Hope deferred makes the heart sick (Prov 13:12). How many of us have sewn into a work or waited for circumstances to change, and waited, and waited . . . with seemingly no progress and no visible confirmation that what we are waiting on will come to pass? It is hard to wait long periods of time, unless someone comes along side us to encourage us in the Lord. Once the heart becomes sick, dreams are set aside or buried altogether, and the promises God has given us become painful to think upon.
I remember being 19 and sitting in church one Sunday. The speaker was a prophet, a marvelous man who spoke a message God had laid on his heart for our congregation. It is almost 39 years later now, but I still remember him saying that some of us had high callings that would take very deep foundations . . . and just as a tall building needs a very deep hole dug and a very deep foundation laid, so would we. He said that we might wait years and years until God was ready to use us, and encouraged us in our waiting. That is how important the foundation of our faith was, for it had to hold a very tall, or high, calling.
This prophet’s message holds a principle that remains true today. We can see it was part of God’s way with Joseph when he spent years in prison, and part of Abraham’s wait as he looked forward to fathering a son by Sarah. Waiting. How hard it is, yet what a walk of faith we steward if we will hold onto faith! It takes a special God-given faith to wait on God’s promises in our lives; a God-partnering faith. This faith, if we want it, will condition our hearts to be dependent on Him to bring into the physical world that which does not yet exist. It takes a heart, on our part, that wants to believe God more than to see immediate results from our labors and prayers.
This morning as I was thinking on these things the Lord spoke to my heart that it is this God-given, God-partnering faith that is necessary for the great changes that will establish God’s Kingdom on this earth. If we look back at the examples of Joseph and Abraham that I mentioned previously, we see people who changed the course of history. Wouldn’t it make waiting easier on our part if we could foresee the changes God was bringing to the earth through our eventual answered prayers? I believe that it is the answered prayers along with the great faith He works in us through the trial of waiting that the Lord will use to bring the next change where we work and live. Faith . . . God-given, God-partnering faith, and God’s word coming to pass have always been His way of birthing His Kingdom on earth.
The scriptures give us instructions for these hard times, telling us to “See to it brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. Encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.” (Heb 3:12-13) One way to encourage our brothers and sisters during their periods of waiting, their travailing to bring birth, is to come alongside them in knowledgeable faith. Ask what that brother or sister is believing for, and what promises were spoken by the Lord into their lives which have not yet come to pass. Then pray and believe with them, and minister to them using the gifts God has given you. God is going to do something magnanimous with us heart-sick Christians. His plan has been to partner with us and imbue us with a great amount of faith, tested over time, in order to bring a change on the earth. We need to encourage and strengthen each other’s faith, and not lose a single person whom God appointed to this venture.
I remember a dream I had years ago where the Lord took me to see the City of God in the starry night sky. It was remarkable for its tall buildings and the light reflecting off their windows. God envisioned many tall buildings for His City. Can we see that we are them? Let us stand, believing in He Who is faithful and able to do all He has spoken. Amen.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
The New Life
Last Sunday I began this lesson, which is very difficult to capture. I believe that the Lord has much more to say about our New Life in Him than what is contained here but would like to share this much with you. I pray that you are blessed today, and in the coming Easter week. Helen
We are given a new life after we come to Christ. We are freed from our body of death to walk a new way on this earth (Rm 6:7). After being buried with Christ in His death through baptism, we are resurrected with Him and can live a life of power; Jesus’ power (Rm 6:5, Phil 3:10). Though most of us would recognize that these sentences embrace God’s plan for our lives, we struggle with the “power” part. It is not that we don’t want to walk in power . . . but it seems to elude us because we look at our natural life, or what is seen. Today’s lesson is about the new life, the life of resurrection power residing inside of us. As we establish His new Life for us, we are setting up His Kingdom within us. Jesus said once that His Kingdom was within us (Lk 17:21,22), and we would not find it by “careful observation.” If we look for outward manifestations of God’s power without letting His Kingdom be set up within us we might get discouraged. But if we let His power first take hold in our lives, then we will see that it is working its way outward to touch the lives around us.
