House Church Talk - Of Grace & Testing

[jim sutton]

Well, I see a smattering of self pity, here and there.  And I see someone 
willing to turn on everyone else, since they've been made to feel ashamed for 
ganging up on one brother.

But I very much appreciated your words, Bruce.  Your idea of the tests that 
may be repeated -- over and over again -- until we get it, is a lesson that I 
also have been learning over the years.  We simply cannot run from anything 
the Lord wants to teach us.  

Yes, we can change jobs, change church fellowships, change discussion lists, 
change marriage partners -- always blaming the "other guys" if we choose to do 
so.  But the lessons that God has for us will never go away until we face them 
and grasp them.

Job's comforters were not all wrong in everything they said.  Some of their 
comments are very good, in fact.  They were simply misapplied to Job, since 
these friends did not bother to look beyond their own ideas (they must have 
been IC).  Job spoke to them, but they didn't listen.  They just kept assuming 
he was wrong, wrong, wrong.  And so they kept "helping" him.

One of the passages that really speaks powerfully to me is in Job 5.  I think 
Eliphaz the Temanite is talking.  He says:

"Yet man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward.  But as for me, I would 
seek God, and to God I would commit my cause -- who does great things, and 
unsearchable, marvelous things without number."

Such beautiful truth.  Powerful and godly counsel for any of us to consider.

And he goes on to say something that has become very important to me:

"How happy is the one whom God reproves; therefore do not despise the 
discipline of the Almighty.  For he wounds, but he binds up; he strikes, but 
his hands heal.  He will deliver you from six troubles; in seven no harm shall 
touch you.  In famine he will redeem you from death, and in war from the power 
of the sword.  

"You shall be hidden from the scourge of the tongue, and shall not fear 
destruction when it comes.  At destruction and famine you shall laugh, and 
shall not fear the wild animals of the earth.  For you shall be in league with 
the stones of the field, and the wild animals shall be at peace with you.

"You shall know that your tent is safe, you shall inspect your fold and miss 
nothing.  You shall know that your descendants will be many, and your 
offspring like the grass of the earth.  You shall come to your grave in ripe 
old age, as a shock of grain comes up to the threshing floor in its season.

"See, we have searched this out; it is true. Hear, and know it for yourself."

God does indeed allow painful moments in each of our lives.  In fact, He 
orders them as we need them.  We see this explained in the Law of Moses, and 
put into action in ancient Israel.  We see it in the teachings of the 
apostles.  We can see it in church history.  And we see it in our very own 
lives.  At least I have seen it in mine.

And I'm just like anyone else.  I too often feel sorry for myself when any 
unpleasantness comes my way.  But whatever God brings to my life is always -- 
always -- for my good.  Any cut He makes into my heart is a necessary surgery. 
 I may not like it or want it, but I will most certainly profit by it, if I 
yield to His good hand.

What any of us actually do with each test, each challenge, is up to us.  

We can continue to act according to the flesh in that particular area, if we 
want.  But doing so only prolongs our own misery in life, our own pain.  Or we 
can lift ourselves up to the Lord and seek God's judgment in the matter.  If 
we do so, then in time, we will begin to discover His answer, His teaching, 
His grace in a new understanding.

I've found these things to be true in my life.  I wonder if anyone else has 
more to say along these lines?

Jim