Written Word

Revisiting the Story of Creation

I chanced to be reading Genesis, the 1^st chapter and I became involved again in a schedule of the days of Creation I had made a few years ago that showed in modest detail what God did, on what day of Creation He did it, etc.  This revisit to the chart of “The Seven Days of Creation” has been helpful to me and I think it may help you also.

It is refreshing to read the biblical account of Creation at a time when no one seems to believe God could have brought into being all we see around us on every side and above us to the billions of stars visible to the naked eye, some of which are many light years away. The following paragraphs and the related chart of “The Seven Days of Creation” are taken from The Life of Christ Revised Teaching Aid by Aaron J. Smith (this book is not yet available on the market).

“While speaking Earth into existence, this great all-everything God – who was all alone and yet not lonely due to His multi-faceted being that embodies ‘all things pertaining to life and godliness’ – simultaneously created the universe with trillions of cosmic objects flying and whirling hither and yon, with no easily discernible pattern, either to their movements or the reason for their creation.

“Scripture tells us that God created “the heavens and the earth,” an inclusive term meaning the entire universe. But Scripture also informs us that all that God is, dwells in Jesus (Col. 1.19, 2.9), and it also makes us to know that Jesus created the same heavens and earth that God created (Eph. 3.9; Col. 1.16) Now – it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that God (Yahweh, Jehovah) and Jesus are one and the same Person.

“Genesis 1 tells us what this Almighty God whom we call Jesus did. He rolled up his sleeves and went to work in a mighty way. You may read all about it in the first chapter of Genesis. I have capsulated what He did in the chart below.”

 

The Seven Days of Creation

Day	Genesis	Specific Creative Work
1	1.1-2	Earth and heaven[1]
	1.3-5	Light,[2] day and night decreed
2	1.6-8	Firmament (heaven/sky)[3]
3	1.9-10	Seas and Earth divided
	1.11-13	Plants and trees
4	1.14-19	Sun, moon, stars
5	1.20-23	Fish, etc., and winged creatures[4]
6	1.24-25	Land creatures, insects, etc.
	1.26-31	Man[5]
7	2.2-3	Day of rest[6]

 

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[1] It seems that God did not create the heavens at this time. (See Gen. 1.6-8) The “earth and heaven” merely refers to the whole of God’s creative work.

[2] This primordial light did not emanate from the sun on this the first day of Creation. God created light where and when He wanted light. Is that difficult of acceptance? The sun was not created until the 4^th day.

[3] The firmament was called heaven, which, in biblical reckoning was the “1^st heaven.” (Ref., 2 Cor. 12.2 – where Paul speaks of the 3^rd heaven, the abode of God) Also see M.G. Easton M.A., D.D., Illustrated Bible Dictionary, 1897, “Heaven”.

[4] “And God said, ‘Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.’” (NIV) The NIV and some other versions specify only that flying birds and fish were created in Gen. 1.20, 21.

[5] It is evident from the scriptural record that man was the only creature made like God. Not even angels were so fashioned.

[6] The Scripture records the seven days of creation as a fait accompli because what God plans to do is always an established fact before its actual implementation. But, in a literal sense, the 7^th day of creation has not yet dawned. Creation as Scripture refers to it is now only into the sunset of its 6^th day.

Doing the Will of God Whether You Know It or Not

It is relatively easy (although this is not always the case) to do what God wants you to do when you know what it is God wants. There are a dozen things you do often because you know they are God's will for you to do them; you don’t have to pray before you do these tasks: 1) You read the Bible, 2) you pray, 3) you do more than pray, which basically consists only of presenting your petitions to Him: you commune with God, and 4) you help those who are in need, even inconveniencing yourself to lend a helping hand in whatever the situation may be. Your life is love in action.

