Loving Enemies; August 27, 2021

Posted on August 30, 2021 by jgarrott

Luke 6:27-28 “But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”

Jesus’ command to love our enemies is one of His most famous, recorded both here and in Matthew 5, and it’s also seen as one of His most “impractical” commands, because it so goes against our human nature. However, unlike so many politicians and leaders of all sorts, Jesus never told us to do anything He didn’t do Himself. The ultimate test of that was when He prayed forgiveness for those who had nailed Him to the cross. (Luke 23:34) This command should be in very sharp focus for every believer at this point, because the whole world is increasingly polarized, and everyone seems to see someone, or some group, as enemies. The starkest test of that in most people’s awareness at the moment is Afghanistan. Every Christian, and indeed every woman, in that area has every reason to consider the Taliban their enemies. The atrocities that are happening even at this moment are unspeakable. How do you pray for people like that, much less love them? We need to start by realizing that such people are terribly deceived by the devil, just like Jesus did on the cross. They are fun­damentally just as human as we are, however inhuman they may act. Then, there’s the question of how to pray for them. What every per­son needs in order to get right with God is to repent. So it should be very easy to pray that they repent. Sometimes that’s all we can pray for them! If we think about it, we also can pray God’s best for them, because His best always includes a right relationship with Him, and if they have that, they will be very different people indeed. I’m re­minded of Corrie ten Boom, praying for the former concentration camp guard whom she had seen beat her sister to death. She was speaking at a meeting and he showed up. She recognized him and froze internally, until God dealt with her on this very issue, and the man was marvelously born again. That’s just about as clear an exam­ple as Jesus on the cross, and it shows that Jesus isn’t the only one who can do it, if we will allow the Holy Spirit to work in us.

I’m grateful never to have had such stark enemies as I’ve just written about, but there are plenty of people about whom I have to consciously apply this Scripture. For starters, there are numbers of politi­cians and government figures whom I feel are actively cooperating with the devil and advancing his agenda. I certainly pray repentance and deliverance from deception for them! By God’s grace I feel I am fairly up-to-date on forgiving those close to me, and I am grateful to feel I am generally not treated badly by anyone. As a pastor I deal with people all the time who are bound by hatred and unforgiveness (thankfully not toward me) and ministering to them can be a real challenge. They have no grasp of how they are imprisoning themselves, far more than they are doing harm to the people they don’t think they can forgive. I have seen people destroyed by their lack of forgiving others. I talk a lot about how the Japanese language itself hinders the very understanding of forgiveness, because the word is a homophone for one that means “permission.” Since there are many things for which we should never give permission, people can’t un­derstand how we can forgive those things. I explain it every chance I get, but this has to apply on a much deeper level than intellectual understanding, I have to rely on the Holy Spirit to get it through to them.

Father, this is certainly a challenging issue for the whole human race. May all of Your children trust You to work it in and through them, for the salvation of many and for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Fame; August 26, 2021

Posted on August 30, 2021 by jgarrott

Luke 6:12 One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.

I used to think this was largely hyperbole, but having a wife who will get up at all hours of the night and spend hours praying, it’s much easier to see it as entirely realistic. Jesus had momentous decisions ahead of Him, choosing those who would represent Him, not only during His ministry but after His ascension. It’s interesting to me that for several of them, literally the only thing we know about them is their name. They might be mentioned a few times in the Gospel accounts, but that’s it. I think there’s a powerful lesson in that, because James son of Alphaeus was just as much an apostle as James son of Zebedee, and Simon the Zealot was just as much an apostle as Simon Peter. Fame is quite literally how people speak of you, but our value, and our evaluation, comes from what God says about us. When we realize that, fame becomes literally a non-issue. I don’t think we want to be famous the way Judas Iscariot is! I’m reminded of the widow who gave God all that she had to live on, who came up in the reading on the 19th. As I said then, we don’t know her name, but I bet she has plenty of honor in heaven! That’s part of what Jesus was talking about when He told us to “lay up treasure in heaven.” (Matthew 6:19-21) Sociologists speak of “social credit,” and China has recently instituted a formal system to evaluate “how good a citizen” everyone is, entirely as a means to control people. We need to grasp, to the depths of our being, that the only “credit system” that counts is the one that’s eternal.

