit and the word of faith was breaking down the walls of skepticism and leading me to repentance. I had to accept a lot of things I didn't understand, but felt that I had found the source of life and hope. The truth of this matter is that He found me! I remember having to tell some of my old friends I was moving into a new life and leaving some of their ways behind. Of course, I wanted them to come along but had to accept their own decisions to delay or deny the way I had found.

In college I was baptized for the first time and began to seriously study the Bible and spend time with new Christian friends I met in school. This was not the end of my struggles with skepticism and sin, but the Holy Spirit was teaching me by the word of faith that He was planting in my heart. That faith grew through my college years to form dear friendships, including my wife whom I married toward the end of college.

Marriage and career presented me with the most fundamental challenge of my life - how to deal with people that I worked with, ate lunch with and rarely went to parties with, who didn't know God and were following a more sinful lifestyle. My first job was with a team of young college graduates like myself in the field of Information Processing and Computer Science. I enjoyed the work and even the office humor, but attempting to be a light in this spiritual darkness proved my faith to be immature and fragile. Marriage and the five years I spent in college had left me disconnected when we moved back to the Houston area, and we initially failed to settle into a Christian fellowship that would provide any meaningful support.

After several years of wandering I began the much longer experience of learning to walk out of the wilderness of Sin and to let the old nature die. We found a church in our neighborhood and Christian friends to share our faith and fellowship. Through the years that followed we have been involved in a few churches in the Houston area and harvested much fruit from our fellowship. These were not years without struggles with family and the cares of the world, but we have been learning endurance through the testing of our faith. These were also years filled with the blessings and joy of the Holy Spirit that kept our marriage strong and our family safe. I can testify that my own experience with the God of the Bible has proven Him to be faithful, merciful, and exceedingly gracious when I need Him the most.

Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night,” Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You. For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You. Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way. 

Psalms 139:7-18,23-24 

 

His Name is "Maher Shalal Hash Baz"

I'm reading Isaiah now.  I realized after an intense foray into eschatology (study of end-time prophecy) that having an increased understanding of prophecy is an open door for me to re-read the prophets and discern more of God's word.

 

As a matter of fact, I feel a desperate need to read and understand as quickly as possible because the time is short and there is much to do.

 

Today I was reading Isaiah 8: Then the LORD said to me, “Take for yourself a large tablet and write on it in ordinary letters: Swift is the booty, speedy is the prey.

 

Isaiah was so impressed by these words that they became the name of his next son - Maher Shalal Hash Baz.  (Talk about opening the door for witnessing!  Try naming your kid Maher Shalal Hash Baz and let me know how it works out.  I guess the poor boy would get a lot of chances to explain the prophecy right before he got beat up.)

 

I can imagine the prophet and prophetess telling people about their cute baby - "his name is swift the booty speedy the prey" - with their fiery prophet gaze.

 

Whoa where is this conversation headed? Well I'll tell you where.

 

"...for before the boy knows how to cry out ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be carried away before the king of Assyria.”

(Isaiah 8:11-15 NASB)

 

One principle in the Bible is the testimony of two witnesses, which are required to pronounce judgement.  In this case the two witnesses are Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the prophet. The law and the prophet - this might sound familiar if you read my earlier post (Two Witnesses at the End of Days).  The wrath of God is immediately preceded by the testimony of two witnesses.

 

The testimony also serves as a sort of contract to prove that God is faithful and His judgments are true.  God's judgment is conditioned upon the people's response to the testimony.  Repentance will always turn away God's wrath.  This is why the LORD has delayed His final judgment on creation.  This is why the "apostacy must come first" - the people must become so hardened that repentance is impossible.  Notice the response in Isaiah 8:

They will pass through the land hard-pressed and famished, and it will turn out that when they are hungry, they will be enraged and curse their king and their God as they face upward. Then they will look to the earth, and behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and they will be driven away into darkness. (Isaiah 8:21-22 NASB)

 

This is a prophetic reference to the final judgment, as in Revelation 9:

 

The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, so as not to worship demons, and the idols of gold and of silver and of brass and of stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk; and they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their immorality nor of their thefts. (Rev 9:21-22 NASB) 

 

Finally...

 

Satan has had plenty of antichrists ready for the final conflict, but God has always had a people who would repent and pray for God's mercy; thus the final wrath has been withheld even until now.  It is when God's people are finally "taken out of the way" then "...that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming." (II Thessalonians 2:7-8 NASB)

 

There may yet be time to delay God's wrath, but the answer won't come through politics or economic genius or military might.  It will come only

 

"...if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways" (II Chronicles 7:14 NASB).

 

Remember,

 

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. (II Peter 2:9 NASB)

Dying in the Wilderness

I had a dream.  It was a troubling dream.  I found myself in the middle of a desert, lost.  I wandered seemingly endlessly searching for a way out, through one scene after another of bleak lonely wilderness.  Then I awakened.  It was 1976 in my garage apartment in Waco where I was enrolled in college.  I still remember that dream and the disturbing impression left on my heart.

Some time later the Lord put a song on my heart.  The song was about a man who knew God but lost his way and returned to the world. This song continued to haunt me through my years of wandering.  Many times the Lord reached out to me and touched my heart with new songs and fresh understanding of His Word.  But the warning reminded me - continue to wander and let the world harden your heart and you'll come to an end like the miserable old soul in this song.

A few years ago my father passed away while I was away on business.  The tremendous weight of this experience caused me to become desperate for God.  I asked for Him to give me the faith I needed to become truly free from the world.  That is when I started to die.  By that I mean that I began to lose interest in the things that took me away from God.

A few months ago one of the associate pastors at my church spoke about Joshua leading the nation of Israel into the promised land.  Through him God showed me what had happened to me over those years of wandering.  More than thirty years of my life was wasted pursuing wealth and fulfillment in the world while gradually losing touch with God.  Like the children of Israel, God had taken me out of Egypt but there was still a lot of Egypt left in me that had to die in the wilderness.

Thank God I now see the green fields of the promised land.  I know now that as long as I bear this "body of sin and death" I will still need to die daily, but I also have the spirit of Christ giving life to my spirit, and the spirit of God giving life to my mortal body!

Let me also say that Jesus' parable of the sower has been fulfilled in me (see Matthew 13).  Some of the seed (the word of God) fell by the side of the road while I was a young skeptic.  Some of the seed fell on sandy soil, sprouted early but perished because it had no depth of root.  Some of the seed fell on thorny soil and was choked by my years of wandering in the cares of this world.  And some of the seed has fallen in good soil, deeply rooted in me and about to bear eternal fruit!

Does any of this ring true with you?  Are you lost in the wilderness?  There is still a way out, if you are still alive and able to call upon Jesus.  He will NEVER give up on you.