Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Jeremiah 16 &17; Psalm 96; John 16



Larry Crabb : The point of the journey is to want what God wants MORE than anything.

God Wants You to Be a Saint CS Lewis….Mere Christianity Book IV Chapter 9
Of course we never wanted and never asked to be made into the sort of creatures He is going to make us into. But the question is not what we intended us to be when He made us. He is the inventor, we are only the machine. He is the painter, we are only the picture. How should we know what He means us to be like?...WE may be content to remain what we call ‘ordinary people’: but He is determined to carry out quite a different plan. To shrink back from that plan is not humility: it is laziness and cowardice. To submit to it is not conceit or megalomania; it is obedience.
Here is another way of putting the two sides of the truth. ON the one hand we must never imagine that our own unaided efforts can be relied on to carry us even through the next twenty four hours as “decent” people. If He does not support us, not one of us is safe from some gross sin. ON the other hand, no possible degree of holiness or heroism which has ever been recorded of the greatest saints is beyond what He is determined to produce in this life: but He means to get us as far as possible before death.
That is why we must not be surprised if we are in for a rough time. When a man turns to Christ and seems to be getting on pretty well (in a sense that some of his bad habits are now corrected), he often feels that it would now be natural if things went fairly smoothly. When troubles come along – illnesses, money troubles, new kinds of temptations – he is disappointed. These things, he feels, might have been necessary to rouse him and make him repent in his bad old days: but why now? Because God is forcing him on, or up, to a higher level: putting him into situations where he will have to be very much braver, or more patient, or more LOVING, than he ever dreamed of being before. It seems to us all unnecessary: but that is because we have not yet had the slightest notion of the tremendous thing He means to make of us…..
Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage; but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.

John 16: 23 In that day you will no longer ask me anything. I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 24Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.
25"Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father. 26In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. 27 No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. 28I came from the
Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father."

Kind of like the Kevin Bacon game 6 Degrees of Separation…..I see the connection……

1 comment:

rebecca said...

The point of the journey is to want what God wants MORE than anything.


I noticed in your writings you say this alot? Are you stuck here?

becky