The Most Impossible Thing

Jan 25, 2013 | Faith

impossibleThere is something to be said about asking. When we ask for something, we put ourselves in a vulnerable place, because the answer to the request may be a “No.” The aftermath of that answer may send us to a whirlwind of disappointment and hurt, and at the next occasion, we may ask a little more timidly or refrain from it altogether.

It is a fearful thing to ask. But asking is also the key that unlocks an entirely exciting reality that we may never experience otherwise.

The cool thing about asking is that we may actually get what we ask for.

To the Christian, the fear of asking presents a big problem in the spiritual journey. God tells His followers to ask Him for things. “Ask, and you will receive,” He said. But the simplicity of that statement is problematic to the modern, skeptical, and cynical person. Is He really going to give me what I ask for? Even after we fulfill the “requirements” of answered prayers, like being aligned with God’s specific promise, having a pure motive, being thankful, asking for a good thing, etc., we still doubt if perhaps, maybe, possibly God is too busy for our tiny little requests (humility? Or distrust?). If we ask too much, it will be impossible for God to answer it.

Well, the fear of asking will get in the way of intimacy. How can we be close to anyone if we doubt whether he/she wants the best for us?

I believe there is a way to overcome this fear of asking, and it is this: God has done the most impossible thing. For you. For me.

Think of the most unlikely thing, the most miraculous happening that you want to happen. God has already exceeded that.

The most impossible thing that God has done is to forgive our sins, to save a sinner from death to eternal life. Everything else pales in comparison to that. How can we grasp the impossibility of someone who sins and is condemned to death, but doesn’t have to die? Instead, he can still have eternal life as if he never sinned.

Think of the most outrageous request that you have timidly requested to God. What is that request compared to salvation? All of our outrageous requests combined cannot compare to salvation.

When Jacob returned to Canaan and was at the brink of reuniting with his twin brother, Esau, he was trembling with fear. Last time Jacob saw Esau, Esau wanted to kill him because he had stolen something precious. The weight of that sin was heavy on Jacob. But after a night of wrestling with God and after being assured of forgiveness from God, “Jacob no longer feared to meet his brother. God, who had forgiven his sin, could move the heart of Esau also to accept his humiliation and repentance.” Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 198.

Ever asked for God to change someone’s heart? Sounds pretty impossible, doesn’t it? Yet it is less impossible than the forgiveness of sin.

So, never ask for ‘impossible’ things, because it is easy for God to fulfill it. “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” Romans 8:32

Ask. Boldly, courageously, obnoxiously. Like a (trusting) spoiled brat to a doting father. Show Him that you actually trust Him.

The View From My Neighbor’s Shoes

Jan 15, 2013 | Faith

Isn’t is a wonder that it doesn’t take 20/20 vision, glasses, or contact lenses to notice the tiny faults in other people? Out of all the faults ever existed in the universe, the hardest ones to see are my own.

boots

There’s this really wise saying that asks a cute question, Why do you worry at the speck in your friend’s eye, while there’s a log in your own eye? It’s a good question, wouldn’t you say? Consider the irony of the person who has the log in his eye offering help to remove the speck in the other person’s eye. (Sounds familiar, anyone?) Naturally, the counsel goes something like this, Why don’t you first remove the log in your eye, then you can see clearer to deal with the speck. (Duh!)

A story was told of a king, a generally good one, who did something terrible. (Yes, normal, good people can do terrible things.) He got hooked on a lady, and he took her to his chamber. Problem was, she was married. To one of his captains no less.

To make matters worse, she got pregnant. So to hide his deeds, the king called the captain home from the battlefield and told him to rest and go home to his wife. But the good man refused, because he felt wrong being home while his compatriots fought in war. So the king arranged that the captain returned to the forefront of the battle, to essentially ensure his death. Terrible, I know.

In came a trusted advisor of the king, the Rebuker. He told the king a tale of a rich man and a poor man. The rich man owned many sheep and cattle, but the poor one, only a little lamb, which he took care tenderly over the years. One day the rich man decided to party, and instead of taking one of his flocks, he went to the poor man, took his lamb, and killed it for his feast.

The king was outraged by this injustice. He said, “That rich man deserved to die!”

The Rebuker’s next words must be really piercing. He said to the king, “You are that man.”

At the end of the story, the king was in horror when he realized what he did, who he was. But the interesting thing was his end was better than the ending he would have given to the rich man in the story; he was ready to kill the rich man.

Isn’t it a wonder that we can be harsher to others’ faults when we are blinded by our own? It really is a good idea to remove the log in our eyes first, before we deal with others’ specks. Perhaps a few of us really need to be good surgeons to help remove those specks. But what likely would happen is, when we remove the log in our eyes, the specks disappear too.

