As we begin to come out from the fog of a surreal week and, for that matter, an entire year, I am contemplative of where God is leading His children.
I think most Christians would say that their hope has always been in God. Many would say that they believe that He is in control of everything. Still, as I scroll through Facebook and Instagram and listen to other believers, I see and hear an unsteadiness, an almost fear that evil is rising. The walls of goodness and clean living are not just showing cracks but are, in fact, starting to tumble down before our eyes.
When I look back to the word to find the words that will bring my own heart hope and endurance for these days, I am reminded that the trials we are facing truly are not new things for believers. The feelings that the modern-day Christian has been feeling for the last 48 hours, if you think about it, surely cannot begin to compare to the emotional wreckage the first Christians went through the morning after seeing the son of God killed by evil men. All their hopes and dreams crushed by men who deserved death themselves. Their Lord, who had spoken an immediate calm to the wind and sea, who had spent years healing the masses and had produced enough bread to feed thousands with one simple prayer, the savior who had walked on water and had spoken words that caused a whole garrison to fall back to the ground had been taken and seemingly overpowered by the forces of wickedness.
When the man closest to Christ stood resolute days before declaring that he would not allow his Lord to go and be killed, Christ looked deep into those eyes and said, “Get behind me, Satan...You are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.” You see, like us when things seem to be spiraling out of control, Peter focused his mind on this world, this flesh, his plan, what seemed best to him. As a result, he began to give instruction to his Lord. How many, on this November day in the year 2020, would very much like to instruct the Lord on what seems best? After all, are we not a set-apart nation that is showing the world something different? Is He really going to let it all fall apart?
Christ’s plan for His chosen nation turned out to be different than they could have ever imagined. He was putting an end to something, but that something didn’t have anything to do with this physical world. All of Christ’s life spent on earth with men was lived with eyes set on the supernatural. The way of the flesh was only the shadow of what was really happening in the eternal realms, and it was to this eternal plan that Christ lived each day.
Where do we live? The comfort and ease with which the Christian has been able to live in this country for the last hundred years has created a very dangerous situation. When men know not hardship for decades, they lack the ability to comfort themselves with how they would live in times of persecution and trial. The 21st century Christian has become a product of societal pressures that made sure every child understood they are special, deserving of goodness, and that it is acceptable to live a life based on experience. This tragic philosophy has produced not only an unregenerate population that will sacrifice almost anything to remain at ease, but a Christian population that cannot find peace outside of these realities.
The demand to stand alone and depend on the Lord has not been a necessity in the life of a believer in a first world society for many, many years. As a result, Christians have been led to equate physical safety and ease with true spirituality. God’s spiritual blessings have come to be defined as freedom and non-persecution, full stomachs, good educations, and enough money to keep oneself from being a burden to others. The 21st century Christian has become almost blind to the understanding that the spiritual world is the only eternally real world and that the things of the flesh are, in reality, waging war against the Spirit. Do you feel the battle? The war between the two isn’t just a personal sin versus holiness war; it is a war of the flesh wanting things that will result in a love for this world, this life. That fleshly desire fights against the God who is preparing His children for His world.
In the word spoken to us by the Holy Spirit, God tells us what His spiritual blessings are.
Philippians 1:29 “For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him but also to suffer on His behalf.”
Hebrews 12:6 “Those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He punishes every son whom He accepts.”
James 1:2-3 “Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.”
True spiritual blessings are suffering, discipline from God, trials, and the testing of our faith. They also are being able to understand God’s word, loving those who hate us, and being able to rest in the knowledge that no breath is taken outside of God’s will for man.
Acts 17:25 “He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things.”
Matthew 5:44-45 “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may prove yourselves to be sons of your Father who is in heaven.”
Ephesians 1:9-10 “He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He set forth in Him, regarding His plan of the fullness of the times, to bring all things together in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.
When we read the crucifixion account, we read it with the knowledge of what is coming three days later. Christ would rise, and the whole eternal plan of redemption would be revealed. We don’t often think about the inner turmoil happening in the hearts of those who followed Christ. For the disciples, the only thing they could think to do was to find a place to hide and mourn their loss. Sitting in that upper room, they must have questioned their whole existence not only as men called out to live the last three years day and night at the side of the Messiah but the existence of their entire nation who had been waiting for over a thousand years for their own promised Messiah. All the wandering in the wilderness, living in tents, exiles, and prisoners, keeping the laws and protecting the very oracles of God. What was it all for? What use was it to choose a people and make them your nation if, in the end, they killed you? Futility must have been the word that kept running through their minds. And if it were indeed all about the flesh of man, they would have been right.