The One who has set us free from sin paid an enormous price for us on the cross. We know that Jesus fulfilled the legal requirements to absolve us from our sins. That price also infers that, once we shed our body of death, there would be great value in us. This is the wisdom of God, then, to not only redeem us from a useless, sin-filled life, but to place us into a useful, powerful life in Christ, and to begin establishing His Kingdom within us. It is with a powerful conversion that we begin this new life. We read that the cross was God’s wisdom and, in fact, all our boasting in human wisdom robs God of the power of the Cross (1 Cor 1:17-18). Clearly it is the power of both the Spirit and the Word of God that begins the transformation which changes our lives, taking us from the kingdom of darkness and putting us into the kingdom of light.
After conversion we see the power of God stirring in us, wanting to spread outward to other people. The power that is at work in us wants to work through us by words and actions conceived in the mind of God. We can choose to display God’s transforming power outwardly. But at times it is in speaking about God that we fail to display the power that began our new life. In leaving behind our body of death and putting sin behind us, there is still our own nature that is alive in us, wanting to maintain a life lesser that that new Life we’ve been given. While we maintain that God has marvelously changed us by His power, still a kingdom of “self” remains to be dealt with within us. We might think that surely King Jesus was put in our hearts to rule there, not realizing that it is a battle just beginning within, for we are very much still on the throne of our own hearts. And so the power that should be manifested in our lives will ultimately depend on how much Christ’s kingdom is reigning within us.
If we remain on the throne of our personal kingdom within, our words will reflect a mixture of godly wisdom and earthly wisdom. Remember that it was God’s wisdom to save us through the cross, and then He allowed His power to change us within. But until His lordship reigns in our hearts there is the possibility of other words coming out of our mouths; boasting, adding worth to ourselves by using knowledge and worldly wisdom. Paul tells us that God removed Man’s right to boast in his own wisdom (1 Cor 1:28-29). Paul chose to speak in the words that the Holy Spirit taught (1 Cor 2:13). He understood that the Kingdom of God was not a matter of talk, but of power (1 Cor 4:20). In fact, Paul desired that men’s faith should rest on God’s power. When we speak about God we should lay aside our own wisdom, speaking the words taught by the Holy Spirit. If we speak God’s Words to Man, then God Himself will imbue those words with His power, working in the hearts of the hearers to bring His Life there. We see then that our words have the capacity to bring God’s power, or to quench it.
In looking at our human tendencies to be wise I can see three areas where we might stray from the power of our new life: In our attempt to know ourselves; in our attempt to judge our own progress; and in our striving to improve ourselves. Our “old” self is used to comparing ourselves against others in order to judge how we are doing. This is judging by a human standard (Jn 8:15). The alternative would seem to be to find Someone more worthy to compare ourselves against, however, if we compare ourselves against Jesus we all fall short of what He is. Rather than use comparison as a way to know who we are and how we are doing Paul writes to know no man after the flesh, or from a worldly point of view (2 Cor 5;16), neither to compare ourselves against each other (2 Cor 10:12). These instructions indicate that it is another source that will let us know how who we are; the Holy Spirit. Because Paul let the Holy Spirit search his heart, he did not evaluate or judge himself (1 Cor 3b, 4). The use of the word “judge” in these verses is to investigate, determine, examine. In the past we may have come to conclusions about ourselves by using this form of judgment. But now we are counseled to let the Holy Spirit disclose who we are to ourselves. It is He who searches our hearts and shares His findings with our own spirits , and He judges with true judgment (1 Cor 2:10,11). Though comparisons against other people may seem to be wise, they are from our old way of thinking and not from our walk of power.
In our attempt to judge our progress we must set a standard to compare against. Our old way of thinking tells us that seeing an outward standard of conduct and matching it in our lives will show us progress towards the goal of being like Jesus. Paul addresses this way of thinking when he writes to Christians who see rules and regulations as agents that bring righteousness, or Christ-likeness. However, the rules and regulations can only establish self-righteousness (Col 2:18-23). Even our attempts to conform to humility can backfire, producing a false humility in us. Our own standards can encompass past accomplishments which make a good outward impression and cause us to glory in that part we call the “flesh” (Gal 6:12-13). The glory of the flesh is what Paul calls a “righteousness of my own” (Phil 3:7-9). He states “I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” If who we see ourselves as, and what we see we’ve accomplished are not as valuable to us as knowing Jesus, then we can have His righteousness, and are joined with Him in His resurrection. So we see that the power that comes with our walk in Jesus comes at that point where we see Him as more important than our self-image. There is no standard high enough that, should we meet it, God would imbue us with His power from on high . . . it comes from dying a death to our own attempts to impress ourselves and others. Our hidden man of the heart contains the progress of God’s kingdom, which should make us more proud than anything that is visibly seen (2 Cor 5:12).
