Witness to God's Faithfulness

Some thoughts on what it takes for me to be a witness to God's faithfulness

Listen to God

What do I hear when I read the Bible? John Stott has written that “...sometimes we hear from Scripture only what we want to hear—the soothing echoes of our own cultural prejudice—and then we miss the thunderclap of his Word as he challenges us to listen.”  In my work with university students, I've seen Chinese with no prior exposure to Scripture observe details in a passage that are missed by Americans who are so familiar with the Bible that they do not carefully read a passage because they are sure they know what it says.

I also reflect on the difficulty I have in making a quiet space so that I can hear what God the Spirit is saying to me. “Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he's the one who will keep you on track.” (Eugene Peterson'sparaphrase of Proverbs 3:6)

Wrestle with God

While we may primarily think of Jacob in this context, the psalms and prophetic writings are full of examples of those who wrestled with God. Our tendency is to want to find the correct answer to the difficulties of Scripture and of life.

But the secret isn't to emphasize correct answers. As Jesus teaches in Mark 4:10-11, he wants us to bring our questions and difficulties to him. As we wrestle with God we get to know him in a deeper way. And it is this knowledge of God, the experience of him as we wrestle with him and see how he loves and cares for us, that helps us with what we don't understand.

Work for God

We cling to the truth of Eph 2:8-9 (salvation by grace through faith and not by works) but too easily forget Eph 2:10—that we were “created in Christ Jesus for good works.” Whatever I do, whether teaching from the Bible or fertilizing my lawn, is to be done heartily  for the Lord (Col 3:23).

Jesus is Lord of every part of life (Php 2, Rev 1); the idea of a  “sacred-secular divide” is not Biblical. A gospel message that is reduced a kind of fire insurance, as though what really matters is that my soul is saved from hell, is a gospel with a huge hole in it. God wants me to work for him in way that brings the whole gospel to the world he loves.