Life Lessons, Part 4

Mark Dunagan
07/20/08 - Sunday Morning

 

Lesson 4

 

 

Leaning only on God

 

“Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And besides Thee, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:25-26).

 

“When we look at the matter honestly, we can see that everything comes down to one simple truth. The time comes when every other reality drops away and we’re confronted with the stark simplicity of this fact: we have no one but God, and because of our sin, we are cut off even from Him. This is a truth that each one of us must deal with sooner or later. We may or may not deal wisely with it, but deal with it we must. Most of us spend our lives leaning on props. We instinctively sense the need for ‘relationship’ to other beings, but we foolishly build our relationships on the shifting sands of false principles. Feeling the urge to ‘do’ something, we throw ourselves into a fury of daily activity. And driven to ‘acquire’, we heap up for ourselves a horde of assets and possessions. Our relationships, our activities, and our possessions---these become our props. And despite their undependability, they become the sum and substance of our lives. Deep down, our hearts are a lonely void, but we’re simply too busy to think about it very much” (Diligently Seeking God, Gary Henry, June 5^th).

 

• We need to think ahead and realize that eventually all the “props” are going to be removed. “For we brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either” (1 Timothy 6:7). “Anything” includes not only all material possessions, but all material accomplishments as well, including human relationships like marriage.

• We equally need to realize that at the judgment we will not be able to hide behind anyone and neither will we be judged as a group, but as an individual (2 Corinthians 5:10).

• We should not resent set backs, either in the economy, our personal finances, our health, or our human relationships, for such down turns reveal how lightly or heavily we are relying upon such things.

• We also must not fear being alone or having solitary time, for these are great times for strengthening and building our relationship with God. “Religion is what the individual does with his solitariness” (Alfred North Whitehead). Wanting to be ‘preoccupied’ with some earthly pursuit every minute of the day only makes us unprepared for eternity.

 

“Removing Our Liabilities”

 

“And you must not turn aside, for then you would go after futile things which can not profit or deliver” (1 Samuel 12:21); “Let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1). “Men, why are you doing these things? We are also men of the same nature as you, and preach the gospel to you in order that you should turn from these vain things to a living God” (Acts 14:15).

 

• Many people view turning to God and becoming a Christian as being a huge sacrifice, something very difficult, unpleasant, and to be approached with reluctance. “In truth, however, the God who calls us to repentance is calling us simply to let go of the ‘useless things’ that have been holding us back. The things that we’re being asked to leave out of our lives are merely our liabilities, things that in the long run can never do anything but hurt us” (Henry, June 16^th).

• Those of us who have been Christians for some time need to reflect upon what type of person we would have become if we had never forsaken the sins that at one time entangled us. Would we have been happier—or absolutely miserable? Pillars of strength or weak and self-absorbed individuals?

• Christians equally need to take a good look at the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit described in Galatians 5:19-24, and reflect upon how many of our present struggles are due to sinful practices or attitudes that have not been completely forsaken and godly attitudes that have not yet been fully embraced.

• It is silly to think that a relationship with God could ever be a liability. Strong young men need God to keep them from overconfidence; those being tempted need God, as do the struggling, the sick, and the dying. Parents need God when the children are little, when they are raising teenagers and after the children are gone. Couples need God before they marry, in the early years of their marriage, during the days of middle age, in retirement, and after the love of our life has died.

 

“Ordeals and Honesty”

 

One reason we are told to rejoice when we are being tried (James 1:2-4) is that we learn certain things (Psalm 119:71) that might never have been learned in any other way. After Abraham passed the test that God gave him, God said, “For now I know that you fear God” (Genesis 22:12). Abraham also “knew” something, he knew that God could be trusted in any circumstance and that God always has a very good reason why He allows things to happen in our lives. Abraham also learned something about himself. His faith had been “field-tested”; he did have a faith that would obey God without question even when it was asked to make the ultimate sacrifice. At the end of the day, he did love God more than anything else in this life, even his only son. “Adversity is the trial of principle. Without it, a man hardly knows whether he is honest or not” (Henry Fielding).

 

• “Perhaps most of us will find that we can’t actually welcome difficulty, but we can at least give thanks for its usefulness”(Henry, June 22^nd)

• “Adversity introduces a man to himself” (Anonymous).

• In other words, frequent trials keep us honest about ourselves. Trials keep us from thinking that we are more spiritual than we really are at the moment (1 Corinthians 10:12).

• Such trials equally bring us face to face with certain realities, it might be our own mortality (we are not going to live here forever), the limitations of wealth (money can’t solve all problems or save us from everything), the fragile nature of our lives (we are not indestructible), and our own limitations (we cannot handle everything on our own and we do not have the answers for everything within ourselves).

 

“Love is a Fire”

 

“For love is as strong as death, jealousy as cruel as the grave, its flames are flames of fire, a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the floods drown it. If a man would give for love all the wealth of his house, it would be utterly despised” (Song of Solomon 8:6-7).

 

• Love is the ultimate attribute (1 Corinthians 13:4-7), yet love directed is probably just about the most dangerous thing in the world. “Love is the most powerful character force that we know of, and it leaves nothing unchanged. For better or worse, love shapes our character and determines our destiny. Either it lifts us to heaven or it drags us to hell. We may be moved toward God or we may be driven into miserable exile, but love will not leave us where we are” (Henry, June 18^th).

• If we focus on God, then our love for God will act like a purifying fire that re-orders our priorities, and removes all things that seek to come between us and God. We see this concept in such passages as 2 Corinthians 5:14 “For the love of Christ controls us…He died for all, that they who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him”, and Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me”.

• It is interesting that some people claim to be unmoved by love, yet they forget that everyone loves or serves something or someone. When love is not allowed to attach itself to God and righteousness it will attach itself to other things, such as money (1 Timothy 6:10). People may love their privacy with all their hearts, material possessions, or avoiding responsibility. Everyone is deeply “in love” with something.

• “Love is the fire of life; it either consumes or purifies” (Anonymous). We can see the consuming nature of misguided love in the statement, “Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction…some after longing for it have wandered away from the faith, and pierced themselves with many a pang” (1 Timothy 6:9-10). James adds, “Your gold and your silver have rusted; and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire” (5:3). “As rust eats through, and destroys metal, so the greed, avarice and love for money which characterized these people would destroy them” (Woods p. 261). “What happens to our riches, our clothes, our gold and silver is but a symbol of what is happening to our soul. That wealth that soon slips through our fingers, that we cannot hold on to, is but a symbol of what is happening in our heart” (Draper pp. 144-145).

• “Motives for love are critical. If we love primarily for what we can get in return, we will find that love turns out to be a destructive force. But if we learn to love for what we can give, the outcome will be radically different. So let us be careful—very, very careful—about what we love and why” (Henry, June 18^th).

• Only a genuine love for God will truly make us a better person, for all lesser loves, even the love between a man and a woman will only tend to corrupt if God is not the center.