February 29, 2012

  • by my God I can leap over a wall (Psalm 18:29b)

       
    Many Christians think once they're saved, they don't need Christ!

    Some are primarily concerned about getting a ticket out of hell, and are looking forward to heaven – rather than being concerned about how they live here, and that's a very low view of Christianity and salvation (and if you persist in that, I'd seriously question you as to whether you are really saved or not – for faith without works is dead and we are warned time and again not to receive God's grace in vain).

    Others make the dreadful mistake of thinking they can live the Christian life and fight spiritual battles with their own resources. How foolish that is! The Christian life is a life of spiritual warfare (e.g. - Ephesians 6:10-20 & II Corinthians 10:1-6). Since God has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:13-14), and because the devil is the enemy of Christ, he is also the enemy of all those who have been united to Christ by grace through faith. We must keep in mind that the devil is continuing to prowl day and night, constantly scheming and lying, seeking ways to devour us and to entangle us, to keep us from fixing our eyes on Jesus and running the race set before us.

    We will not be able to live and thrive and bring glory to God in the Christian life unless we come to see that the God who delivered us from the domain of darkness in the first place is the one to whom we must continue to turn and to ask for fresh supplies so we might press in our race, to keep walking the kingdom of light – similar to how the Israelites had to go out and collect manna for each day. Christ is our whole life. He is not only our justification, He is also our sanctification (I Cor. 1:30).  How can we expect to live the Christian life apart from the life of Christ in us?!

    In Psalm 18, David brings a song of praise and thanksgiving to God commemorating and celebrating the great deliverances God granted him, exalting and exulting in God, his strength (see also II Samuel 22).

    To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, the servant of the Lord, who addressed the words of this song to the Lord on the day when the Lord rescued him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul.

    Here's David, who was soon to be made king over all Israel – and yet see how humble he is: notice how he refers to himself as a servant of the Lord. Though David will be king, he is ever mindful who is the King of kings. And David doesn't take one iota of credit for the victories – but he rightly ascribes it all to God's merciful and gracious provision. Throughout the whole Psalm, David readily and happily acknowledges that God alone is his strength and that God alone gave him the victory, thus rendering to God all the praise, honor and glory due His name.

    David starts off with these words:

    1  I love you, O LORD, my strength.
    2  The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
    my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
    my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
    3  I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised,
    and I am saved from my enemies.

    And then David continues throughout the Psalm fervently declaring the many ways the LORD delivered him, boasting in God as his strength and professing his continued reliance on God. (I'd encourage you to read prayerfully through the whole psalm.)

    And because it is Leap Day, the second half of verse 29 got my attention:

    ... by my God I can leap over a wall.

    It seems to me that many, many Christians have walls that God is calling them to leap over, but they're failing, and they keep failing. Why? Many times it is because they have not come to know the LORD as their strength as David did. They keep trying to fight spiritual battles in their flesh. They keep turning to their own resources, wisdom, strength and ingenuity, and, as a result, they remain impotent – for they've not come to know the power of the Holy Spirit at work in them. They keep trying to pull themselves up by their bootstraps! They keep turning to secular books and counselors and twelve step programs, etc., rather than turning to the living God Himself. Should not God's people seek their God? Should not God's people seek their God as their strength?

    Jesus said that He is the vine and we are the branches, and without Him we can do nothing (see John 15:1-17).

    NOTHING!

    You may not be leaping over walls because you've not come to know the living supply of Jesus Christ through His Holy Spirit. In fact, some of you who profess to be Christians may not be leaping because you've never been born again. If you have never been born again, God's Holy Spirit has not come to dwell in you, and you don't have that vital connection with the Lord Jesus Christ, as the branch abides in the vine; therefore, there's no way you can expect to know and experience Jesus Christ as your strength.

