What I do for God
I've been fasting since Tuesday, for various reasons; some good, some not so good. But in this, God, as in everything, has been moulding and shaping me, and teaching me through his word.
Andrew Murray once said, "Fasting helps to express, to deepen, and to confirm the resolution that we are willing to sacrifice anything, to sacrifice ourselves to attain what we seek for the Kingdom of God."
Fasting is a good thing to do. It reminds me that "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Dt 8:3; Mt 4:4). But I was thinking today, this being the third day of my four-day fast, that by tomorrow evening I will have accomplished my goal of showing God how much I love him - that he matters more to me than food. It struck me then that it really doesn't matter what I do for God. He will still be God, regardless of whether I fast for four days, forty days, or not at all. His love for me, His devotion to me, will not be diminished because of my paltry response to him.
Colossians 1:13-22
Reading Colossians 1:13-22, and reading Dick Lucas's exposition of it in the Bible Speaks Today series :
"This resolute refusal to divide God's work from Christ, or to divide Christ in respect of the various parts of his work, gives us a clue we need to recognise two forms in which 'fullness' teaching may have reached Colossae. It may have been by a claim that God had not finished his work of salvation for the Colossians in giving them Christ, so that he had still more to give them if his work was to be completed. But the false teaching may have been put in another way. The Colossians may have been told that to receive the benefits of Christ's saving work on the cross was one thing, but that to receive and enjoy the benefits of his reigning work at God's right hand was quite another. To be cleansed from sin was a blessed beginning; but to be delivered from sin's power they must now claim and appropriate the victory of the ascended Lord over the principalities and powers. To be fully saved the Colossians were urged to make the full Christ their own.
"Against both these forms of erroneous teaching Paul's testimony stands unshaken. He teaches first that what God has done in Christ exhausts all that God has to do for us. He teaches, secondly, that when a person is in Christ, he or she is the beneficiary of all that God has done in Christ."
What God did for me
While fasting and praying and reading the Bible and good works are all important parts of the Christian life, and while they can assist my spiritual growth, God's work in me is not based on what I do for him. Everything that he does in my life is because of what Christ did on the cross for me. All of who I am and will become is because of Christ. Nothing is based on my efforts.
Now there's a comforting thought.
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3 comments:
there are so many things that i want to say in response to this. why? well, i agree for a start. secondly, i think i have been learning some similar things myself recently. i could be wrong and simply misinterpret the ideas behind all this - i did skip over that more academic stuff in the middle of the article in my enthusiasm to respond- i'll ge back to it later, but it doesn't matter so much if a person misunderstands, but rather that their heart is in line with God's stuff.
yeah, um, i think i've forgotten what i was going to say now except for the main point i have been leaning over the last few weeks.
how do i start? i like to attend more than the one church to be challenged by the way they do things and meet with God's people regardless of whether i agree with them entirely or not. whether they are wrong on a point or i simply interpreted it this way because of my cultural background, i took away some teaching that wasn't so good. and that was about man holding the sovereign God who is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, to his word. this is ludicrous because God is his Word. to say to God, "you said this so do it", in fear that he won't because he isn't strong enough or good enough, is not only an incorrect judgement of his character, which is limitless in all things good, but also presuming that we -man- are somehow more moral than God, stronger in mind and will than God, and need to hold him to his plan. rather, you small minded human beings, it is God who in his sovereignty and grace has orchestrated that events should come as they do, people should be as they are, and any gift of insight into the ways of God, or anything else, comes directly from his hand. we hold God to his charater? he bestows any goodness of character we have on us for his purposes and he needs no one to help him.
what else? just looking at the title of this article i think, "true, the cross is at the heart of the gospel and all has been done for us in christ Jesus -to make a way for us to the father through no merit of our own, but i tink that there's more to it than that. what about what God is doing now for us and what about what he will do? He is alive, present and active here and now. and what about all the stuff that happeed leading up to the cross - like, before JC came onto the scene in human form? what about the story? the whole story including the point to having a jewish people for himself in the first place. i reckon God is about story and today's society has killed it, has killed any form of story. i want to run like Elijah did to beat the chariot as the rain came to break the drought. i want to experience God's miracles every day in the lives of the people around me and stories from afar. i want to have my prayers prayed in faith answered with a yes and see God's work in action. i want to be a part of his story - the part after the messiah has come to earth the first time and just before he comes again. i must go - thunderstorm - i won't stop anyway. i have written far too much but i don't really care. goodbye
spot on
Hey, it's good to hear how you're going from time to time, but every blog entry I read here also seems to teach and challenge me. (it's fantastic!) It's been such a busy year that there's been little opportunity for discussions like this. The joy of living with God is seeing his faithfulness and character (that we hear so much about) working in ways I never imagined. Giving everything I can back to him seems hard often, but once you start moving he carries you the whole way. Nothing's as out-of-control as it seems, I suppose. Anyway, looking forward to adult life as He's planned it! :)
-Anna (you know. MAC.)
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