Jesus Shows Us How to be Children

This week I will quote once more on the topic of child likeness from George MacDonald's book, Discovering the Character of God. I'm taking this from a section in the book called "Jesus Shows Us How to be Children."

"(In Matthew 11:25-30) having thanked His Father, Jesus turns to His disciples and tells them that He knows the Father, being His Son, and that He only can reveal the Father to the rest of His children: '...no man knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.' It is almost as if His mention of the babes (earlier in the passage) brought His thoughts back to Himself and His Father, between whom lay the secret of all life. The relation of the Father and the Son contains the idea of the universe.

"No man, when he first comes to himself, can have any true knowledge of God. He can have only desire for such knowledge. The Father must draw nearer to him. He therefore sends His firstborn, who does know Him, is exactly like Him, and can represent Him perfectly. Drawn to the Son, the children receive Him, and then He is able to reveal the Father to them.

"No wisdom of the wise can find out God. The simplicity of the whole natural relation is too deep for the philosopher. The Son alone can reveal God; the Child alone understands Him.

"The Elder Brother accompanies the younger, and makes him yet more a child like Himself. He interpenetrates his willing companion with His obedient glory. He lets him see how He delights in His Father and lets him know that God is his Father too. He rouses in his little brother and sister the sense of their Father's will. And the younger, as he hears and obeys, begins to see that his Elder Brother must be the very image of their Father. He becomes more and more of a child, and more and more the Son reveals the Father to him. For He knows that to know the Father is the one thing every child of the Father needs, the one thing to fill the divine gulf of his necessity. To see the Father is the cry of every child-heart in the universe of the Father.

"Comfort yourselves then, brothers and sisters. He to whom the Son will reveal Him shall know the Father, and the Son came to us that He might reveal Him.

"'Eternal Brother', we cry, 'show us the Father. Be Thyself to us, that in Thee we may know Him. We too are His children. Let the other children share with Thee in the things of the Father.'"

God's Confidants...

This quote by George MacDonald is from the book, "Discovering the Character of God":

"Terribly has the gospel of Jesus suffered in the mouths of the wise and prudent! How would it be faring now had its first messages been committed to persons of great repute, instead of those simple fishermen? From the first we would have had a system founded on a human interpretation of the divine gospel, instead of the gospel itself. As it is, we have had one dull miserable human system after another usurping its place. But thank God, the gospel remains!

"Had the wise and prudent been the confidants of God, the letter would at once have usurped the place of the spirit, and a system of religion with its rickety, malodorous plan of salvation, would have been put in place of a living Christ. The great Brother, the human God, the eternal Son, the living One, would have been utterly hidden from the tearful eyes and aching hearts of the weary and heavy laden.

"But the Father revealed his things to babes, because the babes were his own little ones, uncorrupted by the wisdom or the care of this world, and therefore able to receive them. The babes are near enough whence they come to understand a little how things go in the presence of their Father in heaven, and thereby to interpret the words of the Son. Quickly will the Father seal the old bond when the Son himself, the first of the babes, the one perfect Babe of God, comes to lead the children out of the lovely 'shadows of eternity' into the land of the 'white celestial thought.' As God is the one, only, real Father, so is it only to God that anyone can be a perfect child. Only in His garden can childhood blossom."

Tender Loving Father

This week I'm sharing words from George MacDonald's book, "Discovering the Character of God" and the chapter entitled "God our Tender Loving Father." As you read this, ask the Holy Spirit to show you afresh how unbelievably wonderful and good God is!

"Our Lord was, is, and ever shall be divinely childlike. Childhood belongs to the divine nature.

"The Fatherhood and the Sonship are one, except that the Fatherhood looks down lovingly, and the Sonship looks up lovingly. Love is all. And God is all in all. He is ever seeking to get down to us - to be the divine man to us. And yet we are ever saying, 'Be that far from thee, Lord!'

"In our unbelief we are careful over the divine dignity...(but) better pleasing to God is the audacity of Job, who, rushing into God's presence and flinging the door of his presence-chamber to the wall, like a troubled - or it may be even angry yet faithful - child, cries out to him whose perfect Fatherhood Job is in the process of learning.

"The devotion of God to his creatures is perfect. He does not think about himself but about them. He wants nothing for himself but finds his blessedness in the outgoing of blessedness...He gives himself to us - shall we not give ourselves to him?

"For when is the child the ideal child in our eyes and in our hearts? Is it not when with gentle hands he takes his father by the hand or even the beard, and turns that father's face up to his brothers and sisters to kiss? When even the lovely selfishness of love-seeking has vanished and the heart is absorbed in loving?

"In this then is God like the child: that he is simply and altogether our friend, our father - our more than friend, father, and mother - our infinite love-perfect God. Grand and strong beyond all that human imagination can conceive of poet-thinking and kingly action, he is delicate beyond all that a human tenderness can conceive of husband or wife, homey beyond all that human heart can conceive of father and mother.

"He does not think of us in two separate ways. With him all is simplicity of purpose and meaning and effort and end - namely, that we should be as he is, think the same thoughts, mean the same things, possess the same blessedness. It is so plain that anyone may see it, everyone ought to see it, everyone shall see it. It must be so."

Oh dear Father, You are unbelievably good! Thank You that the more like Your Son Jesus we become, the more childlike and simple we are, forgetting ourselves in Your love and loving others in You. All praise and glory be to You forever and ever!

Are You Fresh for Everything? - Oswald Chambers

This week I want to quote part of the reading of January 20 from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers:

"'Jesus answered and said to him, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God' (John 3:3).