I would be the first to concede that it feels good to have people speak well of you, but right after this Luke records Jesus’ words of caution about that. (verse 26) However, there is a distinction between fame and reputation. Fame is meaningless, but I am to so live that bad things said about my character are all false. When I live with the awareness that God is my judge, then people’s opinions of me are valid only as they agree with His. Having lived as foreigners in Omura for 40 years now, we are pretty well known. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard people whom I didn’t know personally telling someone else all about us! However, my real concern is how much our influence has drawn people to Christ. I thankfully don’t think we’ve driven many away, but sadly, many seem to admire the Christ they see in us without opening their heart to receive Him themselves. That is a continuing issue, and frankly a mystery. I’ve got to leave it in His hands, and discover how much fruit I really have born when I stand before His throne.

Father, thank You for the incredible privilege of being Your agent. May I care about nothing else, whatever people say, or fail to say, about me. May Your kingdom and Your righteousness indeed take first priority in my life, so that You may be pleased and glorified as Your will is done in and through me. Thank You. Praise God!

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Repentance; August 25, 2021

Posted on August 29, 2021 by jgarrott

Luke 5:31-32 Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

This is a rightly well-known passage, but I think it doesn’t get enough emphasis. At the same time, those who do know it tend to fo­cus on “I came to call sinners,” and gloss over the “to repentance” part. Both are essential. It is true that “holier than thou” types tend to shy away from anyone who doesn’t meet their essentially social stan­dards, and those are indeed the kind of people Jesus was responding to, but the flip side of that is that some people, saying “Jesus loves me just as I am,” make no effort to change. That’s certainly not in­dicative of repentance! Jesus indeed loves us as we are, but He never leaves us as we are. He is constantly, and consistently, calling us to draw closer to Him, to be “transformed by the renewing of our minds.” (Romans 12:2) It’s not that we don’t sin, and it’s not that such sin forever cuts us off from salvation, but rather that we can’t wallow in our sin, being satisfied with it. John’s first letter deals with that a lot, repeatedly. You could even say it’s a lengthy exposition on these two verses. The Gospel, that is, the Good News, is that God en­ables us to become what He causes us to want to become, that is, children in the likeness of His Son. (2 Corinthians 3:18) That is one of the major themes of Paul’s letter to the Romans. We are not to condemn ourselves – that’s what the devil is constantly trying to do – but neither are we to be satisfied with where we are. That’s what Paul wrote about so memorably in Philippians 3:7-16. Any parent will tell you they love their children as they are, but they also want their children to keep growing, and God is exactly the same with us.

I have written repeatedly about two massive encounters with this issue. The first was when the Lord showed me the condition of my soul, for a brief instant, and I collapsed in repentant tears. The second was years later, when on the basis of 2 Peter 1:9 I had a revelation that once a sin is confessed and repented of, it really is gone, com­pletely washed away, and it is not an enduring part of my character. The devil tries to define us by our sins and weaknesses, and too often we let him get away with it. I learned that I am defined by what God says about me, not by what I have done, if I have repented of my sin. Today we will be with someone who needs this truth revealed to their heart. I can’t force him to accept it but I can speak it to him in love and demonstrate it with my actions, so that the Holy Spirit may plant it in his heart.

Father, thank You for Your truly amazing grace. Help me be ever more effective as a channel of that grace, so that more and more people may be liberated from the lies of the devil to walk in the light of Your life, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Stress; August 24, 2021

Posted on August 29, 2021 by jgarrott

Luke 5:15-16 Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

Jesus was active in ministry but He was also active in maintaining His connection with His Father. This is actually a tension we all face. There’s a line I like very much in the song, Country Boy, made famous by John Denver: “I’d play Sally Gooden all day if I could, but the Lord and my wife wouldn’t take it very good. So I fiddle when I can and work when I should. Thank God I’m a country boy!” We all have things we need to do, things people require of us, and things we really love and/or want to do. When two or more of those factors converge on a particular activity it is a blessing indeed. As the saying goes, if you love your work, it isn’t work! One thing I really like about The Visual Bible (that in my awareness only managed to produce Matthew and Acts) is that the actor portraying Jesus, after much prayer, settled on a style that shows Jesus as delighting in what He is doing. After all, Jesus chose to come to earth! However, that doesn’t mean He didn’t experience this tension. Of course the clearest expression of that was in the Garden of Gethsemane, but I think this shows it as well. Living and traveling with a group of 12 guys of dubious spiritual maturity, not to mention being mobbed by people wanting to receive from Him, as it mentions here, it’s no wonder He needed to get away often to have time alone with the Father. We can do no better than to copy Him, including in this area of taking time alone with God. I talk about daily devotions a good bit, and with good reason. It’s the only way we can keep our heads on straight! It has rightly been said that stress is a given for anything that is alive, so our only option is learning how to deal with it. Getting our marching orders from our Creator is certainly the best answer.