    Or, perhaps some of you have been able to leap over some walls – and in fact, compared to most people, you're looking pretty good – however, you're not really leaping by the power of God, instead you're relying on your own strength. You've never come to know God as your strength. You have fallen into the all-American, Pharisaical snare of self-reliance. You've never come to end of yourself and the end of your own strength, so you might begin to cry out to ask for and to know God's strength. As so you function as a Christian primarily in your own fleshly strength. However, that way of life is contrary to the life God intends for the Christian:  the Christian is to put no confidence at all in the flesh and to live by the Spirit. In Galatians, Paul warns us: having been born again and started the Christian life in the Spirit, we must not return to the flesh!

    Many of us hold up Biblical figures and other saints from Christian history, and we're tempted to think they had something we don't have. Well, what they had first of all was an understanding that they were NOTHING apart from Christ, they had NOTHING apart from Christ, and they could do NOTHING apart from Christ! They saw their total insufficiency and their need to rely on God alone, their need to know Him as their strength – and that experiential knowledge is what drove them to the throne of grace to find mercy and grace to help in their time of need. And they saw every moment as a time of need! Consider this testimony of the apostle Paul:

    Who is sufficient for these things? ... Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God... (II Cor. 2:16b, 3:5).

    You may never have gotten so low and so desperate and so needy that you cried out to God so you might know Him as your strength: to really know Him – not just recite God is your strength as a Bible verse, not just sing God is your strength in a hymn on Sunday morning, not just listen to someone sing God is your strength in a YouTube video, but to know God as your strength the way David did. You may never have come to the place where you were faced with such a high and huge and thick and insurmountable wall, that you finally cried out to God in desperation, "Who is sufficient for these things? Be my Strength! I am not sufficient! Without You I can do nothing!"

    That was my position as a Christian for over twenty years. I was leaping over some walls, and I was engaged in some so-called "good works," but I regret to say that many, perhaps most of those, were done out of my own flesh. But then there came a time several years ago when a Christian had asked me to forgive an offense – and I couldn't do it – and I wouldn't do it. I was the unforgiving servant (Matt. 18:21-35) – and in a very dangerous position! But thanks be to God, in spite of myself, God's grace pursued me, and in God's command to me to forgive another as He had forgiven me, I began to see how much greater God's gift of salvation and forgiveness was toward me than I ever imagined, and how great a sinner I was, that I really was a wretch, though I'd sung it for years in "Amazing Grace" – after that time I could truly confess from the heart that I, Karen, was a wretch – and at that point, grace really did become amazing to me for the first time! The Holy Spirit convicted me and showed me how pitiably small the offense was that I was asked to forgive in comparison with all my sins that God forgave me for Christ's sake! And I found myself able to desire and then to do what I could not do in my own strength – for God gave me the desire and the ability to do His good pleasure (Philippians 2:12-14): so I was able to forgive as the Lord had forgiven me. Impossible with Karen, but possible with God! Hallelujah! He was my strength! Without Him I could do nothing, but with Christ I could do all things!

    Since that time, God has continued to show me time and time again that without Him I can do nothing, absolutely nothing at all. And as soon as I become puffed up and begin to think I can do anything without Him, thanks be to God, He knocks me back down again to the dust to show my utter insufficiency and my total dependence on Him. Oh, yes, it's certainly painful – but it is profitable! Blessed is the man whom God chastens!

    When I was recently convicted to send a message explaining the Gospel to an unsaved family member, I knew that God had given me that desire, but I had nowhere else to turn but to God, for I knew in and of myself I was wholly insufficient. I was tempted to fear the repercussions, I was tempted to please man rather than God and shrink back from following through, and I knew I had no words to write at all except what God would supply – and so I prayed God would be my strength, that His Spirit would strengthen me to fulfill the desire He had placed in me. And all glory to God alone, He was my strength – and He strengthened me to leap over that wall – and God wants to do the same in all His children, so His name alone might be magnified.

