Nothing is essential, real, or of any value unless ordained by God who arranges all things and makes them useful to the soul.
Jean-Pierre de Caussade, Abandonment to Divine Providence .
Jesus’ death on the Cross has given us many blessings, but one often overlooked is the revelation there is nothing that takes place in your life outside your Heavenly Father’s care. That the very hairs of your head are counted. We are worth more than many sparrows. So in all things, we need not fear, because God Our Father is causing all things to work for our good.
All things means all things; nothing escapes his attention or his divine purpose. No matter what you are experiencing, he is with you in it, always at work for your good. This is not just a sentimental idea; it is something that cost him his very life. If we feel life (or at least part of life) falls outside his care – that we are all alone and on our own in it – it is not because it is so. It is simply an indication our thinking has yet to be transformed. We have yet to realize how thoroughly and profoundly we have been delivered from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of his precious Son.
We are now receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. It is flowing like a river from his precious throne, giving life to the Tree of Life bearing fruit in every season and providing healing to us each day. No matter what moment of life we find ourselves in right now, with all its blessings and challenges, we have permission to be thankful.
Be assured that anything you do that is beautiful and excellent will be repaid by our Lord
Ephesians 6:8 (TPT)
I remember a time not long ago when I was going through it. Despite my best efforts, everything seemed to be going wrong. And I did not see how any of it was going to work out for my benefit. It just seemed as though I had signed up to suffer in that season of my life without any return for my suffering or sacrifice. And then one night, on the way home from the office, the Holy Spirit met me in an unusual way and showed me, whatever benefits it may have here on earth, my present obedience had eternal value in heaven. That there was transcendent value in what I was going through. And with that revelation, my heart came to rest. I realized in that moment my struggle was not really about the suffering I was going through, but rather the fear my suffering had absolutely no meaning or value.
I am a firm believer faith produces results. But if we are not careful, we can assume the whole purpose of faith is to produce results. That the only reason we believe God is for God to do this or do that for us. That the only value faith has is the benefits it can produce in this life. The problem here is that it reduces our faith down to how it benefits us. And even though God wants to shower us with benefits, and those benefits come by faith and cannot come any other way, thinking this way eclipses something fundamentally beautiful and important about the Christian faith: what we do and how we live has transcendent value.
The Christian life is primarily, if not entirely, motivated by transcendent value. For example, we love because he first loved us, not in order to receive anything in return. It is selfless, but it is not pointless. The new believer radically saved by Jesus who is suddenly charitable and kind to his or her friends and neighbors is not doing so for personal gain: they are doing so because what matters to them now most goes beyond this world and anything it has to offer. They are operating from another kingdom that cannot be shaken, making decisions that have value according to that kingdom alone. They are reflecting heaven.
They know anything they do that is beautiful and excellent will be repaid by our Lord, and so can we.
The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:22-23 (ESV)
I mentioned recently that salvation is like a Christmas gift. By extension, life itself is a gift, because we cannot escape the grace God has extravagantly poured out upon us. Yes, our choices matter, and they determine our ability to experience the fullness of the life Jesus has for us. But for us, that begins with recognizing it is now Christmas morning, and there is a gift waiting for us under the tree. And God our Father is like a good parent beckoning us to come and open that gift.
We have spent a lot of time reflecting on suffering, and the reason for this is that it can prove to be a distraction, causing us to forget it is Christmas morning. When I first encountered real difficulty in life, I immediately went into problem-solving mode. I became convinced something was terribly wrong with me and that I needed to fix it. The message was, “If I do not do something about this, things will go horribly wrong, and I will deserve all of it.” I was doing what I had done all my life: If there is something wrong with me, I need to do everything in my power to correct the situation quickly so that I can be okay; so long as I was in the wrong, I was not okay; I had no right to enjoy life. But the thing I was trying to fix was beyond my pay grade; I was actually unable to fix me. The result was me being permanently stuck in problem-solving mode. Life itself became a problem to be solved instead of a gift to be enjoyed.
This is how suffering can prove to be a distraction, and I imagine it can take many forms in our lives. But the way we truly “fix” our problems is by recognizing Jesus is the solution to every problem we face. He is the ultimate Christmas gift. Whatever our problem, we can come to him. If we think we must be perfect, he causes us to rest in our imperfections by showing us in him we already are. If we think we must control others or our circumstances to be happy, he shows us happiness is not found in this world but in the kingdom that cannot be shaken. If we think we are all alone in our struggles, he shows us he is with us, and has been with us all along, an ever present help in our times of need. And so on. These gestures are not God’s refusing to fix the problems we face; it is his way of bringing us out of the shadows of our own lives and the false beliefs that dominate them into the light to the real solution.
