On Hope in the Midst of This Crazy Life

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I had a long day today. It's part of a long couple of weeks and months. I've been pretty exhausted, anxious, and discouraged lately.

Don't get me wrong--there are a lot of really amazing things going on in my life! School is amazing. I am learning so many amazing things I can't even absorb them all. And ever since Christmas, it seems like God turned on a light and said, "Work toward these things for your future." It has been really, really good to see how He's moving in my life right now. He is so present all the time.

But all the same, I'm also exhausted and discouraged, and I can't seem to completely let go of my fears and worries about how all of the future things will work out. I feel attacked. Just as God is working in my life for good, the struggle is getting harder. Stupid fears I have already dealt with come back up to be dealt with again.

For instance, I subconsciously think, "God only wants me to be a servant to Him. He saved me and now He wants me to slave away, working reward-less through long years of toil and suffering with little help." How ludicrous is that? First, if God wanted a perfect servant, He could have made one. He didn't have to leave His throne, take on a decaying human body, and allow Himself to be murdered in order to get a servant. And it isn't like I--or you--are perfect now that we are His, either. He accepts us as we are.

Second, we aren't God's slaves or servants. We are His children and heirs. As Romans 8:15-17 says, "For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together" (NKJV). That word "Abba" means "Daddy." It means that God isn't the harsh, austere Father demanding perfect obedience from His children. He is the Daddy that the toddler, giggling, cries out to when He tosses His little one in the air and then hugs her tight.

And yes, there is that bit at the end of Romans 8:17 that talks about suffering. Verse 18 says, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us" (NKJV). The description of suffering in those verses, which is defined a little more in the following verses, seems to depict this life that we live in now (or so my Bible teacher says). This life with its illnesses, exhaustion, ageing, internal struggle, difficult people, and even persecution. All of us suffer through some or all of those things. We do it with or without Jesus, and I, for one, would like to do it with Jesus.

He does not leave us alone with no help, either. Over and over again I am seeing that the only way for me to do good, to endure suffering, to live the life God wants me to lead, or to succeed in anything is to rely on God's strength. I have to pray continually, thanking and praising God for what He has done, trusting that what He promised and said is true, asking for help and strength as I need it in every moment, listening to His leading as He guides me in the moments and years, asking the hard questions and crying out when I hurt, and getting to KNOW Him as the wonderful "person" He is. We have to "cling" to God. Jeremiah 13:1-11 vividly describes what happens to people who don't cling to God like a belt (or underwear) on someone's waist--they become useless and ruined. But when they do cling to Him, they are useful, even ornamental (think belt).

Finally, there is a reward! We aren't slaves, we are heirs of God. Think: the God of the universe who created and owns everything gave us the thing of most value, Himself, Jesus. "Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?" (Rom. 8:32, NLT). Don't get me wrong, this is talking more about Heaven than this life, although we do get the first taste of it here and now. But in the future, God will give new life to us who believe and to this old planet that is falling apart. He will create a new earth that isn't corrupted by evil and death and give us new bodies that are free from all suffering and evil. So describes Romans 8:18-25. That is what is meant by "future glory" in the verses I quoted earlier. We haven't earned any of this stuff, but God graciously gives it all to us anyway. I look forward to that day.

So for me to apply this in the midst of my state of exhaustion, discouragement, and worry, I have to continually go back to God for help, clinging to Him with constant prayer so that I might have the strength to not only endure but rejoice through my days and to trust when I am tempted to believe the lie. It's not easy, but I press on, pursuing God even as I rely on Him to make me long for Him. (Also ... getting more sleep is a necessity ...)

I hope that this debunking of my own lie has given you hope. It is so, so good for us to be reminded of all this.

Please, talk to me about your crazy life and worries, or how God is helping you through the midst of it! I would love to encourage you more or be encouraged by your stories and thoughts.

Romans 2: Explanation and Application

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Hi Friends!

