The Powerful Glory of Yielding Power

Perhaps the only thing harder for prideful humans than humbly wielding power is humbly yielding power.

And the most beautiful Old Testament example of this is the way Jonathan yielded Israel’s throne to David. But as we see in 1 Samuel 23:15–18, he did far more than just yield.

Abinadab had watched his fugitive younger brother receive Jonathan like royalty. Such an embrace. Such intimate talk. Such weeping in farewell. What had David divulged to the enemy’s son?

He stepped beside David at the cave’s entrance and they watched Jonathan depart — returning to serve beside his father whose homicidal paranoia was forcing them to run like foxes and live like badgers.

“David, you won’t like my asking, but I need to. Is it wise just letting him go back to Saul?”

“My life is never safer than when it’s in his keeping.”

Abinadab shifted uneasily. “I know you love him. You’re very loyal. Very trusting. It’s one of your great qualities. I just hope your loyalty isn’t naïve here.”

David said nothing, his eyes still fixed on Jonathan.

Abinidab continued, “Brother, these are treacherous days. You barely escaped Doeg’s loose tongue. And those cowards of Keilah would have offered you as a peace offering to Saul despite the fact that you had just saved their necks from the Philistines. We need clear thinking here. Jonathan is next in line to be king. You’ve been friends. But the fact is, you’re now his one rival to the throne. Isn’t it possible that the blood of royal power may be thicker for Jonathan than the water of your friendship?”

Jonathan’s silhouette melded into the dusky shadows of the Horesh hills. David wiped his eyes and turned back into the cave. “You don’t know him, Abinadab. I’ll forgive this offense to his honor. We’re no more in danger than if that was our father walking away. But it’s not Jonathan’s affection for me that I trust. It’s his faith.”

Abinadab followed David. “Well, I hope I’m wrong, I really do. But Jonathan’s coming out here makes no sense to me if it’s not to spy you out. If he wanted to protect you he should never have come at all! What if he was followed?”

“Nobody’s more skillful at traceless trekking than Jonathan.”

“Maybe. But why would he come just for a friendly visit? Think of the risk. If his father finds out that he’s been here and didn’t report it, his life won’t be worth a pigeon’s. The king has nearly murdered him twice already! If he came here for love then he risked his life and all of ours. Why?”

“To strengthen my hand in God, Abinadab. Because he knows me. He knows how discouraged I can get.” David looked down and smiled. “God sent him because he knows how dark it’s been for me. I know what God has promised me. But with barely a step between me and death, it’s like I forget.”

David sat down on the rock near his gear and pulled some parchment from his satchel. “I’ve been working on this psalm. Let me read you the first lines:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
And by night, but I find no rest. (Psalm 22:1–2)

“Today,” David paused, clenching back sobs. “Today Jonathan risked his life to help me rest—to remind me that God is not far at all. What he said to me was, ‘Do not fear, for the hand of Saul my father shall not find you. You shall be king over Israel,’” David paused again as tears flowed freely, “‘and I shall be next to you. Saul my father also knows this.’

“Jonathan believes God, Abinadab. It’s his faith I trust. Jonathan loves God more than he loves power. And more than he loves me. He loves me because he loves God. That makes him the safest man in the world to me. He has no equal.” David hung his head. “I only hope he survives his father’s insane faithlessness. I so desperately want him next to me.”

David had a very difficult calling: to wield the power of Israel’s kingship with God-dependent humility.

Jonathan’s calling may have been more difficult: to yield the power of Israel’s kingship with God-dependent humility.

But Jonathan didn’t just yield to David. He loved David (1 Samuel 18:1), empowered David (1 Samuel 18:4), protected and advocated for David (1 Samuel 20). And when David’s faith-hand was losing its grip, he sought him out and “strengthened his hand” by reminding him of God’s promises (1 Samuel 23:17). He could have only done this if he trusted in the Lord with all his heart (Proverbs 3:5).

