Pressing on to Maturity
Read:
Hebrews 12:3-11
"And you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,
My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint
when you are reproved by Him; for those whom the Lord loves He
disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives. It is for
discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is
there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline,
of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not
sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected
them; shall we not much rather be subject to the
Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as
seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His
holiness (Hebrews 12:5-10)." (NAS)
How do we make a child grow up? It is certainly OK for a child who is only a
few months old to act like a baby. We cannot expect anything else. However,
what happens when the same child gets to be several years old and is still
acting like a baby? What must we do then? If we really love the
infant, we will do what is necessary. We will discipline him to set him on the
course towards maturity.
Not
I...
“I
am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith of the
Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”
Galatians
Our heavenly father loves us, therefore He disciplines us. He has the
Galatians
Before we can come to live "but Christ," we must thoroughly
understand "not I." Two of the great tools God
uses to bring us to this realization are our sufferings and our failures.
The Lord, if we will let Him, will use both of these to bring about great
glory in our lives.
The earmarks of God's hand upon a person s life are sometimes surprising. One
obvious sign is ministry. The Lord will use that person to show forth His
wisdom and His power. However, there is another evidence of God's dealings.
It is suffering. Anyone who has ever been greatly used or blessed by God has
also suffered much.
"Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was
beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I
was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on
frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from
my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the
wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I have been in
labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often
without food, in cold and exposure. Apart from such external things, there is
the daily pressure upon me of concern for all the churches”
2 Corinthians
What purpose could such hardship possibly serve? Those in the world might
respond by saying that the hard times made Paul strong. The Lord allowed tough
times to make him tough. However, Paul gives a different answer:
"For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came
to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that
we despaired even of life; indeed, we had the sentence of death within
ourselves in order that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who
raises the dead”
2 Corinthians 1:8-9 (NAS)
"For God, who said, 'Light shall shine out of darkness,' is the One who has
shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in
the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the
surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves; we are
afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing;
persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying
about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be
manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to
death for Jesus sake, that the life of Jesus also
may be manifested in our mortal flesh”
2 Corinthians 4:6-11 (NAS)
Those, like Paul, who have been through many trials
soon begin to realize that tribulation has a much greater purpose than to make
us stronger. On the contrary, the Lord at times allows us to
be burdened beyond our strength that we might
find Him as our strength. Suffering does not make us good. It leads us to the
place where we find Christ as our good. It brings us to the end of ourselves
that we might reach the beginning of God. Often, it is in the midst of our
greatest weakness that we learn to be strong in the Lord and in our greatest
failure that we find the Lord as our good.
Trials are called tests in the scriptures.
The Lord tries us like a metalworker tries gold. A metalsmith begins
with raw ore. He applies heat to it again and again to determine if that which
is valuable is present and then to bring it forth. The Lord
s dealings with our lives are similar. He applies
the fire to our lives to see if that which is precious is present and then to
purify it. What is the gold He looks for in us? It is His Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. He is the gold that God wants to shine forth through us. Our
sufferings expose the worthlessness of the flesh that we might embrace the
gold of Christ in us.
“In
this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary,
you have been distressed by various trials, that the proof of your faith,
being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire,
may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of
Jesus Christ.”
I Peter 1:6-7 (NAS)
“Beloved, do not be amazed and bewildered at the fiery ordeal which is taking
place to test your quality, as though something strange—unusual and alien to
you and your position—were befalling you.”
I Peter
"Many are the afflictions of the righteous…”
Psalm 34:19 (KJV)
On
first reading we might think that this passage must be a misprint. Surely, it
should read that many are the tribulations of the unrighteous. However, if a
metalworker has ore that has no gold in it, what good does it do to apply the
fire? God goes for the gold. If we find ourselves in the midst of a fiery
trial, we can be certain that God is working that Christ might be revealed in
us.
Temptation is also a test. Most of us probably feel that temptation is
something we would be better off without. Would it not be easier if once we
were born again, we never had to face the enticement of sin again? Why does
God allow the enemy to tempt us in our
weakest areas and at our worst times? Why does He allow us to fail to obey
when we truly want to? If we have experienced failure enough, we start to
understand the answer to these questions. We begin to see that the Lord uses
even our shortcomings to lead us to faith in Christ.
All of us want to obey God, but most of the time obedience is something that
is just beyond our grasp. We certainly try hard to please the Lord. We may
even make promises to God. "Lord, I will never do that again," or "I will be
faithful to do this or that from now on!" However, we meet with defeat after
defeat.
