17 February 2014 - Holy Spirit perspective

17 February 2014 - Holy Spirit perspective

Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters,
when you encounter various trials,

When we encounter trials joy isn't the first thing on our minds.  Trials are called trials because they are hard.  They entail suffering.  We prefer to avoid them when possible.  After all, "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful" (cf. Heb. 12:11).

But testing produces perseverance.  Discipline "produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it" (ibid).

So James isn't calling us to show a false joy when we feel afflicted and oppressed.  He is calling us to have a Holy Spirit perspective enabling us to have joy even amidst our suffering because we see the deeper purpose at work.

Suffering calls us to remember that we are not yet in heaven.  This is a vital fact, but one which slips our minds if we let it.  We are on pilgrimage.  Yet we are all too ready to make our camp here permanent, even though here we have no lasting city (cf. Heb. 13:14).  This is the trouble with riches, which "pass away "like the flower of the field.""  We face the risk that we will fade away in the midst of our pursuits.

This is not yet heaven.  We are often compelled to remember this by the hardships of life.  But our response is not always the best.  We "should ask God" for wisdom because he "gives to all generously and ungrudgingly".  Rather than trying to build a house on shifting sands God wants to teach us to long for heaven.  He wants us to have genuine joy at the thought that he goes to prepare a place for us.  We might perform a simple test.  When was the last time we smiled sincerely at the thought of heaven?  Yet he is not calling us to disconnect from this world.  We are still here, after all, not yet in heaven.  Rather than trying to create heaven here from the bottom up we are to rely on heaven to empower and provide for our pilgrimage, just as God does for Moses and the Hebrew people in the desert.  Jesus himself is the way on this pilgrimage.  His resurrection is the power by which we walk. 

There is a vast gulf between human ways of doing things and God's way.  Sometimes God wants us to seek a sign as with Ahaz (cf. Isa. 7:11).  But other times signs are unhelpful.  Other times they are desired for selfish motivations.  They arise from the desire to subject God to our way of doing things, our timing, and our plans.  These sorts of request make Jesus sigh "from the depth of his spirit".  We must be careful to always ask for wisdom, for signs, and all else with "faith, not doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed about by the wind.  For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord, since he is a man of two minds, unstable in all his ways."  To ask in faith means to ask according to the mind of God, with our human will excluded entirely.  This is how we are not of two minds.  And when we are of one body and one Spirit in Christ we know that he hears us.

Let us take dwell in the LORD's words because in them we discover his promises to us.  We discover the promise he makes to his servants of the resurrected life in heaven that begins even now through the Spirit.  We begin to stake our whole lives on this promise.

The law of your mouth is to me more precious
than thousands of gold and silver pieces.
I know, O LORD, that your ordinances are just,
and in your faithfulness you have afflicted me.
Let your kindness comfort me
according to your promise to your servants.