1. Flee From All This
In the apostle Paul’s first letter to Timothy, he encourages us to become men and women of excellence in every way. He talks to Timothy, a young pastor, about the grace of God and about how we are to approach Him in worship. Paul discusses the character and lifestyle of a church leader and how elders, slaves, and widows must conduct themselves.
Toward the end of his letter, Paul gives us the summary statement of his teaching and the Scripture passage on which we will base our study:
But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. (1 Timothy 6:11-12)
Here we find a strong call for us as spiritual men and women to wholeheartedly pursue God and the things that come from Him. Before we are free to pursue God, however, we must flee from three things.
FLEE FROM MIND GAMES
The church of the Lord Jesus has always been vulnerable to false teachers and to religious experiences that focus on the mind rather than on the heart. Paul addresses this issue as he calls the church to “sound doctrine” in contrast to continual verbal arguments:
If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, (1 Timothy 6:3-4)
In fact, Paul began his letter with the same warning to Timothy:
As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. (1 Timothy 1:3-4)
Satan’s plan of attack has not changed since the beginning of time. As our enemy seeks to steal from us a responsiveness to the Word of God, he seeks to develop within us a mind-set of speculations. When Satan tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden, this was the method he used. The battle in the Garden was fought on the basis of “What has God said?” The serpent in his craftiness approached Eve with phrases like “Did God really say?”; “You will not surely die”; and “You will be like God” (Genesis 3:1-4). He is beguiling her through these speculations and leading her to sin.
As Paul set before the church at Rome the history of man’s denial of God, he said,
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. (Romans 1:21)
Rather than worship God, man exalted his own wisdom. In the midst of our speculations, we become fools. Paul addresses the same issue to the church at Corinth, as he calls us to respond with hearts of obedience to the Lord:
We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, (2 Corinthians 10:5)
In contrast to the arguments and the pretensions set up against the knowledge of God, we must take every thought captive to obedience. How often in our classes and our Bible studies do we see a digression from the teaching to a speculative mind-set? It is enjoyable to speculate about the implications of this or that, but there is no fruitfulness for our faith in that process.
The church in North America, as in much of the Western world, is vulnerable to developing a religion of the mind. We pride ourselves on being well taught, we pursue insights, and we talk about living by spiritual principles. But where is the hunger for holiness within the church at large? Where is the passion for evangelism and missions? Where is the heart for obedience? Where are the prayers of power that strategically battle the forces of wickedness in the heavenly places and destroy their strongholds? Where is the love that lays down its life and pursues peace, healing, and wholeness in relationships?
God may very well say about some of us as He said of His people Israel,
And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men, (Isaiah 29:13)
Sound doctrine is critically important within our churches. Our teaching must be founded on a deep and strong theological base. God never bypasses our minds in His process of transforming us into the image of His Son. But the mind is only a part of God’s eternal working in our lives. The Christianity of the Scriptures is a transformation of the heart. If teaching affects only our thinking, it does not produce life within us. We must continually come with an open, vulnerable, responsive heart before the Lord as His Word is taught. When God talks about our time priorities, our relationships, our finances, our sexual desires, and our lifestyle, He desires that we say continually, “Yes, Lord,” as we respond to Him with wholehearted obedience.
Some time ago as I was teaching a Bible conference in an excellent church, I heard of a couple in the church who had an unusual devotion to the Word of God. Not only did they go to all of the services that their own church conducted each Sunday, they also video taped the service of every great preacher who was televised on Sunday mornings. They would then spend their Sunday afternoons watching these times of worship and listening to the sermons so that they could increase their understanding of the Scriptures in every way possible.
At the same time, this couple was continually stirring up dissension within the church about their own pastor. They had much insight and so much information but so little understanding of the heart of God. That is what happens when people practice a mental religion. Paul tells us to lay that aside if we would pursue God.