But for every time you knowingly do God's will, there is another time when you do what He wants you to do without knowing it. It's not a matter of God compelling you to do what He wants or of forcing you to go where He wants against your will; you have already told the Lord in so many words, "Jesus, do what you want with me, whatever it may be,” and God is taking you at your word. God never forces anyone saved or unsaved to do anything for Him against their will. What He wants of us may require a considerable sacrifice on our part, but we have to be consenting to His will. If we deem the sacrifice to be too great, we can always say No and leave our potential sacrifice unconsumed and unaccepted upon the altar. But think: where does that leave us in our relationship to Almighty God?

We have to prepare ourselves by communion (not just talking) with God and by constant study of His Word and, incidentally, by secular study so that we will be a vessel “prepared unto every good work.” To make my point, if I didn't know basic language skills, how could I hope to think of myself as a Christian writer? God might want to use me in that field and I perhaps would want to be used in that way, but I have to be prepared secularly for God to employ me as a writer (fourth-rate, yes, but still God's writer!) And I can't afford to be smug about it: I still am trying to perfect my limited ability as a writer; and I am never content with my latest "masterpiece” – and I hope I will never be content because that will be when I start losing whatever skill I had.

I am a "hungry" writer, never overly pleased with myself, never self-satisfied. I cannot afford that luxury. There are too many flaws in my skill that God would not smooth over if I thought too well of myself. You see, as long as I see my flaws God can sand down the rough places by His anointing on the written word as the reader reads it. If I ever think I don't need God's help – and I know now I greatly need His anointing on me and the word that goes to print – then my writing defects will hinder the fulfilling  of God's will for me. God may not take away all His help in my performance of the work He has assigned me, but I will not be as fully effective as He wants me to be. I will have become a tragic figure limping slowly along in the twilight of my years, neither fully pleasing to God nor to myself. That would be a needless tragedy; and I do not want anymore tragedies in my life!

Now if I make myself totally available to my Lord and seek to do His will wittingly or unwittingly; if I yield to His every “whim” (really there are no whims with God; whatever He wants is significant); if I choose not the way of self-glory but that which will glorify my Savior – I will know sweet contentment in this life and the inexpressible peace and joy of heaven when I quit this mortal coil. Additionally others whom I help by a word or a prayer or a kind deed will be helped in their walk with God and sinners will be drawn to Christ. What more could any of us possibly ask for in our short stay in this life?

A Truly Communal Church

All believers in Christ (not just all Pentecostal believers!) constitute one body, the body of Christ, also known as the Church. We range from the veteran saint who has a relatively high knowledge of God to the newcomer off the street who has practically no information on the God who brought him to life. When you consider the situation, there is a vast number of believers, from the most knowledgeable to the least informed, that need teaching. The teachers among us (including preachers and pastors) should not rest on their oars, drifting with the tide. They should realize their continuing need for ever more knowledge and understanding of our God and Savior and be about the business of attaining that knowledge and understanding.

Whether you are an acknowledged teacher or not, whether or not you have the “gift” of teaching, you ought to carry yourself so that others will learn more about Jesus just by their close (or maybe not so close) association with you. You can teach patience and faith and communion with God simply by being a shining light of witness not just among the unsaved, but among your sisters and brothers who know less of God than you.

I believe I have a mission to transmit to my peers the knowledge of Jesus that others have transmitted to me. It is not that these "others" (mainly my parents) were intrinsically better Christians than the average nor am I better than the average Christian. What my parents knew of Christ and passed on to me they had to be taught by their predecessors and what I know of Christ of course I learned from my parents. The point is that we all had absolutely nothing before God brought us into being, and after we were born we knew nothing and had nothing. We had to be taught how to live and how to acquire our basic needs.

The “things” we have, even in material possessions, which we boast that we acquired by our superior ability and intelligence – where did we get the intelligence and ability? We were not self-made; everything we have was either given to us as a gift or we acquired it by the ability and intellect GOD gave us. Bear in mind: we were absolutely nothing, a complete zero, before God gave us life (a gift in itself).

There is no such thing as a “self-made” man who attained all he has by his own skill and intelligence and innate goodness. If God had not bestowed on this man -- this bit of “nothingness” -- first of all the gift of life and then whatever other gifts or abilities God chose to give him, that bit of nothingness would have continued to be nothing, a might-have-been nonentity without ever having been conceived, bereft of ever being birthed, not ever having existed.