Like everyone else, I live with this constantly. I would have “popped a circuit breaker” many years ago if I hadn’t developed a strong habit of personal devotions. I know pastors who only read the Bible when they are preparing sermons, and I don’t see how they live! For several months Cathy and I have been feeling a build-up of stress of various sorts, so today we’re going to a hot-springs resort hotel for two nights. We had hoped to do this last week, but the hotel we would have preferred is closed at the moment because of COVID, and we had to choose another (more expensive) option. Cathy has been asking me what I want to do during this time, but my biggest answer is simply that I do NOT want to do what we do here every day! It’s not at all that I feel my life is bad, but I’m in need of a real change of pace. The past few days have been a fitting build-up to this, with one mechanical failure after another in things we use, and yesterday was something of a climax to that, before a particular issue was resolved. We will be getting away, but we will also be doing ministry, and if the person involved in that makes a breakthrough, it will be more than worth the expense of the hotel! The point is to keep growing, to keep drawing closer to my Lord and learning from Him, so that His plans and purposes for me may be fulfilled.

Father, thank You for all of this, Thank You for the extremely stressful day yesterday, and that we will be able to get away today. I ask for wisdom in the various things we need to get done this morning before we leave. May we indeed grow in resting, relaxing, and rejoicing in You, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Context; August 23, 2021

Posted on August 28, 2021 by jgarrott

Luke 5:5 Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”

This wasn’t Peter’s first encounter with Jesus. John records the first time, when Peter’s brother Andrew brought him to Jesus. (John 1:40-42) Sometimes we forget that the Bible doesn’t record everything that happened, even in a particular narrative. As we all do, those who wrote picked and chose what they would include, because having every detail would be ponderous and overwhelming. The only problem with that is that we sometimes fall into guilt trips for not responding to God as quickly as it seems some Biblical characters did. We need to let the Holy Spirit show us the context of everything, and read the whole Bible to make it easier for us to recognize what He is saying to us. Here, it is probable that Peter had been doing a lot of thinking about this teacher Andrew had introduced to him. That made it easy for him to agree to let Jesus use his boat as a pulpit, so to speak, and also softened his heart to give the response recorded in this verse. In a sense you could say that Jesus was paying the “rental fee” for the use of the boat! Also, I personally think that the fish that were caught at this point were sold to fish dealers, who were likely to have been on the scene precisely to get their stock in trade. It’s possible that Peter even sold the boat to someone. That doesn’t take anything away from his life-changing decision to stop being a fisherman and simply follow this teacher about whom he still knew very little. I would guess that the income from the fish, at least, went to his wife to support her while he was running around the countryside with Jesus. People have used this story, probably for many centuries, to justify being irresponsible about all sorts of obligations. We aren’t to hesitate to be obedient to what the Lord shows us to do, but neither are we to use “the Lord told me” as an excuse to duck out on things. I heard of one man who, when he graduated from seminary (the one I was attending) wrote “Jesus paid it all” on all of his outstanding bills, and then skipped town. I hope no church was stupid enough to call him as their pastor!

I’ve had a few experiences that relate to this. The first Sunday in 1974 we were in Denver, listening to a former missionary to Vietnam who had had to leave because of the war there, when either Cathy or I (to this day neither of us has any idea which it was) turned to the other and said, “Do you want to sell the mobile home and move to Japan?” The first of March of that year, we arrived in Fukuoka! It seemed awfully sudden, and it was, but there were various things leading up to that moment, including being very frustrated by the bureaucracy we encountered when we contacted the mission board my parents served under. Also, by God’s grace we didn’t leave any loose ends. We found someone to take over payments on our mobile home, even in a very depressed housing market, shipped a fair amount of stuff to my parents, (they paid) gave away and threw away a lot of stuff, and then loaded the remainder into our Toyota and drove to Cathy’s parents in Virginia, before flying out to Japan. (Cathy’s father bought our very used Toyota from us as a kindness, but then one day when he had to drive it to deliver the mail because his truck wouldn’t start, he fell in love with it and bought nothing but Toyotas after that for the rest of his life!) All of that to say that God’s “suddenlies” are never totally isolated events. I wish I could say that I have always been that accurate about hearing and obeying God! Actually, in recent years we have discovered that Cathy’s parents knew from when she was a small child – before she knew it – that God had called her as a missionary. God’s plans are from eternity past, so nothing is ever “out of context!”

