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One Word

It had been too long since my lifelong friend and I had caught up with each other, so as I planned for a visit in the city where he now lived, we arranged to meet for breakfast. We updated each other on our families and recounted childhood memories—still cherished and somehow sweeter with age—before discussing meatier matters of the present. For decades Steve had endured addiction and also the messes that flow from it only to return and feed it once again. As we met, he had been sober for a few years (and remains so still today), relying daily on the love and power of God and the selfless support of friends. Steve recounted to me that, four months into his recovery, he and two friends had a deep conversation about turning one’s life over to God, and at that moment he felt the Spirit of God come over him—“It was like a thousand-pound weight off my shoulders.” Of the change in his life, my friend told me, “When I wake, the first thing I say to God is, ‘I love you, too.’”

Did you catch that—“I love you, too”? I cannot recall what Steve said after that, for my mind was racing to process what was to me a one-word sermon: “Too.” For who says, “I love you, too,” but the one already basking in the assurance of love from another? “Too” is the return of a love first received; it is the peaceful reply of the humbled heart; it is the echo resounding from the grateful soul. “I love you, too” professes the origin of love, for “love comes from God”1; it proclaims His character and rejoices before Him. And “too” testifies to this truth—“We love because he first loved us.”2 His love is pure freedom, and in this confidence we respond with these words and with our entire being from which they flow, “I love you, too.”

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. —1 John 4:16-17.

God, I love you and your Son always and forever. Amen.

1 1 John 4:17
2 1 John 4:19

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Our Identity: Heirs

A friend of mine held a prominent position working for a financial services sector giant. His future there was even brighter, except for one thing: the political climate in the upper echelon of that corporation was highly combative, and my friend was repeatedly told, “You need to learn to throw your weight around.” Mulling this over for some time, my friend ultimately concluded, “That’s not who I am, and I’m never going to be that person.” He left his promising prospects there to pursue something more richly rewarding—a profession in a culture consistent with who he knew himself to be.

How noble the character of one who will not compromise it for worldly gain but lives instead in the freedom of who God has made us to be in Christ. Then how vital it is to absorb and accept this facet of our being: we are adopted children of God and heirs to His kingdom. In recent weeks, we have seen that the Spirit of God breathes life into all who believe in the Son of God, and that God has united us with Christ—He lives in us, and we live in Him. (See links below.) Listen then as Paul tells us what this means for us: “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received . . . brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ . . . ”1 Inheritors of eternal life in the Kingdom of God—this is who we must know ourselves to be.

Our celestial Kingdom home draws nearer each day, yet we have terrestrial Kingdom purpose in “the here and now”—to bring God glory. So how do we live “while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ“?2 We serve. Said Jesus to the crowd, “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”3 This is what Jesus did, so this is what we do in Him. This is who Jesus is, and this is who we must know ourselves to be—children, heirs and co-heirs with purpose: to glorify God.

Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.”—Matthew 25:34

Abba, Father, how good You are that You would adopt us as Your children and make a way for us to inherit Your Kingdom! Fill us, lead us and empower us to do what You call us to do today. Be glorified. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

1 Romans 8:15-17
2 Titus 2:13
3 Matthew 5:16

Prior posts on our identity in Christ
Our Identity: We Are Forever Alive
Our Identity: With/In

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What God Ordains

A few years ago, I participated in an author signing event. Peggy joined me for the day, mingling with the crowd and casually sending people my way. At some point, I noticed her sitting and conversing with another author—admittedly a more interesting one. Sue Thomas had become profoundly deaf at 18 months, yet through persevering parents and continual speech therapy, Sue learned to speak well. After graduating from college, she joined the FBI as a fingerprint examiner, but when the Bureau discovered Sue’s lip-reading expertise, they assigned her to an undercover surveillance team pursuing high-profile crime cases. Sue became the inspiration for the television series: Sue Thomas, F.B. Eye. On our way home, Peggy shared a pearl of wisdom she gained from this woman of great faith. Sometime after suffering a stroke, Sue had been invited to speak to a group. When her concerned assistant questioned whether she was strong enough to endure the event, Sue replied, “What God ordains He will sustain.” She accepted the invitation and kept the appointment.

It is easy and normal to consider the enormity of God’s call through the lens of our natural limitations. When God commissioned Moses to demand that Pharaoh release the Israelites, Moses objected, citing his ineloquence. Answered God, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord?”1 What God ordains He will sustain. When the angel of the Lord called Gideon to go and save Israel from their oppressors, he also objected, for his clan was the weakest in their tribe, and he was the “least” in his family. “I will be with you,” replied the Lord, “and you will strike down all the Midianites.”2 What God ordains He will sustain. Still today, God sends us, His people, into intimidating circumstances—“like sheep among wolves”3—with the message of life in Christ and in humble service in His name. When tempted to balk at our commission and to reason why not to go forward in faith, we must remember this: What God ordains He will sustain.

In Sit, Walk, Stand, Watchman Nee’s timeless teaching on Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, the twentieth-century Chinese church planter wrote, “The greatness of [the Lord’s] demands upon us only shows how confident he is that the resources he has put within us are fully enough to meet them. God does not command what he will not perform, but we must throw ourselves back on him for the performance.”4 Yes, God calls us to adventures beyond our ability, for they exist fully within His. Are you up to it today?

Father, You desire to work Kingdom wonders through Your Kingdom people. Inspire us to stand in Your strength and to remember that what You ordain You will sustain. In Christ we pray. Amen.

1 Exodus 4:11
2 Judges 6:16
3 Matthew 10:16
4 Nee, W. (1977). Sit, Walk, Stand (Repkg). Wheaton, IL: Tyndale Entertainment, 29.