No believer is a better person than another, but some of us have been blessed with better teachers and parents and church families. In all of these – teachers, parents and church families – we have learned not only by being directly taught; we have taken in knowledge by a sort of osmosis, just by being in close proximity with others who knew more, and LIVED more, of Christ than we did at the time. 

If we should dispassionately compare the person who has a high IQ with the most severe case of mental retardation we could find, it would become evident that one who has is no better a person than one who has not. The person with the high IQ was born with a high IQ and the mentally retarded person was similarly born with their mental retardation. The one deserves no praise and the other merits no blame.

It’s obvious from the teachings of Jesus and reading the epistles of the apostles that in the Church of Christ there should be a balancing of the scales. There should be 1) fewer and fewer of those who know relatively little about God, 2) more and more of those who know how to worship their Maker, 3) an increasing number who know how to commune with Him and 4) a growing number who know more of the sweet will of God.

Are we in this relationship with Christ for a good time or are we deadly serious about it? Do we fellowship with the saints merely for the joys of social interaction or do we really love one another? If I love you, I want you to share in whatever blessings God bestows on me; and I will not come to you to share my blessings with a holier-than-thou attitude. That throws love right out the window. Personally I feel a burden to “communicate” my blessings with you; and whenever I feel I am not doing the job as well as I should, I feel a sense of remorse for having failed God, if only for a moment.

I guess what I am trying to say is this: Do whatever you can with whatever abilities you have, to help those who are less fortunate than you in whatever area of life. If you have and she has not, give her of your abundance. Let’s try to make this a level playing field where no player has the advantage over another. Of course the playing field will never be perfectly level for all in this life, but let’s try our best to be what we can and to give until we have no more to give!

You and I Are in the Same Family

There are very many religious denominations and sects in the world. I am convinced that no one group has all the truth exclusive of the others. Some may have more truth, some less. The intriguing thing is, however, even in those groups where you expect to find the least biblical truth, there are a few devout people who have a saving faith. By the word faith I don't mean faith to bring marvelous happenings to pass, but merely a sincere belief in Jesus Christ.

I have listed below a few of the basic tenets that tie together all who hold them, in a family bond. There are more that I haven’t listed because this is not a formal treatise for which I have done exhaustive research. The list is off the top of my head and is not in the proper order of priority

1. A belief in Jesus Christ. 
2. Jesus is certifiably God and undeniably man. 
3. Jesus was born of a virgin.
4. Jesus lived a perfect sinless life.
5. We must worship only God and love Him above all other creatures or things. (Luke 14.26)
6. Christ is coming one day to catch His Church away to meet Him in the air.
7. Having the Holy Spirit and following His leading is a requirement for being a child of God. (Rom. 8.14)

Your denomination or group may officially disagree with some of these points, but if you personally assent to them, you are in the Kingdom of God. You are my brother or sister.  It is becoming general knowledge that many people who adhere to these beliefs are spread throughout various religious groups.

All of the points listed here are enough to make you and me brother or sister. It is high time, then, for us (or perhaps I should say ME) to soften our minor differences in theology and seek the Lord with all our heart. If we fervently call upon Him as one body, the body of Christ, He will surely hear us and further bless our efforts to get the Good News of the Kingdom out to all people on the face of the earth.

Let's unite in prayer for God to bless our efforts and make us all faithful witnesses, presenting Christ to a world lost in sin!

 

Salvation Is Not a 'Sometimey' Thing

Your salvation is solid and eternal. It is eternally secure, not as in Unconditional Eternal Security, but for as long as you have a living faith in Christ the indestructible Son of God.

We are saved eternally, from the moment of our New Birth to the end of time. No sin sticks to us; the blood of Christ instantly washes it away. There is one proviso for this seeming “eternal security” however: we must keep our faith in Jesus Christ. To illustrate, allow me to use an extreme example: Imagine that I had, in a sudden fit of rage, killed a man who had raped and strangled my little daughter. That would be excuse enough for any jury to acquit me, but that would not be sufficient reason for God to forgive me.