FLEE FROM POWER GAMES
In addition to fleeing from a rebellious attitude toward truth, Paul exhorts godly men and women to flee from relationships characterized by competition. After the direction concerning that speculative mind-set, his teaching continues, saying that focusing on controversies results in:
He is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. (1 Timothy 6:4-5)
The controversies argumentative people love to engage in produce destruction and pain in relationships. We see that every day in our neighborhoods, our factories, and our offices, but when that becomes the norm in our churches, something is tragically wrong. The world applauds those who use others to gain higher positions. In the family of God, the pride that produces competition is repulsive.
So much of maturity is measured by attitudes. Very little is measured by knowledge. How we see God, how we see ourselves, and how we see one another are at the heart of what our own relationships are all about:
Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:3-4)
Clearly God is instructing us, as well as commanding us, to regard others as more important than ourselves. Rather than seek to put ourselves first, to have the best position, and to be served, our desire should be to serve others first. This attitude, which must characterize all of our relationships, is possible only in Christ. He is both the example for us and the power that enables us to implement this life attitude in our daily walk. We follow His pattern in the strength that He supplies:
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. (Philippians 2:5-7)
Jesus Christ was a “bondservant” who chose to be a servant to His Father and to us. When we are in Christ and He is living His life through us, His attitudes become ours. The responses of His heart pour forth from our lives. Rather than envy other people for what they have, whether it is position, possessions, or ministry, we thank God for them and for what He has given to them. Instead of strife, His peace rules in our relationships. Instead of using abusive language, we have as our purpose to build up and encourage one another. Where once lurked evil suspicions, we believe in one another with the confidence that comes from God; this results in a deep and genuine trust. Rather than having to suffer the pain of constant friction, we can live in the harmony that is produced as the Spirit of God molds our minds and hearts together.
Paul taught the church at Colossae about our death and resurrection in Christ and about how we must put to death those things that characterized our former life.
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. (Colossians 3:5-7)
Paul then turned to the responses of our hearts in the relationships we share. We must also put aside the old things that characterized our life together:
But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. (Colossians 3:8-10)
We must rid ourselves not only of the sinful attitudes that filled our hearts toward God but also of those things that poured out of our hearts toward one another! Where before we may have reacted to one another in anger or brought destruction by our raging or sought evil in our malice, now we experience a renewal not only of our hearts but also of our relationships. Now we give to one another the life of God in place of the death that previously consumed us, and God brings about a unity that binds our hearts to one another. There are no more barriers of the flesh or of the world.
Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. (Colossians 3:11)
A few years ago I experienced what was surely the most devastating and most painful experience of my life. The body of believers of which I am a member went through a “church split.” It was the result of the typical “power games” that characterize so many churches. The chairman of our elder board sought to undermine the ministry and the credibility of our pastor. The backbiting and gossiping, the striving for position, and the desires of the flesh seemed to be unleashed in all the fullness of their fury. The ugliness and destruction that resulted come straight from the pit of hell and the heart of the enemy of our Lord’s church.
In the midst of this crisis I had the most difficulty dealing with a congregational meeting. As one painful comment after another stimulated fleshly responses and Satan began to manipulate emotions, people began to stand before the congregation and relate experiences of years ago when the leaders had failed them or hurt them or let them down in some way. The anger and resentment were still very much alive in their hearts after so many years because they had been holding those things against their brothers and sisters. I sat there with the life draining out of my heart until I was almost emptied of hope, crying inside, How can this be?
Paul continues in his Colossian teaching by calling us to give to one another what God has given us in His Son:
bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. (Colossians 3:13)
A mental religion does not transform our responses to one another. We have an abundance of evidence for that truth in the church in North America. With all our commitment to knowledge, insight, and principles, we have great difficulty functioning in the most basic Christian ways. We are easily hurt and hold on to those hurts for so long. We often hear people say, “I can’t forgive that person for what he or she has done to me.” We know so much about the mind of God and so little about His heart.
