The Inevitable Penalty
Matthew 5:26 - "I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny."
There is no heaven that has a little corner of hell in it. God is determined to make you pure, holy, and right, and He will not allow you to escape from the scrutiny of the Holy Spirit for even one moment. He urged you to come to judgment immediately when He convicted you, but you did not obey. Then the inevitable process began to work, bringing its inevitable penalty. Now you have been "thrown into prison, [and] . . . you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny" (Mat_5:25-26) . Yet you ask, "Is this a God of mercy and love?" When seen from God's perspective, it is a glorious ministry of love. God is going to bring you out pure, spotless, and undefiled, but He wants you to recognize the nature you were exhibiting --- the nature of demanding your right to yourself. The moment you are willing for God to change your nature, His recreating forces will begin to work. And the moment you realize that God's purpose is to get you into the right relationship with Himself and then with others, He will reach to the very limits of the universe to help you take the right road. ...
When I read these phrases "God is determined to make you pure, holy, and right, and He will not allow you to escape from the scrutiny of the Holy Spirit for even one moment." And "God is going to bring you out pure, spotless, and undefiled, " I had this vision run through my mind. I saw "us humans" being dredged through the world of pain, hurt and yuckyness from the day we are born until the day we meet the Lord for the first time and give our lives to Him. In our time in the world we pick up all sorts of bad things, bad attitudes, thoughts, misunderstanding of who we are and who He is, not to mention all the things that have been done to us... abandonment, rejection and abuses of all kinds so we come to Him dirty, scraped, cut, broken and bruised as well as emotionally, spiritually and physically a mess...
So, dirty, grimy, broken and bruised we present our lives to Christ. The thing about this is that we don't really see what we truly look like and the condition we are in at this point but God does. We are just so happy to be with Him but He sees it ALL and He is filled with love and compassion for us like a mother who sees her lost child returned to her all dirty, hurt and scratched up. He knows all that it will take to clean us up and heal our wounds and it is because He loves us that he begins to wash us down, and scrub our wounds... knowing that it will hurt us, but also knowing that we need it in order to make us "pure, spotless, and undefiled". Then, as I watched God cleaning us up, I saw how much we complained and fought against Him, trying to pull away from Him because it didn't feel good when He scrubbed behind our ears or when His touch down right hurt us... especially when He touched those deep and painful wounds that needed special attention and care. If we don't see what God is really trying to do we will continue to pull away, like a hurt and frightened child, and not let him attend to us like He so longs to do. If we don't understand that He is making "right" what has gone "wrong" in our lives we may view Him as a mean parent and avoid Him and His ministry of Love to us. He so wants to embrace us and sanctify us but He will NOT force us to do this... we have to come to Him and allow Him to make these changes in our lives, clean us up and heal our wounds. It will not always look the way we think it will or feel the way we would like it to feel, but He is so very faithful, loving, kind, compassionate and so worthy of our trust.
This reminds me of a story in Ezekiel 16:4-6 "On the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths. No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised. 'Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, Live!"
Got wants us to "LIVE" and not just "survive" or "get by", He wants to scrub us clean and make us right, pure and holy so that He can embrace us and we can reflect Him in our lives and live for Him and His glory.
Father, I pray that we can see through Your eyes of love the things that you desire to "clean up" in our hearts and lives and allow you to do what you need to do without running away from you. Give us the strength and the courage to stand still, not fighting or resenting the job you need to do but willingly lay on the altar all the things that are not of you that need to be removed or healed. Thank you Lord that you love us so much despite the condition we are in when we come to you each and every day of our lives. Help us not to "demand our own rights to ourselves" but allow you to "reach to the very limits of the universe" to make us into the child you created us to be. In your precious and wonderful name Lord Jesus, Amen!
No comments:
Post a Comment