God Is Faithful

                                RUN WITH ENDURANCE...KEEP YOUR EYES ON JESUS

By: Ken Hauge

Email: khauge21@aol.com

   Hebrews 12:1-4 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as children-"My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him; for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves, and chastises every child whom he accepts." Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children; for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline?

   As I read this text from the Bible, which God's Spirit inspired this author to write to the Hebrew Christians, I am curious to know what the end of the race looks like. Through his apostle Paul, God gives us a glimpse into the other side of eternity, and also gives us a picture of what his ultimate purpose is:

   1 Corinthians 15:24-28 Then comes the end, when he (Jesus) hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For "God has put all things in subjection under his feet." But when it says, "All things are put in subjection," it is plain that this does not include the one (God the Father) who put all things in subjection under him (Jesus). When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, SO THAT GOD MAY BE ALL IN ALL.

   God oftentimes gives us fragmentary information, but he does give us enough information to have faith in him and his eternal plans. Throughout his word, he reveals to us what he does in the lives of his people, and why he does what he does. So as we look at this picture of the other side of eternity, and we consider that God says he wants to share his glory with us, by living his life through us here on earth, we know that we will not be spectators of this event in heaven. We are included in his Kingdom, so we will be partakers. Christ, who is the Kings of kings, lives in every believer by his Spirit, and the Kingdom is wherever the King is.

   What is interesting here is that Jesus will "hand over the Kingdom to God the Father," and that "the Son himself will also be subjected" to the Father. That is hard to picture or comprehend because the Bible makes it clear that Jesus is "God in Christ," and that one of the names for the Son is "Everlasting Father" (Isaiah 9:6). Father and Son are one in the same, together with God's Holy Spirit. If at this point we find ourselves getting caught up in trying to figure out this distinction between these three aspects of God, and where we fit in, all of our human questioning and reasoning must come to a stop when we see that God's purpose in all of this is "so that God may be all in all." Ultimately, there will be perfect unity between us and God in heaven, and that is is all that really matters. We will see him face to face, and we will actually experience his embrace of us like never before.

     God's whole reason for creating us was to share his glory with us. Before anything existed, God chose to reveal his glory. Of course, there was no one to reveal it to yet, so in his wisdom, he chose to reveal himself "to" his creation, by revealing himself "through" his creation. Therefore, as his sons and daughters, we were created to be living extensions of our Father's life. He made that possible by coming to us in Christ, dying on the cross for us, and then resurrecting us spiritually in Christ. He died a substitute death for us, so that he could be our substitute life. He alone is the source of life, he alone sustains all life, and he alone is resurrected eternal life. When we believe him, and put our faith in him, he then lives in us. Because the One who is eternal life lives in us, we get to share in his eternal life. Jesus then becomes our indwelling living hope of sharing God's glory. "The secret," Paul says, "is Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27). He also says, "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). What Paul is saying is "Christ instead of me."

     We have to remember that God is faithful to us in all his ways, according to his wisdom, not in all of our ways, according to our human wisdom. In other words, I cannot make my Christian life all about me. For example, I can see the cross as Christ's way of offering me atonement for my sin, offering me forgiveness, offering me redemption, and offering me salvation, but if I look at what Jesus did in that way, aren't I making what he did only about me? However, in the text from Hebrews 12 he told us that it was for the joy awaiting him that he endured the cross. As we read those words, and as God gives us a glimpse at what "the end" looks like in 1 Corinthians 15, we can see that what Jesus did on the cross goes far beyond us...yet includes us. And including us in his great eternal plans is something that God delights to do.

     Jesus says, "Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor." (Luke 12:32-33). This is the expression of true faith. True faith is faith that says, "God actually rejoices in saving me by his undeserved grace, and because that is true, I know that he will also be faithful to meet any need that I have. Therefore, because he calls me to give with a sacrificial love to others, and because he lives in me, I must have infinitely more to give others than I realize." The empty-handed disciples came to see this when Jesus told them not to send the hungry 5,000 men, plus women and children home. Instead, he said, "You feed them." They said "With what? There are only two fish and five loaves of bread." Then they said, "But what is so little among so many?" And at that, Jesus said, "Just put the fish and bread in my hands." From the moment Jesus gave thanks to the Father for this apparent small provision, the disciples began to gradually see that they had more than enough to give everybody. And what started this great miracle is that Jesus had looked upon the crowd with compassion, because he saw that they were hungry. Not only did he see their physical hunger, but he also saw their spiritual hunger, because they had followed him for three days, for no other reason than to listen to him. So it is for us today. If we truly seek him, listen to him, and follow his ways, he will feed us, as well as feed many others through us.

     Jesus talks about his willingness to overflow out of us when he says, "Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you" (Luke 6:37-38). God is looking for people who are not looking to limit what he can do through them. He is simply looking for a faith channel to work through.

