Scripture tells us that it is God that is at work in us both to will and to do of this good pleasure. Sometimes, when I’m battling with some sinful attitude or practice, it is more a problem with the desire to change than the power to actually make the change. When we pray for God’s help in such times, it seems to me we could start with asking for a change of the will. We need to be willing to be made willing.
Blog Repost — First posted January 2005
I was reading my dad’s Bible the other day and came upon some notes that he wrote related to II Cor 13:4 which says, “For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you.”
His notes are as follows:
Because of II Cor 13:4 I need to pray daily:
1. By faith I apprehend and trust in a perfect Christ and His perfect work – but I do so with an imperfect faith. I pray that God will help my unbelief. (Mark 9:24)
2. Pray in trust that God will work in you (me) both to will and to do of His good pleasure – Phil 2:13
3. As I wait in prayer before God, I need to confess the love of whatever sin I may have succumbed to as well as the fact that I have fallen.
4. Daily I need to reaffirm my comprehensive choice, solemnly made before God to live in the NEW nature and refuse to live in the OLD.
5. Daily in prayer, I need to ask God to make real in experience the fact of Rom 6:14 “Sin shall not have dominion over you.”
6. Daily in prayer, I need to ask God to “Gospelize” and spiritualize my obedience.
7. Daily I need to plead: “Lord strengthen me mightily by thy spirit in the inner man against temptations that daily come my way.
8. Daily I should review important matters for prayer – especially those for whom I have promised to pray.
He closes with the words from the hymn Not What These Hands Have Done
Not what these hands have done can save a guilty soul
Not what this toiling flesh has borne can make the spirit whole.
Not what I feel or do can give me peace with God.
Not all my prayers and sighs or tears can bear my awful load.
Thy work alone, oh Christ can ease the weight of sin.
Thy blood alone, O lamb of God can give me peace within.
I bless the Christ of God I rest on love divine.
And with unfaltering lip and heart I call this Savior mine.
Notes by Rev. Gerald J. Tuinstra
(Most recent blog posts are below this welcome)
Welcome to the Faithful Men website hosted on The Tuinstra’s URL. I (Roger) have had the opportunity to teach adult Sunday School classes and Bible studies for almost 60 years. Before I retired, I seemed to have enough time to post to my blog here quite regularly. For a while, a very short while, I thought I could post once a day like Challies does. But that dream didn’t last a week! Since retiring, I have even less time to write regularly, although I have kept up with my Bible study and teaching responsibilities.
As many of you retired folks can attest, we men often struggle with our goals and purpose in life after retirement. God reminded me of what Paul wrote to the Philippian Christians in Phil. 1:25. Here is my paraphrase: Since God has me still here, I know that I will remain and continue here for the progress and joy of faith in the lives of my brothers and sisters in Christ.
The other day, I was listening to a song with the simple title, “Come!” Have you ever been at one of those points in life when you feel like you’re carrying a greater load than you can manage? You feel like you can’t multitask at a fast enough pace to meet the demands of life. Jesus issues an invitation recorded in several passages of the New Testament. His message is this:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30
The song I was listening to uses the text of verses such as this from the Bible where Jesus lays out the invitation and challenge, “Come!” I’ve known these passages for years, but for some reason, those words along with the musical setting made quite an impression on me as to how clear and simple and all-encompassing the invitation is.
This invitation from Jesus is for those who labor and are burdened down. It is for those who are thirsty to experience real life. It is for those who feel like everything is just too hard. Maybe we would use the expression “I’m stressed out.” Does that sound like anyone you know, maybe even yourself? Look at what Jesus says in another place:
“On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’” John 7:37-38
Who is Jesus that he can make such promises? The Bible tells us that Jesus is the creator of the universe. He is God and the Messiah. He has all authority in heaven and earth. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. In other words, it is God himself who is inviting anyone who is weary, burdened, or desperate to really live and to be free from the weight that comes with life, to come to him. God is the source of everything that is good, and he invites each one of us to come to him for relief. In fact, the verse we just quoted promises that whoever believes in Jesus will have rivers of living water flowing from them. Jesus later explained that he was talking about the Spirit of God himself who will come and live in us and be that living water.