God our Father is beckoning us to the gift he has for us under the tree, and to remind us that, now Jesus has come, every day is Christmas morning.
In repentance and rest you will be saved, In quietness and trust is your strength. But you were not willing, And you said, “No, for we will flee on horses!” Therefore you shall flee!
Isaiah 30:15-16 (NASB)
Speaking of death being the path to greatness, God will often lead us into situations where the only fruitful way forward is to die to our familiar ways of keeping ourselves safe and to trust in him instead. God will do this on purpose. One day, we will be happily following God’s leading; the next, we fill find ourselves in the midst of danger and difficulty, wondering whether we have really heard God. But (if the Bible is our guide) the presence of danger and difficulty in our lives is not an indication we are not in God’s perfect will (especially if we have “obeyed” our way into it). It is often an indication God is setting us up for the thing he likes to do most: delivering us from our troubles.
No doubt, such a place is a bit uncomfortable. The apostle Paul recounts on one ministry trip being “burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life.” But he explains God ordained this so that “we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead,” and declares God is “he on whom we have set our hope.1 This is really the heart of the Christian life: the process of us learning to no longer trust in ourselves but setting our hope entirely on God instead.
This is where the Christian life demands courage. Speaking from personal experience, it is much easier for us to flee from uncomfortable circumstances and trust in our own “horses,” just as the children of Israel did. Horses represent our own strength. The interesting thing is that the children of Israel were fleeing on their horses, not entering into battle with them. This is such a good picture of our human condition: as we trust in our own strength, we often find ourselves fleeing from life, not engaging with it. We find ourselves creating systems of survival around our fears or pain instead of facing these things head on that we may live a full life. This is because we were not created to live life on our own. We were created to live life in partnership with Him.
For this reason, it is so important to have a big opinion about God. Believing God is a God who desires to heal and deliver and extravagantly bless you has little to do with being selfish. It has everything to do with the confidence to remain in a place of rest in the middle of danger and difficulty so that you do not take matters into your own hands, giving God the opportunity to do his best work.
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”
Matthew 16:24-25 (NASB)
What God has promised his children are glorious. Among them are health, wholeness and abundant life. But God has also promised us death. That is, death to what is often called “self.” In fact, death to self is the only path to greatness.
As a general rule, I do not like to die. But in the case of the death Jesus talks about, I will make an exception. Because the death that he has in mind is the death of everything in me that is not me. That is, it is everything in me preventing me from being all that I was created to be. Which is the same as saying: everything preventing me from achieving greatness.
Now when I say “everything in me that is not me,” I need to make a distinction here. In the words of the dating coach played by Will Smith in the 2005 romantic comedy Hitch, “me” is a fluid concept right now. Because the “me” that existed before Christ has died, and the “me” that now exists is a new creation. It is a creation that came to being when Jesus saved me, raising me from the dead to newness of life in him. For this reason, it is the only “me” that really matters. It is who I really am.
And God is in the process of putting to death in us all that is not who we really are.1 Some believers get confused by the fact we have already died to sin. They think that means it is impossible for us to sin, though we obviously can and still do sin. But the book of Romans makes clear we are not dead to sin in this way. Rather, our relationship to sin has fundamentally changed.The Spirit of God which now dwells within us makes it possible for us to overcome sin in every area of our lives. In this sense, we are now dead to sin. And the Christian life is the Spirit of God doing just that: putting to death in us the “misdeeds of the body” and we live “by” (in agreement with) Him.
This process is the “losing one’s life” Jesus is talking about. It is also what he is describing when he describes the pruning the Father as our Gardener performs in our lives as believers. Both point to the fact that in order to experience the fullness of life he has for us, something in us must die. In fact, it must die or we will die with it (see Romans 8: 13): we will experience the effects of death the “misdeeds of the flesh” in us produce in our lives (broken relationships, emotional pain, and even physical pain and sickness). But as these places in our lives are removed, we are liberated from the death and experience God’s resurrection power and life. Not only this, but we produce “much fruit”2. That is, we become all we are destined to become. We find ourselves on the path of greatness.
It may be difficult to realize death is the pathway to greatness, but for me it is a source of great hope. It means any area of my life bearing the marks of death are destined to give way to abundant life. My only task – though it may require perseverance – is to yield to God. He will do the rest. And in my experience, he is really good at it.
D. Patrick Collins 