Lincoln

God is worthy of the most palatial dwelling place with the most lavish furnishings, overlooking the most majestic scenery, while being surrounded by none but the most mighty and holy creatures. Revelation 21:11 describes such a place, the eternal city, the New Jerusalem, “having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.” Furthermore, “the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Rev 21:23). “Nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false…” (Rev 21:27). Heaven is God’s most spectacular dwelling place, providing for full and unhindered exhibition of the His multi-faceted glories.

We also understand from Scripture that God is “Holy, holy, holy” (Isaiah 6:3), unparalleled in His perfections of purity, love, power, knowledge, and supremacy. He, being the standard of holiness, is incompatible with anything or anyone which is less than holy. He consistently reveals Himself as “the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite’” (Isaiah 57:15). What an astonishing contrast. Although God is unapproachably holy, He graciously humbles Himself to come close to sinful people who have a contrite heart attitude toward Him. These lowly in spirit people are the ones of interest to Jehovah.

The purpose for God coming to dwell with such people is to revive their spirit and heart. But why some may ask? Since the person is already humble, what more do they need? The answer is that they need God’s own righteousness, His holiness imbedded within them to make them acceptable to Holy God. That’s what humble yet sinful people need. Only then can they be an acceptable dwelling place for the Lord.

The Hebrew word Isaiah uses for ‘revive,’ basically means to ‘give life.’ Taking the spiritual heart which is dead because of sin He gives it spiritual life. This regeneration of the dead spirit, giving first time spiritual life, is wholly the work of God. The sinner has no roll to play other than being contrite, which means being broken and crushed before a holy God over sin (Psa 51:13-17).

In the New Testament, we see the ultimate fulfilment of this through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Those who were “dead in trespasses and sins,” who were “following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:1-2), God “made alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:5).

Despite a sinner’s unworthiness, God responds to their faith in Christ. For “it is God who establishes us… in Christ…  ²² and has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee” (2 Corinthians 1:21-22). The once dead heart is regenerated through the life breathing ministry of God the Holy Spirit, who seals and guarantees the reborn sinners’ position in Christ, appointing a new heavenly destination. The heart, which was once a grave, is now a living dwelling place (temple) of the Holy One (1Co 3:16). Hallelujah!

Jesus words remain true, “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6). True and lasting contentment can only be found in Christ, and only once the Holy One steps in with eternal life, bringing His peace and joy. Believers enjoy the most privileged relationship with God through Christ and His Spirit, for which we give Him all the praise. Indeed, our God is a merciful Saviour God by nature.

Spiritual destiny speaks of the inevitability of God accomplishing that which He previously determined for your life. The Bible teaches God’s intimate involvement in your life, engaging with you every step of the way for His glory. Therefore, recognising God’s determined and purposeful love working through your belief should fuel your response of worship.

Belief with destiny speaks of God’s intentional long-term plans for you, beginning with His gospel. There was never anything temporary or transient in God’s thinking when He formulated the gospel in eternity past (Eph 1:4; 2Ti 1:9). The idea that salvation is some kind of easy come, easy go spiritual option which can be exchanged for another option is utterly foreign to God. As man’s will never had any part to play in the design or initiation of the gospel, so man’s will has no place in the ultimate destination for those saved through the gospel.

Much anxiety is escaped by overlaying God’s wisdom on your expectations of life because it’s God who employs every phase of life for His purposes. Therefore, recognising God’s involvement in the timeline of your life instils assurance.

If you have trusted your life to Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, there are three basic stages of life which God has implemented His planed will with purposed destiny.
God planned your salvation
David observed that the Lord “created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13). He confessed, “you hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me” (Psalm 139:5). God manoeuvred David despite his wrong decisions in life.

Likewise, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God was working on our unmerited salvation long before we realised what was going on. “Even when we were dead in our trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ…” (Ephesians 2:5). That is God’s determinative grace at work.