God has graciously been healing our home church. He has been opening our eyes to see ourselves more realistically and has been giving us a fuller understanding of His grace and mercy. He has been uniting our hearts together as we have been able to see something of His heart in the midst of our pain. We realize that we are greatly in need of His mercy and are seeking His mercy in our responses to one another.
Paul tells us that if we would be men and women of God, free to pursue Him with a whole heart, we must flee the power games of the world.
FLEE FROM THE CONSUMER GAME
Men or women of God will also be recognized by their attitudes toward material things. In a world where people sell their souls daily for a small handful of things that will burn away at the end of time, the people who pursue God hold very loosely to the things God has entrusted to them. Money, of course, is not the problem here. The question is whether these things own people’s hearts or whether people are free to use them as tools to build what will last for eternity.
There were those to whom Paul was writing who actually believed that godliness was a means of gain! Of course, God may choose to bless His children with financial gain, but if that is their motivation for seeking Him, their hearts are corrupted by the flesh and by sin. God will never be manipulated into blessing a person or a ministry. God wants us to seek Him only for Himself, not for fleshly things we might receive by coming to Him. We can see Paul’s attitude clearly as the great apostle sets before us the very heart of God’s will for us financially:
Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. (1 Timothy 6:6-8)
Godliness with contentment is the desire of our Father toward His children. An internal freedom concerning our life situation and a wholehearted affirmation of His sovereign care for us enable us to walk before God with contentment. It is in the heart of God, where peace and righteousness reside and where mercy and grace flow unbounded, that our lives must be filled to overflowing.
One day Christ was confronted by a man who wanted “justice” done concerning a family inheritance. He felt his brother had been unfair to him. Jesus’ response was clear and strong:
And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” (Luke 12:15)
That is the problem of materialism stated concisely: a life that consists of possessions. When we are so filled with material things that there is no room for God or people or anything of eternity, we are empty indeed. Those things that we desire to consume then consume our lives, and we remain empty shells that cannot endure in eternity.
In the pursuit of riches there is ruin and destruction. The love of money and the longing for the things it can purchase have caused many to wander away from the faith:
But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. (1 Timothy 6:9-10)
As our culture plunges deeper and deeper into the abyss of consumerism, we need to hear this strong message. This is especially true for those of our younger generation, who are preparing to consume this world on themselves as no other generation in history. There is much less idealism among our young people today in terms of serving and giving. In our Western culture these ideas of serving and giving have been replaced by an attitude that the world owes them its riches because of who they are and where they live. In Psalm 78 the psalmist talked of preparing the heart of a generation. This is a great challenge. In a world increasingly held captive by materialism, we must prepare the hearts of the next generation to pour themselves out as givers for Christ and His Kingdom.
When Christianity is only a religion of the mind, we are free to believe all of the right things and still feel free to consume this world on ourselves. But when our hearts are transformed and we see people and things through the eyes of God, we become givers and builders in a world of takers, users, and consumers.
CHOICES: THE “FABRIC OF OUR LIVES”
Before we can pursue God, we must flee from the mind-set of this world and from the things of the world. Two lifestyles lie before us, and we must choose between them. We can either continue to pursue the way of life that this world gives to us and be engulfed, corrupted, and controlled by it, or we can choose God and those things that pour forth from His heart.