Father, I didn’t intend to write an autobiography this morning! Thank You for Your incredible faithfulness to me. Thank You for Your plans for today, for this week, and for the rest of my life. Help me indeed rest, relax, and rejoice in You, flowing with Your Spirit on Your schedule to accomplish Your will for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Receiving from God; August 22, 2021

Posted on August 24, 2021 by jgarrott

Luke 3:21-22 When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

Luke doesn’t record John’s protest at the idea of him baptizing Jesus, (Matthew 3:13-15) but he includes the detail that the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus as He was praying. We naturally associate prayer with asking God for things, since the word, pray, actually means, ask. However, I don’t know that Jesus was actively praying to have the Holy Spirit alight on Him. Rather, I think He was aware that it was the Father’s timing for Him to begin His active ministry, and He was asking for whatever the Father felt He needed to do the job. Obviously the Holy Spirit was essential! He was probably remembering this when He told His disciples, shortly before His ascension, “I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:49) Prayer puts us into the spiritual posture to receive whatever the Father wants to give us, and that’s always a good thing. It’s even a good thing when what the Father wants to give us isn’t necessarily what we wanted! Paul discovered that when he prayed to be delivered from his “thorn in the flesh,” and God just poured His grace out on him instead. (2 Corinthians 12:7-10) The strength that he gained from that was far more valuable, and powerful, than physical health. However, when our hearts are too set on specific things, even when we pray we aren’t opening ourselves up to receive all that God wants to pour out on us. This morning I’m preaching on specific prayer, but the flip side of that is allowing God to be in control. He knows what we need, when and how and why. We are to ask, certainly, but we are to recognize, and rejoice in, His sovereignty and superior wisdom.

This certainly applies to me! I have had many prayers granted, but many more that didn’t turn out the way I had desired. I need to stay in prayer, and at the same time rest, relax, and rejoice just as He has told me to do. It is a relief to see evidence that I am growing spiritually and emotionally, but I’ve got plenty of room to do so much more! Things are happening at a great clip, in my personal life and in the world as a whole. The more I try to stay in control, the worse it is for me. I am to be active in intercession and spiritual warfare, particularly for such things as the situation in Afghanistan right now, but even in the middle of that I am to rest in the assurance that God is still God, and those who are in Christ will triumph. I need to remember that Corrie ten Boom, who went through the unspeakable horrors of a Nazi concentration camp, losing her family in the process, was a major proponent of Christus Victor, that has been put down by some as “Christian triumphalism.” Such people are defining “triumph” on strictly terrestrial, material terms. I need to look forward to Christ’s triumph that will put everything into perspective and make it all worth it. (2 Corinthians 4:17)

Father, thank You for this strong reminder. I pray that I would be fully available to You, today and each day, walking in fellowship with You that allows You to flow through me however You please, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Parenting; August 21, 2021

Posted on August 24, 2021 by jgarrott

Luke 2:39-40 When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.

In parenting there is always the interaction of nature – genetics, essentially – and nurture, the environment in which the child grows. Genetics are settled from the moment of conception, so the input we have in the process is in nurturing the child. Many books have been written on the subject, so I won’t try to write another one! However, the whole subject becomes very interesting when it comes to Jesus. Just precisely what was His genetic package, so to speak? The Y chromosome was courtesy of the Holy Spirit, who normally is not physical at all! That’s not anything we can determine, but we do know that God chose Mary and Joseph very carefully. He really cared how His Son was going to be nurtured! We have very few details in the Bible, but the characteristics that stand out are their faith and their faithfulness. They “dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s” when it came to the Levitical law, and they did whatever was necessary according to their circumstances, including the trip to Egypt and back recorded in Matthew 2. The result of their lifestyle is recorded here. Physical growth, barring major disease, deprivation, or injury, is a given, but Jesus had a little extra help there. Growing up as the son of a carpenter, he was doubtless running errands and carrying wood and the like from about as soon as he could walk. The “strong” mentioned here was not just being polite! However, being filled with wisdom had a lot to do with Mary and Joseph. Children are taught by their parents, but they absorb more than they are taught. Jesus was filled with wisdom because He had the example of parents who were wise in the fear of the Lord. We have no way of knowing how much or how often they thought about the special circumstances of Jesus’ birth, but I would guess that as the home filled up with more children it wasn’t very much. I don’t think they were all, “We are raising the Son of God” all the time by any means! We should be intentional in raising our children, certainly, but the unintentional lessons are at least as important, as they see how we relate to each other and how we prioritize our time and our resources. That is where they gain wisdom, as opposed to simple knowledge.