Like Jonathan, God wants us to seek first the kingdom (Matthew 6:33), not our prominence in it. When we trust God enough to yield our prominence (or expected prominence) to someone else for God’s purposes it’s a sign and wonder. And when we go beyond that to doing everything in our power to help them succeed — nothing else quite images the Philippians 2:5–11 glory of Jesus.

Jonathan did not consider the throne a thing to be grasped, but he made himself nothing for God’s sake and became a Christ-like servant. Let us also “have this mind” (Philippians 2:5).

This story is from 1 Samuel 16:8; 1 Samuel 22:9–19; 1 Samuel 23:1–14; 1 Samuel 14:24–46, 20:30–34; and 1 Samuel 20:3.

The Power to Persevere

Eternal life means I have God’s supernatural grace within me that enables me to live the Christian life. His power strengthens me to run the race in a way that glorifies Him.

Paul said, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). God’s power indwells us in the person of the Holy Spirit, whom we received at our conversion. Our problem is that we so often fail to tap into His power that is always there. We are like the man who was pushing his car up a hill only to discover he merely needed to turn the key and ignite the powerful engine. How much better it is to turn on the power and enjoy the ride. So it is in the Christian life.

Running is a demanding sport, draining every ounce of energy a person possesses. Running God’s race saps all our power. We soon become depleted mentally, emotionally, and physically. That is the nature of running. It is full of uphill climbs, obstacles to overcome, winds to endure, and the scorching sun that leaves us feeling empty.

At times, we grow so weary that we want to pull over and stop running. But the race of life demands that we keep moving forward. We cannot stop. There are no yellow caution flags to stop this race, no pit stops. Just the daily grind.

To run life’s race, we must have the power of God. In our weakness, God’s power is perfected. The very divine power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead is available to us for living the Christian life. This supernatural strength energizes us to run life’s race. By His grace, we are raised to walk a new resurrection life in Christ.

We are like the man who went into a hardware store one Saturday morning to buy a saw. Seeing an easy mark, the salesman showed him a fancy chain saw. He commented that it was their best seller with the latest in technology, and guaranteed it to cut ten cords of firewood a day.

The inexperienced customer was impressed with the sales hype and bought the chain saw on the spot.

Later that day, this same man returned to the store, chain saw in hand, looking somewhat haggard, exhausted, and exasperated. “Something is wrong with this saw,” he moaned. “I worked as hard as I could and only managed to cut three cords of wood. I could do four cords with my old-fashioned saw.” Looking confused, the salesman said, “Here, let me try it on some wood we keep out back.” They went to the woodpile, the salesman pulled the cord, and the motor roared to life.”

The customer leaped back and exclaimed, “What is that noise?”

We can be much like this exasperated customer, attempting to live the Christian life in our own strength. But we have God’s power within us, enabling us to do what is otherwise impossible. We have the power to resist temptation and love the unlovely. We have the power to rejoice in trials and overcome the world. We have the power to resist the devil and witness for Christ. We have the power to break old habits and live our new life in Christ. We have the power to run God’s race.

Excerpt from In It to Win It. Copyright © 1992, 2013 by Steve J. Lawson. Published by Harvest House Publishers. Eugene, Oregon. Used by Permission.

Love is the Power of the Cross

What is it that makes the young man devote himself, as a missionary, to the cause of God, to leave father and mother, and go into distant lands? It is a thing of power that does it; it is the gospel. What is it that constrains the far away minister, in the midst of cholera, to climb up that creaking staircase, and stand by the bed of some dying creature who has that tragic disease? It must be a thing of power which leads him to risk his life; it is love of the cross of Christ which urges him to do it. What is that which enables one man to stand up before a multitude of his fellows, all unprepared it may be, but determined that he will speak nothing but Christ, and Him crucified? What is it that enables him to cry, like the war horse of Job, in battle, Yes! and more glorious in might? It is a thing of power that does it—it is Christ crucified.
What encourages that timid female to walk down that dark road some wet evening, that she may go and sit by the victim of a contagious fever? What strengthens her to go through that den of thieves, and pass by the depraved and perverted? What influences her to enter into that house of death, and there sit down and whisper words of comfort? Does gold make her do it? They are to poor to give her gold. Does fame make her do it? She will never be known nor written among the mighty women of this earth. What makes her do it? What impels her to it? It is the power, the thing of power; it is the cross of Christ—she loves it, and she therefore says, Were the whole realm of nature mine, As a present it would be far too small; Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.
—Charles H. Spurgeon