"Being born again by the Spirit is an unmistakable work of God, as mysterious as the wind, and as surprising as God Himself. We don't know where it begins - it is hidden away in the depths of our soul. Being born again from above is an enduring, perpetual, and eternal beginning. It provides a freshness all the time in thinking, talking, and living - a continual surprise of the life of God. Staleness is an indication that something in our lives is out of step with God. We say to ourselves, 'I have to do this thing or it will never get done.' That is the first sign of staleness. Do we feel fresh this very moment or are we stale, frantically searching our minds for something to do?

"Jealously guard your relationship with God. Jesus prayed 'that they may be one just as We are one' - with nothing in between (John 17:22). Keep your whole life continually open to Jesus Christ. Don't pretend to be open with Him. Are you drawing your life from any source other than God Himself? If you are depending on something else as your source of freshness and strength, you will not realize when His power is gone.

"Being born of the Spirit means much more than we usually think. It give us new vision and keeps us absolutely fresh for everything through the never-ending supply of the life of God."

Known and Loved by God

In keeping with the past couple of posts about God's unfailing and unending love, I'm quoting from J.I. Packer this week about being known by God:

“What matters supremely is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it — the fact that He knows me. I am graven on the palms of His hands. I am never out of His mind. All my knowledge of Him depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me. I know Him, because He first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me, and there is no moment when His eye is off me, or His attention distracted from me, and no moment therefore, when His care falters.

“This is momentous knowledge. There is unspeakable comfort — the sort of comfort that energizes — in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love, and watching over me for my good. There is tremendous relief in knowing that His love to me is utterly realistic, based...on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench his determination to bless me. There is, certainly , great cause for humility in the thought that He sees all the twisted things about me that my fellow-men do not see, and that He sees more corruption in me than that which I see in myself.

“There is, however, equally great incentive to worship and love God in the thought that, for some unfathomable reason, He wants me as His friend, and desires to be my friend, and has given His Son to die for me in order to realize this purpose.”

For this truth to impact us, it's important to actually embrace it, accept it and practice it; so I encourage you again to pause a few moments during your day (doing this regularly) to listen for the Father's affirmation of you in His Son. For example, take these words of J.I. Packer and turn them into a personal statement by God to you, saying something like this: "Nita (your name), what matters supremely is not the fact that you know Me but that I know you. You are engraved on the palms of My hands, and I never stop thinking about you; I'm thinking about you right now. You know Me because I knew you first and continue to know you. I know everything about you, the good, the bad and the ugly, and I still want you as My friend; I want this so much that I went to death to win you for Myself..., etc."

Next book..."Holy Rewired"

Starting in February, I plan to go through a book by Dr. David Phillips entitled, Holy Rewired. It's an intriguing look at science and the Gospel in the journey toward wholeness. The short summary on the back of the book reads:

"The ultimate impact of sin has been to destroy our sense of identity. We have lost that sense of being created in the image of God and being created for perfect relationship with our Creator. Because we are a broken image, we are searching to discover who and whose we are. Our unhealthy behavior is an expression of that searching and longing that is within all of us. We long to be whole.

"Wholeness is journey back to the Garden. The journey results in behavioral change as God rewires who we are, how we think, and how we live.

"This is not a book about finding right techniques. It will not tell you to be more disciplined. Holy Rewired challenges you to allow God to touch the deepest part of your emotional life. Doing so leads to emotional health, allowing you to then change your thinking. Transforming your thinking transforms your living.

"Drawing on recent research from emerging brain research, psychology, and theology, Holy Rewired helps you discover a wholeness that you can embrace and a God that wants to help you get there."

If you want your own copy of this book, it's available on amazon.com.

Trust in God's Steadfast Love (Part 2)

Because of how foundational this message of trusting in God's unfailing love is, I'm going to add another thought or two to what I wrote last week along with a quote from Andrew Murray who says,

"His (God's) love lies at the back of everything, and we must rest upon that as the solid foundation of our Christian life, not growing up into that, but growing up out of it. We must begin there or our beginnings will come to nothing."

An understanding and acceptance of this unconditional love of the Father for His child is absolutely essential for healthy ongoing maturing to happen in the life of a believer. But in our fallenness and sinfulness, we are driven at our core to attempt to grow up into the love of the Father rather than to grow up out of the Father's love. The result is that "our beginnings come to nothing." In other words, as followers of Jesus, we don't mature out of babyhood.

We see this at work in our world today in natural families: children, deprived of unconditional love from their earthly father and mother, are living their whole life working hard to get love rather than working hard because they are loved. As generation after generation of children are being raised in this way, the whole of society is being impacted negatively.

I believe that as believers, we carry this mindset into our life in Christ Jesus, and our religious systems endorse and encourage this. Consequently, we are an immature Church, striving to please God rather than basking in the steadfast love of the Father and then bearing fruit for His glory as a result.

One way to cooperate with the renewing work of the Spirit in our minds is to regularly (daily, if possible) take 3-5 minutes, wait before God and listen for what He says about you to affirm you as His beloved child in Jesus and to affirm His deep affection for you, no matter what's going on in your life on any given day. As you do this by faith and consistently over time, His Spirit will renew your mind and reorder your way of thinking to align with His heart and mind. Growing up and maturing in God then becomes the natural outcome of receiving the unchanging love and affection of your Father.

My sense is that increased suffering and testing is coming in 2011 for God's children; when all is dark and confusing, the place of inner stability and peace can only be found in trusting in His steadfast love as demonstrated on the cross. He knows each of His own perfectly and is always motivated by perfect, selfless love. His love alone is the love that can be absolutely trusted! May His Spirit open our eyes to see His steadfast love in new ways as we move into this year ahead!