The Pathway to the Christ-Life - Being Broken - 7

THE SUN RISES - Contd.

Honest with God

Finally, Jacob was blessed in the place where he was honest with God. God asks him, "What is your name?" Twenty years earlier, when his father had asked him the same question, he had lied and said, "I am Esau" (Gen.27:19). But now he is honest. He says, "Lord, I am Jacob" - or in other words, "Lord, I am a grabber, a deceiver, and a bargainer." There was no guile in Jacob now. And so God could bless him.

Years later, when Jesus looked at Nathaniel, you remember what He said: "Behold an Israelite - a true Israel, a genuine prince of God - in whom there is no Jacob', no guile" (John 1:47). This is what God waits to see in us too. Only then can He empower us.

God blessed Jacob there - when he was honest, when he did not want to pretend any more, when he confessed, "Lord I am a hypocrite. There is shame shame and pretense in my life". I tell you, it takes real brokenness for a man to acknowledge that from the depths of his heart. Many Christian leaders say words like that with false humility - to gain a reputation for being humble. I am not referring to that type of abomination. What I mean i an honesty that comes out of a truly broken and contrite heart. That is costly. There so much guile in all of us. May God have mercy on us for pretending to be so sanctified when we are not. Let us covet sincerity and honesty and openness with all of our hearts, and then there will be no limit to God's blessing upon our lives.

The Ascending Sun

Jacob was broken and thereby he became Israel. The sun rose on his life at last. This did not however, mean that Jacob had become perfect. There is no once-for-all experience that guarantees perfection. God had to discipline him further, for he still had plenty to learn. In Genesis chapters 33 and 34, we read of some of Jacob's disobedience and blunders.

But the sun had risen on his life and he had entered into a new spiritual plane. The light had to increase in its brightness, no doubt, but that would come as the sun continued to ascend in the sky to its noon-day position. The Bible says, "The path of the just (the justified man) is like the shining light (of the sun) that shines more and more (from sunrise onwards) unto the perfect (noon) day" (Prov. 4:18).

So it was with Jacob and so it must be with us. If we submit to God's dealings with us, as Jacob finally did, the light of God will continuously increase upon our lives. And as it does so, the shadow of our self-life will continue to decrease until finally when the sun is overhead (when Christ returns), the shadow will disappear altogether and Christ will be all in all.

What was Jacob's testimony in later years, about his Peniel experience? He did not keep telling everyone that on such-and-such a date he had received a second blessing. No. His testimony was something different. In Hebrews 11, we are given an inkling as to what Jacob's testimony was.There, we are given a record of some of the exploits of great men of faith in the Old Testament - shutting lions' mouth, raising from the dead etc., Jacob's name appears in the list too - and what do you think is recorded of him? "He worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff" (v.21). It looks quite incongruous to include something like that in a chapter full of spectacular events!

What Jacob did, certainly does not look like a "miracle of faith". But it was. It was perhaps a greater miracle than the other miracles recorded in the chapter. The staff had become necessary to Jacob, because his thigh had been dislocated at Peniel. Leaning upon his staff, he would always remember the miracle that God had wrought in his life, in breaking his stubborn self-will. His leaning upon his staff now symbolised his helpless, moment-by-moment dependence on his God. He worshipped God now as a broken man. He gloried in his weakness and infirmity - and that was his daily testimony. So it was with Apostle Paul too. And so it has been with the great men and women of God in all ages. They rejoiced in their limitations and not in their achievements. What a lesson for proud, self-confident 21st century Christians!

Towards the end of his life, we see Jacob as a prophet. He prophesies concerning the future of his descendants (Gen. 49). Only a man who has been under God's hand and who has submitted to the Divine disciplines is qualified to prophesy. Jacob had learnt through experience. He was no seminary-qualified theoretician. He had been through the grill and qualified in God's University. He knew the secret counsels of God. Truly he was a prince of God. What a wonderful thing it is to be purged by God. What fruitfulness it results in!

Notice finally, a word of encouragement that runs through the Bible. God calls Himself, "The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (not "Israel, but "Jacob"). " This is wonderful indeed! He is the God of Jacob. He has linked His Name with the name of Jacob, the grabber, and the deceiver. This is our encouragement. Our God is the God of the man with the warped personality. He is the God of the woman with the different temperament. What meaning there is in the psalmist's words, "The God of Jacob is our refuge" (Psa. 46:7,11). He is not only the Lord of Hosts, but also the God of Jacob. Praise be to His Name!

What God has begun in us He will complete. As perfect as was the work of the Father in creation and as perfect as was the work of the Son in our redemption, so perfect will the work of the Holy Spirit be in our sanctification. God is faithful.

