Hey fellas,
I first want to apologize to yall for letting this slide for a while. While it isn't an excuse, I got pretty sick a few weeks ago which put me out for a little while and threw off my routines.
Anyways, that is in the past and while some of you may not be super excited to continue with this during dead week and finals, I think we should really consider how beneficial this can be in a time where it is easy to let our stress elevate school to our number 1 priority and leave out listening to God's word and praying (and I'm talking real, deep prayer, not the "holy crap I'm about to fail...God help me remember all of this" because that is not much of a deep intimate conversation). My point is that it will be very easy to stop the routines that we have developed during the semester as soon as classes start ending and finals and summer begins, but does that mean that we then sit in front of the tv all day or do other things and completely forget about our Bible reading and quiet time? Just because there is change in our lives, does that make God any different or any less worthy of our time and praise since he is still the all powerful creator of the universe? While we may change, He is unchanging.
One of my original goals with this was to help us aid in the development of beneficial lifelong habits of daily Bible reading and reflection that continues beyond the routines of just one semester so that we can see the joy in this and work to incorporate this into our lives for years to come. And yes, there may be changes that we need to make to have this be a more effective tool to aid in this process and keep us accountable, but that's why we're open to try new things with this because the main goal is for us to be staying in God's word and have others keeping us accountable to this.
Along these same lines, I'm really glad that this Proverb showed up this morning because I think it is so telling of the Lord's impact and the work that he is doing through us as he is the one with all of the power and who "establishes our steps."
"The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps." (Proverbs 16:9 ESV)
So anyways, that may have been a little long winded, but now I really want to talk about 2 Thessalonians 2.
The passage that really stood out to me was the very end.
Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word. (2 Thessalonians 2:16, 17 ESV)
While there were many difficult topics discussed in these verses. I enjoyed that it ended this way with a reminder of God's love, comfort, and hope previously and a request. The request begins as one of comfort, but not our typical material comfort or financial comfort or physical comfort that we all too often long for but one that is greater and more satisfying, a comfort of the heart. This is what we so often desire and try to quench it through other means. No matter the situation or the difficulty, God has the power to comfort the heart and give us peace when we rest in him and therefore are no longer reliant on things of this world. In then goes on to request not only this comfort that God is fully capable to provide, but when this happens for us to be established for good works and word. We desire both the peace and comfort that comes from him and then to go forth to do good works in love and show and tell the word of God. When our hearts are rooted in him, we desire this, and He is a generous God who can equip us in these ways as His people.
The last thing that I want to leave you with is a short but powerful passage that I read yesterday. It may help to take a little time to reflect on these words as they have made me think a lot.
http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/people-do-not-drift-toward-holiness
Thanks for your words, Marcus. I agree with you that the last verses of the chapter are most encouraging. Comfort is an interesting concept to me because it exists in so many different forms: comfort food, the comfort of another person, the comfort of a blanket on a rainy day, just to name a few. Does the comfort of the Lord encompass all of these? Perhaps; it depends how we look at it. I see all of these forms of comfort as reflecting some type of protection or soothing of our soul in a situation in which we might otherwise be vulnerable. God is the ultimate soother of our souls and protector of His children.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, I don't personally jive with the ideas in the Desiring God blogpost (the quote by Carson). Sometimes we all drift to and fro, but I don't think that it's inevitably toward evil/lawlessness, like the beginning of this chapter. There are times even recently when I have felt adrift and the Lord has used people and circumstances to move me closer in line with His will. I do think we need to work "hard," but that kind of work does not have a uniform appearance IMO.
Those are my thoughts. May He hold all of us in His hands.
I completely agree with you on that. I don't believe that we are always drifting the wrong way because I believe God works in many and often brings us in closer even when we are drifting rather than making an effort. The part that I especially liked about it is the way that it describes how we often rationalize this drifting away. I think this is especially apparent in ways where sin is very common place in society and then we start to rationalize that sin or compare our sin to the sins of others. Another one that I especially enjoyed was the perspective of disobedience that we call freedom. I think these comparisons can be very telling and convicting about often downplay our sin and our drifting away from God. Just what I saw in it, but I do agree with you that there is much more at work in our lives than just a drift toward sin if we aren't stopping it.
DeleteI like your point about rationalization. I hadn't thought about it that way.
ReplyDelete