Hey, Cobblestone,
It’s been said that reinforcement is the key to learning.
Hear a thing once, and you’ll retain some of it; hear it again, and you’ll
retain more, and so on. To that end, I’m feeling the liberty to use this forum
to lean further into a concept we talked about in church a couple weeks ago:
encouragement. We looked at a certain chunk of Bible from Hebrews 10. By way of
reinforcement, here it is again:
19 Therefore, brothers and sisters,
since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of
Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for
us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and
since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let
us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that
faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty
conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let
us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is
faithful. 24 And let us consider how we may spur
one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not
giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but
encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching (Hebrews 10:19-25).
For the sake of our frazzled minds, we chose to restate the
biblical instruction in the simplest of terms:
1.
Draw
near.
2.
Hold
fast.
3.
Encourage
one another.
Since nothing in Scripture is random, let’s assume God meant
the first thing to be the first thing. Today’s letter, then, will be all about
drawing near to God. The next letter will be on the “Hold fast” theme. And by
the time the third letter of this nano-series comes out, I’m praying the Father
has made all of us – you-and-me-and-all-of-us – ready to be top-notch
encouragers!
I got to wondering: Is there anyplace in Scripture where
“draw near to God” is accompanied by a promise? A flood of examples ensued.
Let’s pick one for now and roll with it:
6 But he gives more grace.
Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the
humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to
God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw
near to God, and he will draw near to you (James 4:6-8a).
There are three solid promises in those 2.5 verses, all
associated with drawing near to God. Are you ready to own them? Confession: I’m
not ready to own them, honestly, not in this moment – but I hope to be
ready very soon. Maybe you’re in the same kind of spot, so let’s see if we can
identify a starting place, and begin to cooperate with the Lord in his
promises.
Seems to me, it starts with humility. But he gives more
grace. Why am I clinging to the illusion of self-sufficiency, when the
Father gives more grace? Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives
grace to the humble.” Why do I fuel my strivings with pridefulness, when
the Almighty stands in opposition? Submit yourselves therefore to God. Why
did I ever think there was any other workable choice? He gives more grace.
Gives it for the asking. Gives however much it takes, and then some, which is
the very essence of grace. So goes the first promise: he gives more grace.
The second promise: Resist the devil, and he will flee
from you. We resist. He flees. I sense a resistance to this one. With a
long history of the devil eating our lunches with a side of impunity, I get it.
Let’s try again: Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. We resist.
He flees. We don’t have to lunge at the devil; we don’t have to jump-scare the
devil; we don’t have to outsmart the devil – simply resist. The Father stands
over his children and declares, “Mine.” The devil ain’t messing with that. He
is outclassed, outgunned, and he knows it better than we do.
Third and best: Draw near to God, and he will draw near to
you. In my line of work, I’ve heard a lot of salvation stories, stories of
wandering far from God, stories of resisting his invitations for long periods
of time. All of those stories (including mine), though unique in the details,
have a common pivot point: “When I turned around, the Father was right there.”
At the very end of Paul’s last letter to the Corinthians, there is a
benediction, or “good word”: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the
love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all
(2Corinthians 13:14). Grace. Love. Fellowship. Drawing near to God is its own
reward. He is: rock, fortress, deliverer; our God, in whom we may certainly
trust.
First thing first. A snowball in a pizza oven stands a better
chance than we do – if we want to be authentic encouragers – unless we first
draw near to the creator of all things, the sustainer of all things, the lover
of our souls.
Turn around.
He’s right there.
Grace and Peace (in turning),
John