I would like to continue explaining Romans to you, this time summarizing Romans chapter two. As always, please please read the chapter yourself first. You can find free access here: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans+2&version=NLT

Romans one ended by talking about all the horrible things that humans can do, and this chapter picks up directly off of that. It is as though Paul expects some people to argue that they don’t do such bad things, such as deceiving, backstabbing, or murdering. This group would say that, yes, some people do those things, but they themselves don't because they are more moral. In fact, these people even judge those who do such horrible things. Paul calls these "moralists" out on it, saying that, while they do a lot of good things, they still aren't good enough to escape God’s judgment; they aren't good enough to be “right” with God, on the upside of His laws and judgments. These moral people have to do nonstop good with no evil at all in order to be completely right in God’s sight and so escape His judgment. God will give everyone what they deserve—punishment for those who do any evil even once and reward for those who do good all the time. Even these so-called moral people will be judged by God because they do evil.

One of these people might say, “But we don’t have God’s laws telling right and wrong like the Jewish people do, so why are we being judged against a standard we don’t know?” Paul’s argument for that is this: God created every person in the world with a conscience which innately knows good and evil; it isn’t perfectly accurate like God's written laws are, but it is similar enough for God to use it as a standard. If a so-called moral person has disobeyed his or her conscience, God still considers that worthy of judgment because the person did know better.

Lastly, Paul presents his case to the Jewish people. The Jews boast that they are better and wiser than the other people because God gave them His laws. And so they think God will not judge them because they have His laws and are "special." Paul calls them out too, saying that they don’t follow the God’s laws, so having the laws does them no good. They are terrible hypocrites, speaking of how they are special to have the laws and yet not following them. The Jews also boast in a ceremonial sign (circumcision) that God gave them to do which identifies them as Jews. Paul tells them that being circumcised won’t save them from God’s judgment for breaking the laws because circumcision has no value to God if they do not follow His laws. In fact, being a real Jew doesn’t happen by being circumcised; it happens by being right with God, either by completely obeying the law all the time or by believing in Jesus Christ (which we’ll get to soon).

That is the end of chapter two, which is rich in theology and poor in practical instruction. I believe the application and point of this chapter is for us to evaluate ourselves and not to judge others. I see myself in the first type of person described—the so-called moral person. I mean, I am definitely not a Jew, although I do have access to God’s laws. I usually don’t like to think about this, but I sometimes look down my nose at people, thinking, “Sure I do bad stuff, but I’m not as bad as those people.” But according to this chapter, I definitely am as bad as those people are in God’s eyes. I have broken God’s laws. Sure, I haven’t murdered anyone, but I have gossiped, lied, broken promises, and disobeyed my parents. And I have definitely been proud. Unfortunately for me, God considers the breaking of one of His laws, or doing one of those things I listed, to be just as bad as being a serial killer. I know that God will judge me because of this.

Also, sometimes people who come from Christian families take on some of the attitudes of the Jews in this chapter. For instance, we think that because our parents are Christians, because we go to church, or because we pray before meals that God won’t judge us. But God won't allow us to escape judgment by doing those things any more than the Jews will based on their ceremonial circumcision, even though it was something God initially commanded. God wants us to be "right" with Him before doing those good things, or those things will mean nothing because of all the wrong we have done. Being right with God is most important. But unfortunately, we have all failed pretty fantastically at doing good always. God will judge us … but then there’s Jesus, who we’ll talk about later.

So, friends, do you have any questions? Comments? Concerns? Please tell me what you think!

Always,

Anne

PS: If you want to know what God’s laws are, since God judges all people based on them, they can be found in the first 5 books of the Bible, especially in Exodus 20, the Ten Commandments. Also, Romans 1 has a long list of things God considers evil.

A Basis for Missions from the Old Testament

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Let’s talk about Missions. It’s been on my heart a lot lately, and I would like to share some of what I have learned with you. In this post, I would like to establish a basis for why we Christians are supposed to do missions, and by missions, I mean telling everyone about Jesus, especially the people who do not have easy access to Bibles, churches, and Christians.

