One of the criminals who
hung on the cross next to Jesus hurled insults at him, “Aren’t you the Christ?
Save yourself and us” (Luke 23:39 NIV)! One would think the disciples would
have a little more faith than the criminal. However, I hear the same words from
the disciples when they were on a boat with Jesus. “Without warning, a furious
storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was
sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re
going to drown” (Matt 8:24-25 NIV)! Whether nailed to a cross, or on a sinking
ship, our faith can be measured.
1 comment:
Gail;
-----Not only can our faith be measured, but it is divvied out to each in amounts of the Lord’s determining. It is part of the “He has a purpose for everything” thing of Proverbs 16:4. Even in the tiny details of happenstance, giant purposes show forth. Why did not both thieves rail at Jesus, or why did they not both stand up for His innocence and request to be saved? Why was Jesus crucified between them? Even there on Calvary hung a picture of this world’s reality surrounding the truth about God: some have good enough sense to evaluate a situation and, within it, to address the source of help that His truth is; others are as dumb as a knot on a beam.
-----Jesus said loving God with all your mind, heart, and soul is the greatest commandment. What is it to love? Is it to be filled from the tips of your toes to the top of your head, and to be saturated right into the marrow of all your bones with a tickly, warm, giggly feeling of “I like” and “I want to be close”? Well. Yah. A little bit. But that’s not the essence of love. It is more the emotional response to love (besides the fury and anger when your loved one dares breach your sense of propriety.)
-----The residue of meaning boiled out of all our concepts about love, the one idea which is all their coherence, is the irresistible, persistent impulse to do good unto what is loved, or to merely desire its good if the ability to do is missing. To love is to benefit. Therefore even in the mean, rotten, cruelty of the Bible, such as beating your child with a rod, there is love, for then he will not die (Prov 23:13.) The next most prolific residue in all the concepts of love is attachment or nearness. Attachment is something which does not require physical nearness. The leper will remove himself far from his loved ones out of attachment to their well being.
-----So then, we can see that the essence of love is fundamentally bound to the essence of truth. It is good to take the leper things to eat. It is good the leper does not desire you to linger. It is sad that love often looks like its opposite. But all this is because truth involves detail. Every little thing of a situation has its own particular truism relative to what it is, where it is, and, oh yes, to what is its purpose for God. To love God with all your mind is to construct every bit of your knowledge in a manner which does all God’s details true good.
-----Had those disciples been faithful to hunger after knowledge like a starving population of a besieged city hungers, they would have read and remembered Psalms 107:25-30, “For He commanded, and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to heaven, they went down to the depths; their courage melted away in their evil plight; they reeled and staggered like drunken men, and were at their wits’ end. Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress; He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad because they had quiet, and He brought them to their desired haven.” But if they had known this Psalm, they would have recognized their situation and requested with faithful decorum that the Lord still the waters instead of crying out from the end of their wits, and we would not have had another instructive picture.
-----Even in the amount of faith one has and another hasn’t is God’s purpose for the details of testimony born to Him in subtle ways only human behavior can make. Never discount the utility to God of one having little faith. Never overrate the utility of one having great faith. God’s purpose is extracted from all, therefore, He assigns faith by His measure (Rom 12:3.)
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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