Purpose

This blog focuses on the quest to know and please God in a constantly increasing way. The upward journey never ends. My prayer is that this blog will reflect a heart that seeks God and that it will encourage others who share the same heart desire.

Saturday, January 10, 2015

God's Priorities

"Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison." II Corinthians 4:16-17 (all verses NASB)

"Concerning this [thorn in the flesh] I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.' Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecution, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong." II Corinthians 12:8-10

"Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. and let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." James 1:2-4

"In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." I Peter 1:6-7

God's priorities are often not the same as man's priorities. This is particularly clear in the area of trials. Christians do face trials; there is no question of that. In the midst of those health problems, family problems, relationship issues, financial struggles, employment challenges, and so forth, man tends to focus on wanting to be delivered. He wants the difficulty to be fixed.

The verses above describe the trials of life in these terms: "our outer man is decaying," "affliction," "thorn in the flesh," "weakness, . . . insults, . . . distresses, . . . persecution, . . . difficulties," "various trials," "testing of your faith," and "distressed by various trials." These believers wanted to be delivered from their difficulties. Paul mentions repeated prayer to that effect.

God is not unsympathetic to the pain of His children, and in many cases He does, in fact, give deliverance. God also sees a bigger picture. God's biggest concern is not the physical condition of His children, but their spiritual condition. In other words, God sees multiple aspects that need to be fixed in each situation. The physical component is just part of the trial, and not the most important part. Like a doctor who restarts a patient's breathing before attending to his broken leg, God prioritizes spiritual needs over physical needs. It isn't that He ignores the physical, but He knows what must be done first, or what must be fixed even if nothing else is.

In the words of the verses above, God is focused on accomplishing the following: "our inner man is being renewed day by day," "an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison," "that the power of Christ may dwell in me," "so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing," and "so that the proof of your faith . . . may be found to result in praise and glory and honor." This concept is so common in the Bible that the list of verses and phrases could be much longer. In essence, God wants His children to mature and to look more and more like His Son, thereby bringing glory to Himself.

A godly believer desires that same goal. Above all, he wants to please and honor God.  When the believer understands God's spiritual priorities in his life, he is able to respond as mentioned in the verses above: "we do not lose heart," "most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses," "I am well content with weaknesses . . .[etc.] ," "consider it all joy," and "in this you greatly rejoice." Those responses cannot happen until the believer realizes that God is doing His amazing work through the difficulties.

Even with that mindset, a Christian may find himself at a loss in the situation. He may not know what to hope for, what to pray for, what to expect, or what to work toward in the physical aspect of the trial. Thankfully, God gives this amazing truth:

"In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; for He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren." Romans 8:26-29

The Holy Spirit takes man's feeble attempts at prayer, filters them through the infinite knowledge of the will of God, and presents them properly to the Father. When these prayers reach God, they appropriately request the right desires and are focused on the priority of the Christian becoming "conformed to the image of His Son." God then works all things together for His good purposes.

God hears the prayers of His children, and He knows their hearts. When He responds by doing something other than the expected, He is in essence saying, "I know what you want, but I'm doing something better. I know what is important to you, but I'm doing something more important."  With a heart properly inclined to God, His better and more important response actually answers the deepest desire of the heart - above all else, to be like Christ.

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