God planned your life for usefulness
Paul even acknowledge God’s purposes in the painful afflictions of his ministry (1Th 3:3-4). No circumstance is wasted by God as He intertwines His purposes into the fabric of our lives for His glory. He has calculated all the variables of our inconsistencies, our failings, and others bad treatment of us for keeping His plans on track.

In Ephesians 2:10, Paul explains that “we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” The Lord intends us to walk with Him through each and every chapter of life as willing and obedient participants expressing the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal 5:22) doing good works as opportunity permits.

“The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). We rightly plan our lives out, others may impact those plans for better or for worse, and circumstances modify those plans. But it’s God who determines and adjusts the outcome and longevity of our plans to accommodate His will. 

God planned your heavenly home
Romans 8:30 tells us that “those whom he [God] predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” The believers eternal heavenly destination is as certain as their salvation was. It is God alone “who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen” (Jude 1:24-25).

When Christians wrestle with their belief in Christ, possibly thinking that faith is without purpose, voices in the mind can mutter the devil’s lies of belief being redundant and of no value. As the Christian life was never intended by God to be about self, this internal battle of the heart becomes a blood thirsty war that can only be won with “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17). God’s truth must prevail for God’s purposes to conquer the heart. In this way “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).

Everything in God’s creation has designed purpose, nothing is accidental or without reason, and nothing is redundant or of no use. Everything and everyone is an expression of God’s purposeful will, including you and I. Therefore, even our weak and immature belief can have great purpose when in the hands of God.

Before executing the 7^th plague upon Egypt, the Lord explained to Pharaoh, “for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth” (Exodus 9:16). Stubborn Pharaoh could not escape his usefulness to God, sacrificing his life through acts of rebellion, he sent a timeless message to the world of God’s greatness and the futility of disbelief (Exodus 14).

Even in the middle of Job’s great and perplexing suffering, he understood “that no purpose of God can be thwarted” (Job 42:2). Job realised that God was engaged in his suffering and that God was working out His purpose which could not be changed, restrained, or prevented. Job may never have understood the details of why he suffered so badly, but He did understand God’s holy intensions for divine purpose to be fulfilled.

Employing all the twists and turns in your life, God determined from eternity past for you to respond favourably to Him by putting faith in his Son. Consequently, you “believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit” and personally became an expression of “the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:13-14). That was God’s unalterable purpose for your life in Christ. You personally, including all of your complexities and struggles, are now a living, breathing, moving, proclamation of “his glorious grace” (Ephesians 1:6).

The very difficulties which our flesh uses to challenge our belief, are intended by the Lord to give opportunity for His strengthening grace to be displayed. God has equipped your belief with purpose, “so, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). Belief in Jesus Christ and His glorifying purpose for you is a daily “walk by faith” and “not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). Therefore, we do not allow the things we observe and experience in life to distract us because we have made “it our aim to please him” (2 Corinthians 5:9).

Christian faith builds on the foundation of God’s truth. So, when the times of conflict arrive, the believer defaults to that proven truth of God. The apostle John wrote, “I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth” (1 John 2:21). Even weak belief clings to God’s truth, because biblical truth is where we connect with Jesus who is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). Today, may we live with praising confidence which comes from knowing that our belief has purpose.

Eight days following Jesus’ resurrection, Thomas faced the greatest confrontation of his life – the risen Lord Jesus. Doubt was not Thomas’ primary problem; it was deep seated disbelief. A week earlier he had exposed this faith problem saying, “unless I see in his [Jesus] hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe” (John 20:25). Somehow the other disciples failed to recognise the severity of this disbelief.

Today, this same battle between belief and disbelief wars with long term faith struggles and present day challenges, placing the individual in spiritual conflict. This is where Thomas found himself, showing the severity of his battle with belief in the Lord Jesus when he said, “I will never believe.”

