Month: July 2024

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The Other Fruit

It was the beginning of the school year, and our International Friendships (IFI) leader, Rich, invited new students to introduce themselves to our Friday night Bible study group. This is always a fun time and a fascinating gathering of the nations. When came her turn, one young woman stood up and said, “My name is Patience, and I am from Ghana.” Rich lightheartedly replied, “I’ve met people named Joy, Faith, and now Patience, but I’ve never met anyone named Self-control.” We all had a good chuckle, yet his comment made a point, though perhaps unintentionally so: self-control seems to get the short shrift among Spiritual fruit. We celebrate love, joy, peace, goodness, and faithfulness, for instance, but self-control? Hardly a mention.

But self-control is important. For we are at ground zero in a battle between our sin nature, or our “flesh,” and the Spirit who lives in us through faith in Christ, and our choices matter. “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.”1 So Paul calls us to exercise self-control: “Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.”2 Again, we have a choice between good and evil, the sound selection of which requires self-control.

But how do we live in self-control while, if we’ve proven anything over the years, it is that our self-will regrettably leads us to self-centered choices? Answer: let the Spirit lead us.3 Jesus promised His followers, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak.”4 And as we offer ourselves to God as people who have been raised to life, and every part of ourselves to Him as instruments of righteousness, we will be walking in self-control. For the Spirit who leads us in truth empowers us to follow in obedience. Go in His guidance.

If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. — Galatians 5:25

Father, thank You for sending Your Spirit of truth. Open our hearts that we would know His presence, trust His words, and follow His lead in self-control. In Christ we pray. Amen.

1 Galatians 5:17 ESV
2 Romans 6:13 NIV, emphasis added)
3 Galatians 5:18
4 John 16:13 ESV

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Rest Area Open

The highway sign read, “Rest Area Closed.” The State had torn down the old facility and was replacing it completely — building, utilities, and pavement. “That’s OK,” I thought, “there’s another one 35 miles up the road.” But as I approached, this second pull-off likewise greeted me with the familiar unwelcome sign, “Rest Area Closed.” It, too, was under complete reconstruction! Clearly, these master planners had failed to consider old men’s bladders, so without any place to stop, I became increasingly “restless,” until finding a third roadside facility another 40 minutes later. This one was open. And there I . . . er, rested.

God has a passion for our rest. We are most familiar with the seventh day Sabbath, when God calls us to rest from our functional toil, though we are tempted not to. God also offers respite from situational strife, though we can reject that, also. For instance, when God led the Hebrew people to the Promised Land — a place of protection and provision — they faithlessly refused to go in. Vowed God to them, “Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Calab. . . and Joshua.”1 Centuries later, God recalled their refusal: “I was angry with that generation . . . So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’”2 Rest Area Closed.

Yet every day, God compassionately calls us to another kind of rest, a life-giving rest. “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his.”3 Here the author speaks not of “work” in the manual labor sense, rather, he calls us to rest from the pursuit of “works” as a means of earning eternal life. In Christ, God has done the work of salvation for us, as only He could, and He now rests from this work. We must not harden our hearts4 against Him by pursuing in our own effort the rest He provides through His grace; we rest from our works by resting in His.

Then do we pursue works at all? Yes, we are called to “good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”5 We pursue them not as means of gaining rest with God, however, but as people who have found our rest in Christ. Rest Area Open.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” — Matthew 11:28-30 NIV

Father, our rest is in You, as is our strength. In your rest, may we pursue the works you have prepared for us today. In Christ we pray. Amen.

1 Numbers 14:30 NIV
2 Psalm 95:10-11 NIV
3 Hebrews 4:9-10 NIV
4 Hebrews 3:8
5 Ephesians 2:10 ESV

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But Can I Trust Him?

For over 30 years now, Peggy and I have taken our cars to Payne’s Service for maintenance and repair. It’s not a flashy place, just a few bays on Indianola Avenue, and I’ve never heard a catchy Payne’s jingle on the radio. So, what keeps us coming back, and why have we referred so many friends there over the years? The people at Payne’s — Jeff, Tiffany, Jeremy, and others — are extremely knowledgeable and very good at what they do. Equally important, their integrity over the years has gained our confidence. They alert us to repairs we’ll need months down the road (which we appreciate), but never have they even attempted to oversell us or push a repair prematurely. Why Payne’s? Their ability and reliability.

Trust doesn’t always come easy: it can be anxiously built, openly vulnerable, and easily shaken. For years, I struggled to entrust myself to Jesus. I saw Him clearly in many believers and wanted faith like theirs, but perhaps in response to what seemed to me as painfully unanswered prayers, I would not trust. But as Paul writes, “if we are faithless, He remains faithful,”1 and, over time, God faithfully showed Himself to be more than trustworthy. I had looked to Him for my desires, but He desired something greater — the healthy, two-way kind of relationship in which each is all about the other. It is in this kind of relationship that we best read Jesus’ promise: “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”2 For it is in relationship that His desires become ours and our desires willingly subject themselves to His.

Still, there are times when God seems silent, nonresponsive. We know He is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine”3; we’ve seen too much to seriously think otherwise. Yet this only heightens our discouragement — God is able answer my prayer, so why doesn’t He? Here Jesus calls us to persevere, that we “ought always to pray and not lose heart.”4 Trust our Father to do what is best, when it is best. For He is able, and He is reliable.

“The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.” — Lamentations 3:25 ESV

Father, “My times are in your hand.”5 I choose to trust You. Lead me in Your path for me, and be my God. In Christ I pray. Amen.

1 2 Timothy 2:13 NASB
2 Mark 11:24 ESV
3 Ephesians 3:20 NIV
4 Luke 18:1 ESV
5 Psalm 31:15 ESV