The third area that would cause us to stray from the power of our new Life is found in seeking to improve ourselves. Sometimes we gain confidence in this pursuit by meeting the same standard the world uses. This type of self-improvement is also part of our “flesh” and causes us to boast, or take pride in what we have, and in what we are currently doing (1 Jn 2:16-17). There are basic principles of this world (Col 2:8) that seem to be sound and worth following, yet will not lead us towards knowing Christ. One example is being prosperous. Many have fallen into the trap of thinking that prosperity will be a tool in God’s hand, and through our lives can cause a sinner to take note that God’s child (us) is being blessed. By deductive reasoning, then, the sinner can pursue God to be blessed. Instead of giving the sinner a “taste” of God’s kingdom, the prosperous Christian is giving him a “taste” of the world . . . the very world which the sinner is already a part of. A Christian does not need to be prosperous to show that God is kind to His children. Though prosperity may impress people, we should not strive for riches. Another example is wanting to be established in the community. This is another worldly standard that may cause a Christian to feel confident in himself. To those in the world it would seem that the longer you are living and working in a community, the more stable a person you are. Yet God asks us to consider ourselves as sojourners in this life, considering that our citizenship is in heaven (Phil 3:20). Our establishment in the heavenly kingdom is far more important than how long we’ve lived in a particular community on this earth. If we live and work where the Lords asks us to live and work, we can do not greater thing with our lives. It is by emptying ourselves of all earthly pride that we walk in our New life; the resurrected life found in Jesus.
After freeing ourselves from sin, the love of looking righteous, and the pride of meeting the world’s standards to improve ourselves, we find that the walk of our faith takes on the power of Jesus’ resurrection. Our words are not cloaked with our own wisdom but with the power of God. Our progress in knowing Christ and becoming like Him is a treasure hidden within our hearts, ready for God’s use at any time, for it shows His transcending power. And in seeing the world not as a standard to emulate, but to contrast by our walk in the kingdom, we join the many saints before us who walked powerful lives of faith and are now in the cloud of witnesses. Is not the resurrection power that same power which transforms us, having brought us into the image of Jesus? It is exciting to have this power within, for then we can expect to see it move outward from our lives. Amen.
We are given a new life after we come to Christ. We are freed from our body of death to walk a new way on this earth (Rm 6:7). After being buried with Christ in His death through baptism, we are resurrected with Him and can live a life of power; Jesus’ power (Rm 6:5, Phil 3:10). Though most of us would recognize that these sentences embrace God’s plan for our lives, we struggle with the “power” part. It is not that we don’t want to walk in power . . . but it seems to elude us because we look at our natural life, or what is seen. Today’s lesson is about the new life, the life of resurrection power residing inside of us. As we establish His new Life for us, we are setting up His Kingdom within us. Jesus said once that His Kingdom was within us (Lk 17:21,22), and we would not find it by “careful observation.” If we look for outward manifestations of God’s power without letting His Kingdom be set up within us we might get discouraged. But if we let His power first take hold in our lives, then we will see that it is working its way outward to touch the lives around us.
The One who has set us free from sin paid an enormous price for us on the cross. We know that Jesus fulfilled the legal requirements to absolve us from our sins. That price also infers that, once we shed our body of death, there would be great value in us. This is the wisdom of God, then, to not only redeem us from a useless, sin-filled life, but to place us into a useful, powerful life in Christ, and to begin establishing His Kingdom within us. It is with a powerful conversion that we begin this new life. We read that the cross was God’s wisdom and, in fact, all our boasting in human wisdom robs God of the power of the Cross (1 Cor 1:17-18). Clearly it is the power of both the Spirit and the Word of God that begins the transformation which changes our lives, taking us from the kingdom of darkness and putting us into the kingdom of light.
