I said I was going to try to share with you a couple of the things I had the privilege both to learn and to be reminded of from this past weekend's conference with Elyse Fitzpatrick....and I thought I would share with you the first one today. Here is what she said:
"All of God's wrath at all of my sin has already been spent. It was poured out on Christ, His Son."
Read that over a couple of times!!! All of our sin...the sin we have already committed, the sin we presently are committing and the sin we will still commit until the day we die do not receive one moment of God's wrath and anger...not one moment!!! His wrath was poured out on the sinless Lamb, His own precious Son. God is not angry with you if you are a believer. You may reap the discipline of the Lord...we all do...but it is never out of anger or a "now you are going to get it" type of attitude. It is out of complete love for you. C.S. Lewis once said so brilliantly,
"We are halfhearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
And when we start thinking that the mud pies are great and our plan is what is best (or maybe we are truly wrestling with sin and not seeing it for as ugly as it is) the Lord steps in to discipline us. Not with angry words, fists in the air and a look that could kill...but by gently, yet firmly, gripping our hand and whispering in our ear, "Come, my child, come away with Me to the sea...to pleasure that you can only begin to comprehend...to a life of knowing and loving Me." Often the discipline hurts so badly, not because God is a mean and cruel God, but because we have held so tightly to our "mud pie" and the removal of that "mud pie" (IE idol) from our heart is truly painful as God beckons us and propels us on into Christ likeness.
I'll end, for now, with this testimony ( I read on Girltalk) of Debbie who lost her baby girl shortly after birth and penned these words:
We often think that all pain is bad and that it’s our goal to avoid it at all costs. It all hurts right now in an emotional way as a surgery to remove a large cancerous tumor would hurt physically. If we didn’t know what we were being saved from, the surgery would feel like trouble upon trouble… the incision, the bills, the recovery process… Yet, what a benefit the surgery would be: it would keep one from death; it would remove future pain; it would allow one to live life to the fullest. What’s going on in our lives at this time could be God’s way of doing surgery on our souls – we just can’t see what the pain is sparing us from or preparing us to do or how it will be used for the future. It’s all a matter of faith in a God who is faithful. A God who doesn’t allow pain for the sake of pain – but has a plan even for the pain that seems unnecessary. We just can’t see the work that He is inevitably doing beneath the surface. He’s allowing circumstances that if we could see the outcome of His plan – we would say, “Cut deeper.”
"All of God's wrath at all of my sin has already been spent. It was poured out on Christ, His Son."
Read that over a couple of times!!! All of our sin...the sin we have already committed, the sin we presently are committing and the sin we will still commit until the day we die do not receive one moment of God's wrath and anger...not one moment!!! His wrath was poured out on the sinless Lamb, His own precious Son. God is not angry with you if you are a believer. You may reap the discipline of the Lord...we all do...but it is never out of anger or a "now you are going to get it" type of attitude. It is out of complete love for you. C.S. Lewis once said so brilliantly,
"We are halfhearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
And when we start thinking that the mud pies are great and our plan is what is best (or maybe we are truly wrestling with sin and not seeing it for as ugly as it is) the Lord steps in to discipline us. Not with angry words, fists in the air and a look that could kill...but by gently, yet firmly, gripping our hand and whispering in our ear, "Come, my child, come away with Me to the sea...to pleasure that you can only begin to comprehend...to a life of knowing and loving Me." Often the discipline hurts so badly, not because God is a mean and cruel God, but because we have held so tightly to our "mud pie" and the removal of that "mud pie" (IE idol) from our heart is truly painful as God beckons us and propels us on into Christ likeness.
I'll end, for now, with this testimony ( I read on Girltalk) of Debbie who lost her baby girl shortly after birth and penned these words:
We often think that all pain is bad and that it’s our goal to avoid it at all costs. It all hurts right now in an emotional way as a surgery to remove a large cancerous tumor would hurt physically. If we didn’t know what we were being saved from, the surgery would feel like trouble upon trouble… the incision, the bills, the recovery process… Yet, what a benefit the surgery would be: it would keep one from death; it would remove future pain; it would allow one to live life to the fullest. What’s going on in our lives at this time could be God’s way of doing surgery on our souls – we just can’t see what the pain is sparing us from or preparing us to do or how it will be used for the future. It’s all a matter of faith in a God who is faithful. A God who doesn’t allow pain for the sake of pain – but has a plan even for the pain that seems unnecessary. We just can’t see the work that He is inevitably doing beneath the surface. He’s allowing circumstances that if we could see the outcome of His plan – we would say, “Cut deeper.”
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