Life as it was meant to be
After we have come to Jesus, confessed our sins, been cleansed and washed from all our guilt, what then?
This is what no-one really tells you! The experience of coming to Jesus and being made clean is seen by many as being something strictly personal, and for our own benefit, but the Bible sees our new life as something very important to God. Why is He seeking and saving the lost? He loves us, yes. But more than that He is looking for workers in His field. King David understood this. Psalm 51:12-13 ‘Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation … then will I teach transgressors thy ways.’
Working with our Saviour as under-Shepherds seeking the lost, is what helps us grow. We realise that we do not know enough, we cannot tell it properly and we feel our weakness. This is what draws us to Our Father in prayer for help.
The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are all working for the lost sheep and lambs. It is the purpose of their work. So when we come to Christ with all our hearts, we are in actual fact joining ‘The Firm’ to work for the rescue of others. We speak their language, know their problems, and can do a work that angels cannot do.
Each morning we should go to our knees and say to the Father. ‘Thank you for another day of life. I am so thankful. Thank you for having me in the ‘business’. What is my task for this day? Please help me to recognise Your voice and to have the insight to know what I must do. Father, I love you! In the name of Jesus. Amen [Let it be so]’. Jesus, while on earth even as a young man said, ‘Wist [know] ye not that I must be about My Father’s business.’ He understood His work and was our example in that work. At the end of His life He was able to say, ‘I have finished the work which thou gavest Me to do.’ This is the mindset a Christian will carry with them all day and everyday, in the community, in the home, in our leisure time. We will always be waiting for the still small voice to say, Speak to that one, follow my leading. Give this one, a small tract. You will soon come to recognise it! And the warmth and the joy of realising we were just there at the right time, with the right words, fills us with joy and health. This is how God works in the world, through ‘converted sinners’ who have joined His business.
We may feel awkward or shy and back away, but God says ‘Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father which is in heaven.’ He was not ashamed of us dirty people as we were at first, but came close to us.
As we live moment by moment to do the work of God, it can mean sacrifice. Maybe we wanted to do something for ourselves but the phone rang and we immediately knew that that was God at work and so we gave up our plans for the day and handed it to God. With this attitude of mind, and our obedience to His wishes, we are filled with the Holy Spirit who was promised to us. Our heart is filled with ‘Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against such there is no law.’ Gradually our character changes, our face changes, our heart enlarges.
Of course, we have Satan the enemy of God on our tracks. He will try to separate us from our Boss and then he begins to insinuate many different things, ‘you work too hard’ ‘you’re getting carried away’, ‘there is nothing wrong with following your own heart occasionally’, and so on. Why does he do this? He sees Sinners as his property and he does not want God’s workers undoing their chains, and taking them away from him by undoing their cages, and releasing the traps that have caught them, then setting them free. Read these strong comforting words of the power of God that we are to share with trapped sinners. Psalm 124:6-8. ‘Blessed be the LORD, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth. Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped. Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.’
There may be tears for we will have a constant fight against the oppressor and his workers of darkness from which we must not slacken our resolve. We must say moment by moment, ‘The Lord is on my side.’ Psalm 118:6. But one day there will be joy and gladness for ever more. ‘They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.’ Psalm 126:4-6.
This may sound a difficult life, but in our work we have a fellow helper and we share the yoke. We walk together, we go to the same prisoner, we keep in step, we speak the same things, we talk together, we share the joys and the sorrows. This is what prayer and Bible study and sharing are all about. ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’ Matthew 11:28-30.
But there is a little more. We ourselves must get our hearts and lives ready to meet the Lord when He comes the second time. He tells us to be ready. This means we must be weeding the gardens of our hearts for any seedlings of evil that are trying to grow there. This is a constant battle day by day, and we cannot slack on this job, or we shall lose our own reward and others will go in through the gates and we shall be outside. Listen intently to those little words from heaven, Do not say that, Do not do that, do not give the wrong impression and then obey promptly. We must cultivate a life of alertness and action. God will strengthen us.
This is the life we are meant to have. And the words we shall hear in the future, ‘Well done thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord’, will be all the reward we will need to hear. The life of the future will be all gladness joy and song for we shall have shared the work of Jesus and there we shall see many others singing to our Saviour.