After conversion we see the power of God stirring in us, wanting to spread outward to other people. The power that is at work in us wants to work through us by words and actions conceived in the mind of God. We can choose to display God’s transforming power outwardly. But at times it is in speaking about God that we fail to display the power that began our new life. In leaving behind our body of death and putting sin behind us, there is still our own nature that is alive in us, wanting to maintain a life lesser that that new Life we’ve been given. While we maintain that God has marvelously changed us by His power, still a kingdom of “self” remains to be dealt with within us. We might think that surely King Jesus was put in our hearts to rule there, not realizing that it is a battle just beginning within, for we are very much still on the throne of our own hearts. And so the power that should be manifested in our lives will ultimately depend on how much Christ’s kingdom is reigning within us.
If we remain on the throne of our personal kingdom within, our words will reflect a mixture of godly wisdom and earthly wisdom. Remember that it was God’s wisdom to save us through the cross, and then He allowed His power to change us within. But until His lordship reigns in our hearts there is the possibility of other words coming out of our mouths; boasting, adding worth to ourselves by using knowledge and worldly wisdom. Paul tells us that God removed Man’s right to boast in his own wisdom (1 Cor 1:28-29). Paul chose to speak in the words that the Holy Spirit taught (1 Cor 2:13). He understood that the Kingdom of God was not a matter of talk, but of power (1 Cor 4:20). In fact, Paul desired that men’s faith should rest on God’s power. When we speak about God we should lay aside our own wisdom, speaking the words taught by the Holy Spirit. If we speak God’s Words to Man, then God Himself will imbue those words with His power, working in the hearts of the hearers to bring His Life there. We see then that our words have the capacity to bring God’s power, or to quench it.
In looking at our human tendencies to be wise I can see three areas where we might stray from the power of our new life: In our attempt to know ourselves; in our attempt to judge our own progress; and in our striving to improve ourselves. Our “old” self is used to comparing ourselves against others in order to judge how we are doing. This is judging by a human standard (Jn 8:15). The alternative would seem to be to find Someone more worthy to compare ourselves against, however, if we compare ourselves against Jesus we all fall short of what He is. Rather than use comparison as a way to know who we are and how we are doing Paul writes to know no man after the flesh, or from a worldly point of view (2 Cor 5;16), neither to compare ourselves against each other (2 Cor 10:12). These instructions indicate that it is another source that will let us know how who we are; the Holy Spirit. Because Paul let the Holy Spirit search his heart, he did not evaluate or judge himself (1 Cor 3b, 4). The use of the word “judge” in these verses is to investigate, determine, examine. In the past we may have come to conclusions about ourselves by using this form of judgment. But now we are counseled to let the Holy Spirit disclose who we are to ourselves. It is He who searches our hearts and shares His findings with our own spirits , and He judges with true judgment (1 Cor 2:10,11). Though comparisons against other people may seem to be wise, they are from our old way of thinking and not from our walk of power.
In our attempt to judge our progress we must set a standard to compare against. Our old way of thinking tells us that seeing an outward standard of conduct and matching it in our lives will show us progress towards the goal of being like Jesus. Paul addresses this way of thinking when he writes to Christians who see rules and regulations as agents that bring righteousness, or Christ-likeness. However, the rules and regulations can only establish self-righteousness (Col 2:18-23). Even our attempts to conform to humility can backfire, producing a false humility in us. Our own standards can encompass past accomplishments which make a good outward impression and cause us to glory in that part we call the “flesh” (Gal 6:12-13). The glory of the flesh is what Paul calls a “righteousness of my own” (Phil 3:7-9). He states “I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” If who we see ourselves as, and what we see we’ve accomplished are not as valuable to us as knowing Jesus, then we can have His righteousness, and are joined with Him in His resurrection. So we see that the power that comes with our walk in Jesus comes at that point where we see Him as more important than our self-image. There is no standard high enough that, should we meet it, God would imbue us with His power from on high . . . it comes from dying a death to our own attempts to impress ourselves and others. Our hidden man of the heart contains the progress of God’s kingdom, which should make us more proud than anything that is visibly seen (2 Cor 5:12).
