The Moments of Life

As a Christian, it only makes sense that I would try to follow the example of the characteristics displayed by Christ.  And I have.  Admittedly, there are some days that I have been more successful at it than others.  Some years have been better than other years.  Actually, one minute might be better or worse than the next.  Sadly, my emulation of Christ has been more fluid than I would have planned at the beginning of the journey.  But it is what it is, and perhaps that is why I am such a fan of grace and mercy.  It also makes me totally reliant on the imputed righteousness of Christ, and a lover of the book of Romans.

As we are going through this Easter season, and I contemplate on the days leading up to the brutal crucifixion and glorious resurrection of the Savior, one quality of Christ has stood out in my thinking.  It is one that I have been prayerfully trying to copy... one moment successfully, and the next not always as successful.  What has stood out to me is the ability Christ had to live in the moment. 

It occurs to me that most of us spend each moment either reliving the past, or imagining the future.  Christ did not allow that to happen in his life.  He pulled everything there was out of each moment he walked on this planet.  We tend to live in the, "What might-have-been,"and, "What's going to be."  Christ lived in the now.  He didn't dwell on the past.  And, apart from striving to reach the goal of Calvary, he didn't waste a second worrying about the future.  His energy went into into the moment....into the now.

As one reads the gospel, one gets a real sense of the calm, peaceful pace of Christ's life.  He had so much to accomplish during His short stay walking among us, and yet Jesus never seems rushed.  He was continually surrounded by people needing his touch, people needing his teaching and people needing his love, but the Lord ministered to each of them in a pace that seemed anything but frenzied.

That characteristic was evident whether Christ was walking quietly with his disciples explaining to them what was to come, or on a mountain proclaiming the Kingdom of God to thousands.  It was there as he sat by the well with the really messed up Samaritan woman and whispering to her, "I am the Messiah."  Or, as he knelt on the ground, writing in the dirt.  The woman caught in adultery standing before him.  The victorious glare of the Pharisee's as they stared at him, waiting for an answer they could pounce on.  "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her."  Moment by moment, a perfectly paced life.

That pace is particularly amazingly evident in the days before his death.  Christ knew what was coming.  The beatings.  The scourging.  The mockery.  The cross.  And the most difficult for him to face....His separation from the Father.  With all of that before him, his focus was still on the moment.  The certain agony ahead did not distract him from the now.  It was, indeed, the perfect example of walking in the peace that surpasses all understanding.  It was a life lived in perfect peace moment by moment.... even when the spikes were being driven into his hands and feet.

"You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.  (Isaiah 26:3)

I would suggest that Christ lived those words of the Prophet to perfection.  Christ lived each moment in that perfect peace because he trusted his Father for the next one.

So, it's a discipline I'm working on.  Completely trusting God for the coming moment so that I can enjoy the present one to the fullest.  But then, just as importantly, it includes trusting the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice to cover every moment of my past that has fallen short of God's glory, so the weight of guilt doesn't distract from the joy that's available in the present.  I have determined to, as much as is within me, live in the now.  To love the moment.  To not allow the pendulum to swing to the, "What might-have-been" or the anxieties of the, "What's going to be."

Admittedly, it is beautiful in it's simplicity, but more difficult in practice.  But the beautiful reality is that God says, "Trust me with your past.  Trust me with your future.  And, allow me to carry you through the moment."

Friends, it's the enemy's most productive weapon.  He will remind us of past failures, or he will cause us to dread what might be in the future.  He whispers the lie that God's grace isn't sufficient for the past, or that his mercy doesn't guard our future.  It drains joy.  It destroys peace.  And it allows Satan to rob the life God desires for us, one moment at a time.      

The Shattering of Job

"I was at ease, but He shattered me."  Job 16:12

Now, if I were to speak those words, most people who know me, even casually, would say, "Dude deserved it.  If anyone should be in line for a good shattering, it would be old Jim."  Sadly, even I would agree with that judgment.  There have been many occasions in the course of my life when I could have spoken those words, and every time they would have been not only true, but deserved.