Throughout the Scriptures we see that the lives and the ministries of spiritual men and women grow out of two things: the sovereignty of God and their own life choices: Adam and Eve chose to eat from the wrong tree. Enoch chose to walk with God. Cain chose to hate his brother. Noah chose to build an ark in obedience to God when there was no hint of rain and no sea nearby on which the ark could float. Abraham chose to obey God when there was no human possibility that what God had promised concerning a son could come true because of his advanced age. Moses chose to endure ill treatment with the people of God rather than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. Mary chose to remain faithful in the face of great personal humiliation. Near the end of his ministry, Joshua confronted the people of God with the importance of life choices:
Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. (Joshua 24:14-15)
The apostle Peter wrote of two contrasting lifestyles in his first letter. As he teaches the alien believers about how to live in their present circumstances, he encourages them to put down their former way of life and strongly affirm the new life direction they received from the Lord:
Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. The time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. (1 Peter 4:1-3)
The heart of every man or woman who follows hard after God must make this same choice. It centers around continuing one’s former way of life, which Peter characterizes as debauchery or “dissipation,” that is, allowing all of the resources of our lives to escape into nothingness—or living the disciplined life of a disciple, which entails having a heart and life with a single focus: living only for His glory and the fulfillment of His will in this world.
The choices we make become the fabric of our lives. The people we are becoming is to a large extent a result of how we have responded to the call of God in our lives, the grace He pours out, and the direction He gives. Satan confronted Adam in the Garden of Eden with a choice that affected not only Adam’s life but the life of every other person throughout history: feeding on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil rather than drawing his life from God. In the same way, Satan will seek to steal away our responsiveness to the Lord and devastate not only our own lives but the lives of generations to come.
BREAD OR OBEDIENCE
Satan sought to destroy the life and the ministry of the Lord Jesus in this same way. At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, just after His baptism, Satan confronted Him in the wilderness:
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. (Matthew 4:1)
It is clear that Jesus was not “ambushed” by the enemy in the wilderness; He was being led by the Spirit of God even in this time of temptation. This was part of God’s process in the life of His Son.
And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” (Matthew 4:2-3)
Matthew is surely the master of understatement! Jesus had been without food for forty days, and He became hungry. Every cell of His body must have been screaming for nourishment.
Centuries before, Satan had come to Eve saying, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” Now he tempts Jesus to turn stones into bread. In both temptations, the enemy is striking at the very heart of their relationship to their Father. How could God be the loving, giving, providing Father He had revealed Himself to be if both Eve and Jesus did not have what they needed or desired? Satan’s message comes through clearly in both cases: Perhaps God is withholding from you what you really need! To Jesus, the heart of this temptation is focused on how He sees the Father and on how the Father responds to Him. “If God really loved you, would He allow you to starve here in the wilderness?” Satan is asking.
How often Satan comes to us in this way! He tries to manipulate us into measuring how much God loves us based on what He provides or what He withholds. When everything is falling easily into place, we feel loved and cared for. In the midst of great loss and pain, in devastating circumstances, Satan is right there to whisper, If God really loved you, would He allow this to happen? As a result, we often question God’s love or our relationship with Him. We must see His love as faithful and consistent, no matter how the circumstances and situations of our lives change.
The temptation is to reach out and take whatever will meet the needs or fulfill the desires of our lives. For Jesus, it was the temptation to turn stones into bread in order to satisfy His hunger. He responded to Satan in this way:
But he answered, “It is written, ”’Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:4)
Jesus responds to the devil on the basis of a prior commitment choice. Long ago He had made the decision that He would draw His life from the words that His Father spoke rather than from the bread of this world. He had already made the commitment that He would be the man that God was calling Him to be, even if that meant going without bread.
This will surely be one of the most significant choices of our lives. Are we willing to be the people God has called us to be, even if that means going without bread? Or will we live our lives demanding that we be the person we desire to be in the flesh and have all of the bread we can eat? Each of us must discern what that “bread” is for us, whether it is money or prestige, power, marriage, sexual fulfillment, or position in ministry. Our responses in the time when our enemy comes to destroy us will flow out of the prior commitment choices we have made in our hearts as our Father has called us. We will either draw our lives from Him and His Word or from the bread of this world.
IDENTITY AND PERFORMANCE
But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.” (Genesis 3:4).
He now brings a similar temptation to the Lord Jesus:
Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, ”’He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “’On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” (Matthew 4:5-6)
The devil and the Son of God are standing on the pinnacle of the Temple. The enemy tells Jesus to jump because, after all, the angels would catch Him.
