The Snake's Reasoning: Happiness or Holiness?

I've been reading Passion and Purity by Elisabeth Elliot, and I found a simple yet deep truth very clearly written out in one of the chapters. This truth is illustrated throughout Scripture and in our every day lives.

Consider Jacob and Esau. Both were hoping and praying for their father's blessing, but only Jacob received it. Did they both serve a sovereign, loving God? Think about those two Christian men you know who are unemployed and were recently interviewed for a position at that well-known company. They, and many of the people they know, were praying for God to provide for their families through them getting the job. However, just one was offered the position. Does God still care about both of them?

Elisabeth writes about a conversation she once had with a friend in the middle of the night. Her friend had just come in from a date, was troubled, and wanted to talk.  She explained her eagerness to marry a handsome and wealthy man, however, she had just been out with a Christian man who was very nice, interesting, and handsome, but...not wealthy.


Wisely, Elisabeth asked her a few questions.

"What do you want more than anything else?" I asked. "God's choices or your own?"

"God's, of course."

"What if He should choose for you a man who was poor and homely?"

"Oh, but he wouldn't!"

"Why not?"

"Because He loves me."

"I see. Then He will give the poor and homely man only to a woman He doesn't love?"

"Oh, but--"

"Or--think about this one--does He love the poor, homely man? If so, will He give him an ugly woman? Or might He give him a beautiful one?"

"Oh, please!"

"You said you wanted God's choices, Jane, and God's choices involve His plans for the whole universe--all the atoms, all the worlds, all the people, pretty and ugly, rich and poor. He's engineering an intricate pattern for good, and part of that pattern might necessitate giving a beautiful girl to a homely man. Maybe the man with no looks and no money is praying God will give you to him. What about that, now?"

"That's too complicated for me. I've prayed for His will, and I've prayed for a rich, handsome husband, and that's what I'm going to get, because Jesus loves me and Jesus wants me to be happy."

"So if you don't get him, will that prove that God doesn't love you?"

The blue eyes filled with tears. "Doesn't He want me to be happy?" (I heard an echo of Eve in Eden.)

"He wants you most to be holy."

"Miserable and longfaced, then. Is that what God wants? Is that what holiness has to mean?"

"Has to? No. Not only doesn't have to, but can't. Real holiness can't possibly be miserable and longfaced, Jan. Holiness means 'wholeness.' Comes from the same root as hale--you know, hale and hearty. Healthy. Fulfilled."

"Well, that has to mean happy."

"That's what it means for sure. The problem starts when we make up our own minds what will give us happiness and then decide, if we don't get exactly that, that God doesn't love us. We slither into a slough of God-hates-me-self-pity."

"But you just said He wants us to be happy. He must want to give us what we want, doesn't He? I mean, within reason."

"He wanted Adam and Eve to be happy, but He didn't give them everything they wanted. He knew it would be the death of them. So they got mad and decided He didn't love them and was being stingy when He told them not to touch the fruit. How could He love them if He didn't let them have it? They put more stock in the snake's reasoning than in God's."

(Passion and Purity pp. 40-42)

When my prayers aren't answered the way that I see would fit into my life's plan, does God still see me? Doesn't He know that I have needs and desires? Doesn't Him loving me mean that He wants to make me happy?
What do you do when you feel you've come to a point that your circumstance appears to be an inadequate status for deep personal growth? How long do you hang on? How ever did Jesus manage to be content with the little he possessed on this earth?
When we feel this way, I'm afraid the Snake has been whispering in our ear, "God is stingy. He dangles beautiful, alluring fruit before your eyes but won't let you taste it. He refuses to give you the one thing you need for deep personal growth, the lone thing in the world that would solve all your problems and give you true happiness."

Love others today.
GE

    

In Your Eye

Think of a time when you got a speck of something in your eye!  It might have been tiny, but do remember the irritation and the pain? Ouch! Until it was removed you were distracted, blurred, and somewhat helpless.  Ever seen someone else with the same sort of problem?  What was your response to that person's need?

Read Matthew 7:1-5

 1) Judge not, that ye be not judged.  2) For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.  3) And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?  4) Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?  5) Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

This passage is about

    1. marred vision and hindered blessings

    2. restoring vision and blessing

So which is the mote and which is a beam?

_______________ - a great length of timber, a log, a rafter

_______________ - a tiny speck (like sawdust), a splinter

                 Hint: alphabetical order

According to Matthew 7

Who is called a hypocrite?

Which must be removed first, the mote or the beam? Why?

Hint: Which is more easily spotted, accessed, and personal? Which is not?

The mote is some fault that I see in another (real or imagined).

- It's hard to tell with that log in the way; isn't it!

The beam may simply be my unloving response to one who has the mote.

Feelings of resentment, coldness, and criticism are signs of an unloving spirit.

The first flicker of an unkind thought or criticism is the beginning of this un-love.

Key: I choose to love or to un-love.

If I choose to love -  I will admonish and exhort, and provoke.

admonish - caution, reprove, rebuke (Col. 3:16)  Admonishing whom? _____________

exhort - encourage, urge (Heb.3:13)  Exhort when? _______________

provoke - incite (Heb. 10:24)  Provoke to what?     _______________

Bottom line: The love of Jesus poured into me will make me want to help my brother.

Where does love for Jesus begin?  (Phil. 1:21, I Cor.15:31)  Hint: ide to elfs

IF I die to myself - to my gifts, to my rights, to my power, to my goodness, to my ambition;

THEN and only then will I understand the cross and have the power of God in my life.

What makes for a successful removal? (verse 5)

I must first cast sin from my own heart, so I may be clean to help my brother

- before it's too late, for either or both of us!

Ask God to reveal the timber of sin that is in your heart.  Then ask forgiveness and repent. 
PM