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Mold Me - Make Me!
"Why Do Bad Things Happen When I'm Being Good?"
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. (Luke 4:1, 2) (NIV)
Testing . . . Testing . . .
For many years I thought that the devil tested Jesus just three times and that those tests came only at the end of forty days in the desert.
Now, I know that's not true. All it took for me to learn that was for Satan to put me and my family through some severe tests of our own. What Satan really did to Jesus in the desert was to test him. Another way of saying what happened is that he checked him out thoroughly to see what kind of "stuff" he was made of. Some other meanings of the word are to entice, to discipline: to assay (as to assay gold to test its degree of purity), to examine, to prove, to tempt, to try.(1)
So the testing of Jesus involved much more than just tempting him to turn rocks into bread when he had gone without food for nearly a month and a half. And, promising to give Jesus all the nations of the world if he would bow down and worship Satan. And, what I used to think was the final temptation, putting him up on the highest point on the temple and taunting him to jump off to see if God's promise of protecting angels to catch him was really true.(2)
There's no question in my mind about the severity of those three tests, but they appear to come at the end of almost six weeks of Satan's testing, trying, and tempting of our Lord. So they were not all of Jesus' tests.
Is it safe to say that Jesus was a "good" person? That he was already a faithful son of God? I think so.
Then why did God allow him to go through all of that trial for so long?
He tells us.
Through the faithful missionary preacher, Paul, God tells us(3) that each one of us will be tested "as if by fire".
Wow! Are those some of the "joys" ahead of me if I follow Jesus?
Simply put: Yes.
Why? I thought he is a loving, caring God.
Indeed, he is. He is a strong, loving, nurturing father. One who wants us to grow up to be like his son, Jesus. Jesus' apostle, Paul, wrote that Jesus died and was raised again, and gives gifts to mankind. The principal purpose of the gifts is to bring us into unity as a group of his children. He wants us to be united in faith and in knowledge of his son. And he wants us to become mature, and grow to the fullness of what Jesus Christ himself is. Then we will no longer be babies, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.(4) (Ephesians 4:13-15)
The way that God causes us to "grow up" and to become his mature children is the same way that our biological parents should "grow us up"!
Nurturing
If you look back at our front page - the one that says in large letters: Focus On Jesus, you see a quotation from Hebrews 12:1, 2. The rest of that says:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance (endurance - that means to keep on enduring even when things seem to be going badly) the race marked out for us.
And here's how to do that:
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son." Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?
If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live!
Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. "Make level paths for your feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son.
Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears. You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, because they could not bear what was commanded: "If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned."
The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, "I am trembling with fear."
For Christians, when the going gets tough, we can look toward our father and know that these tough times are from his disciplining hand. Unfortunately, too many children (and their parents) today don't know what the word means. Just for the record, it does not mean corporal punishment only - spankings or whippings. It means to shape, to mold to nurture a child in the direction that child should go.
Solomon said it:
Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.(5)
In today's language, that literally means to set a narrow course for your child. There are a number of ways to do that. But, the end result is to have a child grow up to be devoted to the Lord, to respect parents, to respect those in authority, and to love and serve others. That's what we should expect of our children, because that's what God expects of us. He trains, disciplines, nurtures, corrects us because he loves us so much. If we love our children, should we do any less?
Remember:
And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son." Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?
When God disciplines us, he trains up a child, setting a narrow course, he educates, or disciplines by punishment. He chastens or chastises, instructs, teaches. The word discipline means all of those things.(6) When God punishes, that word means to flog, or to scourge. That's pretty serious business. Some today would have parents arrested for child abuse if they were to whack their children on their bottoms as a form of underscoring a correction.
Be thankful that God is indeed a merciful God. His law used to be that children who disobeyed their parents were to be stoned to death - that's capital punishment, not a spanking!
Trust God . . . Be Wax!
God will mold us and shape us into the proper tool to carry out the job he has given each of us. Only you can determine how difficult that project is, how long it will take, and how much it will hurt.
God has a specific mission for each of us. He will mold us and make us into what he wants us to be for that mission.
What kind of material you are determines what he must do to shape you.
You can be tough, hard iron. Then, like the blacksmith, God can mold and shape iron. He can bend or sharpen it. He does that by ramming a piece of raw material into the furnace and blowing on the fire until it reaches several hundred degrees - hot enough to melt iron. Then he pulls it out of the fire, lays it on his harder steel anvil and pounds on it with a hammer. Then he rams it back into the fire, heats it to the melting point again, then with a heavy hammer in his strong right hand, again he pounds on the raw material until it begins to take the shape he needs. He does this over and over until the steel has finally been heated and beaten into the shape he needs it to be.
In the case of making a sword, then he grinds it and grinds it until an edge begins to form. Then he hones the edge until it becomes shape enough to cut whatever it is he wants to cut or stab or poke.
The steel has been through a very rough time, but it comes out as a fine tool of the divine crafter's art. Fit for use by the king himself.
Some of us are like that, aren't we?
At least, there are times I have been. And God has heated me in his blast furnace, then pounded on me over and over again until I began taking the shape he wanted me to have.
On the other hand, you can be wood. When God's hot fire touches wood, hay, or stubble (as Paul describes), the material is consumed by the fire of trial.
Or, you may be wax. Wax. God can mold and shape you simply with the loving warmth of his hands.
Which are you? Which do you want to be?
Why not ask God to make you into that kind of material. Why not pray: "Oh, Lord, help me to be easy to mold and shape. Make me like wax in your loving hands."
May God bless you.
1. For those doing their own word studies, this word is at Strong's number 3985.
2. Psalm 91:1 - 15
3. 1 Corinthians 3:1 - 15
4. Ephesians 4:1-16
5. Proverbs 22:6 - "train up" from the Strong's number 2596
6. Strong's number G3811, paideuo; and 3146, mastigoo