"He Who began the good work within (us) will keep right on helping (us) grow in grace until His task within (us) is finally finished on that day when Jesus Christ returns" (Phil. 1:6). He will complete His work in us, as He completed His work in Jacob. But we must respond as Jacob did at Peniel. If however we do not cooperate with Him, but frustrate His workings in us, we shall ultimately stand before Him with the tragedy of a wasted, fruitless life. God wants to be fruitful, but He won't compel us. He wants to transform us into the likeness of Christ, but He will never override our free-will.

The pathway to the Christ-life is via the cross - being broken thereon. What power is released when an atom is broken. What power can be released when a child of God is broken in God's Hand!

With this I come to an of the series "The Pathway to the Christ-Life (1) - Being Broken". From next week onwards I will be posting on the next series on the same line... "The Pathway to the Christ-Life (2) - Being Emptied"

Hope you all enjoyed reading. The above extract has been taken from the book "Beauty for Ashes" by Zac Poonen. Please do keep me in your prayers so that the Lord Almighty may guide me and break me to glorify Him always.

Your Brother in Chris Jesus

Jobin

The Pathway to the Christ-Life - Being Broken - 6

The Sun Rises - Contd.

Hungry for God

Thirdly, Jacob was blessed in the place where he was earnest and hungry for God. "I will not leave you", he cries out, "until you bless me" (Gen. 32:26). How God had waited for twenty long years to hear those words from Jacob. He, who spent his life grabbing the birthright, women, money and property, now lets go of them all and grabs hold of God. This was the point towards which God had been working in Jacob's life all along. It must have delighted God's heart when Jacob at last lost sight of the temporal things of the earth and longed and thirsted for God Himself and for His blessing. We are told in Hosea 12:4, that Jacob wept and pleaded for a blessing that night at Peniel. What a different man he was that night compared with his earlier years when he desired only the things of this world. God's dealing with him at lat bore fruit!

Before God blessed Jacob fully, He tested Jacob's earnestness. He said to Jacob, 'Let me go," testing whether Jacob would be satisfied with what he had got or whether he would yearn for more. It was just as Elijah tested Elisha in later years. Elijah said, "Let me go", again and again, but Elisha refused to be shaken off - and so got a double portion of Elisha's spirit (2 Kings 2). Jesus, likewise, tested the two disciples walking to Emmaus (Luke 24:12-31). When they reached their house, Jesus acted as though He would go further. But the two disciples would not let Him go - and they got a blessing as a result.

God tests us too. He can never bless a man fully until the man is in dead earnest for God's best. We need to thirst like Jacob, saying, "Lord, there is more to the Christian life than I have experienced thus far. I'm not satisfied. I want all Thy fullness at any cost". When we come to that point, it is but a short step to the fullness of God's blessing.

Notice in the incident at Peniel, that it was when Jacob was in a state of weakness (after his thigh had been dislocated), that he said, "I will not let you go, God." God could have easily left him and gone, but He didn't. For it is when a man is most weak in himself that he has greatest power with God. As the Apostle Paul said, "I am glad to boast about how weak I am; I am glad to be living demonstration of Christ's power, instead of showing off my own power and abilities... for when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Cor. 12:9,10). God's power is most effectively demonstrated in human weakness.

And so with Jacob, it is when he is defeated, broken and utterly weak, that God tells him, "You have now prevailed". One would think that God should have said, "You have at last been defeated." But no. The word is, "You have prevailed. You shall henceforth have power with God and with men" (v. 28). We prevail, when God has shattered us of our own strength and self-sufficiency - as the words of the hymn say, "Make me a captive, Lord, and then I shall be free." This is the glorious paradox of the Christian life.

If ever there was a picture of weakness, surely it is seen in a man hanging helplessly on a cross. Beaten and buffeted and finally nailed to the cross, Christ died as a weak and exhausted man. But there the power of God was displayed in the overthrow of the Devil and the deliverance of men (Heb.2:14; Col.2:14,15). "Christ crucified is the power of God," Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "He was crucified in weakness, but He lives by the power of God. We also are weak with Him, but shall live with Him by the power of God' (1 Cor. 1:23,24; 2 Cor. 13:4). The Corinthian Christians were mistaking the gift of tongues for evidence of being endued with God's power, and so Paul had to correct their error. In essence he tells them, "Brethren, the power of God is not seen in the gift of tongues. Thank God if you have that gift. But don't make any mistake. The power of God is manifested only in and via the cross. It is in human weakness that the might of God is seen."

The way of the cross is the way of power. In the measure in which we walk that pathway we shall have God's power in our life, and people will be blessed through our life and our ministry. When the five loaves are broken, then and not until then, will the multitude be fed.

To know more, please await the next portion in the series. The above extract has been taken from "Beauty for Ashes" by Zac Poonen. Hope you all enjoyed reading it.

Please keep me, a sinner in your prayers

Your brother and friend in Christ Jesus

Jobin George