The Sun That Melts The Butter Hardens The Clay

We must never forget our Maker and that we are just clay in the Great Potter's hands to use us for His purposes--God will fulfill His purpose for you, with or without your cooperation because He is sovereign and is Lord of all, whether we accept it or not; it is just a matter of our enjoyment and glorification that matters. "...as I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand" (Isaiah 14:24).  We are always to be prepared to meet our Maker says Amos 4:12.  God doesn't have a Plan B or other emergency exit, backup strategy, or alternate route to take--it's up to us!

We must never forget that adversity, suffering, testing, tribulation, heartbreak, ordeals, tragedy, crisis,  trouble, and trials will come to all believers and Christ didn't even exempt himself from them!   Our crosses pale in comparison to His!  He is our exemplar and we need to bear the cross and follow Jesus as part of what we signed up for.  It is our crucible and God knows as Job says, "The LORD knows that way that I take when He has tried me I shall come forth as gold."  God never promised us a bed of roses and we must acknowledge that without a cross there is no crown.  If we have a "why?" to our suffering and see Jesus with us, we can bear almost anything!  There is a place for negative stress, even a psychiatrist will admit that--if we have an easy life we become soft.  Don't pray for an easy going life, but to be made strong!  "Been there, done that!"  Knowing the "why," we can bear any "how."

It is the crises of our daily grind that molds our character to become more Christlike and God does it for our own good, as a parent disciplines a child he loves.  God has good intentions: "Behold, the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope"  (Jer. 29:11, ESV).  Some of us learn only from the school of hard knocks, while the wisest ones learn from Scripture and take God at His Word.  We don't want to learn life's lessons the hard way.  It is pruning and not a punishment that God uses to develop our character. God punished Jesus for our sins, and we are not punished for them too.  (It has been said that experience is what happens in you, not to you.)  Suffering is par for the course.

We have a will to exercise according to our desires at the moment, but God is in charge of the circumstances.  God made our natures that sanguine, melancholy, impetuous, impulsive, introverted, happy-go-lucky, ad infinitum, and we act accordingly. We are not the captains of our souls nor the masters of our fate. God knows how to manipulate and orchestrate events to get His will done and can change our minds; for instance, it may have been your notion to never get married, but you discovered God had other plans!   If a man can change a ladies mind, certainly God can.  "I do not like crises, but I like the opportunities they afford"  (Lord Reith).

The flip side of butter being melted by the same sun is being hardened like clay.  We can become bitter or better as they say.  Habakkuk experienced the worst of experiences when he seemed to have lost all but made a hymn to the joy that he still had God and if we have Him we have all we really need--sometimes we have to get to the end of ourselves or lose everything to discover this:  "Behold the goodness and severity of God" (cf. Rom. 11:22).   His confession was simply:  "Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation" (Hab. 3:18).  Note that God reserves the right to have mercy on whom He will have mercy and to harden [i.e., judicial hardening] whom He will harden (cf. Rom. 9:18).  Remember what God did to Pharaoh and know that God can do the same today.

God is in control of the hearts of kings to make them do His will according to Proverbs 21:1 (ESV) which says:  "The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD, he turns it wherever he will."   God leaves nothing to chance--Albert Einstein noticed that "God doesn't play dice with the universe."  It is equally said that God doesn't leave one out of His control and that there is not one maverick molecule in the universe.  God doesn't just reign like the British monarch, but actually rules over all ("For kingship belongs to the LORD, and he rules over the nations," says Psalm 22:28 and in Isaiah 40 God says the nations are but a "drop in the bucket" to Him.)

Let me add that God works on us to the very end and doesn't give up, we are always a work in progress and won't be glorified in this life, which is only a training ground, a test station, or proving grounds for glory.  You may ask the silversmith when he is done refining the silver:  when he sees himself in it!   The sculptor takes away everything that doesn't look like his subject--his icons!   Soli Deo Gloria!

Time To Weep...

As Ecclesiastes 3:4 says:  "A time to weep, a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance."
"...to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion--to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit [a spirit of heaviness]..." (Isaiah 61:2-3, ESV).  PLEASE  READ ON!