     Christ's sacrifice for our sin is what made it possible for us to be the kind of clean vessels that his Holy Spirit could live through. His sacrifice is what makes it possible for him to be "all in all" in our hearts and lives. Our part in being holy vessels is our commitment to God. God does not want us to wait until we get to the other side of eternity to experience his being "all in all" in our life. He wants us to begin experiencing the fullness of his eternal life on this side of eternity as well, and he has chosen to make this experience available to all through his church. We are God's temple, both individually and collectively as his church today.

   Ephesians 1:20-23 "God put his power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, NOT ONLY IN THIS AGE BUT IN THE AGE TO COME. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of HIM WHO FILLS ALL IN ALL."

     If God being "all in all" was important enough to Jesus to endure the cross for, how important should it be for us that we allow God to be "all in all" in every area of our life? How important should it be that he be "all in all" in the affections of our heart, and that we let him be "all in all" in his church? For this experience to be a reality, Jesus said, "My Father's house shall be called a house of prayer." Prayer is of utmost importance to God because he tells us in Proverbs that "without revelation, the people cast off restraint." What restraint is that? "Listen to me, obey my voice, and walk only in the ways I command you, so that it may go well for you."   

   It is when we get off track from God's will, because we have started to drift away from coming to him in prayer and truly listening to him, that he lovingly corrects, disciplines, and chastens us to get back on track. We have a propensity to try and take our God-given natural capacities and abilities up in our hands, and use them according to what we think is best. But we have to remember that everything God has given us is to be presented to him for sanctification under his sovereign control. This is not to say that we are to become passive, or that God is looking to negate our intellect, reason, personality, intuition, etc. But it does mean that he wants to share his glory with by revealing his glory through us. He wants our spirit to be actively engaged with his indwelling Spirit, and as we trust him to live through us, he will renew our minds, strengthen our faith, and continue to form his Son's life in us more and more each day. Sometimes he has to test us with trials and difficulties, or put a giant in our path, to remind us that he is God, not us, and that our life is to be lived for his glory, not our own.

   Isaiah 48:10-11 "I have tested you in the furnace of adversity. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for why should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another."

   In other words, when God tests us in adversity, it is his name and glory that are on the line. That's why we can trust him, no matter how upside down our circumstances become. He is not going to be unfaithful to us because he's not going to be unfaithful to his name, honor, and glory. Our hardships can become severe, we may be falsely accused, or we may be thrown into a financial or health crisis suddenly, but in order for God to reveal his saving power to other people, it makes sense that he sometimes has to allow us to face situations that we need to be saved from. So it is in the middle of these fiery trials that he calls us to give him glory by telling people that we are trusting in his faithfulness to us. We cannot say, "God, just get me out of this mess, then I promise to tell everyone how great you are." It doesn't work like that. Instead, he wants us to rest in his faithfulness to us, tell other people how he is enabling us to sleep at night, keep our marriages together, and protect our kids. It is in that kind of witness that people will take notice of what God is doing in our life. They will eventually begin to look past us and our circumstances, and they will begin to say to themselves, "If God can do that for him, I wonder what God can do in my life."

     On the night in which he was betrayed, denied, and abandoned, Jesus chose to break bread with those disciples who he knew would be unfaithful to him. Jesus did not choose to stay at home, hide away, and wallow in his own feelings of anguish, like we tend to do when things get real rough in our life. He also chose to give thanks and glory to the Father in front of his disciples, rather than complain to the Father that this call to self-sacrifice was unfair. Then he gave us an example of how to witness to other people. He said to his followers, "Should I pray, 'Father, get me out of this,' or 'Father, get glory out of this'?" This has to be our prayer too when we go through hard times: "God, get glory out of this." Again, God's own glory, honor, and name are on the line whenever he allows severe tests and trials to come into our life. It's not about us. It's all about him. So yes, he may take us to the edge, and he may even take us over the edge, but in the end he will glorify his name and reveal himself to others who he puts around us to see what we're going through. He will not let us crash and be utterly defeated by these trials and difficulties. On the third day, the Father raised Jesus from the dead. He took his Son "over the edge," but as we see, there's always an "in the end" with God.

   Because God unites our spirit in Christ's Spirit (1 Corinthians 1:30), when we are spiritually born again into God's family, all of Christ's experiences become our experiences, including his death, resurrection, and his eternal life. The words "in Christ" are the greatest words in the Bible for us as Christians today. In Christ, we are swallowed up and immersed in his nature and character, so when we say that we are saved by God's grace through "faith in Christ Jesus," our faith has to rest in his great faithfulness to us. He's the Faithful One because he remained committed to us by staying on that cross, even though he could have saved himself, and even though everyone was telling him to save himself. He's the Righteous One, who died for the unrighteous, so because "he who knew no sin, became sin for us," we are now "the righteousness of God" through faith in his great faithfulness to us. We have the gift of God's righteousness because the Righteous One lives in us. We are right with God because of Christ's perfect obedience to the Father, not because our level of obedience to God's law makes us "good enough" or "religious enough" in God's sight. Because of the first begotten Son, we are saved by God's amazing grace and made sons and daughters of our Father. That's why, for us, it's all about Jesus, and it's all about keeping our eyes on Jesus.

