Sunday, November 16, 2008

Iron sharpens Iron

I'm so glad God made us a body, His body. We fit together and function to bring glory to His son. But just as sometimes there is distress in our physical bodies, there can be distress in our spiritual body also. As we join in the sufferings of Christ, and as our sin nature pops out its ugly head, things don't always go so well (from our point of view anyway).

The things God allows into our lives both physical and spiritual are to mold us into the image of His beloved Son. I love Philippians 4:6 which tells us to "be anxious for nothing". Interestingly enough, if you separate that last word into two, it says "be anxious for NO thing". And I take that to mean, NO thing - not money, not relationships, not food, not a place to live, not a job, not an addiction, not anything you can experience or think of - No thing. But instead, by prayer and supplication, AND HERE IS THE KEY, with thanksgiving in our hearts, make your requests be made known to Him.

Wow, we should be thankful for everything God allows into our lives. That, my friend, is easier said than done. Those things we can hardly speak of and don't want to think about such as abuse and abandonment, we are supposed to make our requests made known to Him with THANKSGIVING. How can we be thankful for such horrible sin? Well, it is not the sin we are thankful for, it is the process God lovingly uses to conform us into the image of His Son so we can more fully function as the Body of Christ. From our point of view, we think God surely could have used something else. But, He is all knowing, and all powerful and he allows circumstances into our lives for our benefit, not to hurt us.

I recently have been challenged by a brother (he did not challenge me, but our discussion about salvation and his beliefs did) who believes a Doctrine called Universal Salvation. It basically states that since God's desire is that all men should be saved and that none should perish, so that is exactly what will happen. Because, every thing God desires must surely come to pass since He is God. Even if the person dies in this life without accepting Christ as savior, he will still have a second chance through some sort of temporary punishment, because he believes that a loving God could never punish for eternity, this person will come to acknowledge Christ and thus be saved and live with God forever.

This challenged me to search the scriptures and see what the Bible had to say on the subject, thus Iron sharpening Iron. This brother's beliefs and his expression of them caused me to delve deeper into the Word and ask the teacher, the Holy Spirit, to reveal to me the truth. I am thankful for that.

So even though this situation might seem difficult, a clash of beliefs, it was good in that it caused me to seek Him more and ask that the truth of His word would resonate with the truth of Christ in my spirit.

So don't be afraid when our brothers and sisters, the other members of the body have a different view. Be as those noble Bereans and search the scriptures for yourself. Keep on loving that brother or sister and at this point just agree to disagree.

God has it all under control.