But this is Job.  This is the man God himself bragged of, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” (Job 1:8)  Now, apart from the imputed righteousness of Christ, there has never been a moment in my life when the Father could have spoken those words of me.  I regret it, but it is true.  It has, however, given me a greater understanding of Christ's words about the woman who anointed his feet with oil, "She was forgiven many, many sins, and so she is very, very grateful. If the forgiveness is minimal, the gratitude is minimal."  (Luke 7:47 MSG)  Or, in short, he who has been given much forgiveness....loves Christ very much.  To the depths of my being, I know the love that flows from the gratefulness of a heart that has experienced the magnitude of grace and mercy the Father has shown me through the cross.

God holds Job up as an example of an excellent servant, and then gives Satan permission to shatter him.  Understandably, Job is confused and does not understand why his life took such a negative turn.  Modern day readers of Job's story wonder the same thing.  I have heard people try to explain Job's plight with one verse, " For the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. (Job 3:25)   The rational goes that since Job feared and dreaded it, the door was opened to Satan, and Job got what he feared.  That is absolute drivel.  One can't explain the actions of God toward a faithful servant by grabbing one verse out of the whole book, and using it to say that Job got what he deserved.  Not only is that explanation contrary to the book itself, it nullifies the great truth of Job's story.

In the latter part of the book, God speaks to Job at length.  It is quite telling that in the entire conversation God never explains to Job the reason He allowed what he allowed in Job's life.  God does go to great lengths, however, to give Job a glimpse of the magnitude of the glory of the Creator as well as the magnitude of the glory of everything God is and everything God does.

That is the main point of the book of Job.  God is God, and will do what he chooses.  Actually, Arthur Pink describes it in his book, "The Sovereignty of God," much better than I can. (Although he is not specifically referring to Job.)  "Since God is God, He does as He pleases, only as He pleases, always as He pleases: that His great concern is the accomplishment of His own pleasure and the promotion of His own glory." (Page 17)

Friends, God did not create us because he needed someone to love, as nice as that sounds.  God, in the glory of the Trinity, was and is, and always will be completely complete in Himself.  He did not need anyone or anything to add to that completeness.  While God keeps many of plans and purposes to Himself..."The secret things belong to the Lord." Dt. 29:29.... He does tell us in Isaiah 43:7 his purpose in creating us, "...everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”  A few chapters later in Isaiah the scripture drives the shaft of God's glory deep into our minds:  "For my own sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you that I may not cut you off. Behold I have refined you, but not like silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another."  Isaiah 48:9-11

The driving motives in all that God did in creation, and does in history, in the church, and in individual lives, including Job's, is to maintain the honor of His name and to display His glory.  I would suggest that creation itself was the natural outflow or overflow of the glory of God streaming through eternity.  It is not merely his plan, it is an extension of every characteristic that makes God who He is literally exploding into time and creation.  And on the history of that creation he creates a stage on which he displays, and will always display his glory.  

Understand, as God, He can do no less than magnify and glorify that which is perfect.  To do less, would not be possible for a righteous God....a God of truth.  Since He is perfect, it is only natural and understandable that he glorifies His own perfection.

Creation declares His glory.  His love for us demonstrates the glory of the love of the Godhead in the eternity before time.  His forgiveness of us shouts of the glory of His grace and mercy.  Even His judgment and wrath displays the glory of His holiness and righteousness. 

I have, admittedly, found myself questioning the reasoning's and purposes of God, much like Job....although with far less human justification.  But when I take the time to prayerfully consider the glory of who God is, and the glory He displays with His dealings with men....well, like Job, I can only respond in one way:

 "I have declared that which I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know."  (Job 42:3)

"Therefore I retract, And I repent in dust and ashes."  (Job 42:6)