Higher than our ways

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  Isaiah 55: 8 - 9

I love the fact that God’s ways are nothing like our ways because his ways are full of grace, truth, mercy and compassion.  Every time I read an account in the Bible of Jesus’ dealing with people, he treated them with love and not with the judgement, criticism and condemnation that man would use.  His way with adulterers, sinners and tax collectors was so different that the religious people complained about it all the time.

Everyone wanted to stone the woman caught in adulteryer to death which the law did not require (John 8: 2 - 11). According to the law, both man and woman were ‘to be put to death’ (Leviticus 20:10).  Jesus dealt with her differently.  First of all he confronted those who had caught the woman with their own hypocrisy and then he instructed her not to sin any more. 

Jesus always had an answer to the tricky questions. The Pharisees hoping to trip him up, confronted him with whether to pay taxes to Caesar or not. He just took a coin and instructed those listening to give to Caesar what was his and to God what belonged to him. Anyone else asked that question would have probably tied themselves up in knots over whether it was right to support the invaders and conquerors of their country which is what the Pharisees wanted. Jesus again confronts their hypocrisy and cut to the heart of the matter and those trying to trip him up were not just silenced but amazed (Matthew 22: 15 - 22).

When Jesus and his disciples were watching everyone give their gifts into the temple treasury I am sure the disciples would have been impressed with those giving great gifts but Jesus turned their attention to the widow whom most people would have overlooked and the two tiny coins that she gave. Jesus commended her for her outstanding generosity and re-aligned the disciples’ thinking on giving. The amount you give is not what matters.  It is how much you give out of what you have that is the true test of generosity. 

The disciples, like all of us, were constantly impressed with the outward appearances.  They drew Jesus’ attention to the magnificence of the temple (Mark 13: 1 and Luke 21: 5) and Jesus again re-aligned their thinking by prophesying the destruction of the temple which happened in AD70. Jesus wants us to focus our lives on matters of eternal significance. So many wonderful empires and buildings have come and gone. What matters is the eternal truths of God’s word and living our lives by them not being impressed by passing glories. 

God constantly seeks to re-align our ways and especially our thinking to come into agreement with his ways and thinking.  I am amazed at how often my thinking about God is so faulty and yet with love and grace he redirects me to his truth and then helps me change the way I think and therefore the way I live. 

God’s Word is a wonderful book which cleanses our minds as we read it. The Holy Spirit uses it to point out truth, convict of sin and instruct us in better living. He never condemns or tries to control or manipulate us. God is not cross with us or seeking to tell us off or punish us.  We have nothing to fear from God. His single aim is to liberate us from sin and its effects so we can walk in freedom and truth and fulfil the plans and purposes he has for our lives. 

Every good and perfect gift

We have nothing to give that didn't first come from your hand,

We have nothing to offer you which you did not provide

Every good, perfect gift comes from your kind and gracious heart

And all we do is give back to you what always has been yours.

Who has given to you that it should be paid back to him?

Who has given to you as if you needed anything?

To you and from you comes all things O Lord

And all we do is give back to you what always has been yours.     Matt Redman

We do truly come into the world with nothing and we leave taking nothing with us.  We arrive as naked babies and we depart leaving all we have accumulated over the years behind us.

In this materialistic world we place huge value on things, our possessions and who has got what. We admire the rich and their lifestyle and despise the poor. Yet as Christians we must get hold of the truth that everything we have comes from God’s kind and gracious heart.

‘The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it’ the Psalmist declares in Psalm 24:1. God and God alone is the Creator and whilst his creation may be very pleased with their efforts at creating things including wealth from what he has provided, the reality is that even these abilities come from him (Deuteronomy 8: 18).

When God gave Moses the instructions for building the tabernacle and all its furnishings, he anointed Bezalel ‘with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts – to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut stones, to work in wood and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship (Exodus 31: 3 – 5). Moreover God appointed Oholiab to help him. Their skills came from God.

It can be rather galling to think we are not as brilliant as we thought and that everything we have has not come from our own efforts. However actually getting hold of this truth that it all comes from God is very liberating. 

God has given us gifts and abilities because he wants us to use them both for our enjoyment and to bless others. If we let God use us, our abilities become liberated from what we can do to what God can do through us. I am sure Bezalel was amazed at what God enabled him to create.

Even in the area of wealth creation, God will use us to be a great blessing to all around us. We all know ‘it is more blessed to give than to receive’ (Acts 20:35) and it is indeed a great joy to give gifts or money. Our world desperately needs people who can handle wealth correctly and the first step in that is acknowledging it didn't come from us and our own labours in the first place. When we realise everything comes from God, it is so much easier to pass it on to others, knowing that God will always pour in where we have poured out.

The Bible is full of assurances that God will satisfy our desires as we trust him (Psalm 37: 4 and 145: 19 as examples). We never need fear being generous.

We have nothing to offer God that didn't come from him in the first place. Our very breath is a gift from God.  God wants to bless us with so much more but the key is to realise it all came from him and with thankful hearts try to become a giver with a heart like God’s because he is the ultimate Giver. 

Freely you have received, freely give

Freely you have received, freely give Matthew 10: 8

I have just been reading something from Joyce Meyer who was saying that she had great difficulty in the past from being merciful because she had never truly received God’s mercy for herself. She had no mercy from God to give others.