I was raised by excellent parents, but I certainly didn’t turn out as well as Jesus! How well I did with my own daughters isn’t mine to judge, but I’m quite proud of them, not as my accomplishment but because of their accomplishments. I touch on parenting every time I do premarital counseling, and I have taught a parenting seminar, but I would actually like to do a lot more. I feel, and I want to communicate, that the key to parenting is a good marital relationship between the parents. I tell people that only two things are essential for a child, other than basic physical needs: assurance that they are loved by their parents, and assurance that their parents love each other. It’s amazing, and tragic, how often those get confused or even overlooked. As the Lord gives me opportunity, I want to counter the lies of the devil so that more children may be raised as Jesus was.

Father, thank You for the beautiful heritage You have given me, and for the privilege of passing it on to my children. I pray that I would be more and more effective in passing it on to my spiritual children, since my physical children are raising their own families. May I be fully useful to You in destroying the works of the devil, (1 John 3:8) for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Group Prayer; August 20, 2021

Posted on August 22, 2021 by jgarrott

Luke 1:10-11 And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside. Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense.

I don’t think I’ve ever noticed before that Gabriel came to speak to Zechariah specifically at a point when there were people (the Japanese specifies many) outside praying. They certainly weren’t praying for an angel to appear, nor were they praying for Zechariah and Elizabeth to have a child, but they were praying. We don’t know exactly how it works, but there is such a thing as an atmosphere of prayer. When a group of people are collectively focused on God, it is much more likely that He will do something out of the ordinary. It isn’t “easier” for Him to act, though we might use that terminology, because nothing is difficult for Him, but you could say that circumstances become more conducive to His acting. It is certainly true that our hearts become more receptive to Him in such situations. I have heard numbers of stories of things that have happened at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, where people often gather in considerable numbers to pray. I really think hindering group prayer and worship was a major purpose of the devil in inspiring people to create the COVID-19 virus. I won’t go into all the ramifications of that, but suffice it to say that united prayer is powerful indeed, and the devil fears it. If the devil is against something, we would be wise to be for it, and practice it as much as possible!

I tend to put a lot of emphasis on individual, devotional prayer, so this is an important reminder for me. I have indeed been in Christian conferences where the atmosphere of prayer was so strong that nothing at all would have been particularly surprising. Sadly, those planning such conferences have seldom placed real emphasis on that, but rather focused on the headlined speakers. Man focuses on the external, but God focuses on the heart! I get the newsletters from Intercessors For America, and they are very good and helpful, but at the same time they can be overwhelming. There are so many things to pray for! My default response tends to be to resort to a generic sort of prayer or praying in tongues, which isn’t necessarily bad, but it isn’t particularly focused, and the Lord has told me to preach this coming Sunday on Specific Prayer. I don’t have those notes yet, but it was good to have this Word from Him before preparing them. As I have said several times in the course of this months-long series on prayer, (with no end in sight) prayer is on the one hand so simple that we do better to be like little children in doing it, and on the other hand so deep that we will never “master” it until we are before the Throne, with no hindrances whatsoever to fellowship with our Father.

Father, thank You indeed for speaking this to me at this point. I do ask for clear guidance and anointing as I type the notes for Sunday, but more than that, I ask You to keep growing me in prayer, so that I may be so in tune with you that You find it very easy to use me to accomplish Your will, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Trusting God’s Provision; August 19, 2021

Posted on August 21, 2021 by jgarrott

Mark 12:43-44 Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything–all she had to live on.”