Look at what Revelation 22:17 says, “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come!’ Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.” To me, this is an amazing reality to grasp. Jesus calls out with a loud voice, “Come!” The Holy Spirit calls out, “Come!” The bride (which is the church) says, “Come!” And those who hear are so excited that they start yelling, “Come! Come! It’s true! Whoever wants to can come and drink of the water of life freely.”
At the beginning of Revelation 22, just before the invitation to come, Jesus says, “Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”
When Jesus comes back again, he will give to each person according to what he or she has done. The problem is that we haven’t done so well. The Bible says no one is good and no one seeks God. Every one of us has sinned and broken God’s law. What Jesus shouted at that festival was that the rivers of living water would flow in those who believe on him. Believing is the key. It’s not just believing in something, as in “I believe for every drop of rain that falls a flower grows.” That kind of belief accomplishes nothing. Believing in Jesus means believing that he is who he said he is, that his promises are true, that his death on the cross really did pay the full penalty of all of our sins, and that he actually did come to life again three days after he died, and is now in heaven at the right hand of God, and that he is now the ruler and judge of the universe. Believing is not just saying you believe these things; it is actually believing them!
It’s that same Jesus who says, “If you are weary and burdened down, and if you desire to have all your sins, failures, and shame forgiven forever, come to me. I will forgive you and begin to restore you to the person I created you to be.” Believing this is what it means to come.
So, what did he say? He said, “Take my yoke upon you.” A yoke is the thing that joins two oxen together so that they can plow together. Jesus said we should take his yoke because his yoke is easy. It’s not a hard, difficult pull. I take it to mean that he carries the bulk of the load for us. In another place in the Bible Jesus says, “Throw your cares on me, because I care for you.” (1 Peter 5:7) He’s not only saying that he cares about us, he is saying that he’ll do the caring instead of us having to it ourselves.
The other thing that Jesus said in Matthew 11 is that we should learn from him. We take his yoke, and we learn. What do we learn? We learn how to live life God’s way, with Jesus as our yokefellow and his word as our teacher. His word is what we read in the Bible. What is Jesus’ promise? You will find rest for your souls. You will have rivers of living water, i.e., the Holy Spirit, living within. We believe, take his yoke, and learn from him. The result? Rest for our soul. This is the best news anyone could ever hear!
Jesus, the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, the creator and king of the universe invites you to come. You will find in him all you truly need to face the ups and downs of life successfully. He does not promise that all your problems will go away; but he does promise to be there, helping you and guiding you each step of the way. Come!
In case you were wondering, the song that got me thinking about this is called “The Spirit and the Bride” sung by Joshua Aaron. It’s partly in Hebrew so turn on the closed captioning. https://youtu.be/W5BFmx7SdOY?si=cMscb_jR8fYyTF35
Yet Not I But Through Christ in Me
Strategy 6: I’ve learned to control my eyes by avoiding the second look. I have made commitments not to look on or lust after evil.
Consider Job’s testimony: ““I have made a covenant with my eyes; Why then should I look upon a young woman?” (Job 31:1, NKJV)
Also consider this commitment from David: “I will set nothing wicked before my eyes; I hate the work of those who fall away; It shall not cling to me.” (Psalm 101:3, NKJV)
These are examples of two men who made the decision not to take that second look. Sometimes we cannot help what we see at first, but we can turn our eyes away from those things which incite us to lust for things which God has forbidden.
Lust is the kind of thing that is never satisfied. We think that we will be satisfied if we just take one more look, or one more bite, or view one more scene. But lust is going to come back stronger and will demand more and more from us. It is a powerful force!
When Eve was tempted to eat the fruit which God had commanded her not to eat, she looked at it too long. Look what the Scripture says, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate” (Genesis 3:6, NKJV). She first noticed that it was good for food. Then as she looked at it, she realized that it was also pleasant to look at. The more she listened to the serpent and thought about the fruit, she began to think that it could make her wise as well. She didn’t turn away after the first temptation as she should have done.