The third area that would cause us to stray from the power of our new Life is found in seeking to improve ourselves. Sometimes we gain confidence in this pursuit by meeting the same standard the world uses. This type of self-improvement is also part of our “flesh” and causes us to boast, or take pride in what we have, and in what we are currently doing (1 Jn 2:16-17). There are basic principles of this world (Col 2:8) that seem to be sound and worth following, yet will not lead us towards knowing Christ. One example is being prosperous. Many have fallen into the trap of thinking that prosperity will be a tool in God’s hand, and through our lives can cause a sinner to take note that God’s child (us) is being blessed. By deductive reasoning, then, the sinner can pursue God to be blessed. Instead of giving the sinner a “taste” of God’s kingdom, the prosperous Christian is giving him a “taste” of the world . . . the very world which the sinner is already a part of. A Christian does not need to be prosperous to show that God is kind to His children. Though prosperity may impress people, we should not strive for riches. Another example is wanting to be established in the community. This is another worldly standard that may cause a Christian to feel confident in himself. To those in the world it would seem that the longer you are living and working in a community, the more stable a person you are. Yet God asks us to consider ourselves as sojourners in this life, considering that our citizenship is in heaven (Phil 3:20). Our establishment in the heavenly kingdom is far more important than how long we’ve lived in a particular community on this earth. If we live and work where the Lords asks us to live and work, we can do not greater thing with our lives. It is by emptying ourselves of all earthly pride that we walk in our New life; the resurrected life found in Jesus.
After freeing ourselves from sin, the love of looking righteous, and the pride of meeting the world’s standards to improve ourselves, we find that the walk of our faith takes on the power of Jesus’ resurrection. Our words are not cloaked with our own wisdom but with the power of God. Our progress in knowing Christ and becoming like Him is a treasure hidden within our hearts, ready for God’s use at any time, for it shows His transcending power. And in seeing the world not as a standard to emulate, but to contrast by our walk in the kingdom, we join the many saints before us who walked powerful lives of faith and are now in the cloud of witnesses. Is not the resurrection power that same power which transforms us, having brought us into the image of Jesus? It is exciting to have this power within, for then we can expect to see it move outward from our lives. Amen.
Friday, March 12, 2010
grace
Sometimes things seem hard. Let me explain. In our walk through this life with our Lord, we have the guide of the Holy Spirit and the scriptures. We look upon the good things in God’s word and our heart swells with His coming plans for our lives. But our lives have changes, decisions, and circumstances that do not reflect what we have thought would be our walk of faith. This morning the Lord has been leading me to read about grace; that intangible substance He gives all of us which enables us to make the right decisions, weather stormy circumstances, and suffer changes we would not have chosen for ourselves . . . changes wrought in the mind of God for our good and for the betterment of others.
In 1 Peter 4:10 we read that God’s people steward grace in its many forms. The “forms” are deposits from God, which are unique to each one of us, and are called “gifts.” Grace allows us to do what we cannot do, and accomplish what we cannot accomplish, through differing gifts which He, our God, has given us. You might say that grace takes us to new places, like an adventure. Grace also gives us new things, like a surprise. In the many references to grace in the Bible, grace seems like God’s enabling power in our lives, which causes us to do what we never thought or dreamt of beforehand. And herein lays a problem; grace often comes to us at a crossroads in our lives where the things we have thought of will take us one way, and the things God has thought of will take us another. It’s almost as if He is saying, “Here, let me help you with that decision by giving you a deposit of My nature inside.” The nature of God in us is manifested in our weaknesses, and not in the ways we would normally choose, therefore the crossroads is where we make that decision to follow God’s way, and not our own.
An example of accepting God’s way instead of what we think would be better is found in Paul’s writings. He describes for us that there is a thorn in his flesh, which he asked the Lord to remove. The Lord’s answer was “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor 12:9). Here we see that grace is actually the enabling power of power itself. For Paul to continue in his great and powerful walk of faith, he needed to have grace coupled with weakness. So we see another problem; God’s great adventures in our lives may be uncomfortable. To deepen His love in us we may be asked to care for the unlovely, and that is uncomfortable. To develop His compassion for souls He may bring people who feel hopeless to us, and this may seem draining and fruitless if we want to evangelize the world. To build unity of the Spirit for a great work ahead, the Lord may have us on a team of “difficult” people. And so it goes, God building up the deposit of His nature in us by imparting grace for those new things we hadn’t thought of before . . . or wouldn’t have done in quite the same manner God has chosen.
