Saturday, July 5th, 2008

As I already said earlier in my introductory entry, the only regret about my starting this blog is that I did not begin it much sooner than now. In fact, I had already expressed that very same sentiment in my hand-written faith and prayer journal I began in January of this year. Had I begun writing and maintaining this journal shortly after the Lord delivered me from a life of sin in 1978, there would have been volumes of journey books written by this time.

What really hit home with me was that just as it took the first thirty years of my earthly life before I came to trust Christ as my Lord and Saviour, it took another thirty years before I came to realize how important this written record is to remind me of God's faithfulness. Oh well, so the old saying goes, I suppose, "Better late than never."

What I want to tell about first is that God is showing me that being a Christian is not a life of doing nearly so much as it is a life of being. The words of my favorite saint, the apostle Paul, have helped me see how true that is:

"And (be) found in Him, (Christ), not having my own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that which is through the faith in Christ, the
righteousness which is of the law by faith."

For those of you reading this blog, please understand that the King James Bible has always been my most favored Bible, and hopefully will continue to be so for as long as the Lord gives me to live on this earth. It was my pick above all other "versions" when as a very young man I was desiring to know the Truth. It was my Book after I was first saved and I began memorizing its verses, and it was the very book from which I preached when I was a pastor. Today, it remains my most favored, and I still preach from it whenever opportunities arise. For the sake of those who have trouble understanding its awesome prose, I will try to offer explanations of its meaning wherever I quote its passages.

Paul, in the verse I just quoted, is saying that he wants his Lord to find him always relying upon Him and his righteousness, and never relying upon his own form of righteousness. This means so much to me because I am comforted to know that my heavenly Father is not the least bit interested in what I think I am able to do; rather, He is interested in and concerned about how much faith I have in what only He can do. And of course, when there is any doing on my part, it will come as a result of my complete reliance upon Him.

Now, there is much more I want to tell you, especially about how God has been working with my wife Miriam and me over the past ten months. A better way of putting this is how He has been working ON us. What I mean here is how He has been working to bring us further away from ourselves and that much closer to Him. He wants to bring us to the point where He is all we will ever need, and all we will ever truly desire, to give our lives purpose and meaning. Now, this involves a lot more than our making a simple statement of faith in Him. To bring any of us to that level of trust will mean we will have to be broken, remade, reshaped. Pain is always a big part of that process, and there will be more said about that later.

Now, we all matter very much to God. If this were not so, He would not have sent His blessed Son here to suffer and die the horrible death of a common criminal in order that we all might be forgiven and live with Him in heaven throughout eternity. Without that act of truest love on His part, none of us would have hope. We would ALL be condemned and on our way to an eternal hell. Paul's words come again to my mind:

"For He hath made Him (Christ) to be sin for us, Who knew
no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."

And if that were not enough to convince any of us that God loves us sinners, His Son certainly said it best of all:

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but
have everlasting life."

Yet, being a Christian means much more than just saying "I believe in the Lord." The Christian life is a committed life. It means that if I trust Him to be my Saviour, I will also trust Him to be my Lord. And this what I hope to explore in my next entry. Until then, remember, there is hope.