Thursday, August 29

THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

Job 31–33

2 Corinthians 3

Psalm 43

Proverbs 22:8.9

 

 

¡Buenos días de Santo Domingo!  Good morning from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic.  Scott, Kathie, Danielle, and I arrived last evening and will today be heading to a conference with 14 Dominican pastors and their wives.  We seek to encourage them in their marriages and ministry and to refresh them with the opportunity to share transparently and vulnerably about their joys and struggles.  Please pray that God would send His Spirit to enliven our minds and spirits and to bring edification, wisdom, and grace among us.  Thank you for your support of this ministry opportunity!

 

 

“Send forth your light and your truth,

                let them guide me;

let them bring me to your holy mountain,

                to the place where you dwell.

Then will I go to the altar of God,

                to God, my joy and my delight!

I will praise you with the harp,

                O God, my God.

 

“Why are you downcast, O my soul?

                Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

                for I will yet praise him,

                My Savior and my God.”  (Psalm 43:4–6)

 

In this Psalm, we find the writer wrestling with His spiritual and emotional condition, describing himself as “downcast” and “disturbed.”  He has called upon God for His “light… and truth,” searching for God’s wisdom as his guide to God’s “holy mountain,/ to the place where you dwell.”  The writer has set his heart on following and serving God, but he still struggles in the journey.

 

We have all likely experienced this mix of good intentions but nagging feelings.  The world and the Evil One consistently bombard us with messages of our shortcomings in order to accuse and nullify God’s work in us.  We may find ourselves unmoored and undirected.

 

The final verse encourages to resolutely and intentionally walk forward, even in the face of these challenges.  Like the writer, we may speak into our hearts and minds from the “light… and truth” that God has revealed through His Word and His Spirit.  We may pray in these moments of struggle:  “Lord, which verses or truths shall I cling to?  What does Your heart have to say about this difficulty?”

 

As Pastor Scott has explained before, we process thousands of thoughts daily, subconsciously taking in observations and processing our reactions.  We must choose what and whom we will follow in these momentary reflections:  ourselves or God’s wisdom.  We may train our minds and hearts for this daily battle through trusting God and obeying the truth of Psalm 119:9–11:

 

“How can a young man keep his way pure?

    By living according to your word.

I seek you with all my heart;

    do not let me stray from your commands.

I have hidden your word in my heart

    that I might not sin against you.”

 

 

“Such confidence we have through Christ before God.  Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.  He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant — not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Corinthians 3:4–6)

 

These words guide any human efforts in ministry.  We recognize that, without the intervention of the Holy Spirit, we will find little change.  Only God may mold and shape our hearts.  Please consider this wisdom from LeRoy Eims in The Lost Art of Disciplemaking:  “If anything of spiritual value is done in this world, it will be because God did it.  We find this to be so throughout the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments.”

 

 

“Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold.  We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away.  But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read.  It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away.  Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts.  But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.  Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  And we all, who with unveiled faces reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:12–18) 

 

Here, Paul describes the fading vs. lasting glory of the Old and New Covenants.  While the Israelites saw that Moses had indeed met with God and that God had shared His radiance, Moses covered his face with a veil to obscure the fading glory from the Israelites.  Paul describes those who have not yet trusted in Christ as having a veil covering their hearts.  Therefore, we understand that anyone who comes to Christ must arrive there supernaturally.

 

The Old Covenant and its sacrificial system looked forward to the everlasting glory of Jesus Christ, its Guarantor.  In the New Covenant, the veil no longer remains because, through the Holy Spirit, God brings sanctification – “being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory.”  This transformation occurs both individually and corporately through the body of Christ, His church.   We may also rejoice in the “freedom” we have received through the Spirit – not to pursue selfish gain, but rather to become servants of righteousness and to experience the transformation into the likeness of Christ.

 

 

May we trust You wholly today, Father.  Give us deeper eyes of faith, that we might understand Your light and Your truth.  Lead our hearts and minds to seek You, and bring to light Your Word in our momentary struggles.  We seek to honor You and to become more like Your Son today; guide us in these desires.  Give us hearts of compassion and a sensitivity to Your Spirit.  In Jesus’s Name, Amen.

 

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