For the truly born again child of God, following Jesus is not a ‘hunch’, nor is it a choice made from many options. No, our faith in Jesus is revelation truth. Our faith, as Luke writes, is ‘a declaration of those things most surely believed among us.’ Of course, in our finite condition we all have questions that have no real answers that we would even understand. Actually, we aren’t much different from Job. I mean, here’s a guy that God says is blameless and upright going through some heavy trials. Job even said that he wanted to speak to God about his situation. Ironically, when Jehovah gives him the chance to get everything off his chest, so to speak, Job has nothing to say.
You see, when we really behold the Lord’s face, His beauty, power, and glory, we instinctively forget about our problems. We do not ignore that they are there, but we know that Jesus is in control of the entire situation. Paul says that we know ‘all things work together for good’. We know this because God has said it (and ‘God is not a man, that He should lie’), and because experience confirms it. Joseph realized that God had had a plan in spite of the mistreatment he endured from his brothers and the confining consequences brought about by the false accusations of Potiphar’s wife. Sending Israel into the land of their enemies, the Chaldeans, would no doubt seem like poor strategy, but God’s Spirit knew what He planned to do in the hearts of His people while they were ‘away from home’. Similarly, in the New Testament Paul knew that his imprisonment was for a special purpose.
God knows that we need His discipline, and we know that He corrects us because He loves us. We also know that God tests our faith to produce patience, and our spiritual development is God’s purpose for our trials. We know that we are of God, and ‘that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, that we may know Him who is true’. We may not know what is going on around us at all times, but this we do know: the One who began the work in us will finish it.
I’m being ‘chased’ by God’s goodness and mercy. I don’t understand it, but I indeed rejoice in it, for I know my Redeemer lives. Do you?
