Trusting God Implictly

We are often tempted to seek worldly ways out of our problems

How patient our God is in dealing with His people. Throughout Biblical history and even up to the present, we have failed to believe in Him and sought other ways to sort out our problems, despite His constant exhortations to trust Him.

“In repentance and rest is your salvation; in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.” (Isaiah 30:15)

“Who is among you who fears the LORD, who listens to the voice of his servant? He who walks in darkness, and has no light, let him trust in the name of the LORD,” (Isaiah 50:10)

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding (Prov. 3:5)

God deals in remnants

Yet, whenever God’s people turn away from Him, instead of towards Him in times of trouble, there is always a remnant who stays faithful.

God deals in remnants — those who remain true to Him.

I do believe He is sorting out His remnant in these trying times. He is preparing a people who will trust Him despite the darkness around them, as Isaiah urges us to do in the passage above.

God blesses those who trust Him implicitly

What wonderful promises He has throughout His Word for those who trust Him implicitly.

Think about this: No matter what happens to us, if we trust God unreservedly, we are always on the winning side. If things go well, we can praise Him for all He does. When things don’t go so well, we can praise Him for walking with us through them — and in my experience, He does that in wonderful ways. I describe in my book, God in the ICU, how He was present so powerfully as my darling wife lay dying. He did not heal her — He told me He would not — but so tangible was His peace, that I accepted it with the quiet assurance that it was all going to be okay. Even as we contemplate dying, we are victorious if we trust Him, for as one man who was threatened with martyrdom exclaimed, “You cannot frighten me with heaven.”

I was speaking to Him in my Quiet Time one morning and saying, “Lord, I’d love to be with You. I’m not afraid of dying, but I’m concerned about leaving my wife all alone.” and I felt His whisper saying, “Don’t you trust Me to look after her?”

I realised, even in that, there was security in trusting Him, and exclaimed, “Yes, Lord. Of course. I can do that.” And from then on, I had perfect peace.

There is a wonderful teaching and testimony here if you want to take this further.

Take heart. God loves to have you trust Him unreservedly

How are you managing under lockdown? Are you managing to put everything into God’s hands and be part of the remnant? It’s a decision — an act of the will to trust, to have faith in Him. If it’s a struggle, I’d encourage you to look up all the scriptures that exhort us to trust Him in all circumstances, and those which tell of His faithfulness to provide for those who do. You might be surprised at how many there are. You’ll find ten of them here.

Deciding to trust God to provide is a great way to worship Him. We don’t always have to sing. If you decide, in your heart that He is able to look after you in every way, I have no doubt it will be God’s turn to sing.

Can this be reconciled with His love?

Before Covid 19 had even come onto the scene, I had been meditating on the judgement of God. I’ve been going through Isaiah and Jeremiah and it is filled with all sorts of dire pronouncements of what God will do to a disobedient people.

Of course, it means that God, who is righteous in all His ways will not tolerate evil, and must judge it. For a good explanation of this, see https://www.christianity.com/wiki/god/what-is-the-biblical-understanding-of-the-wrath-of-god.html . However, this can still make God seem like a harsh judge, when He says “I will pour out my wrath and such and such (all of the most terrible things) will happen to you.”

The perfection of God’s laws

I was struggling to reconcile this with the nature of God as portrayed by Jesus, until I started meditating on God’s laws. Psalm 19, after talking about the way the heavens declare God’s glory, waxes eloquent on the laws of God: His law is perfect, reviving the soul, His statutes are trustworthy, His precepts are right, His commands are radiant and His ordinances are sure.

Then I looked around me and marveled at the way God’s laws of nature keep everything in perfect balance. No one law contradicts another. The laws of gravity, friction, certrifugal force, expansion of gases etc, all work together in harmony to produce the wonderful world in which we live. His mathematical precision is such that all of creation is based on one constant, which gives us the pattern of construction for everything from molecules to galaxies.

There are physical consequences for breaking a physical law

Yet if a law is to be a law, there must be consequences in defying it. If one tries to defy the law of gravity, saying “It does not apply to me,” and steps out of a fourth story window, there will be fatal consequences. And because God made the law in the first place, one could say God caused the person to fall to his death. Similarly, if one tried to apply the law of friction to a frozen pond, one could end up with a bruised bottom and a deflated ego. Again, because God created the law, He must also be responsible for the consequences of defying it.

This must also apply to God’s spiritual laws

Because we understand this about physical laws, we don’t blame God for being heartless and vindictive when these things happen. However, God’s spiritual laws must also have consequences if they are defied, otherwise they would not be laws. As I read Isaiah and Jeremiah, I thought I had an insight into the heart of God, who was desperately warning His people of the consequences of disobedience. He is taking responsibility for the consequences, and so we read passages like Jeremiah 17:4 “Through your own fault you will lose the inheritance I gave you. I will enslave you to your enemies in a land you do not know for you have kindled My anger and it will burn forever.” He takes responsibiity for the consequences they will suffer, though it is not His desire for them.