The Education of Jesus Christ

The Education of Jesus Christ

Nov 30, 2012 | Faith

Few events in the Bible were as pivotal as the moment humanity first chose to disobey God. I don’t think it’s possible to sufficiently describe the weight of the decision to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. That single decision ultimately turned the universe around. Because of that decision, God the Son came down to earth, became flesh, died as a human being, and would remain a human being forever. That one decision brought a change in the Godhead.

 

One decision changed everything. But since “everything” is so nondescript, it would be useful to focus on one particular change that sin caused. In the book Education, writer Ellen G. White wrote:

Adam and Eve had chosen the knowledge of evil, and if they ever regained the position they had lost they must regain it under the unfavorable conditions they had brought upon themselves. No longer were they to dwell in Eden, for in its perfection it could not teach them the lessons which it was now essential for them to learn. In unutterable sadness they bade farewell to their beautiful surroundings and went forth to dwell upon the earth, where rested the curse of sin. (Emphasis mine)

 

It says that because Adam and Eve chose to sin, they brought upon themselves an unfavorable condition. This condition was not purposeless, however, since it was a means through which they could regain their first position.

 

The second sentence contains what is, for me, a truly groundbreaking concept. It says that because of sin, the perfection of Eden could not teach them the lessons they needed to learn anymore. Is there anything better than perfect?

 

The Ideal Classroom

When I think of the ideal classroom to learn and to study, I naturally think of a perfect environment. By perfect I mean in its totality. No evil, no violence, no suffering, nothing negative at all. In other words, it is something like Eden. Yet in God’s estimation, this perfect place was not suited anymore for the education of Adam and Eve. Perfect wouldn’t do any longer because they sinned, and with sin came a whole nature that was incompatible with how God and the sinless worlds operated.

 

That decision to disobey God was more than just a wrongful deed. It transformed the entire nature of how we, human beings, learned. The whole mechanism for us to go from not knowing to knowing, unlearned to learned, changed. Before sin, a perfect environment like Eden was the ideal venue for learning. But that perfection became unfitted for sinful men.

 

But couldn’t we see the truth in that statement? Don’t we say this a lot: suffering, struggles, and failures teach us the most? Yes, happy moments teach us too, but when it comes to an accelerated track to learning and gaining wisdom, we get our curriculum from the school of suffering.

 

And so Adam and Eve moved to dwell on earth, which by implication was now the fitted classroom to their sinful nature. God seemed to have a lesson for them, for humanity to learn, and He was adamant that this lesson was learned. Before sin, Eden’s perfection was the means to learning this lesson. But as a Good Teacher, He didn’t impose the same method categorically. When His students changed, He too changed His classroom, His approach.

 

The Education of Jesus Christ

Given this backdrop, ponder with me the import of this verse in Hebrews:

“Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.” Hebrews 5:8.

Jesus Christ learned through suffering.

 

First, Jesus Christ learned. “Though he were a Son,” the Omniscient God the Son, he learned. When Jesus put on the garb of humanity, He did not access that omniscience. Instead, He humbled himself to not know everything, and after a season of time, to learn and know them, just like we all do.

 

Second, the way that He learned, in particular the lesson of obedience (the lesson that God wanted Adam and Eve to learn in the beginning), was through the things that he suffered.

word_education

 

Here’s the marvelous thing. Because Jesus did not sin, He did not have to get on this education track that required suffering as textbooks. He was perfect. In other words, perfection like the one in Eden was the ideal classroom for Him to learn.

 

But when Jesus came down to earth and put on the garb of humanity, He set aside that first education track and adopted the one that we, sinful human beings, had to be on. Why? Hebrews 5:9 says, “And being made perfect,” through obedience, and before that, through suffering, “he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.” He did this so that we could obey and follow His example.

 

O to marvel at the incarnation of Christ…

—

All the world’s a classroom is my personal slogan. But such is the nature of this classroom: glorious at times and horrendous at others. Its history has bright and dark periods, and noble and despicable characters in it. But in the divine arrangement, this is to be so for now so that I can learn what I need to learn, until one day, I can transfer to the heavenly classroom. On that one day, I will be changed, so that I will not have to learn through suffering anymore.

 

Yet even more beautiful is the fact that God himself joined me in this imperfect classroom and went through the education that I have to go through, at the very least, so that I know that he is a High Priest that can “be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” (Hebrews 4:15) What a marvelous God.

 

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren. Hebrews 2:9-11

Terms and Conditions - Privacy Policy