News: I had a great school week, PTL! And ahead of "schedule" on Spanish, which is a great blessing. I'm learning a new tense (the imperfect, for the curious) that only has 3 irregular verbs-HOORAY!!!!!!
Mom and Dad are going to be out of town next week, so sisters and I will be staying at the Elliotts which will be fun!
Favorite nugget: Abide in God (1 John 2:28) means:
...have the Spirit (4:13)
...confess Christ is Lord (4:15)
...abide in love (4:16)/love the brethren (3:19 & 4:20)
...keep God's commandments (3:24)
I'm not sure whether to be encouraged or discouraged by that :-). I have always wondered how exactly you abide, but always loving and keeping God's commandments is hard! Thankfully, we have POWER! (As we learned today in the sermon on Ephesians 2:1-10)
1 comment:
I am glad your school went well!
I thought a little while about what to say here for the nugget, because you had done an excellent job of extrapolating it already...so I decided to go with this:
Yes, we should be encouraged, because we have power! But in what ways does God give us power to abide in Him? I can think of a few:
a) We have the Spirit, "...by whom we were sealed for the day of redemption". (Ephesians. 4:30) "...the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings to deep for words. And He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good..." (Romans 8:26-28) This brings to mind a joy and encouragement, because even in our weakness, God is working everything according to His purpose--and the sanctification of the saints is in that purpose! The Spirit is helping us daily to abide in God more and more, and even when we fail the Spirit intercedes for us with groanings to deep for words. Praise God for such a wonderful Counselor!
b) We have prayer. "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." (1 Thessalonians 5:17-18) God literally asks you to pray to Him, juxtaposed to "rejoice always" and "give thanks in all circumstances". What I got from this was: God knows that the command He gave us, to abide in Him, was impossible for us on our own. So not only did He give us His Spirit, he asks us to talk to Him, coming needy--but thankful. We have a loving God, and He will help us and support us as we try to abide in Him daily. As an author I like once said, "if I am in a boat and throw a hook onto shore and pull, am I pulling myself to the shore or the shore to me? Praying is not telling God to do what I want, but aligning myself to the will of God." We are, by praying, aligning ourselves with the will of God, and so abiding in Him more and more.
c) I could keep going--in fact, even now I can think of at least three more things God mercifully gave us to abide in him more. But I think that, as 1 Thess. 5:17-18 says, we should come away from this thankful(always) and encouraged. Not only has he given us a great command--the blessing of abiding in Him--He has also given us the aid we need to accomplish that command. Our God is great! :)
--Josiah C.
Post a Comment