Satan begins each temptation with the phrase If you are the Son of God. He is hoping that Jesus is going through something of an identity crisis or perhaps even a midlife crisis. Christ is already thirty years old, although there is not a lot of outward evidence for who He believes Himself to be. The miracles, the multitudes, and the disciples are not there in abundance. It could be, Satan is hoping, that Jesus is beginning to wonder whether or not all of these things He believes about Himself are really true.
In essence, Satan is telling Jesus, this is the way to prove it: Throw yourself down. When the angels catch you, there will never be another doubt in your mind that you really are the One you claim to be.
Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” (Matthew 4:7)
Jesus knew that even though we may go through times of testing initiated by the Father, we are not permitted to test Him. Christ drew His identity from the witness of the Holy Spirit that He was the Son of God. That assurance was sealed in His heart. He did not need the outward affirmation that Satan was offering Him.
We are vulnerable to this same temptation from the enemy. Even mature believers sometimes doubt their salvation. In times of weakness or failure, in the depths of depression or despair, we begin to wonder if we really are who we think we are. In those desert experiences when we battle with sin or endure long periods of fruitlessness in our ministries or dryness in our souls, we wonder whether God will ever use us again. We fall into doubt about our identity or about God’s hand on our lives and ministries.
It is at those times that Satan comes to us and tempts us to “jump.” He seeks to manipulate us into some outward leap of faith that we can use to prove our identities. This may be the temptation to prove we are a child of God by our spiritual performance, doing all of the proper religious things. We tend to “feel good” about ourselves spiritually when we are consistent in our daily devotions, in our church attendance, or in our giving. We do not feel as good about our relationship with God when we are inconsistent in these things. It may be some great project that can be fulfilled only if God intervenes. It may even be serving someplace in ministry in order to validate our identities as mature children of God. In all of it, however, Satan will be whispering in our ears, Throw yourself down, and when God catches you, you will never doubt again that you are who you think you are, and everyone who is watching will know that God is involved in your life in a special way.
What are you willing to do to prove your identity as a Christian or as a leader? We, like Christ, must find our identities only in God and in the witness of His Spirit with our hearts. No performance, no matter how spiritual, will ever be sufficient to validate our relationships with Him.
THE COMPETITION FOR GLORY
The enemy now shifts his attack to what he surely believed was Jesus’ central point of vulnerability. He set before Him all of the glory of all of the kingdoms of this world:
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” (Matthew 4:8-9)
Is the deceiver telling the Lord Jesus the truth? Well, in a certain sense he is. Adam was the crown of God’s creation. When he sinned, all of creation fell (Romans 8:18-22). The kingdoms of this world were then placed under the authority of Satan, always remaining, of course, in the realm of God’s sovereign control. Satan is called “the prince of this world” (John 12:31), and he is surely tempting Jesus with what is the heart of God’s will for His life. It was God’s will for the kingdoms of this world to be placed under Jesus’ authority.
Satan is tempting Christ with the glory of this world, just as he had tempted Eve with pride when he said, “You will be like God” (Genesis 3:5). He is still using that temptation with many of this world’s religions and the New Age philosophies as he tells people, “You can be gods yourselves.” Satan may be very subtle, but he is not very creative! Jesus responded with authority to His enemy:
Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’” (Matthew 4:10)
Worship is always a twofold process. First we see something or someone as worthy of our lives, and then we present ourselves as its servant. Jesus knew that only God is worthy of that full devotion of our hearts and lives. As with the first two temptations, He responded with the Word of God. We, too, must learn that the Word of God is the only powerful offensive weapon available in our battle with the enemy. Our strength, our ability to reason, our power to endure will all fail before the enemy of our souls. Only the Word of God will cause Him to flee:
Then the devil left [Jesus], and behold, angels came and were ministering to him. (Matthew 4:11)
Jesus was committed not only to God’s will for His life but also to God’s means of fulfilling that will. God’s means of reestablishing the authority of the kingdoms of this world under the rightful rule of the Lord Jesus was the cross of Calvary, where Christ crushed the head of His and our enemy. Satan is a defeated foe.