    I love these two passages for they show us how by our God we can leap over walls, and not only that – they show that our coming to know God as our strength and having His strength work in us brings Him glory.

    Hebrews 13:20  Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, 21  equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

    II Thessalonians 1:11  To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, 12  so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

    God is all about His glory, and God receives no glory when we rely upon our own strength – even though we may be leaping over some walls, and we may be looking good to ourselves, to other Christians, or to the world. But anything we do that isn't done by the power of Christ in us brings no glory to God. God alone is to be our strength and our boast and our glory:

    I Corinthians 1:26  For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27  But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28  God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29  so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30  He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. 31  Therefore, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”


    What wall stands before you that you have been unable to leap over? Have you come to know Christ as your strength, or are you continuing to walk the vain, dangerous, and God-dishonoring road of self-sufficiency?     Are you continuing to attempt to live the Christian life in your own flesh and robbing God of the glory due His name? Will you ask God to show you your insufficiency, so you might come to know God's sufficiency and come to know Him to be your strength, so like David, you might leap over a wall? Will you ask God to grow your knowledge of Him and your trust in Him so you might lay aside your own fleshly efforts and embrace Him as your strength, so you might sing with David: "I love you, O LORD, my strength... by my God I can leap over a wall!" ... and confess with the apostle Paul:  "I can do all things through him who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13).

    Related:

    Scripture quotations unless otherwise indicated are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

    Work found at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Messene_01.jpg  / CC BY-SA 3.0 / by Herbert Ortner.

Comments (12)

  • Good Morning, Karen

    lol--what a post to start my day!!! I did read my Bible already, a easy to read Devotional book full of happy promises, and a Proverbs journal. lol I wish I could tell you it helped, but it is something I have been doing since Feb. 13, 1965.

    I guess my own review of 'my' life is that I was born again and definitely did not become perfect. Seems like God likes Losers and Rejects--1 Corinthians. lol  He shaped me up by taking away some junk and then added some nice things, but it took me a very long time to purify my polluted mind.  It still likes side trips, but I try to make it behave.

    God seems to do somethings quickly, but not with others.

    I don't have any information about the condition of all church going Christians in America. I moved a lot and always went to church. They were all trying to serve the Lord the best they could. The committed some shocking sins and made mistakes, but they were trying. I never saw anything to make me think that they were lost.

    I love John 15 and especially  Colossians 2--I am in awe of what Christ did for me on the cross---He took care of everything. There is nothing for me to do except believe. Then the hard part--let God change my life.

    As you know, I am far from perfected or sanctified.

    I agree with you--Christ is everything and we are nothing, other than God loved us from the foundation of the world and did something about it.

    This sanctification process is tough as you discovered in having to forgive someone.

    Anyway, as usual, I liked reading your deep post on God,Christ, and life.

    blessings

    frank

  • Thanks for this good post! There are fewer and fewer of these kinds of posts. I have nothing to add, but my own comment on my own experience and another on my disappointment in those who count their own efforts as being God's work.

    My own: I can no longer presume confidence in my physical strength, or even the "talents" that I once thought I owned.   I am weak through the flesh - so weak that I would despair of trying anything on my own.   Yet, I believe that whatever God requires of me, He will supply either the ability or the help I need to obey.

    Others:  I keep hearing things like, "I can do all things through Christ." and then the person taking it upon himself to rely seemingly on human strength or ability.   Maybe that's what I do or have done...

    Spiritual things require spiritual knowledge and perseverance, otherwise we are beating our heads against an immovable God who will not share His glory with us.

  • @ANVRSADDAY - Hi Frank, I think you know you're not generally going to get "fluff" here.

    I absolutely LOVE how "God likes Losers and Rejects" – and b/c that's the case, that only magnifies God's glory, doesn't it?! :)

    Well, we do believe and we let God change our lives, particularly our desires, but then we need to follow through in obedience to what He's giving us a heart to do. With the desire, by means of His Holy Spirit, God always gives us the ability to do / to work (Phil. 4:12-14), so it's not really passive. As Paul said we're to be working out our salvation w/ fear & trembling for it is God who works in us, yet all the glory goes to God alone for we have no desire and no strength and no ability apart from Him.