Once upon a time, God created the universe. He took time to create everything just right for humans to survive, and then He made humans as the last and crowning creation (read Genesis 1-2). Everything was good, and the first two humans had a personal relationship with God. God created them so that He would have someone to love and so that the humans would in return love and worship Him. Love requires a choice: if it is forced, it is no longer love. And so, God gave the first humans a command. As long as they obeyed Him with hearts that were in alignment with His, everything was good. But as the story goes in Genesis 3, they chose to disobey the one rule. As a result, the entire universe, especially its people, was cursed and separated from God and it remains that way to this day.

However, God still loves all humans, even though they spurned His love and rebelled against Him. So in the midst of His judgments on the first humans for their rejection, God inserted a promise for them and their descendants—all humanity. In Genesis 3:15, God promised to send an “offspring” of the woman who would be injured but would crush the head of the evil powers that now ruled the world. It was a promise for all humanity which would ultimately reunite them with God in love and in worship.

The next few chapters of Genesis deals with humanity as a whole. It demonstrates clearly how messed up they were now that evil and death had entered the world. At one point, they were so bad that in all the world only one man (Noah) cared about God.

In chapter 12, God narrowed in on one family. He chose a random person (Abram) and made a bunch of promises to him and his family. One might ask, “Did God stop caring about the rest of the world because He chose only Abram’s family?” Absolutely not! Look at the promises God made to Abram:

Now the Lord had said to Abram:
“Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.
2 I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

The last sentence in the set of promises, that “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed,” is the purpose for the rest of the promises. In other words, the only reason God chose Abram and Abram’s family is that God was intending to bless everyone in the world using them. How would God do it? By making the “offspring” mentioned in Genesis 3:15 born into Abram’s family. God’s goal was the same: reunite all people with God to love and worship Him.

Four hundred years passed and Abram’s family grew into the nation of Israel. They were also enslaved in Egypt. So in the first chapters of Exodus, God used 10 plagues to vividly declare how much more powerful He was over the other gods. God could have struck Pharaoh dead the instant he rejected God’s command to let the people free, but instead God used the opportunity to show His power and love for those who love and worship Him. As a result, we see the people in Canaan decades later shaking in their boots at the thought of God bringing His people into their land. In Joshua 2 and 6, Rahab decided she would get on board with God’s plans, and so she was rescued from death and joined God’s people, but the rest of the Canaanites who refused to work with God’s plan were judged (they had a 40 year warning but still didn’t go to God for mercy, join God’s people, or vacate the land; if they had, they would not have been killed). So we see that God showed Himself to all people and welcomes those who come to Him on His terms.

During that same time frame, God gave Israel more promises and laws. Again, it was so that all the nations would be able to come to God with love and worship. God promised the “offspring” would come through their people, and God also had them create a Tabernacle and later a Temple which was a place for them to come and worship Him. Built into the Temple was a courtyard where anyone of any nation could come and pray to God. Also, every person in Israel became a priest—an in-between person that makes peace and exchanges messages between God and other people, other people with no knowledge or access on their own (Exodus 19:6). Therefore, the purpose of Israel was to give access to God to anyone who heard of God and wanted to know and worship Him. The purpose of the Jewish laws was so that the nations would see who God is by the example of how the people lived. They failed for the most part, which we see in the rest of the Old Testament, but the intention was there. God’s goal wasn’t to make one nation special just because. God’s goal was to show Himself to all people and give them access to Him.

Why am I telling you all this ancient history? Because it goes to show that from the very beginning, God wanted all people to know Him so that they would love and worship Him. When they love and worship Him, all the evilness and death brought on by their initial rejection of Him disappears and is replaced with so much good, love, and life. Jesus is the key to all of it. He made the way for all people to come to God by His death and resurrection. And now He commands His people, those who believe in Him, to share in what He has been doing from the very beginning by telling the world of who He is so that they can love and worship Him which is the best thing for them.

There are so, so many more reasons for missions in the Bible, but I just wanted you all to know that Jesus didn’t just tack on the command to tell everyone about Him at the end of His time on earth. It has been His purpose from the beginning that all people come to know Him and everything He has been doing in the world is to accomplish that goal. We believers are commanded and privileged to join in accomplishing this goal.