Strict justice, which is one aspect of God, allows for no extenuating circumstances, and the justice aspect of God is truly formidable: “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” (Eze. 18.20; see also Gen. 2.16, 17, which lays down the principle of death for breaking God’s Law.) From the whole biblical context (both the Old and the New Testament), we can infer that just transgressing or breaking the “least” of God’s laws is a capital offense; we must die. Nothing can pardon me except the blood that Jesus is continually offering to God for sins past and sins yet to come (Heb. 7.24-25).  Think of it: the one egregious, unthinkable sin of killing a fellow human is immediately blotted out, forgiven, washed completely away! It is not placed in my record because I have a living faith in Jesus. In God’s sight it is as though I had never committed the sin.

There are two ways to explain this marvel of grace and both would be truth. 1) We could say that the redemptive effect of the blood Jesus shed on the cross zeroed back to the first sin in Eden and simultaneously rippled across the sins of all time, reaching ahead to the final sin committed by the last human born, washing them all away under a mighty crimson tide. This unparalleled act of grace covered, and will cover all persons of faith in God (and in this New Covenant day it applies to all who believe in Jesus for “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved”). In the days of the Old Testament only a select few persons of faith were apprised by God of the coming of Jesus. The faith in God of those who were not aware of a coming Christ was sufficient to save them.

There is one other proviso for our eternal security. Our faith in Jesus must be a living, active thing. Most people believe there was a Jesus some two thousand plus years ago, but that is not a living faith. A living faith must be accompanied by works of righteousness. These works cannot save a person, but they must go hand in hand with a saving (living) faith and without them there is no salvation. “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” (Jas. 2.26)

If you should ever throw in the towel and concede defeat in your fight against sin and the devil, your salvation is no longer guaranteed; in fact by giving up you forfeit your right to salvation. I am not God and can’t say at what precise moment you become unsaved. But this I know: you cannot continue in your saved state and not have a living faith in Jesus Christ.

After Peter denied Jesus three times, even calling down a curse on himself if he were lying, if he had died at that moment, before Jesus publicly restored him to divine favor, he would not have been consigned to “hell.” Neither Peter nor any of the other ten Apostles (who all forsook Jesus in His hour of need) ever gave signs of losing faith in their Master. They had “backslidden” from their former fierce allegiance to Jesus; their faith was badly battered; they were a confused lot, but not once did any of them say, “Let’s forget this Man – He was a liar and a deceiver!” In their minds and hearts they still clung to Him despite their complete confusion.

Let’s cut to the chase here. God does not require perfection of us at this time. All He demands is for us to have a living, active faith in Him. And He wants more from us than He asked of the eleven Apostles at the time of their fleeing from their Master when He wouldn’t even let them physically defend Him and themselves. They did not have the advantage of New Testament Scripture that now gives us examples positive and negative of how we should react to certain bad situations. They did not have the teachings of the New Testament to steer them through the rapids and the turbulence of life.

Today we have these invaluable teachings and examples that tell us, among many other tenets, that when we fail or fall, we should never lie there in abject defeat. We are encouraged to get up, again and again if necessary, and, by the grace of God, resume our walk with the Savior. Don’t commiserate with your poor, wretched self; never say “I’m no good” or “God can’t save a wretch like me”: If you were good or if you were not a miserable wretch, He wouldn’t have needed to die for you. Get up from your temporary defeat, “seventy times seven” if you have to, and continue clinging to the only One who loves you and can save you.

There is no defeat to one who will not be defeated. Your salvation is firm and eternally secure. Only believe.

A Few Thoughts about Prayer

God gives His people the means of communicating with Him: the means of communication with our Lord is prayer. He gives us 1) the Privilege, 2) the Opportunity, and 3) the Desire (POD) to pray, which three factors we will look at below.

