The Older That I Get

Philippians 1:6 NASB
“For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work among you will complete it by the day of Christ Jesus.”

The older that I get, the more and more I come to appreciate and take confidence in the wisdom and assurance that is written within God’s Holy Word. That “Book” that so many disregard. And that applies to realities that are both within and without. 

Do you recall Jesus telling us about removing the log from our own eyes before we go about removing twigs from the eyes of others? Who among us doesn’t need to apply that daily? 

And how many of us have tried to take the yoke that Jesus carried, which He invited us to carry, which was doing the will of our Father, and not come to realization of the inadequacies of our own endeavours, at meeting this task? “For when I am weak, then am I strong.” If Paul knew this, and he did, then so should we.

Anyone who honestly and repeatedly looks at what Jesus did and what Jesus said, has to eventually come to the realization of how different He was and is from us. He possessed His own will but He did not allow it to off set the will of the Father. Not once. Doing the will of the Father was all that Jesus saw, all that Jesus spoke and all that Jesus did. Was Jesus focused? Yes He was. Are we? Not so much. Oh we try, but we still fall short. God literally had and has to do it for us, through His Son. There is no other possible way, the difference is too great, the crossed purposes within and without us, are too many.

In Philippians 1:6, did you notice who begins the good work in us when we believe and trust in God’s Word to us and are “born again”, and who brings it to completion in Himself? Yes, that would be Jesus, doing for us, what we ourselves cannot do. 

There are still a lot of things that I do not understand but my need for God’s grace is not one of them. Grace, unwarranted favour, from God our Father, through the Son, to us. 

This reality, when it takes root in us, does have to change our mindset, the hardness of our hearts, the way that we reason, the way that we evaluate. And God’s Holy Spirit within us, changes our spirit, because the two do have to become one. Our completion is in Him, always has been and always will. It’s just the way that it is. 

Forgive because we are forgiven. Love because we are loved. Think of others welfare above our own. I think these things can and do indeed take root in us, but they are completed in Jesus. 

The simplicity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not that difficult to comprehend but it demands the acknowledgement of who Jesus is, Who sent Him, why is was necessary that He do for us what we cannot do of ourselves and our eventual faith and trust in Jesus alone, as our righteousness before a Holy God. The Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.

John 3:16-21 NASB
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him. The one who believes in Him is not judged; the one who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the Light; for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light, so that his deeds will not be exposed. But the one who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds will be revealed as having been performed in God.”

The older that I get, these words spoken by Jesus, from the Father, and witnessed within my spirit by God’s Holy Spirit, ring true.

Worthy is the Lamb! Blessings!