Luke 22:31-34

The disciple Peter was a man of great faith and bold action. But as readers of the New Testament know, his brash style sometimes led him to make humiliating mistakes. More than once, this disciple had to wear the label of “miserable failure” rather than that of “obedient servant.”

We can all relate when it comes to falling short of expectations. Obedience to God is a learning process, and failure is a part of our development as humble servants. When we yield to temptation or rebel against God’s authority, we realize that sin has few rewards, and even those are fleeting.

Failure is an excellent learning tool, as Peter could certainly attest. Through trial and error, he discovered that humility is required of believers (John 13:5-14); that God’s ways are higher than the world’s ways (Mark 8:33); and that one should never take his eyes off Jesus (Matt. 14:30). He took each of those lessons to heart and thereby grew stronger in his faith. Isn’t that Romans 8:28 in action? God caused Peter’s failures to be put to good use as training material because the disciple was eager to mature and serve.

God doesn’t reward rebellion or wrongdoing. However, by His grace, He blesses those who choose repentance and embrace chastisement as a tool for growth.

We would probably all prefer to grow in our faith without ever making a mistake before God’s eyes, but we cannot deny that missteps are instructive. Failure teaches believers that it is much wiser and more profitable to be obedient to the Lord. That’s a lesson we all should take to heart

During my sojourn throughout different parts of the world, I have learned that there are some streets where if you get lost and would like to ask for directions, you should think twice—or rather, ask twice.

“Where is the public library?” you may ask a local who is passing by. “Oh, it is straight ahead, hundred meters away,” he might say.

And so you walk on, and after 30 minutes and way past that “hundred meters,” you realize that the person has given you wrong directions. Then you decide to ask another for what are, hopefully, the right directions. This time, the person whom you ask tells you to go back the way you came from for a hundred meters. “How can this be? I just came from there,” you inform her. However, she insists that she is right and that you should trust her. So you retreat a hundred meters and you are back to where you had started, and not any closer to your destination.

You see, none of those whom you had asked actually knew for sure where your destination is. However, in order to “save face,” they pretend that they do and sometimes do a very good job at it! As they did not want to appear ignorant, they had to convincingly point you towards a certain direction—oftentimes, the wrong one.

Trying to get to your destination on one of these crowded streets is in a lot of ways like how we are trying to live our lives. For most of us, our destination is the place where we will find the answers to our existential questions: Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here?  Where am I going?

We long to arrive at that seemingly elusive place where the yearning of our heart will be satisfied; where our soul will finally find its home and rest. But how do we get there? Which direction do we go? How long is the journey?

Some of us were shown the route of the Great American Dream (also known as the Great Singaporean Dream or the Great Malaysian Dream) where we are told that our pursuit of happiness will lead us to our destination. However, not much farther down the path of a successful career, a lovely family, and a five-room picket-fenced house, we find that we are not getting any closer to where our heart wants to go. The soul continues to seek its home.

Then there are those who have taken the route of pleasure by embracing a certain lifestyle that would gratify one in all kinds of sensuous desires. Like many after him, Solomon, the king who possessed so much wealth and denied himself nothing he desired, found this path only futility in his years of indulgence. He records this poignantly in Ecclesiastes 2:10-11:

“I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my work,
and this was the reward for all my labor.
Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun.”

The route of unbridled pleasure is also a misleading course that will not take us where our souls ultimately seek to go.

Then there is the relativist’s way of taking whichever road one wishes, believing they all will lead home. Practical experience with roads that may seem to head in the same direction remind us that they make drastic turns at crucial points and take fellow travelers on farther and farther away from each other. Not all roads can lead to home, it seems.

C.S. Lewis rightly observes that this world will offer us all sorts of things or ways that promise to take us to our soul’s destination, but they never quite keep to their word.(1) After the fleeting moment of enchantment leaves us, we are back to our starting point.

There is, however, one who professes to know the way to our destination. In fact, he claims that he IS the way: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Unlike Eastern gurus who claim that they have found the way and that they could show their followers the way, Jesus self-assuredly declares that he is the way, and that only through him will we find true rest at our soul’s rightful home.

Which way are you taking today to get wherever it is you feel you must go? And who are you asking for your directions along the way? As C.S. Lewis aptly concludes in Mere Christianity, “[L]ook for Christ and you will find him, and with him everything else thrown in.”

I’Ching Thomas is associate director of training at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Singapore.

(1) C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (London: Harper Collins Publishers, 2002), 135.
(2) Ibid., 227.