God works everything according to His timetable, "...for he hath made everything beautiful in its time" (Eccles. 3:11); also, "There is a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven" (Eccles. 3:1, NLT).  We must not question Him:  Job 12:13 (ESV) says, "With God are wisdom and might; he has counsel and understanding [His wisdom is profound, His power is great]."  And  King Nebuchadnezzar says:  "...none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What hast thou done?" (Daniel 4:35).   We wouldn't do any better of a job running the cosmos as God, who is still at work micromanaging the time-space continuum with all its matter and energy--there is not even one maverick molecule that escapes His sovereignty, and nothing surprises Him that He has to revert to Plan B. 

One reason we have trials, tribulations, suffering, and adversity or calamity is to show what we are made of--Christ didn't even exempt Himself because it's part of the required curriculum of life (Reality 101) and everyone should experience it.  It doesn't show what they were made of but what you are made of.  The same sun hardens the clay melts the butter.  Experience is not always just what happens to you, but what you do with it--what happens in you.   God is determined to make us in Christ's image.  When does a silversmith know when he is done polishing;  when he can see himself in the silver!  When asked a sculptor how he could make a horse out of a rock, he said he simply takes away everything that doesn't look like a horse!  Michelangelo found a rock of granite that had been rejected by other artists as useless and formed the statue of David out of it.

Therefore, God can make something out of nobodies and uses common people to accomplish His purposes just as readily as anybody else.  It follows that we are works in progress and must keep in mind that He will not give up till He is finished with us:  "He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion..." (Phil. 1:6).  Remember that God isn't finished with us yet and no one has arrived:  "I have seen a limit to all perfection" (Psalm 119:96); "Let him who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall" (1 Cor. 10:12); also, "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended..." (Phil. 3:13).

I postulate that God is the"...Father of all mercies and the God of comfort..." (2 Cor. 1:3).  God's in the "comfort business" so be comforters!  That's why Paul says, "Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep" (Rom. 12:15, ESV). He wants us to have empathy and that means putting ourselves in their shoes.  We find out what we are made of and not what kind of people they are by our experience.  He comforts us so we can return the gesture to others in their bereavement in kind.

Mourning is a therapeutic thing to do for coping with tragedy and death (it is not escapism or a sign of weakness) and all of must get the closure sufficient to readjust and carry on.  For instance, in the military, they practically force you to go on emergency leave when your next-of-kin passes on, because they don't want you to be maladjusted and have emotional problems later coming on.  You cannot predict a moment of breakdown into tears and sorrow.  When Jesus wept I'm sure He was taken aback Himself and didn't anticipate it.  A person may go to a funeral and seem unmoved, but it will sooner or later hit him and he will pay the piper as it were.

Rest in faith and be assured that God has a purpose for everything He does:  "The LORD has made everything for his own purposes, even the wicked for punishment"  (Prov. 16:4, NLT).   Jesus had to get "acquainted with grief" and weep for Lazarus to be in the position to identify with our sorrows. "He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" according to Isaiah 53:3.

It is not appropriate to have a spirit of levity, or jest at funerals for the sake of humor (we don't want a comedian there to change the mood, for instance) but to feel their loss and comfort them in their bereavement.  We console them and not make light of it if we can relate to them at all.  Humor should be appropriate:  I have seen much laughing going on at funerals, which isn't wrong per se; there is a place for holy humor, but we shouldn't get carried away and put it into its place (if something funny happened in his life, that's different) and not let it disturb the spirit--that's why we attend funerals with our condolences:  Solomon says that "it is better to go to the house of mourning than the house of feasting [mirth]" ( Ecclesiastes 7:2).

Somehow it seems that we are closer to God in our tears than in our laughter for Jesus said, "Woe to you who laugh [inappropriately] now, for you shall weep" (Luke 6:35).  "Even in laughter the heart may ache, and the end of joy may be grief" (Prov. 14:13).   It is harder and better to make someone cry than to laugh;  anyone can tell a joke:  "Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad"  (Eccles. 7:3).

Funerals are a necessary ingredient to the healing process whereby we get closure and reach a conclusion about the matter and can go on living, having learned something from it--they are to console the survivors and not to judge the deceased.  Like God said of Abel's blood, that it spoke, though he was dead ("And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks," from Heb.11:4b, ESV), every person that dies has a story to tell and we have something to glean and relate to--our chance to get to know them from people that did.  The concept of putting ourselves in their shoes and empathizing, and trying to say their message as they would tell it if they were with us, is quite a gift and part of the grace we can give others from our learning experiences or wisdom.  We may experience the gamut of emotion and show transition from tears to joy and even laughter!  We must all say our goodbye's and go on living and know that we have done all we could have done and have no regrets,  (we must acknowledge that it's over and we must go on)--not blaming ourselves and develop guilt that could scar us, for instance.