This is a justly famous story, and it seems very fitting that Peter had Mark record it right after talking about hypocritical religious leaders. (verses 38-40) We are entirely prone to judge by externals, when God never does. This woman certainly made no show of her offering, but her faith and devotion were undeniable, and I think the Father pointed it out to His Son, with great love for the widow. Jesus in turn used it to teach this powerful lesson to His disciples, and through them, to all the generations to follow. This woman certainly has a place of honor in heaven! This is indeed a challenge to everyone of faith. How much do we trust God? How truly do we believe that He is Yahweh Yireh, (commonly mispronounced as Jehovah Jireh) our Provider? (Genesis 22:14) It was pointed out to me many years ago that people will say, “All I had to depend on was God,” as though that were a bad thing! There is actually no place of greater security! We believe, as abstract fact, that God created everything and nothing is impossible for Him, but we have trouble believing in practical terms that He is going to meet our needs. That has been true ever since the Garden of Eden. That’s why Jesus taught on the issue so often. This is one of those instances, but probably the most famous is what He said in the Sermon on the Mount: “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33) We quote that and even sing it, but do we really believe it? This widow, seeking God, gave Him all she had to live on. We have no record of how He did it, but I’m sure He met her needs beautifully.

I have experienced God’s provision more times and in more ways that I could write, certainly in this post. I’ve been encouraged to write an autobiography, and someday I may get around to it, but here I just want to say that I serve an incredibly gracious, generous God. I have told many times how it was in a time of notable poverty for us that we committed ourselves to tithing, not at the end of the month but as soon as money came in, and we’ve never been that poor since. I feel some empathy with that widow! Our cash flow has certainly seen its ups and downs, and at times I have panicked, but God has met every need on His schedule. Sometimes that schedule has caused me a lot of anxiety, but that was simply to grow my faith and teach me not to be presumptuous. I doubt that my death will bring any kind of financial jackpot to my heirs, but I’m pretty happy about my investments in heaven. As a pastor, some of the greatest problems in this church have come from people who couldn’t really believe that “Where God guides, He provides.” (That’s from a refrigerator magnet, not the Bible, but it’s true!) We’ve had several people actually leave the church over the issue. I worry that my testimonies of God’s provision will come across as bragging, but I want to brag on God! I want all of the believers to be active in their obedience to God, not lazy, but truly being anxious for nothing, trusting God for everything. (Philippians 4:6) That is the route to peace in this uncertain world.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You that it applies to more than finances! Help me walk in trusting obedience, today and every day, so that I will be fully useful to You, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Peter; August 18, 2021

Posted on August 21, 2021 by jgarrott

Mark 11:25 “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

The story as a whole is certainly famous, and we ran into the account in Matthew on the 10th. However, Mark has long been understood as Peter’s recollection of events, and this version seems more realistic about the fig tree. Where Matthew says the tree withered “immediately,” (Matthew 21:19) Mark says they noticed it the next day, and Peter was the one who pointed it out. (verses 20-21) Then we have the powerful, even hyperbolic, statements on prayer and faith, and then Mark records this statement on prayer and forgiveness, which Matthew includes right after recording the Lord’s Prayer. (Matthew 6:14 Some manuscripts of Mark include what Matthew records in the next verse too.) By the time he was dictating to Mark, Peter was acutely aware of the whole issue of forgiveness. After all, he had so famously denied three times that he even knew Jesus, at the time of Jesus’ trial. I would imagine that Peter was very quick to forgive anyone for anything! It’s very helpful to remember that all of the people in the Bible were real people, very similar to us. When we place them at too much of a remove in our minds, we lose many of the lessons God wants to teach us through the written record. Peter was an obviously flawed individual, but his flaws were actually neither greater nor less than our own flaws. When he could mess up as badly as he did and still be used by God as much as he was, then God should have no trouble using us! Too many people disqualify themselves in their own minds from active discipleship, simply because they are looking too much at themselves instead of at God, for whom all things are possible. It is foolish indeed to demand that God use us, but we all need to keep ourselves available in case He should choose to do so. After all, God took a brash, ignorant fisherman and made him a pillar of the Church!

I’ve been on both sides of this issue. At one point, when I actually wasn’t walking closely with God at all, I thought, “Of course God would use me. Look how qualified I am!” It was after that, that God showed me the depths of my sinful pride, and I collapsed in tearful repentance. I feel like I have some grasp of how Peter felt when Jesus looked at him as the rooster crowed. (Luke 22:60-62) However, that didn’t totally cure me of conceit, as much as I wish it had. I too need to be active in fixing my eyes on Jesus or I will get off track. (Hebrews 12:2) I know that He can do anything at all, even using me, and I need to give Him full permission to do so, or not. It is pride that insists that “I am the vessel,” but it is unbelief that says, “He couldn’t use me.” After all, He used a donkey to speak to Balaam! (Numbers 22)

Father, thank You for this reminder. Help me keep myself available to You at all times, to do Your will and Yours alone, for Your glory alone. Thank You. Praise God!

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