I have heard people say, God will never bring judgement on men, for He is a God of love. Yet, as the One who has created the universe with such perfect laws, He must design consequences for defying those laws, otherwise they would not be perfect laws. Imagine if the law of gravity worked sometimes and at other times did not. Of necessity this consistency must also apply to the spiritual world.

God desperately does not want us to suffer the consequences of disobedience

Yet, although God takes responsibility for implementing the consequences of defying His laws, it is the last thing He wants for His creation.

“‘As surely as I live,’ declares the Lord, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they should turn from their wickedness and live.” (Ezekiel 33:11)

“Therefore I wail over Moab, for all Moab, I cry out. I moan for the men of Kir Hareseth. I weep for you as Jazer weeps, oh vines of Sibmah.” (Jeremiah48: 31,32)

There are ways we can lessen the effects of disobedience

Taking this further, there are ways in which something can mitigate the effects of defying a law. A powerful upward draft or a soft landing surface, for example can lessen the disastrous consequences of a fall. Likewise, it seems God has designed certain activities to mitigate the effects of His judgement. Repentance can actually reverse the judgement, as was so spectacularly shown in Ninevah as a result of Jonah’s preaching. See also the quote from Ezekiel above.

Other than that, the main activity God has designed to lessen the consequences of disobedience is prayer. This is vividly portrayed in His heartfelt exclamation, “I looked for a man who would…. stand before Me on behalf of the land, so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none. So I will pour out My wrath on them …” (Ezekiel 22:30)

So whether we believe Covid 19 to be the judgement of God or sent by Satan, the response is the same. We need to pray. Let’s unite in prayer, confident that this is the response God longs to see from us.

Why should we pray?

When we are finally over these extraordinary times, some of the scenes that will persist in my mind are those of hundreds of people in different countries kneeling in the streets calling on God. Others were praying loudly and  unashamedly as they walked a safe distance from one another during the exercise break from lockdown. And I still hear, in my mind, hundreds of voices in unison echoing through the streets singing “I Surrender All”.

Yet does prayer really change anything?

Actually, it might be pedantic, but I think we can be misled by saying prayer changes things. It can almost make an abstraction of prayer. It is God who changes things in answer to prayer. The focus is on God and the prayer has to be directed to the one true God. So, the real question is: Does God answer prayer?

In spite of many times when prayer seems to fail, I have no doubt it makes a huge difference. There are many instances where God changes circumstances in answer to prayer. For an eloquent expression of seven of these, may I recommend an excellent article by Greg Stier in his blog Gregstier.org

Prayer remains a mystery

There is still a mystery to prayer. I’ve no idea why prayer sometimes seems effective and at other times not. I long to see the day when God moves in power, such as we read about in the Book of Acts or in the great stories of revival. However, I have discovered the more I pray, the more God answers my prayers.

When I was in anaesthetic practice, I had the opportunity to pray practically all the time. I’d pray with my patients on my preoperative rounds, I’d pray with them again before I put them to sleep and I’d often pray in tongues for them while they were anaesthetised. Then, in the ICU I’d pray with my patients and their relatives, and pray with the nursing staff. With all that prayer, I often saw God come through in miraculous ways, with healings that were far beyond what mere medicine could achieve. Many of these are chronicled in God in the ICU and Prayer, Medicine and Miracles.

There were, however, times when I prayed earnestly and very little changed. So, the mystery remains, but what I do know is that nothing would have changed — the miracles wouldn’t have happened — if I hadn’t prayed.

So, how does that affect our approach to Covid 19?

I do believe praying for our loved ones — for their protection and healing — will make a difference. The more we pray the more likely we are to affect the outcome. And the more we commune with God and nurture our relationship with Him, the more we will pray with confidence that He hears us — as James says in Jas.1:6 “When he asks, he must believe and not doubt” — and the more we will learn to ask, not as beggars but as His dearly loved children.

Let us pray:

Heavenly Father,

Thank You for the gift of prayer. Teach us how to pray in the midst of this storm, Lord. Protect those we love, especially ………(fill in the gap)…. Give wisdom to those who are making vital decisions in this crisis. May they make them with integrity and wisdom. Watch over those who are on the front line in combating this plague. Keep them strong in body mind and spirit, and let them act in compassion in spite of the huge pressure of all that needs to be done.

As we pray, may Your peace flood our souls, knowing that You are a compassionate God and all is under Your control.

In Jesus’Name

Amen

Making the main thing the main thing

Wow, the world is in turmoil. Insecurity and fear through the effects of the pandemic and lockdown have gripped so many.

Now, horrific footage of callous police suffocating George Floyd has sent our planet convulsing, with protests in every state of America and in 50 other nations.

And, unfortunately, other injustices have followed the reactions to his killing. Other innocent lives have been lost and businesses and lives destroyed.

I remember attending a series of lectures on Restoring Biblical Justice, during discipleship training for Mercy Ships. I was not looking forward to it. I expected a fairly angry man to give us a litany of injustices in the world and how we should fight them. (I had encountered quite a few people like that in the past.)