1. The Privilege of Prayer

Everyone God calls to Him has the Privilege of calling on their Maker. How we take advantage of this privilege is up to us. If we choose to remain in our sins, God will no longer hear us as He hates sin with a virulence that is becoming only to the God of all Righteousness.

2. The Opportunity to Pray

We afford ourselves of specific opportunities to pray as our own spirit wills and as the Spirit of God will move us to pray. We should not always wait for the Spirit of God to direct us to pray. “…to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin” and we certainly have no desire to sin against God any more than we have.

3. The Desire to Pray

When we turn from our sinful lives to God, He imparts to us the desire to commune with our Creator. But that mindset is not always with us, so we should pray when we feel the urge to do so and we should pray when the inclination to pray is not present with us. Prayer, like eating to maintain our good physical health, is a chore, it is something we should do regardless of our disposition at the time. Both prayer and eating can be a pleasant experience, but there are times when each of them is drudgery. The positive aspect to making yourself pray when it is more a chore than an enjoyable occurrence is when you persist because you know it is right and there are always petitions to present to God for yourself and for others. You will find that often God will reward your persistence with a sweet spirit of prayer. The greater reward, though, comes later when God grants you your petitions.

When you encounter your spiritually “dry” times, don’t cease to pray even if you seem (to yourself) to be mouthing senseless inanities and vain repetitions. The mere utterance seems at the time to be a mockery, but you need to know in your heart it is far from a mockery; it is a soul (your soul) in desperate straits calling on its God.

When I encounter a dry spell like the one above, there are times the adversary of souls will even accuse me of making a travesty of communion with God. This gets critical because I need that lifeline or point of contact with my Creator – and yet this is the very needful thing I seem to be mocking.

The thought comes, “Why am I making the effort? It’s a futile gesture. God has rejected me for my past transgressions. He has stopped up His ears and turned His back on me; and that’s all I deserve!”

But that is a lie straight from hell. The devil is a liar and the father of all lies. Reason tells me eventually (after I have suffered awhile) that God came to earth and suffered and died for all our transgressions. Would He have endured the agony of His hour of Passion to redeem me and then reject me for the same sins from which He saved me?

Speaking for myself, I know all too vividly what I have done and the sins I have committed in the past and I know the thoughts that assail me on a daily basis.  I know I have, for no logical, apparent reason an overgrown ego (the reason is obscure; what have I accomplished, what amazing talents do I possess?) that  I must keep in check. Logical or not, the ego is there demanding that I pamper it and of course that I cannot do. God forbids it. I am killing the ego daily. It pops up its ugly head again and again, and again and again I try my best to kill it permanently. I know only this: “…he giveth more grace.”

It is true that I have offended God in many ways and at many times since accepting Christ, but the cross – ah, yes, the cruel indispensable cross that kills and saves at once! – has taken away my many offenses, even those I have wittingly committed against my Savior.

All of this applies to you also. The truth is God has left you (or me) in the hot, arid desert, bereft for the time of friends and comforters, in order to mold you and to purge away your spiritual dross and impurities. If you throw your hands up in defeat, you are frustrating the grace of God that is in fact taking you by the hand through the hard times, but always in love. When these dire times come upon you, God is hurting you, yes, but He knows the good place to which He wants to bring you.

This is your Gethsemane where you wrestle with your own natural will that dislikes hurt and distress and agony, wanting to have your cake and eat it too, which is not possible. Jesus naturally would have preferred to avoid the hour of Passion and so would we His followers – but it cannot be; we must suffer with Him. But we have the assurance that God will never leave us literally alone. Jesus not only did NOT have that assurance, He knew all along the Father would have to abandon Him because of the sins of the world Jesus would voluntarily take on Himself.

God will never leave us alone; Jesus has taken our sins away and there is no reason that our heavenly Father will abandon us to the same fate Jesus suffered. The love of God binds us together with Him like the Love of the Father for the Son in the Son's divinity. The Logos/Word (see John 1.1) or Holy Ghost (see Mat.1.20, John 14.16-17) can never, never leave you. His love for you will not permit Him to leave you anymore than He could leave the divine (not the human) Jesus. Never in a thousand eternities can the Person of God be split apart (John 14.20, 15.10, 17.20-23); nor can we evermore be separated from our God (Rom. 8.38-39).

