by Jacob Ninan
"But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, That shines brighter and brighter until the full day" (Prov.4:18). Just as light on the earth becomes brighter as the sun moves from dawn to noon, our 'righteousness' is to increase towards perfection. There is the righteousness of Christ that is credited to us when we are born again, and then we are to partake of that righteousness increasingly in a practical way. Our 'justification' should go on to 'sanctification'. Even though we are not going to be sinlessly perfect on earth, we must be moving in that direction. This means that our character becomes more and more in line with that of our Lord Jesus. (This is how we partake of the divine nature, and not by becoming gods as some people wrongly teach.)
Our starting point is to recognise and acknowledge that there is now very much in our character that is unlike Christ, and there is much darkness in different areas in our life which need to get replaced by the light of God. God's goal for us is that our 'light' should shine in such a way that people see it and give glory to God (Matt.5:16).
One mistake we can make is to focus on our external actions – trying to make sure that they appear to be fine in the eyes of people – while forgetting what is going on in our thoughts. We can impress and deceive people by being careful about what they can notice, and become satisfied when we have a good reputation before them. But God is not fooled by our external actions, because He can see our thoughts and intentions very clearly (Heb.4:12). If we satisfy ourselves based on being careful with our external life, we may not even recognise when we start backsliding.
If we stagnate, we will also miss the chance to go forward. There are areas of bondage we need to be freed from, which is like getting back areas which the enemy has conquered in our life, and then there are new areas we need to conquer, just like the children of Israel fought and conquered areas in the Promised Land. If we think of life to be like rowing a boat against the current, when we stop rowing, the momentum will come down and we will start flowing back in the direction of the current.
One way we can stagnate is by focussing on external ministry and forgetting our inner life with God. For example, a pastor may aim for increasing the number of people in his church, and one who started a work of service wants to expand its role. In the process, our own spiritual life may stagnate. It is possible that if we neglect our relationship with God in the process of expanding our ministry, our ministry may collapse one day in ways that we did not anticipate (1Cor.3:12-14).
There are two types of fruit that God is looking for from our lives. One is the fruit in the ministry that He has entrusted to us. But the more important fruit is the fruit of the Spirit in our personal life that provides the foundation for the ministry. Increasing fruit in the ministry may boost our ego and get praise from men, but if that is at the cost of personal fruit, it is likely to get 'burnt up' on the day of judgment.
There is something we can learn from the story of Moses. He was adopted by the daughter of Pharaoh in Egypt, and he was probably going to be the next Pharaoh. So he was trained in all the knowledge of the Egyptians, management of people and the army, etc. This was God grooming him to be able to lead Israel in the future. When he became a young man of 40, he realised that his calling was to deliver the people from the slavery in Egypt (Heb.11:24-26). But in the hot-blooded way of youth, he took matters into his own hands without waiting for the leading of God. When he saw an Egyptian man fighting with a Hebrew man, he killed the Egyptian and buried him. The next time when he saw two Hebrew men fighting, he thought they would recognise him as their deliverer. But instead, they questioned his right to be their leader. When he knew that Pharaoh knew about this, he fled to a desert far away and spent the next forty years there as a shepherd, which was a humiliating thing for him to bear since shepherds were despised by the Egyptians. But during his forty years there, he learned to be humble before God.
At the age of 80, God called Moses to go to Egypt and to deliver Israel from slavery. Even though he had his own doubts about his ability by now, he obeyed God. All his training in Egypt became useful as he led the very large number of people with their cattle and possessions across the desert towards the promised land of Canaan. By now he had become so humble and dependent on God that he would spontaneously cry out to God for help whenever they faced formidable challenges. For example, when he was up on the mountain with God as He gave him the laws, the people of Israel were worshipping an idol of a cow below. What Moses did was to pray to God for mercy (Exo.32:11). In this way he earned the reputation of being the most humble man on earth at that time (Num.12:3).
But at the age of 120, when Moses faced yet another challenge from the people, his lack of development in his inner life showed up. Earlier on, in the journey through the desert when the people lacked water, God had told Moses to strike a rock with his rod, and then the water had flowed out of the rock. This was a picture of Christ being stricken for our provision of salvation. But at this time, when they needed water again, God told him to just speak to a rock for the water to flow out. But Moses was so angry with the people that he beat the rock yet again with his rod. "'Take the rod; and you and your brother Aaron assemble the congregation and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it may yield its water. You shall thus bring forth water for them out of the rock and let the congregation and their beasts drink.' So Moses took the rod from before the LORD, just as He had commanded him; and Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock. And he said to them, 'Listen now, you rebels; shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?' Then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation and their beasts drank. But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, 'Because you have not believed Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them'" (Num.20:8-12). In his anger, he called them rebels as he struck the rock. This messed up the type of Christ that God was trying to bring out, which was that since Christ had already been sacrificed for our sins, and since if we sinned after we had been forgiven, we only needed to confess our sins to God for our forgiveness (1Jn.1:9). God rebuked Moses for this disobedience and said that he would not be allowed to lead the people into the Promised Land. But even afterwards, when Moses was writing his final instructions for the people, he could not see that it was for his sin that God had rebuked him, and put the blame on the people (Deut.4:21).
This is an example for us about a leader who did so well in his ministry, but who had neglected development in his personal life. (I am not trying to pull down great leaders like Moses, but only trying to see what we can learn for ourselves from this example.) Let us not neglect to stand personally before God every day, and not allow ourselves to get diverted in our focus with 'ministry'. Moses was broken towards God, but was he broken in his attitude towards people?
How do we see ourselves in the sight of God? The right position for us is as sinners who have been saved from the wrath of God because of His grace. How do we look at other people when they fall or make mistakes? Should we not think to ourselves that but for the grace of God we could be worse? Let us not be quick to defend ourselves when someone points out our mistakes. It will be very sad if we ever came to a place where we thought that we had nothing more to learn and despised people who corrected us (Eccl.4:13). Let us always be 'learners' with an L board in front of us.