Relationship with God

Answering objections to serving God

Overcoming, Relationship with God / Tom Stuart

There is a strange dichotomy when it comes to serving God. We want to serve Him, but often it is on our terms and not His. We want to be used by God and would love to distinguish ourselves by doing something great for Him. But our desire is often based on our own idea of how we can best serve Him and what we think we have to offer Him.

God however does not choose us to serve Him based on our desire nor our self estimation of our usefulness to Him. In fact to the contrary, God usually chooses us when we are least likely to want to do it and are feeling totally inadequate and unqualified to do it.

Moses is the poster child for this dichotomy. As a young man he set out in his own strength and timing to be God’s man of faith and power to deliver the Israelites from Egyptians. His ill conceived plan backfired on him and he ended up fleeing for his life. Ironically it took forty years of desert exile to divest him of all spiritual ambition in order that God could finally use him.

When God interrupted Moses’ comfortable life with the burning bush and called him to return to Egypt Moses balked. “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” he protested. (Exodus 3:11) This was just the first of four major excuses that Moses sought to use to wiggle out of God’s call to use him. God’s responses to these objections give us insight into what serving God is really all about.

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Putting a stop to nagging religious guilt!

Overcoming, Relationship with God / Tom Stuart

“For I do not do the good I want to do … “ Romans 7:19

Religious guilt is like a tooth ache that has no cure. There are different types of guilt. Most guilt is good in the sense that it is motivated and empowered by the conviction of the Holy Spirit. It is resolvable. It leads us to repentance, change and ultimately spiritual life. Jesus’ offer of forgiveness and the cleansing from all unrighteousness through the confession of our sins is a hope-filled promise. (1 John 1:9)

What I have chosen to call religious guilt is not as easily resolved. It is a guilt that masquerades as a call to holiness and righteousness but in reality is a lure to religious bondage and the seeking of righteousness by works rather than by faith. This type of guilt is a hard task master. Rather than offering hope it enslaves people in frustration and discouragement.

Religious guilt is unique in that it typically stalks people who love God and want to please Him. It is a guilt that is best categorized as relating to sins of omission rather than sins of commission. Sins of omission are failing to do those things that one can and ought to do

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5 ways God makes us holy

1 Comment / Relationship with God / Tom Stuart

“Discipline…produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” Hebrews 12:11

Does a loving God spank His kids? You bet! It is the last resort of a discipline process He uses to conform us to the image of His Son. Spanking is just one of five basic means God uses to communicate to us what is right and wrong, the consequences of our choices and how to get right with Him. All His means of discipline are motivated by His love for us. He wants to protect us from harm and prepare us for faithful service, but ultimately His purpose is to make us holy. “God (disciplines) us for our good in order that we may share in His holiness.” (Hebrews 12:10)

Here are the five basic ways that God disciplines and trains us in holiness.

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Why God can trust you with the keys

Relationship with God / Tom Stuart

“My son, do not reject the discipline of the Lord . . . for whom the Lord loves He reproves.” Proverbs 3:11-12

Can God trust you with the keys to His car? It all depends on how well you have responded to His discipline in your life.

In a recent post I established the fact that God’s discipline in our lives is an expression of His love. (A revelation of discipline and love) Since that is true, how then do we recognize His discipline and come to embrace it with an obedient response?

The goal of God’s discipline is to conform us to the image of His son, Jesus Christ. That transformation process is meant to move us from a self-centered lifestyle to a Spirit-controlled life. The Holy Spirit, as the Third Person of the Trinity, is the transformation agent who implements Jesus’ will and Lordship in our lives.

It is helpful in understanding God’s discipline to consider why and how a good parent disciplines their children. If you think about it, a parent’s discipline of their child stems from their loving care and a desire for their well-being. Good parenting essentially expresses itself in protecting a child from harm and equipping them to live productive lives. As a child matures into a young adult, parents exercise less external control as the child learns the internal governance of self-control. The test of a parent’s success and rite of passage for their son or daughter is handing them the keys to the family car.

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A revelation of discipline and love

2 Comments / Relationship with God / Tom Stuart

“The Lord disciplines those He loves.” Hebrews 12:6

Most people do not like the word discipline. It typically carries with it a negative connotation when it represents the imposition of someone else’s will upon ours. By nature we love our independent self-willed ways. All of us were first introduced to discipline through various methods of parental discipline and then later learned more about discipline in kindergarten and elementary school. For most it was a mixture of good and bad experiences. Sadly for some it was all bad.

Years ago we were counseling with a woman who had been raised in an abusive, authoritarian environment. The enforcement of discipline in her life had been harsh and unloving, inconsistent and often unjust. Having become a Christian in her early twenties she was struggling greatly with the whole concept of God’s discipline in our lives.

I will never forget our meeting with her when the Lord graciously opened her mind and heart to see that His discipline is equated with His love. As we were praying for her, the Lord began to heal her of all the bitter past experiences of ungodly discipline. And then suddenly she erupted with joy and laughter. The divine revelation of God’s love had permeated her being and she saw for the first time that His discipline in her life was the seal of His love for her. Oh the joy!

One of the misbeliefs that the young woman had about discipline is that she equated it solely with punishment. But in an instant she saw that God’s discipline is much more than the meting out of consequences for misbehavior. She realized that it is the transformational process that God uses to fashion His children into the image and like-ness of Jesus His son. (Colossians 1:28 & Hebrews 12:10) Correction is just one aspect of God’s involvement in producing righteousness in our lives.

Divine discipline is best characterized by the word discipleship.

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