Yes, God also gives us gifts we would like, by grace, for this is how all His gifts come to His children. The gifts are for serving the brethren and all men. If we prefer to do things our own way we will never steward the rich deposit He has put within us. But if we have a willingness for new adventures, and will be flexible in God’s enabling power, we will find grace to do far and exceedingly above what we ever thought and hoped for. Amen.
In 1 Peter 4:10 we read that God’s people steward grace in its many forms. The “forms” are deposits from God, which are unique to each one of us, and are called “gifts.” Grace allows us to do what we cannot do, and accomplish what we cannot accomplish, through differing gifts which He, our God, has given us. You might say that grace takes us to new places, like an adventure. Grace also gives us new things, like a surprise. In the many references to grace in the Bible, grace seems like God’s enabling power in our lives, which causes us to do what we never thought or dreamt of beforehand. And herein lays a problem; grace often comes to us at a crossroads in our lives where the things we have thought of will take us one way, and the things God has thought of will take us another. It’s almost as if He is saying, “Here, let me help you with that decision by giving you a deposit of My nature inside.” The nature of God in us is manifested in our weaknesses, and not in the ways we would normally choose, therefore the crossroads is where we make that decision to follow God’s way, and not our own.
An example of accepting God’s way instead of what we think would be better is found in Paul’s writings. He describes for us that there is a thorn in his flesh, which he asked the Lord to remove. The Lord’s answer was “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor 12:9). Here we see that grace is actually the enabling power of power itself. For Paul to continue in his great and powerful walk of faith, he needed to have grace coupled with weakness. So we see another problem; God’s great adventures in our lives may be uncomfortable. To deepen His love in us we may be asked to care for the unlovely, and that is uncomfortable. To develop His compassion for souls He may bring people who feel hopeless to us, and this may seem draining and fruitless if we want to evangelize the world. To build unity of the Spirit for a great work ahead, the Lord may have us on a team of “difficult” people. And so it goes, God building up the deposit of His nature in us by imparting grace for those new things we hadn’t thought of before . . . or wouldn’t have done in quite the same manner God has chosen.
Yes, God also gives us gifts we would like, by grace, for this is how all His gifts come to His children. The gifts are for serving the brethren and all men. If we prefer to do things our own way we will never steward the rich deposit He has put within us. But if we have a willingness for new adventures, and will be flexible in God’s enabling power, we will find grace to do far and exceedingly above what we ever thought and hoped for. Amen.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Expectations and Disappointments
Sometimes I struggle with disappointments. I have an expectation of seeing one thing happen, yet another thing happens. This occurs in life, and in my marriage. I’ve often tried to change myself so that I would be empty of all expectations, and therefore have no disappointments. This was a topic the Lord shared with me on, and I’d like to pass this lesson on to you. For it has everything to do with godly love, and changed my frustration over having expectations.
Yesterday I was grappling with feelings of disappointment in my husband. I realized eventually that I probably wanted my mate to be or do something he may never be or do. Initially I had felt the pain of disappointment. But in prayer, and through grace, this pain gave way to a deeper commitment to love my partner. It was one of those days where I resolved not to be disappointed, but to love. I wanted to erase all expectations I had of my husband, for then I would never be disappointed. “I wish I could see like you do,” I whispered to God. “You never have wrong expectations.”
“But I do have unmet expectations,” came His reply. “I know every child’s potential, yet very few have the faith to reach it.” He went on to say “Human love seeks to have no expectations in order to have no disappointments. You want to eliminate all frustration and anger from your marriage so that your love will grow and deepen. That is earthly love.”
I sensed that there was a much deeper well to draw from than my meager earthly love, as the Lord’s thoughts continued to fill my mind. “My love can have unmet expectations and still love. It fails not, even when I see My most gifted men waste their lives. Because I have expectations I can see the potential for growth, for I know what I put in every man’s heart. I can give him dreams and words of encouragement, believing he will overcome all obstacles to win his race.