    All of us are far, far from being perfected or sanctified! We're being fitted for heaven while we're still here on the earth.

    That situation w/ my having to forgive was really painful all around, plus there were other circumstances prior to that time and afterwards related to it. I would never have wished to have any of it happen, and I would never chosen any of it, but God had ordained it all, and He was working through it all so I might know His love in increasing measure and to conform me more and more into Christ's image. Rather than only reading Romans 8:28 and knowing it as a cold, hard fact, through those experiences I came to know in my heart that God was working all things for my good, as well as for His glory and for the furtherance of the Gospel.

    Blessings in Christ,
    Karen

  • @quest4god@revelife - You're welcome, Norm. Your comment here has made me think: "There are fewer and fewer of these kinds of posts." I'm curious to know what you meant by that...

    So now I'll answer based on my interpretation... ;)

    I think I'm filling a niche here (and elsewhere) that not too many people seem to address, not only here on Xanga/Revelife, but all around, i.e. - Christian formation strongly rooted in Biblical doctrine: how we actually live out the doctrine we espouse.

    -------

    God continues to strip us in many, many ways, to strip us of all those things we place our confidence in, and that's really tailored individually to each one of us. He knows exactly what type and what degree of refining each one of us needs.

    For years I could have and I did teach about the Holy Spirit, but I didn't understand His vital role. I would recite Philippians 4:13, and at one time I'd even memorized all of John 15, but I didn't really know the vital necessity of the Holy Spirit.

    One thing I was going to include in this post and then forgot... Several years ago, I'd asked someone to pray about being in a position of Christan leadership and immediately the person said, "I can do that!" To me, that type of response doesn't sit right, for it shows we've not counted the cost, we're not acknowledging our insufficiency, that without Christ we can do nothing – and anything we're called to do by God we must ask for His resources to provide. On the other hand, there was another time when I asked someone else, and her response was a humble one, with fear & trembling she replied, "O! I could never do that." And that blessed me! (There's a false humility, but that wasn't the case for her.)

    We all need to watch ourselves re: our continuing reliance on God as our strength, some of us more than others. And the gifts/talents/abilities which God has given us to use for Him are usually those areas where the devil loves to get us to become overconfident, so we might begin to lapse into relying on our flesh. As you said, God is not going to share His glory with anyone – I continue to remember Moses' sin in striking the rock rather than speaking to it....

    Num. 20:12 Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe Me, to hallow Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.” (NKJV)

  • Good answer!  I wrote a note lamenting the very things that you touched on in your post...that's what I meant.   A few serious bloggers will strike out at things that bug them (I am one of those) but even fewer take on the task of righting sinking ships as you do.   I know that you are not claiming any such thing; you are doing as you say - speaking to the way we live out our profession.

    Also, I appreciate your cataloging of writings and making it easy to access related posts.   I could wish I had done similar things, but I haven't the volume of material written anyway, and not many could be classified as being related.   (besides, I have a tendency toward laziness)

    I thank God for you and some others on this forum who are called to persevere in spite of the difficulty in doing so.

  • @naphtali_deer - Good Morning, I seldom reply to replies, but I find inconsistency to be a virtue.

    I guess I am weak on the performance side. I go through this process if trying to do what God wants and give up. Later the change comes without thinking. It is puzzling. If we debated this as I have with my 161 I.Q. son, I will lose every time. lol

    So on some junk in my life, I want until it is sent to the Junk Yard.

    I did have a good experience. I read Colossians this week and felt so guilty I changed. lol I hope it lasts.

    frank

  • Good post.  I think so many don't realize that they need to cultivate a relationship with Abba.  It is a ongoing thing to get to know him just as it is in any great and real relationship.  Leaping wall--perfect subject for leap day. 

