Cooperating With What God Is Already Doing

It’s possible that your work situation or family situation or neighborhood situation looks, from a spiritual perspective, fairly bleak. You may find yourself in what you consider to be a fairly pagan or secularized environment. But I believe that God is at work in hearts more than we realize.

Today, I want to continue where we left off two days ago, and look at our part in bringing people into an awareness of Jesus that leads to a desire for Jesus.  Two days ago, we looked at being the kind of person that God can use to be “sent,” that is to go out into a particular situation or people group or individual’s life and then tell them, so they can hear, believe and call out for salvation.

But the Bible also teaches a principle of “sowers and reapers” in I Corinthians 3:

^{(NCV) 5b} …We are only servants of God who helped you believe. Each one of us did the work God gave us to do.⁶ I planted the seed, and Apollos watered it. But God is the One who made it grow.⁷ So the one who plants is not important, and the one who waters is not important. Only God, who makes things grow, is important.⁸ The one who plants and the one who waters have the same purpose, and each will be rewarded for his own work.

My entire part-time work career during eight years of high school and college consisted of working in large department stores. In each area of the store I had to know what the products were, how the products worked, whether there were product warranties, and where the products were kept in the stockroom.  I also had to learn how to work the cash register.

So, my usefulness to my employer consisted of two things:

• product knowledge
• sales processing

In later years, when I owned my own business, I realized I had been taught nothing about how to sell. There was no sense in which I asked customers what they felt they needed, qualified what might meet that need, and then proceed to  “ask the question.” Asking means saying, “Do you think that this product can meet those needs?” Or, “Is there anything stopping from you buying today?” Or, “Can I wrap that up for you?” 

The ingredient I was missing was what is called, “closing the sale.” My training should have been a three-pronged approach consisting of:

• product knowledge
• closing the sale
• sales processing

Sometimes in the Christian journey we encounter people who given to us so that we can plant seeds. And other times, we find people where God has been working in their lives already and they’re just waiting for someone to gently nudge them over the line of faith.

But sometimes we fall short of doing both when the opportunities are present. To switch analogies for a moment, it’s like a baseball game in which you’re up to bat and you get a perfect pitch, but instead of hitting a home run you decide to bunt. What holds us back from the hitting the ball out of the park?

In one of his books*, Bill Hybels tells the story of a friend with whom Bill had been planting seeds for a long time. One day, out of the blue, an associate asked the man if he would like to become a disciple and make Christ the Lord of his life, and the man said yes on the spot. Bill often jokes that this was simply “not fair.” With a department store analogy, you could say that this man was “Bill’s customer;” though thankfully we’re not exactly on commission! More seriously, Bill understands the distinction between sowing and reaping, and rejoices that this man did indeed cross the line of faith.

In Experiencing God, Richard Blackaby talks about coming alongside areas where the Holy Spirit is already working.** Perhaps there is a ministry organization or even a secular social service agency where people, whether consciously or unknowingly, are experiencing the fruit of God’s love and are ripe to respond. Could you be the missing ingredient?

• In the lives of people you’ve been in contact with for the past few weeks or month, are you a sower or a reaper?

• Do you know people right now who you’ve been gently sharing your faith with, but you’ve been afraid to ask the question?

• Re-read today’s key verses. Maybe you find evangelism very difficult. Is there an area where you can be a “water-er” providing after-care for new disciples?

~ PW

*Just Walk Across The Room,pp. 45-47
**Experiencing God, pp. 54-55; p. 297

But Before That Can Happen, This Has To Happen

^{NIV Romans 10:14} How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? ¹⁵ And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

From a purely literary standpoint, these verses in Romans use a rather unique form. It’s like Paul is deliberately saying everything in reverse, not unlike those comedies or dramas on television where they keep flashing back to progressively earlier and earlier scenes chronologically. In other words, before that can happen, this has to happen.

Having just proclaimed that, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” in verse 13, the sequence looks like this:

• people are saved if they call on the Lord
• can’t call on Him unless they first believe
• can’t believe unless they hear
• can’t hear unless someone delivers the message; the good news
• can’t have the message delivered unless someone is sent

So before one thing can happen something else has to happen.  Let’s put things in chronological order:

• someone is sent
• the ‘sent person’ delivers the message
• others hear the message
• they believe the message
• they call on the Lord to save them
• they are saved

That in itself would be a sufficient meditation, but it leaves something else.  In every major English translation, one more verse is included in the same paragraph, which is a quotation from Isaiah 52. 

^{Isaiah 52:7} How beautiful on the mountains
    are the feet of those who bring good news,
who proclaim peace,
    who bring good tidings,
    who proclaim salvation,
who say to Zion,
    “Your God reigns!”

Repeated here in Romans:

As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

I love how the CEV put this:

The Scriptures say it is a beautiful sight to see even the feet of someone coming to preach the good news.