Finally, our stumblings begin to teach us that we do not have enough strength
to be faithful. Yet, it is then that we are very close to overcoming. We have
come to understand "not I."
It is often in our greatest failure that we find Christ as our victory. In
the midst of our weaknesses, He becomes our only holiness, just as He is our
only righteousness.
Our trials and temptations teach us that who we are
and what we can do is not enough. We must have the power of Who the Lord is
and what He has done. We must have a boast that is greater than ourselves. Let
us therefore heed the words of Paul:
"Let Him who boasts, boast in the Lord."
I Corinthians
...But Christ
(In Exodus chapters three and four, Moses has his great encounter with the
Lord at the burning bush. The following are some excerpts from the
conversation that Moses had with the Lord.)
"Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring
My people, the sons of
"Then Moses answered and said, 'What if they will not believe me, or listen to
what I say? For they may say, The Lord has not
appeared to you.' And the Lord said to him, 'What is that in your hand?' And
he said, 'A staff.' Then He said, 'Throw it on the ground.' So he threw it on
the
ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses
fled from it. But the Lord said to Moses, 'Stretch
out your hand and grasp it by its tail' -so he stretched out his hand and
caught it, and it became a staff in his hand- 'that they may believe that the
Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob, has appeared to you’”
Exodus 4:1-5 (NAS)
Then Moses said to the Lord, “Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent,
neither recently nor in time past, nor since Thou
hast spoken to Thy servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” And
the Lord said to him, “Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes him dumb or
deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now then go, and I, even I,
will be with your mouth, and teach you what you are to say.” But he said,
“Please, Lord, now send the message by whomever Thou wilt.” Then the anger of
the Lord burned against Moses, and He said, “Is there not your brother Aaron
the Levite? You are to speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I,
even I, will be with your mouth and his mouth, and I will teach you what you
are to do.” Exodus 4:10-15 (NAS)
Although Moses would become a great man of God, at this time he really knew
very little about walking with the Lord. At this point
Moses eyes were still on himself. Even though he stood before the
living God, all he could see was his weakness and inability. Moses'
shortcomings were of no consequence to the Lord. His message to His servant
was this: "Moses it doesn’t t matter who you are. All that matters is
Who I am."
Moses learned this lesson in a very big way. What a contrast there is between
the Moses who stood before the Lord at the burning bush and the man who stood
at the shore of the
In this we see a beautiful picture of how the Lord desires to work in our
lives. In the midst of our failures, He begins to turn our eyes from who we
are and what we can do to Who He is and what He has done. When this work is
accomplished, Christ, and not ourselves, becomes the measure of our victory.
Has the Lord been able to do this great work in our lives? The way we respond
to a simple question will test our hearts. "How great is Gods favor toward
us?" Where we look to find our answer will reveal our condition. We can look
to ourselves. We may think our standing with God is based on who we are and
what we have done. If this is our opinion, we will feel like our favor with
the Lord changes from day to day or even from hour to hour. If we measure up,
God will bless us; if we don t, He seems far from us.
However, if the Lord has dealt with our hearts, when the question of His favor
arises, we do not look at ourselves. We look at Jesus. He is the only answer.
Because of Who He is and What He has done, He has
become the measure of our favor with God. The Lord's blessing and help in time
of trouble are as certain as He is. Therefore, God s kindness towards us
never changes, because the power of the blood of the Lamb never
changes. Jesus is the measure of our standing with God when we do well
and even when we fail. In other words, Who Jesus is and what He has done
is all that matters in every circumstance.
Then there is the question of obedience. Who is the measure of our holiness?
Not to long ago a certain person was asked if he could forgive someone who had
caused him great pain. He answered, "Whether I can forgive this person or not
is not relevant. The important question is can Christ forgive him? If the Lord
lives in me, then He has become my capacity to forgive." Such is the way of
the humble heart. A humble person is not just one who has seen how small he is
but one who has also seen how great God is. He takes no thought of himself
only of Christ. The Lord has not only become the measure of his right standing
with God but also his ability to walk with God.
The Lord will endeavor to work in our hearts until Christ is our only
righteousness and our only victory. Over time He changes our hearts just as He
did Moses from one that can only see itself to one
that can only see Him.
God wants us to be like Jesus, but we will never reach His objective until we
live not by the power of who we are but by the
power of Who He is. This is what it means to grow in Christ. It is not so much
that we grow as it is that He grows in us. Christ increasingly becomes the
measure of our Christianity. So, let us press on to maturity knowing full well
its definition: more of Christ and less of us.