   Ephesians 1:7-10 "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, TO GATHER UP ALL THINGS IN HIM, things in heaven and things on earth."

   The Christian life is Christ's life, lived in us and through us, for his namesake and for his glory. He died for us in order to identify us in himself. Therefore, we don't have to burden ourselves with trying to go about establishing our own sense of self-identity. I only care about being identified in the One who is eternal life anyway.

   Ephesians 1:13-14 "And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own, by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. The Spirit is God's guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him."

    To run this endurance race life of faith, always remember the fact that "the Lord is our righteousness" (Jeremiah 23:6). Don't agree with God that you are saved by his grace, but then say to him, "I'll take it from here in my own plans to honor you, my own human effort, and my own human willpower." That fleshly thinking is what weighs us down, and what God wants to strip off. He does not want us to do things for him in the natural nearly as much as he wants to do the supernatural through us.

     So how do we "keep our eyes on Jesus"? We take Paul's advice, because he is the one who went through many "fires of adversity." He says to us today, "Look at what is before your eyes. If you are confident that you belong to Christ, remind yourself of this" (2 Corinthians 10:7). Too often, we forget what we should remember, and we remember things we should forget, such as the confessed sin that God has already forgiven us of. Not forgiving ourselves, and not truly resting in God's faithful forgiveness of us, is the main reason we fall into that old trap of guilt and self-condemnation. This trap causes us to believe that our relationship with God has been broken because we have failed him in some way. But as we remind ourselves that we belong to Christ, God makes himself in Christ more and more real to us. If we simply open our heart to God, he comes in and we begin to experience "the fullness of him who fills all in all."

   Hebrews 2:6-9 "What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them? You have made them for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honor, subjecting all things under their feet. Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do NOT YET see everything in subjection to them, BUT WE DO SEE JESUS..."

   "When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart. I will let you find me." (Jeremiah 29:13-14). We don't have to look hard. He's right there in front of us. God is omnipresent. He's everywhere all the time. Where is God going to go? He couldn't leave us, even if he wanted to.

   At one point, Jesus told his disciples, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going."

   But Thomas, who was always full of questions like us, said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"

   Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:1-6). This is the one and only way God gives to run this endurance race. We seek, wait on, and listen to the voice of Jesus say "Come to me. Follow me." He knows the way because he is the way. The only way we can lose our way is by not listening to him, and by not taking his hand. "I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness. I have taken you by the hand and kept you...I will lead the blind by a road they do not know, by paths they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, and rough places into level ground. These are the things I will do, and I will not forsake them" (Isaiah 42:6,16).

     The funny thing about Christianity is the fact that all of us are in the same boat. We are all sinners. We all need God's mercy, forgiveness, and atonement for our sins. We all need God's gifts of justification and righteousness. We all need a new heart (spirit) and we all need God's Spirit to be sent into us. We all need to be continually sanctified by God in his truth. We all need God's spirit of wisdom and revelation in our spirit,and we all need God's Spirit to guide us into all truth. "God shows no partiality" (Acts 10:34). We all need the same salvation in Christ. We all need to experience trials, tests, and the discipline of the Holy Spirit from time to time.

     At one point, Peter basically told Jesus that he didn't need to experience the failure Jesus told him he was about to experience. He denied to Jesus that he would deny Jesus three times. As Jesus was telling him one thing, Peter was telling Jesus the opposite thing. None of us are above sanctification though, no matter how long we've been a disciple, no matter how much theological knowledge we have accumulated, and no matter how spiritually mature we think we've become. The wisest person in the world is no different in God's sight than the most foolish person when it comes to knowing the things of God, and the ability of God to use people to accomplish his will.

     The Samaritan woman at the well hardly had it all together, yet Christ used her to save a lot of people one day. The same Peter who denied knowing Christ less than two months earlier was used by God to preach and save 3,000 people another day. The same Jonah, who hopped aboard a boat to run away from God's call on his life, was used by God to save an entire city from God's wrath against sin. Moses and David both committed murder, but that did not stop God from doing great things through them. Why? Because at some point, all of these people said from their hearts, "Lord, I have sinned. Period. It's me, no one else. It's me." God just wants us to be real with him, especially after we mess up badly and fail him. Thank God that he is persistent and extremely patient with us, and thank God that he just will not stop talking to us. Above all else, God's gracious, unfailing faithfulness to us is the only reason why sanctification really does end in eternal life. Our part is simply to come to God no matter what, humbly receive whatever God tells us, and then rest our faith in his great faithfulness to us. "Listen to me, obey my voice, and walk only in the ways I command you...so that it may go well for you." Keep on running. Keep on praying. Keep your eyes on Jesus. Yes, he is the way. Considering his love, mercy, and faithfulness to us, despite all our weaknesses and sin against him, any other way doesn't even make any sense.