The Extraordinary Experienced in the Ordinary Means of Grace
Introduction
Yesterday, I broke my pattern of alternating focus on an NT book, then an OT book for my daily meditation. On Wednesday, I finished II Peter, and yesterday started Luke. Recently the roaring lion has provoked me with certain doubts. You know, if you are honest with yourself, you’ve been there and had that experience. I choose Luke, who wrote his Gospel, that Theophilus “might know the exact truth about the things you have been taught.” I prayed, asking God to assist me, to resist the roaring lion (I Peter 5:6-10). Here is the Holy Spirit’s work in my Q-time yesterday. Note especially numbers 3 and 11, which, through my experience with the Spirit, obliterated the roaring lion’s provoking.
Then, I was off to the office for a 9 to 5 series of counseling appointments with a working lunch thrown in the mix. During the nine o’clock appointment, I drew upon these devotional thoughts, especially number three, to illustrate the importance for my counselee being in the Word of God daily as his source of strength to be a godly husband during his wife’s difficult struggles and his doubting God’s call upon his life to continuing loving when he did not feel like loving.
His response surprised me. He leaned forward and said, “Thank you for sharing your struggle and God’s answering your prayers.” He then shared his struggle at times to believe what he believes. So, we spent some time walking through the first Peter five passage.
The Holy Spirit, the “Choirmaster,” was certainly writing the “sheet music” and inspiring the “performance” (#11) in our lives on Thursday morning.
Devotional Thoughts
- He (Luke), they (Apostles), were there to observe the history. He researched it and recorded it so that we might know the exact truth 1-4
- What a godly couple looks like 6, 8, 10, 13
- Righteous in God’s sight
- Walking blamelessly in earthly life
- Faithful serving even at advanced ages 8-10
- People of persistent prayer 13
- Even righteous people have a hard time believing at times 20
- When God comes into our lives, our lives change forever 11, 26
- When God startles us, He instructs us what not to do 13,28, 30
- God’s blessings are often fraught with trouble—
- A son who is an odd duck who gets beheaded
- Pregnancies that generated uncomfortable responses from others
- A son whom the establishment despised and crucified
- When God favors us with specific assignments, they bring us personal joy 14
- Nothing is impossible with God 37
- A pregnancy beyond ovulation
- A pregnancy without intercourse
- The model response to God when the inexplicable comes from His hand 38
- Two women were the first to experience the fulfillment of the Messianic promises 39-56 (reminds me that a woman was the first witness to His resurrection, Mary Magdalene Mk 16:9).
- When God invades our lives to affect His purposes, the Holy Spirit is the “choirmaster” who writes the sheet music and inspires the singers 15,35,40, 67.
- God ordains the extraordinary, which remains ordinary while awaiting God’s timing for the extraordinary task 80
Conclusion
In God’s providence, few of his children will have a book written about them or even appear in a historical account. Yet, when living a godly life, each of God’s children’s life is extraordinary and recorded in God’s personal book of remembrance (I Cor 3:12-15, Rev 20:12). Two examples of the ordinary being extraordinary while being ordinary still are recorded for us in the Bible. These are two acts of Mary, the sister of Lazarus (Lk 10:38-42—choosing to listen to Jesus; John 12:1-8—choosing to “waste” her expensive oil anointing Jesus’ feet).
Implementation
What to do when plagued with questions or frustrated with circumstances. Engage the ordinary means of grace to live an extraordinary life. The ordinary means of grace are prayer, the Word, and the fellowship of God’s people through which the Holy Spirit will write your “sheet music” and inspire your life, filling your heart with praise.
Keeping your eyes focused on Jesus, the author (initiator) of your faith and the perfector (inspiration and sustainer) of your faith, live faithfully day by day, being filled with the Spirit (Eph 5:18), thereby ministering to one another from the Word (5:19-33). You will thereby live an extraordinary life in whatever place and role God places you. However, it may look very ordinary (Elizabeth likely did not live long enough to observe John’s life and Mary lived out her life as a wife and mother who watched her son be crucified before she saw him resurrected.