We don't want to be inappropriate but supportive in our fellowship with the mourners, and reassure them that Christ came to "comfort those who mourn in Zion" (cf. Isa. 61:1).  When we grow strong from our afflictions, we can testify with Paul:  "But none of these things move me..." (Acts 20:24, KJV).  Soli Deo Gloria!

Father-filtered Tragedy

"We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22).
"Consider it a great joy, my brothers, whenever you enter various trials"  (James 1:2).


DISCLAIMER:  I DO NOT CLAIM TO HAVE A COMPLETE ANSWER TO MAN'S SUFFERING, IN FACT, NO ONE, NOR ANY RELIGION, DOES.

Good quotes:
Lord Reith said, "I do not like crises, but I do like the opportunities they provide."
"Within every adversity there lies a possibility" (Robert Schuller).

Jesus never said we'd be exempt from evil or tragedy in our lives; he didn't exempt himself, did He?
Suffering, trials, temptations, adversity, and discipline inevitably comes to all believers in Christ as part of our pruning and maturing process.  What good would an untried faith be?  Some people get mad at God and blame Him when something bad happens:  remember Job's wife who told him to "curse God and die" after losing all ten of his progeny.  "Should we accept good from God, and not trouble."  Nothing happens to us without God's sovereign permission; he is just using the devil as the instrumental means to accomplish his greater glory.  We can be assured that God will not bring into our lives anything that we cannot handle; he just trusts some more than others!

What happens to us reveals what kind of person we really are; the same sun melts the butter, hardens the clay!  It's not so much about what happens to you as to what happens in you.  Our experience is a combo of this interaction and what we learned in the so-called school of hard knocks.  Notice that we hear about tragedy around the world and never people cursing God on the media--they are usually humbled and realize that without danger there would be no courage.  We shouldn't say, "How can God be so mean?"  "No one can  stay His hand or say to Him, 'What are you doing?'"

Our reaction says more about us than about God.  You either become bitter or better in the tragedy they call life or Reality 101. It's not what happens to you, but in you!   Don't you want to find out what you are made of and more importantly, who your friends are?  Charlie Riggs says that adversity builds character and Christlikeness.  Our crosses to bear are nothing compared to His!  We are compared to silver refined in a crucible.  If we know the why of our suffering we can endure almost any how, said Viktor Frankl, the Viennese Psychiatrist captured and tortured by the Nazis.

So why do bad things happen to good (There are no good people!) people [A more appropriate question would be:  Why do good things happen to bad people?]?  Good also happens to bad people! Who's to say how much is too much or decide what is fair; God is the judge of what is fair, and He is our judge, and we not His.   "The He knows the way that I take; when He has tried me I shall come forth as gold," says Job 23:10.  God never promised us a bed or roses or a rose garden either.  However, we can rest assured of the promise:  "All things work together for good, to them that love God...."  As the crucifixion proved, God is able to make the most diabolical of events turn out for the good (e.g., Acts 2:23; 4:28).

It might be helpful to realize that if you are suffering it might be so that others won't have to, and if you aren't, it's because others have!  "We rejoice in our suffering..." (Rom. 5:3).  I like Philippians 1:29 to sum things up:  "For it has been granted unto you, not only to believe in Him, but to suffer for His sake."

Pertinent are two verses relating to God as the sole primary cause of the cosmos and using agents to accomplish His will in a voluntary manner:  Amos 3:6; Isaiah 45:7, and if one studies Job he will realize that evil from Satan must get permission from the Father--N.B. that God didn't answer Job's questions, but revealed Himself to him to humble him; God doesn't have to answer to man.  Soli Deo Gloria!

Checking Out The Spirit

We should always be suspicious of hyper-spirituality and so-called hyper-charismatic phenomena. Piety has its place but not to be paraded before man and to be "holier-than-thou" (Isaiah 65:5). There is the real thing out there, so there is also the counterfeit of the devil.  You can be a spiritual person without being very "religious" (expressing religiosity) at all.  The simpler your faith the better off you are--make things simple, but not more than necessary, Einstein said.