In that moment, Thomas discovered that his assumed belief in Jesus was conditional, making it false belief. His was not surrendered or accepting belief. Although Thomas had completed three years of intense mission and discipleship with Jesus, witnessing irrefutable evidence of Jesus deity, the battle was fiercer than ever. Thomas possessed proud belief that demanded his expectations be met. This was idolatrous disbelief because it attempted to dictate the terms of faith, thinking that self is the highest authority and self is in control.

Despite being born into a state of spiritual death (Psa 51:5; Eph 2:1), sinners are still called of God to turn from disbelief to belief in Jesus as Lord, this is a volitional act of faith. The transition is influenced by every sensory input of your life, including the testimony of God’s Word and the conviction of God’s Holy Spirit. The only response the Lord wants is the one which Thomas eventually gave to Jesus, “my Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).

Thomas, enabled by the Holy Spirit, had to bring it all together within his heart and mind, the deity of Jesus, the substitutional death of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, and the sovereign Lordship of this risen Jesus over his life.

Jesus had explained earlier in John 14:23-24, “anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. ²⁴ Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching…” This is what it means to “confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead…” (Romans 10:9-10). Obedient belief authenticates itself, while disobedient belief proves itself false.

If you find yourself in a spiritually uncertain and difficult stage in life, the challenge before you remains the same as when life was comfortable – belief or disbelief. In God’s grace, He permits us a role in all this, the role of dependant trust which overrules disbelief by choosing to believe with obedience. It is the obedience that distinguishes surrenderedness to Christ’s Lordship. It is this surrendered heart that says, “I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope” (Psalms 130:5).

If, through the confrontations of life, you have discovered your belief to be disbelief, “repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, ²⁰ that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord…” (Acts 3:19-20). “Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹ Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up” (James 4:8-10 NIV).

While Joseph served as a good example of processing disappointment well, Jonah demonstrates disappointment that empowered dissatisfaction in God. God’s mission for Jonah was simple; “go to Nineveh, …and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me” (Jonah 1:2). But Jonah sailed in the opposite direction with no intention of obedience.

As the story goes, “the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights” (Jonah 1:17). During that time Jonah had a rethink and obedience now seemed appealing. So, “the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land… Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord” (Jonah 3:2-3). Good man!

Possibly the world’s quickest revival followed Jonah’s preaching as he walked through Nineveh. “The people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them” (Jonah 3:5). The king decreed, “let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. ⁹ Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish” (Jonah 3:8-9). “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them” (Jonah 3:10). Praise God, you would think. But not defiant Jonah.

“But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. ² And he prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster” (Jonah 4:1-2). Jonah previously had the right expectations of God – mercy. But Jonah preferred justice for his Ninevite enemies, not mercy. Jonah’s heart was the problem, it was conflicted against God’s mercy.

Jonah had elevated his feelings of injustice to become anger towards God. His selfish and thankless conclusions vindicated him sitting on a hill complaining about God’s grace to the Ninevites. He wanted to “see what would become of the city” (Jonah 4:3-5). Wake up Jonah! So, the Lord sent a plant which provided shade for burning Jonah, then a worm which ate the plant, then a burning hot wind which enraged Jonah even more (Jonah 4:6-8).

Enraged by the hungry worm and loss of shade, plus burning with anger at God’s mercy, sinful Jonah preferred death over watching the Ninevites experience mercy. To which the Lord replied, “you have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. ¹¹ And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people…” (Jonah 4:10-11 NIV). Jonah was not entitled  to dictate who God could show mercy to, as stated in Romans 9:15, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

Jonah’s prejudices had become his god, and he was willing to die for them. He refused to accept God’s sovereign wisdom. He was unwilling to celebrate the loving compassion of a Saviour God. Sin won the battle for Jonah’s heart, but lost the war against the souls of Nineveh – PRAISE GOD! As we rejoice over God’s choices, entrusting life’s outcomes to Him, we are set free from failed expectations, resentment, and heart-breaking disappointment. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).