“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite spirit, O God, You will not despise.” (Ps 51:17)

Truer ministry must be accomplished in brokenness than in strength. We can make many sacrifices in our strength…schedule quiet time, increase our readings, approach and instruct others, and feel we are rising to new heights.

But what happens when that strength is quickly severed? We see our presumptions burnt up, and we are caused to face reality: our efforts “have not caught one fish” (Jn 21:5). We can’t even change ourselves. Finally we see it’s found in “relying not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead” (2 Cor 1:9). And while death was at work in Paul plunging him downward, he found life consequently at work in those to whom he was ministering (2 Cor 3:12).

God’s design seems to require brokenness. Until Jacob’s night of wrestling with God, he had prevailed over every hardship. This night came and left an indelible mark; he was crippled for God’s sake. He is last recorded worshiping as he leaned on the top of his staff (Heb 11:21). The pragmatist and sacrificer had now become a worshiper.

With a grappling statement for those who would wish to truly minister, Paul ends his letter to the Corinthians…”We are weak in Him, yet by God’s power we will live with Him to serve you” (vs 13:4).
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“At just the right time…” (Rom 5:6)

Even with our best efforts each generation passes on to its successor a human basis of every relationship: conditional love. Without words, the “teaching” hopelessly is transferred onward upon its continuum: “If something I like about me is evoked within me by you, I will invest myself in you, reward and love you.”

Over and against this, God comes. He waits until JUST the right time to stand in stark contrast. “At just the right time while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” “At just the right time when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” (Rom 5:8,6)

Why is that the right time?

To present the widest gap, and presenting the gap, to demonstrate the expanse of God’s love. Where God moves, it seems He delights in bridging gaps. Our God is a God who justifies the wicked (Rom 4:5), who gives live to the dead (Rom 4:17), and who calls into being things that don’t exist as if they did exist (Rom 4:17). He moves in the arena where we find ourselves NOT in control. To the wicked, He justifies. To the dead, He gives life. To the powerless, He saves. This is the faith of the Gospel.

So, for our sakes, there was a gap, and at just the right time God filled it, We can always look back: “WHILE we were STILL sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom 5:8_

Thank you, Lord, for Your timing!

Conditioned Muscles

“You have need of patience…” (Heb 10:36)

We have need of patience, which literally means an “abiding under.”

Considering Moses on the hillside, he lifted his arms to God to guarantee victory for Israel. As time lapsed with muscles exercising against gravity, his arms felt weary and wanted to droop. An aerobic routine requires lying on the ground with legs and neck lifted. As a song relentlessly beats on, stomach muscles are screaming! Both of these scenes require an abiding up under, in these cases up under gravity.

In a similar way patience is the great conditioner of our spiritual muscles. The fortitude to abide under time, conflict, oppression, pressures, discouragement give patience her perfect opportunity.

“You have need of patience, that after you have done the will of God you may inherit the promise.” What happens in the interim: between doing and receiving? It is not enough to light the sky momentarily like a firecracker and then fall to the ground lifeless and cold. What keeps the life going when we aren’t lighting the sky? There must be perseverance.

The pace, the patience until “He that shall come, will come” (vs 37). We may find ourselves between the doing and the promise. Can we keep the pace of Christ until the promise: the “great recompense of reward”?

To give pleasure to God we want to be in position of lunging forward to our coming King. If we draw back (”lowering a sail so as to slacken the course”) at His coming, we reveal much about the lack of fortitude and conditioning we did in the interim.

We need to keep fresh a life that lunges to the sound and sight of Jesus, “the just shall live by faith” (vs 38). We need continual conditioning. We DO need patience to believe to the saving of our souls (vs 39)!!——-