Standing on the Precipice

My Dear Precious Children,

Even though I am not quite old enough to be your mother (haha), I love you all as if you were my flesh and blood. Several years ago as we faced an ever lengthening adoption process, a dear friend shared that she believed God had given me spiritually adopted children to love and care for while we waited for God to answer our prayers for a child from Ethiopia. And what an amazing gift each of you are to me. The love I feel for you is not my own, but truly comes from the heart of our Heavenly Father and I want you to know it is wide, long, high and deep.

So, as we finish this Beyond Belief study I feel compelled to share what the Lord keeps impressing upon my heart as I pray for you. It is no accident you were in this study this semester. He has a very special call and purpose for each of you. Seriously, not just a “you are going to do a few nice things for Jesus” call. I mean He is asking you to lay down your lives for Him…completely…and to count the cost and in losing your life for Him and for the gospel you are going to find purpose, meaning, and most importantly come face-to-face with Jesus himself.

He did not rescue you from the dominion of darkness and set you apart in order to just live a nice, happy, “good girl” Christian life. That is what it looks like to simply have beliefs, not live BEYOND them. Our beliefs are the starting point, the foundation. But they must be executed and put into practice by faith in order for them to actually be valuable and useful for the kingdom of heaven. Jesus said in Matthew 7:24, 26: “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.”

So we stand on this precipice with God’s kingdom stretched out before us in all of its splendor and glory. Behind us is the world, with a beauty and allure of its own. Jesus stands before us, with the tender, most gentle words of love, light, and truth, calling us His beloved children and asking us to step toward Him in faith, by His grace, trusting in His limitless love.

But we often hesitate at this point of our faith journey because of the awareness that taking a step toward Jesus and His kingdom could mean death. The death of our dreams, our hopes, the assurance of a comfortable life, or of a predetermined outcome.

However, the reality that I believe Jesus was trying to communicate to us in the parable of the wise and foolish builder is that, things are not as they appear. We can keep standing on what appears to be the solid ground of our self-constructed earthly kingdom, “believing” in Jesus as a mental practice but never actually doing what He says or living like He has commanded. But one day, either the trials of this life or the end of our time on earth will arrive and reveal where we truly stand. We may sadly discover that the seemingly solid footing of this world is actually shifting sand and we will be left disillusioned, broken and at worst, eternally separated from the One who loved us most.

Or (this is SO E X C I T I N G), we can take the step off the cliff of our kingdom and this world and fall into His loving arms. The death we are so terrified of actually brings freedom from the entanglements of the world and the anxieties and fears that plague us. As we follow Jesus, in humble trust and obedience, like the saints who have gone before us, we discover the ground under our feet is firm, solid, immovable. We gain an eternal life in Jesus that stands unwavering in the midst of the storms of life and even physical death.

So, as you stand on the precipice between the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of heaven, considering the call to follow Jesus beyond merely belief, I beg you to head the exhortation found in Hebrews 12:

See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.” (Heb. 12:25-29)

Do not believe Satan’s lie that Jesus’ commands are harsh or burdensome. This falsehood is refuted in 1 John 5:3. Trust instead that ALL His ways are loving and perfect, even when they seem so strange from our human perspective. “And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 10:38-39). As we cry out to Him for the grace to lay down our lives by faith, we will find ourselves dancing on the firm Rock of Jesus and leaving the shifting sand of merely mental belief forever.

And the most amazing, beautiful thing about living beyond belief is that Jesus is glorified and we come to enjoy Him fully. I leave you with the stories of those who have gone before you in this journey of faith. May they inspire and encourage you to press on and step off the cliff. I love you dearly and am praying for you to trust the perfect love of your Savior that casts out all fear.

And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. (Heb. 11:32-34; 13-16)

All My Love from Your Fellow Sojourner,

Angie

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God’s Word Must Be the Final Word

by Susan Sampson

“For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5:4-5)

“Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).

Page 15 in our study Beyond Belief states: “John wants us to have a sure confidence in the Lord, a certainty about His love and His salvation. Such a confidence will enable us to encounter the unexpected with faith, joy, and love and to overcome and not be overcome!”

Two things jumped out at me during the lecture – the first one was actually before the lecture even began. It was in Laurie’s prayer. She prayed “that God’s Word would be the final word!” And then later in the lecture she told us how important it is that I settle this in my soul.

We must stop reasoning things out in our own minds. We must stop relying on our own insight. We must stop allowing our feelings to be our shepherd. God’s Word must be the final word!

Oh how I hate it when my children try to argue with me and want to have the last word! Yet this is what I have been doing with my heavenly Father. I have been allowing Satan to overwhelm me with my feelings and fear and doubts and I have been allowing my flesh to overrule God’s Word.

And the Word tells me “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).

God’s Word must be the final word! It is by faith that we overcome! “And this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith” (1 John 5:4b). By God’s grace through faith we will overcome our flesh that overrules, the world that overrides, and Satan who overwhelms us.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom. 8:35-37).

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are“ (1 John 3:1a).

This is God’s Word. And it is final.

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The Struggle to Believe God’s Love

by Susan Sampson

How do I take the truth that God is love and He loves me to heart and believe it and abide in that love?

I honestly don’t know how to write about this because this continues to be a struggle for me – believing God loves me and living and resting in that love. I am still battling to uproot the lie that love is a feeling! This is what the world would have us believe. But this is not how God speaks of love. Love is both a noun and a verb. God is love and our love for God and for others is demonstrated by our obedience. God demonstrated His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us on the cross. “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11).

We are called to walk by faith and not by sight. We must stop allowing our feelings to shepherd us and follow our Good Shepherd, Jesus. This is a battle because the old sin patterns are deep. The pathways are well tread. We must choose a totally new traffic pattern. We must no longer go down the sinful roads of worry and anger and instead follow our Lord down the highway of holiness.

In order to follow Him, I must know and believe His Word. I must believe He loves me even though many days it doesn’t feel like it or look like it from my limited and human perspective. I have to believe the truth of His Word, so when bad things are happening in my life and in the lives of those I love, I can still hold onto the truth that God is love and He loves me!

God’s ways are clearly not our ways. He is sovereign and He is therefore in control of all things. And He does allow bad things to happen in all of our lives for our good and for His glory. What really got to me in the lecture is when Laurie said that I can’t reason in my mind, “This is bad.” That is arrogant!

“The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.” (Psalm 145:9)

“The Lord is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works.” (Psalm 145:13)

“The Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works.” (Psalm 145:17)

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

I had a sweet picture of this recently. My mom has been trying to sell her house since just after my dad passed away earlier this year. They have a beautiful home and we all thought it would sell quickly. She quickly found a new house to buy that was going to require some work. We all agreed, and I thought this was the house the Lord had for the new season of her life. Then one problem happened after another. It was a very difficult time for all of us. Mom finally made the difficult decision to let the house go.

Within the past two weeks, she has a contract on her house and has found a new house and they have accepted her offer. This new house is a thousand times better than the house she tried to buy earlier this year. What was a “bad time” in our lives was in reality the Lord leading her to the sweetest and most beautiful home which really needs no work at all; but we couldn’t understand or see at that time.

God is love. He demonstrated His amazing love at the cross. We must fix our eyes on Him; believe His love is true and real; believe His Word and not our feelings which continually change moment by moment and cannot be trusted. We then must obey His Word out of love for the Lord.

“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:9-11).

I am fighting to believe God loves me and rest in His love!

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