But the plan all along, God’s plan, did not reside in the physical world. God’s plan lived in the heavenly realms and was completed by Christ, who had, from the beginning, been using fleshly men to accomplish that plan. When Christ died, the veil in the temple was ripped in two, and the veil that lies over the hearts of those He would save, keeping them from understanding the eternal plan of God, was torn away as well. To that new heart, the spiritual world becomes the thing that now defines humanity’s whole existence. That new man now sees, through the words of the Holy Spirit, that the man chosen by God to be a father to many nations, who circumcised his family in a cast-off desert in the middle of an insignificant land was accomplishing the spiritual designs of God. He sees that the enslavement of God’s chosen people in a land not their own for over four hundred years created a nation that was all in one place, mighty in number, and shared one goal: escape. We see that a nation of people was being prepared for spiritual designs that would far outlive their rescue from Egypt. The prophets and kings who would come after, who suffered and died foretelling the coming salvation to the world, would, with each death, accomplish the spiritual plan of God. When the nation of God suffered year after year under the hands of wicked kings, foreign and their own, all the while protecting and guarding the written word of God, they were accomplishing the spiritual plan of God.
Then a societal outcast emerges, baptizing people in order to prepare their hearts for a kingdom not of this world; we see that he too was accomplishing the spiritual plan. When God Himself, at the right time, stepped into flesh, His eternal spiritual plan was being accomplished with every moment of His life and then ultimately, His death. The plan, laid down long ages ago, was completed by Christ himself, and when he took his rightful place next to the Father as a man of flesh, He fulfilled the spiritual plan to bring man into the presence of the God most holy. The reality of the spiritual design for man could now be realized.. eternal security that frees a man to now accomplish God’s purposes and designs.
If only the 21st century Christian could raise their eyes above the chaos of a world that is passing away to actually see the surety of God’s spiritual design, then no ruler, no matter how evil, would shake their heart. They would understand that those who are His are those who will be cared for. The loss of the things of this world, money, respect, security, freedom would no longer be a loss because Christ is on His throne from the moment He ascended back to the Father. The completion of the spiritual realities secures not just our eternity but our travels through the rest of this life. I am no longer a citizen of this world but of Heaven, and as such, I see rightly the judgements of God upon evil men by allowing them to accomplish their goals.
The truth of Romans 9 shines even more brightly as we understand that the evil that prevails is God enduring with much patience the vessels of wrath that have been prepared for destruction. Paul tells the Philippians not to be alarmed by their opponents when they come against the believer and the things of God. The child of God should understand that this is a sign of their opponent’s coming destruction and should breathe a breath of relief as he reads that when evil men prevail, it is “ a sign of salvation for you.”
As Stephen stood and spoke about the spiritual plan of God revealed throughout the ages to those who would be his murderers, as Paul took each beating and continued to serve and love the God who considered him worthy to suffer for this namesake, as men and women have been tortured and killed throughout the ages realized, the life of a believer is a life walking in the spirit. Walking...daily. Those who walk by the spirit become like Abraham and Sarah who were looking for a city which has foundations, whose architect and builder are God. Their eyes were fixed on the spiritual realm. They knew that this fleshly world, its promise of ease and kingdoms and security, weren’t the reality. Once their vision was fully devoted to the things of the Spirit, no ruler, no torturer, no scoffer could cause them to look back as Lot’s wife did; no outside force could persuade them to take their hand off of the plow.
It was this vision that gave both Jesus and Stephen the ability to honestly look to their Father and ask that their murderer’s sins not be held against them. Have we prayed that in the last few months as we see the wicked revel in their victories? Do we have hearts burdened by those whose hearts still have the veil over them and are unable to see truth? Do we pray that their sin might not be their damnation for all eternity?
Take heart, brothers and sisters in Christ. You are the only ones in the entire world who can lay your head down each night and sleep in peace, knowing that your eternal judgment has been taken away. You are the only humans in the whole world who have the right perspective that puts all of your life pursuits in their rightful place: the pursuit of the character and ways of God. You are the only ones to understand that government and wealth and ease and health and freedom aren’t your security. Christ alone, sitting at the right hand of the Father, is.
If we are fearful, let it be a fear of the God who is able to cast men’s souls in hell for all of eternity. If our fear lies in the loss of comfort, control, liberties, or safety, then let us come before the holy God and repent. We must repent that our eyes, like Peter, turned away from the ways of God, that we’ve begun to think our happiness and endurance cannot exist without such things. Let us lay aside these weights that so easily entangle us and let us run the race set before us with joy knowing that our eternal king will forever be in control.