ACCEPTING HIM AS HE COMES

Isaiah 1:1-2:22; 2 Corinthians 10:1-18; Psalm 52:1-9; Proverbs 22:26-27

“’Come now, let’s settle this,’ says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool.
 If you will only obey me, you will have plenty to eat. But if you turn away and refuse to listen, you will be devoured by the sword of your enemies. I, the Lord, have spoken!”

“The trouble with you is that you make your decisions on the basis of appearances…. But we will not boast of authority we do not have…. As the Scriptures say, ‘If you want to boast, boast only about the Lord.’ When people commend themselves, it doesn’t count for much. The important thing is for the Lord to commend them.”

“I will always trust in God’s unfailing love. I will praise you forever, O God, for what you have done. I will trust in your good name in the presence of your faithful people.”

Isn’t it strange how the Lord sometimes has to convince us of our own worth, and frequently of our own forgiveness? We can do the actual math: one Life for all. The power of sin and death was defeated at the Cross. One perfect sacrifice paid the price for all our imperfections. It might be illogical, but at least we can connect the dots. However,  when it comes to actually accepting the results for ourselves, still, things just don’t always add up.

I remember when I first accepted Christ…, and I remember a few months later. At that time, I began seriously despairing of ever becoming the man God made me to be. The problem was, although I now had assurance of eternal salvation, I did not feel one bit better as a person. I was still overwhelmed by my shortcomings. I had not discovered any discernable spiritual gifts. Nor had I suddenly sprouted wings or donned a halo. I was just the same old guy, trying to put one foot in front of the other as I slogged my way through life. My insecurities still had to be dealt with. The Rapture did not happen. There was no spiritual bailout. I very clearly recall wondering what the big deal was about this “personal relationship” with Christ if He wasn’t actually going to improve my situation. Many of my friends gave up entirely on the Holy Spirit at that point, because they had nothing to show for it. After the emotional high of their first experience of Christ, the fact that life returned pretty much to the same old, same old left them disillusioned and, in some cases, even angry. I more or less stuck with Jesus, but as time passed, I became less and less sure of exactly what that meant in practical terms. Being a “nice” or “good” guy still came with the same rules, regulations and expectations. It did not seem God brought anything new to the table. I did not feel one bit better. And as I watched my “fallen away” friends, it began to look a whole lot easier to live their careless and irresponsible way. Like cats, they always landed on their feet, and there did not appear to be any serious consequences of their turning away from Jesus.  I began to seriously wonder why I was bothering with Christ.

God really does work in mysterious ways, though, for another, better question suddenly popped into my mind: why would Christ bother with me? At my conversion, I’d kinda taken His love motivation for granted, but then I started to seriously consider it. Did He love me? Why? I didn’t feel very lovable. What did He see that I didn’t? A fuse was lit. To figure out if the Lord really loved me, I had to know if the Holy Spirit was truly living and working His will in me, or if I had just deceived myself with an attractive fantasy. I went back to the well, so to speak, figuring if it had worked the first time, it might work again. I once more challenged the Spirit, but this time, I dared Him to make Himself affirmatively known to me. The response was immediate. “I have been and will continue to be with you, Tom. But you have not known what to look for. If you want to see and feel Me, you need to put your expectations on My altar as an offering of your will, and you have to begin seeking Me as I choose to come to you. Until now, you’ve had that order reversed. You must agree to let me be God before you can know the depth of my love as God.”

I should have figured that out on my own. We have to love and accept people for who they are before love can ever become mutual. Why wouldn’t that also apply to the Lord? Our Creator is fundamentally sovereign, or he is not God at all. If He responds to our challenges, it is only because we finally open ourselves up to the way He wanted to come to us in the first place. God does not take orders, and He seldom appears or makes His Presence known in the way we expect or desire. That does not mean He’s not there, nor does it mean we have somehow failed in the area of forgiveness. It just means our Father will always remain a bit of a mystery, and that His ways are not and never will be our ways, no matter how much effort we put into trying to become spiritually oriented.

The Lord has spoken. Our sins are forgiven. He is and will be with us always, even to the end of the age. We will have trouble, but He has overcome the world. He has gone to prepare a place for us. His Spirit will guide us. Period. How we feel about any of this is irrelevant to its reality. It only prevents our experience of it when we doubt. I found my answer when, instead of worrying about the truth of all this, I just started living as if it were true. What I learned is that experience verifies reality. In other words, Christians cannot ever know the power they have just based on how they feel or what they think. Only when we take the leap of faith to live as if these truths are real do we begin to understand just how concrete they really are.