In A.D. 41, while in an unrecorded ministry, or stage of his life, the apostle Paul had a life-altering experience. He wrote about it in II Corinthians 12:1-10 in the winter of A.D. 55. Passing what we can't know for sure—the identity of his thorn; and can't personally duplicate—his rapture to Paradise, we study what we can understand and apply to our personal lives.
That's the content of 12:7-10. Paul desperately wanted, and repeatedly sought, removal of the thorn. After the third unsuccessful effort God told him NO! "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." The divine refusal gave the apostle a spiritual growth experience. For while he boasted of his sufferings—11:22ff; and boasted of his visions—12:1-6; in the end, he wanted to boast only in his weaknesses and Christ's gracious strength 12:9-10. Job suffered a much greater affliction than Paul's thorn. And his responses, particularly after the taunting charges of men who should have been his pastors, found him lacking in spiritual growth. Job 38:1-2 began God's sermon prompting Job's spiritual growth that his suffering hadn't produced. He finally admitted, "Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know....Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes" 42:3c-d. Paul's positive response to his suffering simply proves the difference in covenants: the lesser light of patriarch Job compared to the greater apostolic illumination Paul enjoyed. Either being different would create textual problems, but not as written. In 5:8-13 Job wished to die so he could appear before God with his previous Faith intact. Like us in sorrow, we know God sees, God cares, God provides, but we feel deserted and harmed when experiencing sorrow through no known fault or sin of our own. In his book A Grief Observed C.S. Lewis chronicled his journey through horrifying estrangement from God to pleasurable reconciliation with God after losing wife Joy to unexpected death. He marveled that he had allowed personal adversity to diminish all the powerful truth he had previously urged his readers to believe and practice. He ruefully admitted that all his doubts about God had been merely garbage unworthy of a man who KNEW SO MUCH about God, but let a negative life-experience corrupt his thinking. With Job we learn; with Paul we learn; with C.S. Lewis we learn: we aren't always granted relief from adversities that test our faith in God. But if we look beyond the affliction, and its accompanying unrest, to GOD's Presence, we learn to rejoice in our sufferings, Romans 5:3, not merely after the suffering. IN...as we experience it...because God's Greater Power becomes our joy more than the unwanted load our vexation.
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Joseph Conrad’s early novels about Far-East seafaring adventures soared with excitement and positive-thinking. When he later wrote, world-conditions had worsened and darkened his mood into pessimism. Then he wrote of the loneliness and hopelessness beleaguering humanity. He feared what posed a present threat and what could occur beyond the grave. Chronicles of the Twentieth Century, 325
Nothing of the sort occurred with Jesus, despite facing daily scenes of despair. Despite confronting a leadership whose hatred of him would within 40 years bring history-long destruction of the nation, to be removed only in 1948. Despite teaching magnificent doctrines that no one person, and no one group and not the combined brains of all believers in history have exhausted. Optimism, like compassion, proved as natural to Jesus as sums to mathematicians, as speculation to philosophers, as intelligence to IQ, as harmony to musicians, as dollars to financiers. On the sensitive film of his soul developed and retained only the sharpest images of unaltered and original Power-of-Positive thinking. All of which came from “the power that enables him to bring everything under his control....” Philippians 3:21. All who believe only in themselves have the right to uncertainty and pessimism in life. All who believe in and trust Jesus have the right to positive thinking because we KNOW him who has “all authority over heaven and earth.” Matthew 28:18-20 God has delivered us from the dominion of darkness Colossians 1:13a. Once delivered, then, do we merely accept it, delight in it, rejoice that God has been so good? Consider Colossians 1:13b-14: “he has...brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
In other words, as we heard Professor Marion Henderson say, we have been Transferred, not Discharged. From Satan’s ruthless domination to Christ’s gracious liberation! As we enter the Doctor’s authority once inside his rooms, surrendering the myth of self-control, we cannot enter Christ’s Kingdom with the myth of self-will. Since he’s in complete charge of God’s Kingdom, we accept his total dominion of us. Do we understand? He decides who’s a servant and on what basis. He makes the rules, imposes them on each servant and expects compliance. There’s no need for us to suggest, “Lord, I have an idea.” He isn’t interested in our idea since he’s already expressed his will. And no need to say, “Lord, couldn’t we do it this or that way?” For he has already determined how his will is to be fulfilled. If we still want to do God’s will our way, read Ephesians 2:8-10. Notice that it is by GRACE—unmerited favor—what we needed, but didn’t deserve—that we’re saved. Then