“Your love can be like Mine,” He continued. “You can love people when they disappoint you, encouraging them. It is not My way to say ‘Don’t worry about it,’ and dismiss a loved one’s failure. But I would say, ‘I sense you let yourself down. Let me help you up.’ This validates their sense of worth and says ‘I respect you’ louder than comfort of the flesh. If you really want to honor your husband, expect what I have put in him to come alive. Pray for his complete destiny to overtake him, and give him words of encouragement. Should he fall short, love him like I do, not only with commitment, which comes from your will, but with delight and excitement, which comes from a heart alive.”
This morning I thought about how expectations are similar to hope, love and faith. When we believe that our mates have a certain quality, we both hope for it, and have faith in its existence. Though we do not see it yet, we wait for it (Romans 8:25). It is the nature of love to believe in what our God has put in our mates (1 Cor 13:7). Somehow I have thought of expectation as being wrong, as if I was austerely requiring an unobtainable behavior or action from my husband. But expectation is built on divine insight into the goodness God has placed in our husbands’ hearts, and suffers disappointment willingly, not just with the commitment we can bring up from our wills, but with the fiery, alive love held in the bosom of God. That’s the kind of love I want.
Are we capable of wrong expectations? I’m sure we can be. After all, if we do not check our agenda at the door as we walk into relationships with the Holy Spirit, we will be influenced by what we want out of the relationship. But if we walk with the Spirit into all our relationships, setting our agenda aside for His, we will love with godly love. It’s like an adventure waiting to happen.
Yesterday I was grappling with feelings of disappointment in my husband. I realized eventually that I probably wanted my mate to be or do something he may never be or do. Initially I had felt the pain of disappointment. But in prayer, and through grace, this pain gave way to a deeper commitment to love my partner. It was one of those days where I resolved not to be disappointed, but to love. I wanted to erase all expectations I had of my husband, for then I would never be disappointed. “I wish I could see like you do,” I whispered to God. “You never have wrong expectations.”
“But I do have unmet expectations,” came His reply. “I know every child’s potential, yet very few have the faith to reach it.” He went on to say “Human love seeks to have no expectations in order to have no disappointments. You want to eliminate all frustration and anger from your marriage so that your love will grow and deepen. That is earthly love.”
I sensed that there was a much deeper well to draw from than my meager earthly love, as the Lord’s thoughts continued to fill my mind. “My love can have unmet expectations and still love. It fails not, even when I see My most gifted men waste their lives. Because I have expectations I can see the potential for growth, for I know what I put in every man’s heart. I can give him dreams and words of encouragement, believing he will overcome all obstacles to win his race.
“Your love can be like Mine,” He continued. “You can love people when they disappoint you, encouraging them. It is not My way to say ‘Don’t worry about it,’ and dismiss a loved one’s failure. But I would say, ‘I sense you let yourself down. Let me help you up.’ This validates their sense of worth and says ‘I respect you’ louder than comfort of the flesh. If you really want to honor your husband, expect what I have put in him to come alive. Pray for his complete destiny to overtake him, and give him words of encouragement. Should he fall short, love him like I do, not only with commitment, which comes from your will, but with delight and excitement, which comes from a heart alive.”
This morning I thought about how expectations are similar to hope, love and faith. When we believe that our mates have a certain quality, we both hope for it, and have faith in its existence. Though we do not see it yet, we wait for it (Romans 8:25). It is the nature of love to believe in what our God has put in our mates (1 Cor 13:7). Somehow I have thought of expectation as being wrong, as if I was austerely requiring an unobtainable behavior or action from my husband. But expectation is built on divine insight into the goodness God has placed in our husbands’ hearts, and suffers disappointment willingly, not just with the commitment we can bring up from our wills, but with the fiery, alive love held in the bosom of God. That’s the kind of love I want.
Are we capable of wrong expectations? I’m sure we can be. After all, if we do not check our agenda at the door as we walk into relationships with the Holy Spirit, we will be influenced by what we want out of the relationship. But if we walk with the Spirit into all our relationships, setting our agenda aside for His, we will love with godly love. It’s like an adventure waiting to happen.
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