Cling to Him awhile longer; the race is almost done, the battle is almost won when we shall have left all daily dying and purging and trial by fire behind us in the shambles of a forgiven past. A New Day is fast approaching!

There IS a Balm in Gilead

“Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?”  (Jer 8:22)

 God’s promises to us are as sure as our limited faith will let them be. This is not to say that God’s word is unsure; it indicates only that the effect His promises have on my life are doubtless restricted by my faith in Him. When God asks rhetorically, “Is there no balm in Gilead,” He is telling us (and He was telling the Israelites of that day) there is assuredly both balm and physician to apply the balm. And there was implicit in the words a rebuke for not using the balm they needed so badly

But of what good is the balm if we say we are not sick? The healing Balm of Gilead is only for those who are ill or injured and need its soothing, healing effect. One cannot know healing if one is not ill; one cannot know soothing and comfort if one is not hurt. The sweet relief the balm brings is not available to one who has no need of it.

Or of what good is the Balm of Gilead if, when we are sick well-nigh to death, we ignore it and the doctor who is skilled in its application? You can exhilarate in the calming of the waters that threaten to take you to a watery grave or you can be relieved at the stilling of the chaos in your soul only if you have been near drowning or been in a chaotic state much like the earth was in its formative stage. Then the Spirit of God brooded over the face of the waters and brought order out of hopeless disarray and gave birth to hope for a world that was dying while it was yet aborning. This was the Balm of Gilead offered before its time to a world that knew nothing of the nation of Israel nor could have had any knowledge of the words “hope” and “peace” and “comfort.” It first had to be thrust face to desperate face with the need for hope and peace and comfort.

I have no idea of what God’s plans were for the earth or mankind before man sinned. But as things are now set up, the way up is to fall down. To know the thrill of hope is first to be without hope and to have a state of peace and bliss is to first experience trouble and confusion and disorder. Trouble and confusion and disorder – these are negative states and can be extremely unpleasant and painful, but the way up in this sin-cursed world is inevitably to fall down and acknowledge your fallen state. Why would a person cry out to be lifted up if they insist they had not fallen?

The point is this: To receive the wonderful effects of the Balm of Gilead we need to first experience the hard knocks of life whether it be in falling or being seriously sick or losing a loved one or a hundred other extremely unpleasant experiences. Then we have to shake our heads to get our bearings after the jolt and freely acknowledge our need for some serious help.

There is still hope for you – and for me. I myself am constantly in need of the soothing, healing aura that accompanies the “refilling,” if you will, of the Holy Spirit. It will amaze you if you confess your need for hope and a helping hand and say, “Yes, Lord, I know there is that balm; I know there is yet a bright future ahead for me and in that belief I ask for the healing Balm of Gilead!”

Ask in faith, my brother, my sister, and you’ve got it!

Your Gift Is Not Yours to Use at Your Pleasure

Let’s agree first off that God is the Supreme Authority in all Creation. He has never required consultation with anyone else before He could make a certain move or issue a particular decree. His own Self was His sole authority and consult. There are three examples in the Scriptures to give confirmation of this stand:

1.

(Joh 21:20-22 RV) – “Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following…  Peter therefore seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.”

Comment on John 21.20-22 RSV

Jesus made it clear to Peter that what He wanted another disciple to do was not Peter’s immediate concern. The Lord does what He wants to do in the way He wants to do it and at the time He wants to do it. God is the Supreme Authority.

2.

Act 1:6-7 RV – “They therefore, when they were come together, asked him, saying, Lord, dost thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father hath set within his own authority.”

Comment on Acts 1.6-7

This is another case of setting the record straight. There are certain things that do not come within our scope of knowledge or authority. Let God be God and remember you are His servant.

3.