Now, I’m going to read something into the text here, but I want you to humor me by following along here.  I think the CEV accurately conveys the picture here of the beauty of the sight of someone coming to bring the good news. But let’s assume for just a moment the beauty of the person themselves who comes.  (Not, obviously physical beauty, but spiritual beauty.)

If everything in the text is in reverse order, and if every translator sees the quotation as very directly linked to the other phrases, then what appears in the original form,

• people are saved if they call on the Lord
• can’t call on Him unless they first believe
• can’t believe unless they hear
• can’t hear unless someone delivers the message; the good news
• can’t have the message delivered unless someone is sent
• that “sent someone” is a beautiful person!!

Then the adjusted order would be

• the process described here begins with a beautiful person!!
• someone is sent
• the ‘sent person’ delivers the message
• others hear the message
• they believe the message
• they call on the Lord to save them
• they are saved

Again, I’ve done some “reading into” on the text here, but it does give you a different way of looking at the passage, and it is supported by further study of what it is to be the man or woman who God chooses.  Those of you who object strongly can leave a comment with the more traditional interpretations of the Isaiah passage’s presence here.

But I think God is looking for a “special someone” to relay the message to people in need, and he’s looking for that someone to have a beautiful spirit.  In other words, before we can assume a ministry, we need to cultivate the character of Christ within.

Someone once said there are two dimensions to a physical cross, and we can think of the vertical dimension as the depth of our relationship to God, and the horizontal as the breadth of expressing that relationship to the world around us. We are responsible for the depth of our ministry and God is responsible for the breadth of our ministry.

To get to be the sent one, to be the preacher, to see people respond and call out for salvation; all that has to begin with the formation of Christian character within.  You can’t expect to move in the gifts of the spirit until you have cultivated the fruit of the spirit.

~Paul Wilkinson

For some of you, the passage today reminded you of an older worship song; so here’s a link to Our God Reigns.

Connected to God

I always enjoy the material at Meeting in the Clouds, because like the one you’re about to read, I often get a mix of historical information, parallels from nature, Bible text, Biblical wisdom, and practical application.  This one appeared recently under the title, Cords of Love.

Life in parts of Africa had little value in the late 1800s especially if one was a woman or a slave.  Human sacrifices and cannibalism were common.  If a family had too many children, the unwanted child would be left in the bushes to die. If twins were born, they and their mother would be murdered.

Mary Slessor

Mary Slessor (1848-1915) was a Scottish missionary to Nigeria. She ventured into areas where no white person had been before.  Her determined work and strong personality earned her acceptance by the locals and she became trusted as “The White Queen” in the Calabar area of Nigeria.

People were moved to tears as, on furlough, she told of a chief’s death when, according to their custom, 25 of his household were beheaded to be with him as he departed life.  At the death of another chief, 60 people were killed and eaten. Mary managed to stop this practice on many occasions.

Mary was accompanied by four of the children she had saved and told how she had rescued hundreds of baby twins and other babies who had been thrown in the forest to die of hunger or to be eaten by ants or leopards.

Mary fought bouts of tropical diseases but worked very long hours, settling disputes among different groups, often standing firmly in between them, defying them.

At times, with sometimes dozens of babies at a time, she found it difficult to get adequate sleep, having to rise several times through the night to comfort sick and distressed babies.

Then she remembered that naturalist S L Bastian had told of a spider that builds its web/nest in the branch of a tree or bush and hatches its babies in that delicate enclosure. If the nest is disturbed, the babies rush out in fright. At once, the mother is alerted to their potential danger because each has a silken strand attached to it and the threads are joined to the body of the mother. When the babies scurry off, the mother feels the line tug and within a split second they are pulled back to the nest.

Mary’s babies didn’t flee, like the baby spiders, but she tied a cord to each of the babies’ little hammocks and from her bed, she could pull the cords to rock the hammocks as each baby needed soothing. The babies were comforted and Mary was able to get greatly needed sleep and rest.

The prophet Hosea tells us that
WE are linked to GOD with cords of love
- cords that cannot be broken.

When we stray He pulls us back to Himself.
When we fear, He gently rocks us and gives us peace.

1. He has given to us the gift of everlasting life.
   
2. He has guaranteed us His everlasting presence.
   
3. He loves us with an everlasting love [Jeremiah 31:3]
   
4. He holds us in His everlasting arms [Deut 33:27]
   
5. He shows us His everlasting kindness [Isaiah 54:8]
   
6. He is to us an everlasting Light [Isaiah 6019]

HE BINDS US TO HIMSELF WITH CORDS OF LOVE

Should not we who have received so much from Him show His love to the unlovely, as Mary Slessor did to the murderous people of  Calabar?

Should not we who have received so much from Him
bind ourselves together with cords of love?

IS THERE ANY EXCUSE FOR AN UNLOVING SPIRIT?

John 13:35
By this all will know that you are My disciples,
if you have love for one another.

~ Cloudwatcher