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Tuesday, September 23, 2014

My Musings


This is not the usual post, but I felt it would be a blessing to someone if I shared. Just some thoughts from my morning devotion. 
                                 My Musings
Rom. 8: 32 “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”

While in my morning musings I consider the passage of scripture above and began to wonder at the depth of its richness. To truly understand the depth of the love with which God has loved us; in that HE gave Christ, whom He loves supremely, that we might have opened to us the great way of salvation; and that it should be given to us that all other things have been made available to us as well.

In this same vein, consider these words from George McDonald, “Man finds it hard to get what he wants because he does not want what is best. God finds it hard to give because he would give the best, and man will not take it. What Jesus did was what the Father is always doing. The suffering he endured was that of the Father from the foundation of the world, reaching its climax in the person of His son.”

But for my thoughts, let me consider mainly, the words which state, “Man finds it hard to get what he wants because he does not want what is best. God finds it hard to give because he would give the best, and man will not take it.”

As I considered my own state of being I could see this parallel so clearly: it is the human condition. Take for instance the question of health and fitness.  I take note of my own condition and I see, that my cholesterol is high, my weight is up and my cardio vascular health is waning. Yet even while I take pain medication for aches in my head, shoulder and back, I have consumed a high fat, high carb meal, and have set sedentary for most of the day.

Even as I lament my declining health, I have not only done nothing to alleviate the problem, but have instead actively added to it.  I see this not as special, but normal, regular, almost expected in the course and culture in which I live.  While in my deepest of hearts I truly long to be lean healthy and strong, but in the weakness of my flesh I do nothing more than wish. I do not plan. I do not act. I do not change.

The same is true of my spiritual walk. In my heart of hearts I truly want to walk in the fullness of light and life as provided by God’s grace. And even as I pray and ask God to change me, to make me over in the image and likeness of His son, Jesus, I find that I do nothing to make those changes mine: to realize them in my life.

Like with my physical fitness, I make excuse after excuse for my not making the necessary changes to see my goal realized, I also do not the needed things to see my spiritual man come alive in life and power.

In this I am reminded of what the Apostle Paul said in Rom. 8:32: “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” If God has given me Jesus and with HIM everything else needful of my walk in grace, then the problem, the hindrance must be in me.  Not just in that I am weak in the flesh and deluded by sin, but rather that I have purposefully chosen – just as surely as I have chosen to not do anything about my physical state of being – to do nothing about my spiritual state of being, and in doing so have chosen to not truly believe God; to not take Him at His word.

In this is the truth as written by George McDonald realized in me, “Man(Ray) finds it hard to get what he wants because he does not want what is best. God finds it hard to give because he would give the best, and man(Ray) will not take it.”

So now I have declared my musing and see them all the clearer for having written them down. However the question remains, not that I have understood them, not even in my knowing them to be true, but rather am I willing to first believe God at His word, and secondly then to do what I know to be right. In essence do I want what is best?