The big issue today in charismatic circles is whether one has the "baptism."  1 Cor. 12:13 says "By one Spirit we were all baptized into the body."  Baptism of the Holy Spirit takes place at salvation--that settles it!  Nowhere are we exhorted to "seek the baptism." This is a false dogma of the Neo-Pentecostal movement. There is no second work of grace to expect--they are going by experience, not Scripture.

The filling of the Spirit is another story:  It is always accompanying some ministry that the Holy Spirit has appointed to be accomplished by His power. The fillings are not permanent, but for a purpose and empower the believer for service that he couldn't accomplish alone.  When Paul was saved they told him to "be filled with the Holy Spirit."  To be filled by the Spirit for a task is to be controlled and led by God's will.  Like when the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit and "spoke the Word of God with boldness."  I believe that when the Word says that the Spirit "fell on them" that it is basically the same thing.

Fillings are the result of obedience and in the service of God and doing His will, often in the context of one's spiritual gift.  No gift or fruit of the Spirit is solely for one's own benefit, but for the body's sake--they are predominately manifested in the realm of Christian service.  It is crucial to realize that it is not how much of the Spirit you have, but how much of you the Spirit has.  In other words, the degree or amount of filling depends upon our yielding to God.  It is not like Elisha getting twice the spirit of Elijah.  We all have the measure of the indwelling Spirit.

Paul exhorts the Ephesians to "be filled with the Holy Spirit."  This does not refer to a perpetual "high" on Jesus or walking in the glow of some experience.  Paul goes on to describe basic speaking manifestations--presumably to take place at the meeting of the church.  I believe that one is filled initially at salvation, but that he "leaks."  We can lose the filling and may need confession or restoration (Gal. 6:1; 1 John 1:9),  We need each other to edify and encourage each other.

"Walking in the Spirit" is another matter:  We demonstrate or exhibit the fruit of the Spirit when we are "walking in the Spirit" according to Gal. 5:16,25.  In the context of the fruit of the Spirit, he refers to "walking in the Spirit," and not filling of the Spirit.  There is overlap--they are not mutually exclusive.  It is hard to imagine a preacher, for instance, is filled with the Spirit, and not walking in the Spirit to show the fruit.  But it is easier to see one still walking in the Spirit, but not necessarily filled or anointed for his ministry or gift.

There is also the question of the anointing--also called unction.  In the Old Testament before the Spirit-filled every believer there were selective fillings and anointings, as well as seers and prophets (cf. Psalm 105:15).    1 John 2:20 says that all believers have the anointing.  There are no special believers out there who are infallible prophets or priests or preachers/teachers because they have received an anointing.  There is no Supreme Pontiff that has authority over all of us, so to speak.  The Pope is not the vicar of Christ on earth, but the Holy Spirit is.  The body works together in Christ and all parts are necessary.  We are not infallible and prone to error.  Even if our doctrine were impeccably correct, if we have not love we are nothing, God is more concerned about the condition of the heart than whether we are theologians--is it in the right place?

Being led (or guided) by the Spirit is a sign that we are sons of God (cf. Romans 8:14).  This refers to a direction in the Spirit of what to do or say, as if God were speaking through us or of something we can only attribute to God, such as writing a timely letter or knowing God's will and doing it so that God is glorified.  If we are not led by the Spirit, we are not sons of God.  Galatians 5:18 says that if we are led by the Spirit we are not under the Law. You may say, "I was inspired to do this," or "I did it at what seems a fortuitous deed."  Providence is at work because there are no impersonal forces such as luck, chance, fortune, or fate--God micromanages the universe.

We demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit as a result of obedience and in the service of God, doing His will, often in the context of our spiritual gift.  No gift or fruit of the Spirit is solely for our own benefit, but for the body's sake--they are predominately manifested in the realm of Christian service.

We could debate about what you call this or that and quibble about the meaning of words (cf. 1 Tim. 6:4), but this is unhealthy and unproductive.  God wants us to be of one accord in the Spirit (Eph. 4:3).  What is vital is not the names of things for our spiritual health but the state of our spirit and attitude.  It is God's will for us to be holy, for instance, not to debate whether we call it a filling or a walk.  God is much more practical (application is more stressed than theoretical knowledge) and less technical than that--it is like splitting hairs.  It is paramount to learn how to walk in the Spirit and how to be filled!   Soli Deo Gloria!