In this temptation, Satan wants to entice Jesus to bypass the cross. He is hoping that Christ will be vulnerable to a shortcut to the glory of the kingdoms of this world. The devil comes to Jesus whispering, Just think about this for a moment. There will be no humiliation and no rejection. The multitudes will never leave you, nor will your disciples ever walk away. Your Father will never turn His back. You can have it all now, and you will never have to endure the pain of the cross. You will never have to lay down your life.
Jesus, however, was committed not to the glory of this world but to the glory that would fill the realms of the heavenlies. And He was committed to God’s way of fulfilling that glory: the way of the cross. There is no shortcut to the glory of God. The way is always the cross and the laying down of life.
The enemy will come to us also and fill our eyes with the glory of the kingdoms of this world. He will magnify before us all that we can accomplish, all that the work of our hearts and our hands can produce, all that our intellect can contemplate. How beautiful it will be in our eyes! He will also open our eyes to all of the glory that this world can give us. The position, the power, the pleasure, the wealth, the affirmation and adulation of men will be fully visible before our eyes and our hearts. In Satan’s terrible and devastating subtlety he might even assure us that all we desire, even in ministry, could be part of this same picture. The response of others to us, the fulfillment of our plans and programs, the building of our dreams—he can give them to us also if only we will fall down and worship him. The enemy’s and this world’s glory will be seen as we submit to him.
At the same time, the Holy Spirit of God is seeking to open our eyes and our hearts to see the glories of our Father, the radiance of His Person and His eternal Kingdom. He is teaching us that only what comes from God will bear the mark of His glory and reflect the beauties of His Person and His attributes. How will God move us to walk with Him in the fulfillment of His purposes for this world, as well as for the realms of eternity, without a vision of His glory?
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. (Habakkuk 2:14)
One of the most powerful competitions that will ever take place in our hearts will be between the glory of God and the glories of this system. For us, too, only a full vision of the glory of God filling the realms of the heavenlies will move us beyond the appeal of the glory of the kingdoms of this world. God is looking for men and women who are committed not only to His will but also to His way of fulfilling that will. His way is always the cross. Just as Satan did with the Lord Jesus, he will tempt us to purchase the short-range vision and to bypass the process of laying down our lives before the Father. Jesus told His disciples this truth just before He went to the cross:
And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” (John 12:23-25)
Christ is talking about Himself, and He is talking about you and me. There is no glory apart from the work of God, no life apart from the cross. There is no shortcut to the radiance that will last for eternity, and we cannot bypass the process of laying down our lives.
“TAKE HOLD OF GOD—AND PULL!”
When I think of how the choices that we make become the fabric of our lives, I remember a doctor and his wife in Shell Mera, Ecuador. I was there for a time of ministry and had the privilege of staying in their home. They were working in a hospital in Shell, but the real love of their hearts was a small clinic in southern Ecuador among the Saraguro Indians. The doctor and his wife had ministered there for many years and had agreed to come to this hospital only if they could return to the Saraguros twice a year for several weeks in order to maintain their clinic and their work there.
I remarked that there must be quite an adjustment making that trip twice a year and living in the rather difficult conditions in the jungle village. The wife’s response lives vividly in my memory. She said that except for the fleas, it wasn’t really that great an adjustment at all.
“The fleas?” I asked.
She said that when they returned to the village of the Saraguros, the fleas were everywhere—in the bedding, in the houses, everywhere. There was no way to rid the place of fleas. Each time they returned there it took several days to adjust to the flea bites. As the bites were scratched and became infected, it took a period of time for the couple’s bodies to adapt. But their hearts’ desire was to be there among their brothers and sisters in the village of the Saraguros as often as possible!