Instead, the man who came was filled with joy and the love of God, free from all the restrictions of anger.

I found myself thinking that this man must have an administrative position and not really see the injustices he was talking about — until he recounted stories of his walking past rows and rows of shop windows displaying children, some as young as five, who were up for sale for the night to lascivious middle aged men who chose them as sex objects as casually as one would select a packet of cigarettes.

How did he retain his joy and freedom of spirit when he was involved in such heartbreaking work, as he rescued these little victims?

His teaching changed my life.
  “Remember that you are there as an ambassador of Christ. If you let your preoccuption with the cause eclipse your commitment to Christ and your care for the individual, you’ll end up angry, embittered and burnt out. Keep your relationship with Christ uppermost, and your desire to reflect His image foremost.”

Listen to the words of Sheldon Vanauken in his wonderfully moving book, A Severe Mercy as he relates his life after his beloved wife died.

“I was one of those caught up in the mood and action of the 1960s, especially the Peace Movement (against the Vietnam War). Christ, I thought would surely have me oppose what appeared an unjust war. But the movement, whatever its ideals, did a good deal of hating. And Christ, gradually was pushed to the rear.”

We have every cause to speak out against the gross injustices that plague our fallen world — and we should — but let’s keep Jesus uppermost in our lives and in the way we respond to both the victims and the perpetators of injustice. His most powerful weapons in producing change were love, grace, forgiveness and healing. And how very effective those weapons are. They have persisted for over two thousand years and continue to win hardened, angry men and women with hearts of stone to His side, giving them sensitive, responsive, life-giving hearts of flesh.

It is as you stay close to Him and His ways that you feel safe in your inner being and make a safe place for others to feel His love through you.

From an apostle’s-eye view

I don’t suppose any of you can imagine the turbulent sea of emotions welling up inside me as I, as the One Jesus Loved, watched Him go.

In a sense I felt numb, almost as if all that had happened over the last 40 days were a dream. What a tumultuous time. Here we were, enjoying the exhilaration of being part of Jesus’ ministry, watching Him as He healed and preached and brought such joy wherever He went, when all of a sudden we were plunged into a breathtaking pattern of events that left me emotionally bankrupt.

It all started at the Passover Supper, when He washed our feet and then led us into the Garden. The meal had made me sleepy. I had no idea of the import of the hour, though Jesus urged us to pray with Him. It was only when the soldiers came that I knew something terrible was afoot.

My first reaction was terror, and I ran.

From then on I don’t think I have ever felt such deep emotions rock my soul.

There was:

Shock, as Pilate stood Him before the crowd. I didn’t recognise Him, so torn was He, and bruised and swollen after the scourging.

Anger at the injustice of it all, and deep gut-wrenching agony watching Him gasping on the Cross.

Love — deep, deep love — as He looked at me from the Cross and entrusted His mother into my care.

A guttural cry from deep within as He breathed His last and I watched my beloved Saviour’s tortured body relax in death.

Confusion as Peter and I saw an empty tomb.

Incredulity and joy when He appeared to us as we sat huddled behind locked doors.

Freedom and lightness as He taught us for forty days.

All these emotions in the space of just over a month.

And now we watched Him rise above the earth and disappear from our sight. We’d seen Him walk on water. We’d seen him calm a storm. But to see Him taken up in the air took me completely by surprise. He was talking to us, telling us to be His witnesses when the Holy Spirit fell upon us, and then He just …. floated upwards till the clouds hid Him. It was the most unreal sensation as we gazed at the place where He disappeared.

Yet, there was a sense of expectancy, which I’d like you to share with me. The angels, who appeared to us when He had gone, assured us He would return as He had left.

I urge you to share that expectancy. As His disciples, we had an inkling there would be some time before He returned; there were so many prophecies still to be fulfilled, but you? You are watching them unfold before your eyes.

Just take the following for example:

• If ever there was a time that people were lovers of themselves, lovers of money and sold out on mere entertainment, it is in your time.

• There is a plague sweeping your world.

• There is economic hardship, the full impact of which is still to be felt,

• there is the threat of more autocratic governments — even world governance on issues such as abortion, gender fluidity and LBGT rights.

• I’m sure a couple of decades ago it was unthinkable that Western countries would be persecuting Christians, and yet it is happening in Britain and the United States. Even in South Africa it is happening.

Yes, Church, today is the day you celebrate Jesus’ ascension to heaven. Please do celebrate it. In spite of it’s being downgraded so that it is no longer a public holiday, it is such an important day. As Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father, He sent His Holy Spirit on all who believed. And how vital that is as we face the coming days.

But as you, in your mind’s eye, gaze upwards and picture Jesus rising, keep looking up with excited anticipation, not seeing Him go, but seeing His return. It cannot be far off.

Luke 21:28 “Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.”

Isaiah 64:4 “Since ancient times, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides You, who acts on behalf of those who wait for Him.