“God had no need to consult with a gaggle of architects and engineers before any step in the creative process and there was no one mightier or possessing greater authority than He – He was the only One who existed “in the beginning.” It was fitting, therefore, that He should create what He wanted, where He wanted it and when He wanted it. So, mighty and alone, did God create the universe.” (The Life of Christ in Five Phases Revised, Aaron J. Smith)

Comment on above Quote

Although God often seems to defer to the judgment of men, who can do some really stupid things, there are times when even now in this day of free will, He quietly shows who is in charge. If God created the universe and maintains it constantly, the evidence is very obvious that He has the wisdom and knowledge and power to run our everyday lives. No authority or power eclipses that possessed by God.

God Wants to Direct the Course of Every Believer’s Life

We know that each believer has a gift that is especially his. No matter what the gift or talent is, its optimal use will depend on the believer’s communion with God. The kind of ability (talent) the believer has does not alter the fact that He needs to be in close touch with the Holy Spirit in order to work exactly when, where and how God directs him (her).

God chooses at times not to deal with a particular believer in the way He usually does with all His servants. Rather than give the particular believer a fully developed idea in much the same way as one would adopt a newborn baby, God brings the idea or concept to life according to the natural laws of human propagation. In an adoption the child has already been brought into this life, but in the case of a biological offspring the mother has been closely involved in every step of the child’s life from conception to birth and beyond. (Note: This does not invalidate adoptions by high-quality would-be parents for good reasons. Many a child with poor prospects for his life has had that life turned around by good adoptive parents.)

Let’s look now at the conception and birth of Jesus as an example of what I am saying, but I don't want you to fly off in the wrong direction with the example. Be aware there is only one virgin birth in all eternity, therefore the parallel I am trying to draw in this instance is a dubious one at best. Nevertheless there are some similarities between the conception and birth of Jesus and the conception and birth of an idea in a human believer’s mind.

The conception of Jesus occurred when the Holy Spirit placed within the Virgin Mary's womb a single cell of life that was not derived from her, but was thereafter nourished by her so that it grew into the embryonic and then the fetal stages and was finally born a perfect little human. God deigns to give to a servant He has chosen for a particular task a wisp of an idea or concept. He lays the cell in the "womb" of the believer’s mind; from there the Holy Spirit will, with the believer’s cooperation and participation (by communion, study etc.), nourish that cell, causing it to develop over a period of time into a full concept. The concept then has to be nourished and cared for by the believer (its “mother”) in order for it to develop into a full-grown tenet (not a doctrine – there is only one scriptural doctrine – but that is a sensitive subject to be discussed at another time).

In human propagation that which was at first just a normal human indulgence and has now become a concept, still requires approximately twenty years to become a full-grown human. Not every wispy idea or thought will take that long to reach full growth, although there have been some rare instances that have required that length of time. And that does call for much faith and patience.

But whether the time of maturation consists of decades or merely a few days or weeks, many of us are not willing to pay the price in self-denial and praying and waiting and hoping until the little cell of life that carried so much promise comes to full growth under the beneficent influence of the Holy Spirit. But there will be no moving of the Holy Spirit and consequently no promise fulfilled without the believer’s continual bombarding of heaven with her prayers. The initial cell of life with its potential for good cannot flourish otherwise.

We are dealing in this discourse with “potential” and “promise, ” words that indicate some measure of greatness, but the fact is that most of us (including me) are not of this caliber. We haven’t a great talent; we are just ordinary people. Regardless of that, these ordinary people in the Kingdom of God were recruited for what the Creator saw in them that He could transform into His definition of greatness.

It is not the talent of itself that matters; it is how the possessor of the talent uses it. Greatness in the sight of God depends on 1) the talent or ability you have, 2) your “stirring up” the talent you have, and 3) seeking to use the talent to the maximum by the grace of God.

In closing I give you a quote from a post I wrote November 2005:

 “Whatever you do, do it in the name of Jesus and work as though you were working for Him. Then the grace of God will be on your life and you will show the world – Jesus. That’s our [only] reason for being.”