  • @quest4god@revelife - Thanks, Norm.

    It's too easy for us to identify problems and to point fingers and whine and complain and rant. Not saying we shouldn't be discerning and make a thorough examination and make a right assessment, for we must be doing all those things, and in fact, I've done some of that in this post, however, we must do it in the right spirit. But then we can't stop there: we need to give the godly, Biblical solution. And it all has to be undergirded with and surrounded by prayer, something which I know I still lack in.

    I like passing along resources to people and adding those links at the end of my posts, though it does take some time. I took a course a few years ago, and part of that was to identify your "strengths," and one of mine was "learner" – someone who likes learning and then wants to pass along what they've learned to others. So adding those links is one way that "strength" manifests itself. I know Xanga added the automated related posts module, and that's good, but b/c I use so many tags, it doesn't always provide a really good match for the current post. Plus, I can usually remember similar posts to what I'm writing and I purposely try to pick ones that provide a good supplement to what I've written. I do find that people click on them periodically, which I'm glad to see.

    Re: laziness. I was tired when I sat down to write this pretty late in the afternoon, and I really didn't want to write, but it was time-sensitive since it was Leap Day. Plus, I'd really wanted to write something different earlier in the day, but I felt drawn to this Scripture. I wasn't exactly sure where it was going when I started writing, and I wasn't really sure if I'd finish it, but I was pleasantly surprised at how it came together relatively quickly – since sometimes I can spend days and days trying to write something (if not longer). So in the writing of the post itself, God showed Himself to be my strength! I love you, O LORD, my strength!

    That reminds me of how Whitefield relied on God's strength (emphasis mine):

    "Sun., Feb. 25, 1739: What mercies has my good God shown me this day! When I arose in the morning, I thought I should be able to do NOTHING; BUT the DIVINE STRENGTH was greatly magnified in my weakness... Finding myself STRENGTHENED from above..."

  • @ANVRSADDAY - I have had those same things happen, when all of a sudden you can see the work God has been doing – how He has changed your heart in the way you'd been praying! It's really inexplicable – that's what makes God God! Romans 11:33-36, Ephesians 3:20-21.

  • @stephensmustang - Thanks, Elizabeth! We do need to cultivate that relationship with our Father in heaven. That's why Jesus came to earth: to bring us back to God! I actually wanted to write about something else for Leap Day: about David leaping & dancing before the LORD (II Samuel 6), but felt led away from that to this Scripture. I'd addressed that passage previously, but would love to write more on it. :)

  • Well, whenever He leads, I look forward to reading that one.

  • @stephensmustang - Thanks! I also look forward to writing it! :) That was my preference the other day, but it wasn't God's...

    BTW: I really loved these words from your first comment: "It is a ongoing thing to get to know him just as it is in any great and real relationship." Great and real! Yes! So often we don't have any real understanding that's the type of relationship we are privileged to have with God through Jesus Christ. Plus, those words great and real describe our God! I love these words from J.A. Alexander's "Psalms" as he wrote about Psalm 84:2 ("My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God."): "The Living God, really existing, and the giver of life to others." Consider it: we who were dead in our sins & transgressions, and were children of wrath & alienated from God – by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ, we are now privileged to enter into intimate fellowship with the LIVING God!

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naphtali_deer

About me...

Christian hedonist in training. Pressing on to know more and more of the joy of the LORD. Pleading with God to rend the heavens and revive and refresh my own soul, as well as His Church, to His praise, honor and glory.

Thank God. He can make men and women in middle life sing again with a joy that has been chastened by a memory of their past failures. ~ Alan Redpath

My other websites

tent of meeting: Prayer for reformation & revival

(See also Zechariah821. Zechariah821 is a mirror site of tent of meeting, found on WordPress)

deerlifetrumpet: Encouragement for those seeking reformation & revival in the Church

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