I am a person. I am a man. I am a son. I am a husband. I am a father. I am a brother. I am an uncle. I am a friend. I am a worker. I am a teacher. I am an American. I am a writer. I am an artist. I am a reader. I am a runner. I am a swimmer. I am a retired nursing tech. I am a cook. I am a minister. I am filled with holy spirit. I am a Bible believer. I am a bondslave to Jesus Christ. I am a member of the body of Christ. And all of this works together, because I am a born-again son of God.
Recently, each morning before the school day began, I noticed a young student sitting alone outside my classroom door. Talking with her I learned she was a devout Christian, and we prayed together for God’s blessings in our lives. Later that day, I asked her how God had blessed her. She said that a prayer was answered—she wanted one person at the school to understand her. “And that person,” she said, “is you!”
In Part 1, we saw that God’s rest and peace comes through believing what He has done for us through His Son, Jesus Christ. The work of God is to believe on the one He sent. That is how we cease from our own works to receive salvation and the righteousness of God. But how do we live restfully and peacefully? That takes a different kind of effort.
One day Sherry and I hosted a barbecue for our Bible fellowship on the crystal white sands of Guam’s Uruno Beach. Later, a few of us ventured out for a swim, and I made it to the top of the reef.
But I had not accounted for the swiftness of the tide. Suddenly, I found myself trapped on razor-sharp coral with the choice of being thrown out to sea or back onto the jagged shelf. I tried for what seemed like an hour to get enough leverage to go over the reef top, but each attempt ended with cut hands, legs, and feet.
Finally, nearing exhaustion, I ceased from my labors. At that point, thanks in large part to the prayers of those on shore, the sea picked me up and deposited me safely within the reef.
God’s truth is unbreakable, complete, everlasting, and perfect.
Deuteronomy 32:4:
He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.
As a boy, I loved to listen to my parent’s old radio/phonograph player. It was set in a beautiful wooden cabinet, and I was often fascinated by the glowing tubes that warmed up to receive radio signals or the stack of records that dropped one at a time so the arm could gently place the needle on that record.
One of my favorite songs of the day was called “I’m My Own Grandpa.” It was a humorous ballad about a man who, through a variety of marriages and family relations, became his own grandfather.
Whenever my brothers and sisters needed to settle an argument, we would say “Dad said so,” or “Mom said so.” Their authority was good enough to see things happen. Perhaps you’ve seen the same at work. If your supervisor gave permission, then you could freely go where you needed to and get the job done. How about your personal checks? Are they any good without the authority of your signature? The name is the key.
In elementary school, we had some classic “come back” lines in certain situations. If someone said they “loved” something, we would respond: “Then why don’t you marry it!” Another comeback when someone made a remark about us was, “Prove it!”
As the manager of “Wooly World” at the Toorak Hotel shopping plaza in Melbourne, Australia, I met a lot of men and women looking for high-end sheepskin garments. The most shocking experience of my sales life happened there in 1982.
Have you ever seen a newborn puppy or kitten, though blind, find their mother and begin to nurse? God built these “basics” (like feeding ourselves) into life. The basics are simple and easy to find and understand. When things get complicated, they can lose their value. Russian writer Leo Tolstoy said, “Give thanks to God who made necessary things simple, and complicated things unnecessary.”