By Grace We Build

As I was walking the other morning, I was thinking about Christmas gifts I have yet to buy.  I am at the tail end, the point at which I start trying to think of original ideas that will “surprise” the recipients.  These are often gifts that I hope they will like, but I know I am sort of taking a gamble.

As I thought back over some of the gifts I have given, I am almost amazed at how many bad gifts I have given!  You know me to be a person who very much struggles with pride, so I will not at all admit what some of those gifts are (and all comments on the subject are most unwelcome!), but I can tell you that I know for a fact that several of the gifts I have given are now currently stashed in very dark places.

Enter the Holy Spirit…  As I continued on my walk, I was suddenly reminded that God is very different from me.  I may have given some bad gifts in my time, but He never gives a bad gift.  He knows exactly what we need (even if perhaps it is not what we want at the time).   He knew we needed a Savior, so He met our deepest need of salvation from sin in His Son, Jesus Christ.  He knew we would need a Helper to guide us, so He sent His Holy Spirit to dwell in the hearts of those who believe in Him.  He even knows the littlest details of my life, like the fact that I need to grow in patience, so He sent me four little girls who “mess up” my plans daily (and I think I am growing, slowly but surely).

Luke 11:13 says, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Thank you, Father, for sending your greatest gift, Jesus, to die for my sins on the cross and to break the power of sin in my life.  I am grateful for this holiday season when I am constantly reminded of the humble way in which He came – for me!

The Holy Spirit spoke to me pointedly yesterday and today in my reading from A Gospel Primer, by Milton Vincent.  The subject was dying to self.  ”Not My will, but Yours be done.” (Luke 22:42)  Oh, how hard this is for me!  Just take a look at some of these quotes.  

The gospel is not simply the story of “Christ, and Him crucified”;  it is also the story of my own crucifixion.  For the Bible tells me that I, too, was crucified on Christ’s cross.  My old self was slain there… (p. 39, 40)

God is committed to my dying every day, and He calls me to that same commitment.  He insists that every hour be my dying hour, and He wants my death on the cross to be as central to my own life story as is Christ’s death to the gospel story.  ”Let  this same attitude be in you,”  he says, “which was also in Christ Jesus… who became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” [ Phil. 2:5-8] (p. 40)

Crucifixion hurts.  In fact, its heart-wrenching brutality can numb the senses.  It is a gasping and bloody affair, and there is nothing nice, pretty, or easy about it.  It is not merely death, but excruciating death. (p. 40)

Wow!  I must admit, that does not make me jump at dying to self.  Not a pretty picture, yet it is one that we who are seeking to follow Christ experience.  It is so hard to put myself aside – my desires, my dreams, even just my computer keyboard for a moment!  Yet it is what we are called to do – to lay ourselves aside, just as Christ did for us!  Here is the great news:

These facts surrounding Christ’s resurrection stand as proof positive that God will not leave me for dead, but will raise me similarly, if I would only allow myself to die.  Indeed, on the other side of each layer of dying lie experiences of a life with God that are far richer, far higher, and far more intimate than anything I would have otherwise known.  ”…whoever loses His life for My sake, he shall find it.” [Luke 9:24] (p. 42 – emphasis mine)

What a picture!  What hope!  What promise!  Oh, how I pray for God’s grace to remember this day by day, moment by moment!

After reviewing one of Paul Tripp’s messages from the Marriage and the Mercy of God conference, The Holy Spirit reminded me that my lack of love for others – my husband, my children, whoever! – can never be blamed on how they are treating me or how they are behaving.  My lack of love has everything to do with ME – mainly my selfishness and my lack of love for my God.

As a help for myself, I boiled the main points down to some questions that I can hang in my kitchen so that I can reference them when the “heat” is on.

• Do I love God? Am I captivated by His mercy and grace? Only His love for me motivates me to share His same love with others.
• Am I loving me? Sometimes I am so full of myself that I cannot love others. Father, release me from me!
• Am I paying attention to the skirmishes going on in my own heart? These are the battles between my way and God’s way – my flesh and my new self. I must will these battles over the flesh, by the grace of God. Losing them leads to conflict with others as I fight for my way rather than loving others.
• Am I grateful to God for His mercy and grace to this undeserving sinner, or do I feel entitled to receive from others? That sense of entitlement leads me, again, to fight for my way, rather than lavishing on others the same mercy I have been given.

If you would like to hear the message for yourself, you can find it here. Paul Tripp calls it Mercy and the Antisocial Nature of Sin.  I called it Love is War!

Oh, how I pray I can truly apply these truths to everyday life!  How I need God’s grace!

I do want to give credit where credit is due.  I did not come up with the “Do the next thing” idea.  Of course, you know me better than that.  The quote came from Elisabeth Elliot, in talking about a passage from I Peter:

In the past, we have witnessed God’s healing power in our family.  When she was 1-1/2, Ruthie knocked in a front tooth.  The tooth was pointing back into her mouth and the root was beginning to poke out of the gum.  The pediatric orthodontist told us there was no way the tooth could be saved.  It would fall out.  Fast forward a couple of weeks, and you would see a little girl with perfect little baby teeth.  Turns out that sucking her thumb helped her.  As the swelling went down on the tooth, her thumb pulled the tooth back into place.  Though the thumb helps to explain it, we know that God healed that tooth, as an answer to our prayers for our little girl.  

Turns out that God “heals” more than people!  Moving our piano from Maryland to Ohio was quite a big deal.  Jake fretted over that so much.  How kind of God to bring a fellow from our new church to help us move into our new home – a young man who had experience moving pianos!  I believe he even had a piano dolly with him!  So the piano arrived safe and sound, but High D must have been traumatized by the event.  She simply would not play, or she would play once and then stick.  It was funny to hear Rachel and Ruthie singing a note here and there in the pieces they were practicing, making up for the D’s silence.

In response to a very powerful message I heard at our church in September, a message on the power of praying with specific requests,  I decided to try it with the piano.  I knew that after moving we didn’t have the money to get the piano tuned, let alone fixed.  So the girls and I turned to God as our Only Hope.  We prayed that He would “heal” the piano.  I even tore the piano apart and tried to work on it myself, in case He wanted to use me as His instrument.  No luck.  But about 1 or 2 weeks after that attempt, I walked by the piano and played a scale – and High D worked!!  She has not given us a problem since.  

Sound silly?  Not to me!  Our God loves to lavish us with kindness.  We asked Him to fix our piano, knowing that He COULD.  He made us wait a month or so, but He did it.   Nothing is too small a thing for our Lord.