The impoverished and afflicted Macedonians had so much joy in the gospel that their extreme poverty did not impede their generosity. Their severe afflictions did not diminish their joy. God’s immeasurable grace overflows into radical generosity. It is by God’s grace that we can practice a heart of generosity and therefore God gets all the glory.
Only the Spirit of God, who has made us free from sin and given us new life in Christ, can keep us truly free as we walk by the Spirit. For the flesh and the Spirit are at war. There are no spiritual techniques or second blessings that can propel us into a higher place of Christian living where there is no battle. Regardless of your environment, the battle keeps on raging. While we will never succeed in destroying the flesh as we live among the presence of sin, we must nail it to the cross and we must be determined to keep it there until it expires.
We are not saved individuals who chooses to join the church as if it were some club or support group. Rather, we have been saved from the penalty of sin and are saved to be His people. Peter reminds us that if we are in Christ, we are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation and a people for His possession to express His praise and His glory to the world. In the book of Acts, we see how a healthy community functions.
Christian fasting has both a past and future element to it. The past element has to do with looking back to the life, death and resurrection of Christ, believing firmly that the King has come. Yet, at the same time, we have promises that there is more to come, this is the future element to our fasting. Although the King has come, we know that our world is still full of sickness, disease, suffering and pain. Therefore, what we are longing and fasting for is the day when the King will put an end to these things once and for all.
The concept of practicing rest seems strange in our culture that lives for achievement, importance, significance, and meaning. Restlessness forgets God and creates idols worshipping. Jesus, the One who alone knows the Father and the One who alone reveals the Father, extends an invitation. An invitation for the weary and burden to come, give Him all, and learn from Him, so that they can experience rest for their souls.
When we think and read about the sovereignty of God in the pages of Scripture, questions come into play between what God has planned and how we pray. For example, “why would I pray if God has already planned what will happen?” For many of us we may see the tension between the sovereignty of God and prayer, and yet the faithful praying saints in the Scriptures never seemed to struggle with this tension. What we see in Scripture is how God intimately knits His sovereignty and prayer together, especially in times of serious need.
God’s presence is always accompanied with God’s word and our response to God’s word must be humility and worship, repentance and obedience. We must continue learning, trusting and believing the Christ-centered, God-breathed, totally sufficient Scriptures. We must proclaim this life-changing message of God, the gospel, the written and living Word declaring the truth about the incarnate Word.
The presence of God or the nearness of God is a metaphor from two sides. One, our experience of it and the other, God’s expression of it. The presence of God is not something we achieve or obtain, but rather it is freely given to us that we steward and practice. Paul exhorts us that in light of the precious gift that God has given us in salvation, let us work it out, because it is God who is working in us.