Morning   “Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away.”    Song of Solomon 2:10

Lo, I hear the voice of my Beloved! He speaks to me! Fair weather is smiling

upon the face of the earth, and he would not have me spiritually asleep while

nature is all around me awaking from her winter’s rest. He bids me “Rise up,”

and well he may; for I have long enough been lying among the pots of

worldliness. He is risen, I am risen in him, why then should I cleave unto the

dust? From lower loves, desires, pursuits, and aspirations, I would rise towards

him. He calls me by the sweet title of “My love,” and counts me fair; this is a

good argument for my rising. If he has thus exalted me, and thinks me thus

comely, how can I linger in the tents of Kedar and find congenial associates

among  the sons of men? He bids me “Come away.” Further and further from everything

selfish, grovelling, worldly, sinful, he calls me; yea, from the outwardly

religious world which knows him not, and has no sympathy with the mystery of the

higher life, he calls me. “Come away” has no harsh sound in it to my ear, for

what is there to hold me in this wilderness of vanity and sin? O my Lord, would

that I could come away, but I am taken among the thorns, and cannot escape from

them as I would. I would, if it were possible, have neither eyes, nor ears, nor

heart for sin. Thou callest me to thyself by saying “Come away,” and this is a

melodious call indeed. To come to thee is to come home from exile,

to come to land out of the raging storm, to come to rest after long labour, to

come to the goal of my desires and the summit of my wishes. But Lord, how can a

stone rise, how can a lump of clay come away from the horrible pit? O raise me,

draw me. Thy grace can do it. Send forth thy Holy Spirit to kindle sacred flames

of love in my heart, and I will continue to rise until I leave life and time

behind me, and indeed come away.

 

Evening    “If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him.”    Revelation 3:20

What is your desire this evening? Is it set upon heavenly things? Do you long to

enjoy the high doctrine of eternal love? Do you desire liberty in very close

communion with God? Do you aspire to know the heights, and depths, and lengths,

and breadths? Then you must draw near to Jesus; you must get a clear sight of

him in his preciousness and completeness; you must view him in his work, in his

offices, in his person. He who understands Christ, receives an anointing from

the Holy One, by which he knows all things. Christ is the great master-key of

all the chambers of God; there is no treasure-house of God which will not open

and yield up all its wealth to the soul that lives near to Jesus.

Are you saying, “O that he would dwell in my bosom”? “Would that he would make

my heart his dwelling-place forever”? Open the door, beloved, and he will come

into your souls. He has long been knocking, and all with this object, that he

may sup with you, and you with him. He sups with you because you find the house

or the heart, and you with him because he brings the provision. He could not sup

with you if it were not in your heart, you finding the house; nor could you sup

with him, for you have a bare cupboard, if he did not bring provision with him.

Fling wide, then, the portals of your soul. He will come with that love which

you long to feel; he will come with that joy into which you

cannot work your poor depressed spirit; he will bring the peace which now you

have not; he will come with his flagons of wine and sweet apples of love, and

cheer you till you have no other sickness but that of “love o’erpowering, love

divine.” Only open the door to him, drive out his enemies, give him the keys of

your heart, and he will dwell there forever. Oh, wondrous love, that brings such

a guest to dwell in such a heart!

 

The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.    Song of Songs 2:12

The season of spring is welcome in its freshness. The long and dreary winter helps us to appreciate spring’s genial warmth, and its promise of summer enhances its present delights. After periods of spiritual depression, it is delightful to see again the light of the Sun of Righteousness. Our slumbering graces rise from their lethargy, like the crocus and the daffodil from their beds of earth; and our heart is made glad with delicious notes of gratitude, far more tuneful than the warbling of birds. The comforting assurance of peace, which is infinitely more delightful than the turtledove’s cooing, is heard within the soul.

This is the time for the soul to seek communion with her Beloved; now she must rise from her natural sordidness and come away from her old associations. If we do not hoist the sail when the breeze is favorable, we make a grave mistake: Times of refreshing should never be allowed to pass us by. When Jesus Himself visits us in tenderness and entreats us to arise, can we be so ungrateful as to refuse His request? He has risen so that He may draw us after Him. He, by His Holy Spirit, has revived us so that we may in newness of life ascend to the heavenlies and enjoy fellowship with Him. We bid farewell to the coldness and indifference of a spiritual winter when the Lord creates a spring within. Then our sap flows with vigor, and our branches blossom with high resolve.

O Lord, if it is not springtime in my chilly heart, I pray You make it so, for I am tired of living at a distance from You. When will You bring this long and dreary winter to an end? Come, Holy Spirit, and renew my soul! Quicken me, restore me, and have mercy on me! This very night I earnestly implore you, Lord, to take pity upon Your servant and send me a happy revival of spiritual life!

The family reading plan for April 24, 2012

Ecclesiastes 11 | Titus 3