The song of my heart today:
Blessed be the name of the Lord!
He is good in his mercy, righteous in His judgments, Holy in His actions. Fulfilling his word to each generation (individual). Let us lift up our heads and behold his face, he is shining downs on us in holy righteousness, giving us the power to become Sons of God. Give him the Glory that is due him.
I am so struck today with the beginning understanding of how God deals with each of us individually. It is human nature to follow someone. We hear of a good testimony or word of God that someone gives us and through it we might begin to think we too need to do the same thing or have the same type of experience to please God.
We know Jesus, along with being our savior and redeemer; he is also an example for us to live by. John, speaking of Jesus, said in 1 John 2:6 “he that saith he abideth in him ought himself also to walk even as he walked.” And Peter also said in 1 Peter 2:21 “For hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that ye should follow his steps:”
And Paul said speaking of himself…(2 Thessalonians 3:7a) “For yourselves know how ye ought to imitate us:” (2 Thessalonians 3:9b) “but to make ourselves an ensample unto you, that ye should imitate us.”
But it is also clear that we can not walk in any one else’s calling.
(Romans 12:3b-6) but to think as to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to each man a measure of faith. For even as we have many members in one body, and all the members have not the same office: so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and severally members one of another. And having gifts differing according to the grace that was given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of our faith;
(1 Corinthians 12:12) For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ.
Because we are different parts of the same body, God deals with us in different ways. Not in just the “gift” we have, but in the “walking” as well. God did not create us like drones all walking the same way with the same expression on our faces as a military parade.
And to those parts of the body which seem to have less honour we give all the more honour; and to those parts of the body which are a cause of shame to us we give the greater respect;
But those parts of the body which are beautiful have no need of such care: and so the body has been joined together by God in such a way as to give more honour to those parts which had need of it;
So that there might be no division in the body; but all the parts might have the same care for one another. (1 Corinthians 12:23-25) BBE
We have a tendency to put on a pedestal those with a “better” or “greater” testimony or calling. Some seem to have “waters parted before them” at every turn as the Red Sea opened up before the Israelites; others seem to have great dreams and visions; and still others seem to always “walk in victory” never in need of prayer.
We have whole denominations and new teachings spring up because ONE time God did something in a particular way. We embrace this “new doctrine” and believe God will always work in the same way, with this new “formula” that we stumbled on to. That is where things like the “prosperity gospel” came from, that is where the “healing ministries” came from, we could go on and on with all the “different” teachings and denominations we have today. How many times in scripture do we find God doing the exact same thing over and over again?
Scripture says we are to follow in Jesus’ footsteps and Paul said to follow his example. Jesus explained he only did what his father told him to do, only the things his father showed him. I can not hear what God told Jesus to do, I was not privy to the conversations between Paul and God, so how can I do exactly the same things they did? I can’t! I can only do what God told me to do! Like Paul and like Jesus, I have to have a relationship with the father, and do the works he gives me to do. I have to live my life by faith, just like Paul did as one of our examples:
(Galatians 2:20) I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
How do I have this faith? How do I live it? By hearing from God! (Romans 10:17) So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Each day I need a “word” from God in my spirit! Just as Jesus would separate himself out and go to his father everyday, we follow his example and do the same. Each situation in life will require a fresh word from God. God can (and does) use his written word for this, but it is in communion with him that he will speak this to our spirit. Just because God’s answer to an issue yesterday was such and such scripture, doesn’t mean he will use the same one today. Yesterday the scripture might have been “by his strips you are healed” but today it is “His grace is sufficient”. We can only stand on what God gives us to stand on. We can not stand on the word he gave someone else, we need our own word.
God deals with us individually. Even though we will be part of the one body of Christ in unity, we don't all go through the same experiences to get there. God speaks to each of us in a unique way that we will understand and can respond to. And we all have our own place in the kingdom that God makes just for us. While it can help listening to or reading about someone else's testimony in how God has dealt with them, ultimately it is only us with God alone in our secret place where God deals, teaches and directs us. It is like different parts of harmony in a song, but the same song. Beautifully entwined together, but separate in our individual part we play.
Make no mistake; just because God has us all walk our own walk, it is the same path. We do not have different gospels to follow or a different Jesus. We all enter in through the same narrow gate with much suffering. We may not suffer the same things, or have the same victories, but we all have to die the same death of our flesh and death to this world. How God gets us there is all up to him, he knows how to deal with each of us and what it takes to get us there. But we are all one body going to the same end! We are being conformed to the imagine of Christ, God is making for himself, Sons of God, a temple for him to dwell in.
This individual care of each part of the Body of Christ is more wonderful than we can know. David wrote: (Psalms 139:6) Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain unto it. In fact the whole 139th Psalm is a beautiful picture of the body of Christ and it speaks loudly of each individual part of that body.
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