We can never give to others what we have not already received or have access to.  I cannot give you a glass of water if I have neither a glass nor access to fresh water. In the same way I cannot give you grace if I have not received God’s grace for myself. I was a very graceless person because I was hard and legalistic to myself and therefore to others. If I made a mistake I beat myself up about it so if others also made mistakes, even if I did not say anything, mentally I was criticising them for their mistakes. God had to show me how ‘bad’ I was and how much grace he had shown me, so that I too could show that same grace to others. It was a bit of a revelation to realise how graceless I was.

This difficulty can infiltrate all sorts of areas of our lives. If we feel guilty, we want to make everyone else feel guilty; if we feel shame, we want to blame others; if we feel rejected, we reject others and so on.  What we have, we give to others. The great news though is that as we get revelation of this, we do not have to sit in a pond of despair but realise that God is holding out his hand to lift us out. Jesus suffered to take all our sin, guilt, shame, rejection, sickness and every work of the enemy from our lives.  It takes time but God is patient and as we let him work in our lives, he will bring us to wonderful places of freedom.

So as we have been shown grace, we will be very gracious; as we have been shown mercy, we will be merciful; as God has set us free from sin and shame, we will walk confident in God’s goodness and love and show that to others. Where God has healed us, we will have great faith for healing for others. The very areas of greatest weakness and shame in my life have been turned around by God to bring freedom to others in those very same areas. As a teenager, I made quite a mess of my life – I was insecure, rejected and behaved very badly. As God has healed me, he has given me such a heart for teenagers not to have to walk through the things I put myself through. It is such an honour to help them find God’s love and walk through those tricky teenage years holding his hand and not walk through hopeless and helpless, trying all sorts of useless things to fill the void in their hearts.

So freely give what God has given you and if you are still struggling with some areas in your life, give them over to God, stop struggling and trust him to bring wonderful freedom that will bring great glory to him and help others. My old life honoured nobody; my new life I live for him to honour him as best I can.

Rejoice with those who rejoice

Rejoice with those who rejoice Romans 12: 15

After careful consideration, I am almost certain that playing golf can seriously damage your sanctification!  By which I mean the golf course is one of the best places to halt if not reverse the process of turning the Christian into the likeness of Jesus. The frustration and sheer incomprehensibility of why one minute you are playing like Tiger Woods and the next you hit three shots sideways is a mystery on a par with the Bermuda Triangle.  You start out a happy Christian and can end up full of bitter thoughts, anger and intense irritation.

Your own game can be frustrating enough but rejoicing with your playing partner over their incredible if not incredulous shots can be trying in the extreme. It is always easy to rejoice with those who perhaps have worked hard at their exams and got good results or with friends who have got engaged, married or are having a baby. We can rejoice with those who have got a job or promotion or moved to a new home but rejoicing with those who don’t in our eyes deserve it, is quite another matter.

I have a pastor friend who tells the story of another pastor who felt God was going to give him a new car. This pastor did not look after his present car; it was badly in need of a good clean and a service and he certainly did not deserve a new one. Nevertheless he was given a brand new, top of the range Mercedes. Rejoicing with those who rejoice in those circumstances is hard – it comes through gritted teeth. Or, back to the golf course, rejoicing when your playing partner hits a shot and with a few bounces all round the banks surrounding the green, the ball hops, skips and jumps down the hole!  It is these times of undeserved favour or good old grace that test our capacity to rejoice with those who rejoice.

Yet there is a lesson I have learned that if one can rejoice and congratulate those who do not deserve whatever it is they have got whether it is a new car or a flukey golf shot, something inside of us changes. Complaining about their good luck whether to their face or others just makes us sound what we are – bitter and jealous. Rejoicing with them and others enlarges the place of our hearts and makes us look what we may not be feeling – generous and gracious.

Yet something else also happens. As we learn to rejoice in the most unlikely and undeserved circumstances, we not only look generous and gracious; we become generous and gracious. It starts as an act of the will but gradually our attitudes start to line up with our words. We are all recipients of amazing grace and we rejoice over God’s abundance to us. Rejoicing with others over their good fortune leaves no room for jealousy and bitterness in our hearts but instead increases the sanctification process of turning us a little bit more into the likeness of Jesus

The widow's mite

Luke 21: 1 – 4

I am sure we are all familiar with the account of the widow who put her two mites or small copper coins in the treasury at the temple. Jesus commended her because everyone else was putting in out of their surplus but she was putting in all she had to live on.

The context of this little event is Jesus warning his disciples about the religious leaders and the hypocrisy of their practices, one of which was to make an extravagant show of their giving. Jesus contrasts this with the poor widow who quietly puts in the little she has.

Underlining this story, Jesus is commending the poor widow for her generosity. Those who have little do not give it away unless they have a very generous spirit. They hang on to the little they have. The religious leaders wanted everyone to think what good people they were because they gave large amounts. The widow only had a small amount and yet she gave it. She was not putting on a show for anyone – who would be impressed by the gift of two small coins? She gave out of a desire to bless God. She would know her two small coins would make no difference to the upkeep of the temple or the religious institutions. Her gift was given to God. Only he saw her generosity when no one else did and God would have been blessed by her heart which so reflects his own generous heart.

God wants us to give freely and generously to him and others. We give because he first gave to us. ‘Freely we have received, freely give’ (Matthew 10:8).  We must never give ‘reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver’ (II Corinthians 9:7). We give out of love for all God has given to us. If you are giving out of duty or a sense that as a ‘good Christian’ you must tithe or you are giving so that God will bless you – stop!  Give because you want to give and be a blessing. The size of your gift does not denote your generosity. The size of your heart does that.