Holding the conviction that Jesus Christ is true to, and in all things, especially His word(s) is something we need help with. And it is not as though God is unknowing of this. No, (or Yes!) God knows (far better than we) the weakness of our frame. Were we to foolishly think (and there has been no greater fool I have known than myself) or entertain some notion that would, in any way, lead to some state of mind where this matter is denied, or this other matter brought to fore that would take some (or any) shape of “But Lord you don’t know what I am going through…this is unbearable!” then sure rebuke is at hand. Ahhh, rebuke!
How much am I like you? How little am I like you? You could be right if saying “This is of no matter, the question of you or I is here immaterial, the only thing that matters in all is who the Lord is” Did you think that? Would you say that? Bless you for the rebuke!
Then…who is the Lord? How is the Lord?
O! But God forbid I speak as anything but a fool. As anything more than what has been subject to all rebuke, correction, been made to see how misguided I am of myself, how many wrong turns are made possible to a man, just how much wrongness in all might be in one man, and yet find mercy. Yes, may God forbid my lying, and God help.
No (or Yes!)…I do not need some help…God help me! I need all help. Now the question might be seen in a slightly softer light “How much am I like you?” Do we need a common helper? Not common as in the commonness of dust, but common as in shared in, or with. Jesus obviously knew/knows the need, even telling the disciples to tarry in Jerusalem…until. And this instruction is given after the resurrection, after sight, after touch, after shared meals and shore lunches, passing into locked rooms (what we might call irrefutable proofs to them) of His being alive. How pumped up…even to “disbelief for joy” they were. They had proof! They saw, they knew…as much as senses could inform. Yet…tarry…
A little like a race horse just waiting for the starting gate to pop open, so ready, so ready…just pop that gate and it’s off.
No, wait. There’s something you don’t even know you need beyond all your own readiness. Oh, but you might say “The Holy Spirit is already given, the Holy Spirit is already fully abroad in all the earth, the fullness is so shed in such glorious abundance through Christ’s name that all tarrying is done, over, fulfilled…and even not needed” Yes, thank you for the correction. Yes.
No but to it, only an and. And Paul asked,”Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?”
Of course they didn’t know, but might it be God in His wisdom had them waiting for Paul, for a man they did not yet know, to speak to them about another matter of which they did not know, even to the end they might receive? A believer might, could…perhaps even would come to a place not dissimilar to Philip’s.
Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?
To come to find we know nothing as we ought, heard words from a someone we don’t yet fully know or understand (especially in those words) is something of a rebuke to us. But, whom does the Lord rebuke and chasten?
As many as I love I rebuke and chasten, be zealous therefore and repent.
Do we yet see how and thus rebuke is then made precious to us? Even by those words? What would we exchange to not know of His love? Would we prefer to be, or even see ourselves as those not in much need of rebuke and chastening? As those who haven’t needed it much, because well…”I’ve pretty much gotten it right all along”? I can only testify as one who both needs all the help there is, and no less, needs all the rebuke and chastening necessary. Oh, yes, we have entered a very different form of life! One that is life indeed. And if I may, may I go further? It is that very Spirit of whose help I am in all of need of, that I come to see…provides the bearing up under all this necessary rebuke. I have little doubt I would but fade away otherwise under such a heavy hand, return in all to fully acting the poser, completely given over to self deception and knowing only the death due a fraud, and without any hope. And the worse part there could be, I might still believe myself very alive to, and in Christ!
Yes, and no here. The one whose hand by which such rebuke is ministered (yes, it is a ministry of Christ) neither ask for nor needs our permission to do so, anymore than He would ask or need our permission regarding His Lordship. He sets His love where He wills. And the matter of our liking it (or not) is also a matter of no consequence. It is an odd thing yet perhaps to us (ought it to be?) that the way of learning of what and whom is of consequence comes with a continual getting out of the way, or removal, of what is of no consequence. Even as Paul said of those things lost for the sake of Christ, once of advantage to him, but now shown mere refuse, garbage, dung.
And even if, as someone I have known all too well, who cannot stand being told or shown he is wrong (or not yet right), full of errors and weaknesses about which he knew nothing (yet thinking he knew much) and as such would go about thinking he is God’s gift to the world, were to have all necessary rebuke for such a way of being, thinking, treasuring of himself…he can only testify…God is able. He is the God who both kills…and makes alive. And none can deliver from His hand. Ahhh, rebuke! What would any exchange (even if they could) to know that hand is upon them?
And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me.
This strange work and working is not lost on us. How that something is killing yet making alive at the same time, even in a perfect way to a perfect end is indeed different than anything we have known previously. Encouraging in rebuke. The making of a thing (as man) able to bear His heavy hand, to endure through even some taste of His displeasure, so that one might know all the pleasure God our Father Himself finds in Jesus Christ, the Son of His love. Yes, the apostle understood enough to ask a right question “Who is equal to such a task?”
He had come to see how much was “out of his own hands”. He couldn’t help, nor would he, of knowing himself to be a stench of death to some that he might be a fragrance of life to some other(s).
He hadn’t set out to this, he hadn’t planned it, he hadn’t even pursued any knowing of it, it all came as consequence to a pursuit inspired in him, a gift from another to him, a matter of not his own choosing to be anything of it. He needn’t try to be an offense anymore than any of his trying could make him acceptable before God.
And do you doubt he knew something of trying? This once Pharisee of Pharisees.
Oh, yes. He knew something of trying. And no less, of being tried. Of being in a hand that winnowed out from him all he once thought precious and of some standing. Took them, stole them, removed them by the showing of an incomparable light seen only in one other. A light in which he stood, yet also a light he knew was to be fully known at all and any cost to himself.
This is all he ever recommended. Even to such end that he would say, in all his knowing, in all his abundance of revelation, experiences, travails, labors, sorrows, comforts, sufferings, and even triumphs…”that I may know Him”.
He knew something. Even a something that caused a willing unknowing, or so pressed to it unlike anything other. A thing to be abandoned, a thing despicable in this all consuming light, a thing so common that it was uncommonly recognized of him, and spoken of, even that we might not be ignorant.
Even a thing, that in pursuit of losing to such extent as this light, the very person of Jesus Christ, provoked to; he came to loathe the notion he be found with it. Yet holding it. Yet seen embracing it. Yet be found in communing with it.
He speaks well to all who might hear for the knowing of whom Paul is. (And here I despise no other apostle nor disciple nor hold them in less repute from what might be called least to greatest)
Yet, it was given to Paul to write of this thing he longed to not be found with
And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law,
not having mine own righteousness.
The only way to lose it, to be made separate to it, to even know of its depth of hold, or know it at all in any measure is in the light of Christ.
He alone can show it for what it is, even as He shows whom He is.
I didn’t set out to know how self righteous a man can be. I would have fainted but for one given to be all the help there is, to what needs all the help there is when it is shown. To even help a man stand under such an horrific sight of where it is being seen.
Light works. He works.
He does all things well.
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