In Daniel 1:8 we learn that Daniel had purposed in his heart not to defile himself with the king’s food. This was a decision he had made ahead of time. We need to make that determination in our hearts and before God that we will respond in righteous ways when temptation is placed in front of us. Trying to make those decisions on the fly doesn’t work.
Priority Goal 6: Today I determine not to take that second look when confronted with any kind of temptation.
Strategy 5: I have put on the whole armor of God so that I will be able to be standing when each skirmish is over.
Paul gives us this admonition in Ephesians 6: “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” (Ephesians 6:10–11, NKJV)
We already discussed the fact that our strength and power comes from the Lord. As we work, He works (Philippians 2:12-13). Paul tells us here in Ephesians that we are to be strong in the power of His might. Obviously we are not strong in our own might. Our defeats day by day are enough evidence of that.
In order to stand against the schemes and tricks of the devil, we are to put on the whole armor of God as explained in this passage. There are pieces of armor for the head and for all the other parts of the body. They are mostly defensive, but He has given us the Sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, as our offensive weapon. We are to put the armor on. It won’t put itself on.
Why do we need this armor? Because we are not wrestling against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces of wickedness. This is a dirty battle and the enemy is deceitful and cruel. Therefore we need all the protection we can get.
We need the belt of truth. Don’t believe the lies, even the lies you tell yourself. Know the truth and base your life on it.
We need the breastplate of righteousness. This cannot be our own righteousness because our righteousness is porous – full of holes. Paul writes in Philippians: “[that I might] be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;” (Philippians 3:9, NKJV)
We need God’s righteousness as our breastplate.
We are to have the gospel as our footwear. We need to preach the gospel to ourselves every single day. Christ died for our sins and paid the death penalty for us. He was raised the third day and is ascended into heaven where He makes intercession for us.
We are to have the shield of faith to quench those fiery darts. Faith is believing God, taking Him at His word. Faith involves acting on what He says. Faith which doesn’t act is not faith. As James tells us, such faith is dead.
We are to have the helmet of salvation. In other words, we are to be a regenerated person. A person who has been given a new heart, a new spirit and new inclinations toward God.
And we are to have the Word of God as our defensive and offensive weapon. Remember how Jesus responded to the temptations Satan brought him? He said, “It is written.” We must know and use our Bibles effectively.
Priority Goal 5: Today I will make sure I have the armor on. I will think through the components of God’s armor and make sure I am securely protected by them. I will do this consciously and intentionally with my mind and heart focused on its importance for a successful battle. So that having done all, I will still be standing.
“But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”” (Ephesians 5:13–14)
Last time, we talked a little bit about the beginning of verse 13 and the need to expose the shameful works of darkness.
When anything is exposed to light, it becomes visible. It’s important in some sense to expose the unfruitful works that are done secretly, to be exposed for what they really are.
Paul writes in verse 14 that anything that becomes visible is light. He then quotes something from somewhere. I say it that way because I can’t find any passage of scripture that has this direct quote. It appears to be a blend of several passages and Paul may have found it in some other early writings that don’t exist today.
In any case, the call is to wake up! Be alert to what is going on. Don’t stay among the dead. You have new life. Walk in the light where Christ’s light is shining on you.
I like the passages in 1 John that speak to this. God is light and there is no darkness in him (1:5).
If we claim to have fellowship with God while we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth (1:6).
If we walk in the light, we have fellowship with one another and Jesus’ blood cleanses us from all sin (1:7).
I think John’s teaching here parallels with Paul’s admonition in Ephesians 5:14. Don’t stay in the darkness where the evil shameful things are taking place. Rather, step outside that arena and let the light of the gospel shine on your life. Let the light of Christ shine on those secret places in your own heart that no one else knows but you alone. Walk in that light and you will find life, fellowship, and forgiveness!