notice...God has already determined the good works he “prepared in advance for us to do.” With such finality declared, how can we hope to find some easier way to obey Jesus Christ? Fini The previous blog being the froth, the following two study the substance. Left my money clips and billfold home. Surrendered my watch to Judy in the waiting room. Kept my dignity, though: refused to give her my comb. But wouldn’t you know it? No sooner sat in the chair in the prep room than the nurse brought a silly cap to cover my hair. That symbolized the change to come. For once inside the door to the Doctor’s offices, I surrendered to them all rights to myself. Medical professionals decided what to do, and when; how to do it, and why. And, until I left the prep room after surgery, I lived under their authority. Consider how that experience relates to discipleship. Before we accepted Christ’s forgiveness of our sins, we had no obligation to hear him, listen to him or believe what he said. We were, at that time, “alienated from God” Colossians 1:21. Once we confessed Jesus as God’s Son and our Savior, and accepted Christian baptism for forgiveness, God “rescued us from the dominion of darkness....” Colossians 1:13a. That delights all Christians. We have escaped alienation from God. We’re no longer his enemies by our self-centered behavior. While we continue to fear him, it’s a reverent, obedience-stimulating respect for him as our Father in Heaven, not as an angry Deity. Trouble is, many of us get so enraptured with our deliverance from sin; our deliverance from wrath; and our deliverance from judgment against sin that we neglect what comes after. End Part II (This was supposed to be a 2-part blog. Just too much to say. See you Friday.) I learned many years ago that cataracts existed in my eyes. They finally ripened by November, 2019, and needed to be removed. I had both eyes cleared on Thursday, 21 November.
Here goes a two-part blog based on that experience. First, the surgery and its result. We arrived early for the appointment—as is our custom. The only time I remember almost being late was on a flight from Denver to San Diego in 1984. While waiting for a delayed flight I forgot the time change in Denver. Flying through the corridor I entered the plane just as the stewardess brought my overhead bag to the front to have it off-loaded. When we arrived in San Diego and disembarked, a couple hours late, a disgruntled passenger barked his disappointment at the stewardess for arriving late. Figuring that any flight is a good one if it gets you back safely on the ground, I thanked her for getting us to San Diego. When I met Judy I told her I’d never leave San Diego again. Putting all that aside, back to 21 November, 2019. The nurse escorted me from the waiting room to the operating room. When on the table, with a donut pillow under my head, the anesthetist used only the amount to keep me comfortable, without losing consciousness. Then, I remember only Doc Zane doing something inside the left, then right, eye. I remember, after he worked on the left eye, I could see the squares on the floor or ceiling, first dimly, then distinctly. Within 30-45 minutes or so both were finished and I went to recovery. Which lasted but a few minutes before I returned to the prep area. Judy and Brooks soon came in and I immediately asked, “Where do we go for breakfast?” Reactions in the family to the aluminum patches on both eyes varied. Son Scott texted that I looked like a fly. Interestingly, at the appointment 22 November, I met the man whose wife preceded me in surgery, with both eyes being cleared. He also said she looked like a fly with her twin patches on. Bryan, Brooks’ son-in-law, texted that he should tell me we were going to Carl’s Jr., then go the Burger King to see if I knew the difference. We went to breakfast at Debbie’s pie shop off Nordahl across from Hooters in San Marcos. End Part I Knew bursitis as a word; that people suffered attacks of; it enfeebled them in its pain; that Judy’s Aunt Von had suffered attacks of. Then, Friday, November 15, I learned bursitis as an experience. When it suddenly shot searing pain from my right shoulder into the upper arm, crippling any movement. My own push-ups were likely to blame.
Every experience lends itself to a spiritual truth. This one teaches the value of personal experience. Jesus allowed himself to be tempted in every way any mortal can be. Matthew summarized the whole 40 day ordeal in the three temptations of 4:1-11. (The writer discusses this event in detail in his book Face to Face with Jesus.) C.S. Lewis once said that soldiers discovered the strength of the German army by fighting it, not surrendering to it. And Jesus found the full potency of satanic temptation by resisting it, not surrendering to it. Only when we resist it till it surrenders will we understand temptation’s power AND the Grandeur of Christ’s TRIUMPH over Satan. Indeed, he allowed Satan’s full, pitiless offense access to him without retaliating. To give him the right to attack satanic strongholds in humanity during his 3 ½ year ministry, Jesus limited himself to mere defense against those temptations in the 40 day wilderness campaign. By withstanding them, he earned the privilege of assaulting Satan’s every appearance in humanity that sent the Deceiver retreating in howling despair. Amen, Jesus! |
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