My heart was overwhelmed as I sat in their presence. I thought of myself and the options I have had for my life. I can hardly do anything other than what I am doing. But a doctor? He could be running a clinic in the States and enjoy great position, affirmation, and wealth. He chose, however, to lay down his life for these Indians and for Christ and His Kingdom. He was able to see a glory that very few people in this world have eyes to see.
David expressed his primary life choice in this way:
Hear, O LORD, when I cry aloud; be gracious to me and answer me! You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face, LORD, do I seek.” (Psalm 27:7-8)
In that same context of seeking God, he revealed a secondary life choice concerning the Word of God that was vital to the process of becoming a man after God’s own heart:
The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. (Psalm 19:9-10)
If we would be men and women of God, people after His own heart, those two life choices will be critical in our process as well. The desire to seek His face and to pursue His Word above the gold of this world will reflect eternal turning points in our lives. If you do not have those desires, pray now and ask God to stimulate them within your heart by His Holy Spirit. God will create those hungers within you and will stimulate them even further each day as you walk with Him.
Although I do not remember much about my first year of college, I do remember vividly a favorite college professor and a chapel service he gave. This professor was a great intellectual, and we all struggled to grasp even a small understanding of what he communicated in his philosophy lectures. He possessed, at the same time, a beautifully humble and genuinely deep faith. His chapel message was titled “Take Hold of God—and Pull!” I have never forgotten that challenge from this great man of God. That is what Paul is describing in his exhortations to Timothy: a tenacious grasp on God and a desire to pursue Him fully. That is what David did when he said, “I will seek His face!”
We must be free to pursue God. When our minds are controlled by doctrinal speculation, our relationships by competition, and our hearts by material things, we become imprisoned in this world. We must flee from these things if we are to be men and women of God. He desires to own our hearts and to fill us with Himself; He wants to give direction to our lives. We need to walk freely and responsively before Him in that process.
May God give us the grace to come to Him with hearts that flee from the things that characterize this world and pursue Him with all that is within us. In these days, with me, take hold of God—and pull!
GROUP STUDY GUIDE AND PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. How much of your personal study and the teaching you have experienced have focused on the “mind” rather than on the “heart”? How can we maintain the intellectual credibility of Christianity and “love God with all of our minds” and still focus on the heart?
2. Do you tend to see the same “power games” played out in Christian circles as in the world? How has that affected your relationships?
3. To what degree do you struggle with the “consumer game”? What about your church? What needs to happen in order for us to experience contentment?
4. How do you respond to the statement that “our lives flow out of our passions rather than our insights”? Do you see your life driven by your passions? Why or why not?
5. As you look back on your life, how do you see the choices that you have made becoming the fabric of your life?
6. How have you seen Satan’s temptation to “draw your life from the bread of this world rather than from God and the words that He speaks” in your own life experience?
7. Have you been vulnerable to Satan’s temptation to find your identity and affirmation in “outward performances” rather than in the witness of the Holy Spirit that you are a child of God? How has that affected your life?
8. In the temptation concerning the glory of God, we see Satan seeking to divert the Lord Jesus from God’s purpose in the cross with the promise of lesser glories. Has he done the same with you? Where have you been tempted to “hold on to your life,” rather than lay it down?
9. Do you feel that your pursuit of God is filled with passion? What needs to change for that to be your experience?
REFLECTIONS, COMMITMENTS, AND PRAYER
Spend some time confessing to God the wrong choices you have made and the times you have yielded to Satan’s temptations. You might look once again at the temptations of Christ in the wilderness and be honest with God about how you have fallen in these areas. Confess, too, the times you have pursued Him with less than a passionate heart. Thank God for His mercy toward you and seek His forgiveness. Ask God to give you a heart that is focused on His glory—even if it costs you your life—and a consuming desire to pursue Him with all that is within you!
If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.
1 John 2:29