A working definition of grace: it’s too good to be true…..BUT IT IS!!!!
Our God is not only a searching God (1 Ch. 28:9, Ro. 8:27), He is also a finding God.
In the well-known parable of Luke 15, Jesus describes His mission as a shepherd searching and finding a lost sheep, a woman searching and finding a lost coin, and a father searching and finding his lost son.
After the father let him go, after he spent all he had, after there was a famine in the land, after the emptiness of pig food, after no one coming to his aid, “he came to his senses,” he became findable.
“I will go … to my father…”
Broken to the place of truth about himself and his father.
Reflect: what were those God-initiating circumstances which rendered you find-able?
Your salvation experience?
Letting go of those things which kept you in bondage?
Cherished dreams of what should be -
With family?
With where you are in your life?
With your potential or expected you would be?
The many things you’ve had to relinquish?
In all of these “truth encounters,” what did you come to know about the Father and you?
For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (Jh. 1:17 NIV)
Whe we finally surrender to the Holy Spirit revealing the truth we need to encounter it is always in grace and not by legalism.
In what way is the “truth journey” continuing?
1976, I belbelieved we were called to a church in Turlock. We ended up spending 6 1/2 years in a situation which was known as a, “preacher- slaying church.”
The pain created by a small group of leaders was excruciating for me and my family. On three different occasion, pastor-search committees came to hear and interview me, but did not invite me to be their leader. Had I misinterpreted God’s will? Why were we stuck here? What have I done to cause such pain to Sue and our four children?
He was not punishing.
He was breaking.
Reflecting on our journey in that painful situation, I realized the Lord got me into position where I was finally find-able – more authentic, responsive and depended upon His presence rather than my ability. He was shattering the idols of my self-dependence, self-absorption and my definition of success.
The work of grace beginning there, continues today.
1982, I resigned and,with a number of other people, we established Turlock Community Fellowship. It was an amazing journey of a God-birthed community which impacted the world.
My family members, which are involved in churches, are supportive and understanding the challenges the leadership faces because of their experience. There are realistic regarding issues their church can have.
…Jesus was in Bethany at the home of Simon, a man who had previously had leprosy. While he was eating, a woman came in with a beautiful alabaster jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard. She broke open the jar and poured the perfume over his head … Jesus replied… She has done what she could and has anointed my body for burial ahead of time. (Mk. 14:3,6,8 NLT)
John identifies thewoman as Mary and her act filled the house with the fragrance of oil. (Jh. 12:3)
Could it be the Holy Spirit is breaking us, as Mary broke the jar, as a promise of His resurrection life fills our circumstances with His presence?
But thank God! He has made us his captives and continues to lead us along in Christ’s triumphal procession. Now he uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume. Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing. To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume. And who is adequate for such a task as this? (2 Cor. 4:14-16 NLT)
As we walk Christ being the Way, encountering Him as Truth, He will be Life in us which will bring us to His Father. (Jh. 14:6)
In this all-out match against sin, others have suffered far worse than you, to say nothing of what Jesus went through—all that bloodshed! So don’t feel sorry for yourselves. Or have you forgotten how good parents treat children, and that God regards you as his children? My dear child, don’t shrug off God’s discipline, but don’t be crushed by it either. It’s the child he loves that he disciplines; the child he embraces, he also corrects. God is educating you; that’s why you must never drop out. He’s treating you as dear children. This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it’s training, the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God? We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God’s training so we can truly live? While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God’s holy best. At the time, discipline isn’t much fun. It always feels like it’s going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off big-time, for it’s the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God. (Heb. 12:4-11 MSG)
“One of the most tragic things about human beings is our touching belief that there are times when the truth is not good enough for us, that can, and must be improved upon. We have to be utterly broken before we can realize that it is impossible to better the truth. It is the truth that we deny which we so tenderly and forgiven pick up the fragments and put them together again.” (Lalrens Van Der Post, emphasis mine)
Michael