 

The Power of the Poached Egg

I love writing. I the love the learning that goes before writing and the teaching that can happen through writing. Most authors love these two things too: learning and teaching.

I also love the craft of writing. This doesn’t make me a better person or even necessarily a better writer. But it makes me interested not just in communicating truth, but in communicating in a way that is winsome, clear, and memorable.

All of us appreciate good writing. We may not know that, and if we know that we probably don’t know why. But we all prefer to read something written well. There’s a way to communicate the truth and have it sound muddled. There’s a way to make it understandable. And then there’s a way to make it sing. That’s the difference between clear prose and great prose.

Let me give you an example from C.S. Lewis.

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. (56)

Almost every evangelical knows this paragraph. Many of us could just about recite it from memory. We all love the liar-lunatic-Lord trilemma. But what makes it so memorable?

[Incidentally, I'm setting aside the objection that there could be another "L"-legend. Lewis was writing for a British audience in the 1940s that didn't doubt the authenticity of the gospel accounts by and large. Today's apologetics might have to start by examining whether we can trust what the Bible says about Jesus in the first place. But that's beyond the scope of this post. Let's just look at Lewis' paragraph as an example of solid apologetics (considering the context) and a wonderful piece of prose.]

For starters, the paragraph exhibits clear logic. The argument makes sense and is easy to understand. And yet, the logic is not pedantic. Imagine if Lewis wrote, “Jesus Christ can have one of three identities. One, he could be a lunatic. Two, he could be a liar. Or three, he could be Lord. Let’s look the evidence for each possibility.” Bo-ring. Notice, Lewis never uses the explicit syllogistic language of liar, lunatic, or Lord. That’s just how we remember it.

Moreover, Lewis has a good sense of rhythm. The first five sentences go long (37 words), short (9 words), long (22 words), long (28 words), short (5 words). The shorter sentence give the reader a chance to breathe. They are breaks from the rhetorical flourishes in the previous sentence(s). The short sentences stand out and pack a punch because of the paragraph’s cadence.

Lewis also writes with authority. He addresses the reader directly (“you can shut him up” is much more effective here than the stately “one can shut him up,” or worse, “one can silence him”). He firmly challenges the reader with the phrase “patronising nonsence.” And the last line (“He did not intend to”) is the perfect final note to the crescendo—clear, staccato, and resolves the chord (so to speak). Notice too, Lewis doesn’t care about ending the sentence (or the paragraph, or the chapter) with a preposition. How lame would “It was not intention to do so” sound?

Perhaps the greatest strength of this paragraph—and it’s what makes Lewis such a good writer in general—is the vocabulary. There is no jargon. There is no purple prose. Lewis is not trying to impress or hide his meaning from the uninitiated. He wants to be understood. And yet, the vocabulary is still fresh. He deals in specificity instead of ambiguity. Words like “lunatic,” “patronising,” “madman,” and “Devil of Hell” grab your attention. They are not difficult words or phrase, but they are interesting.

Best of all is the phrase “poached egg.” Lewis doesn’t need this line.  He could have left well enough with “lunatic.” But he went one step further and made lunacy laughable. Thinking of a man who thinks he is a poached egg is memorable. And funny too. People call it a “sense” of humor, and that’s what it is. You have to feel what fits. “Hamburger” seems too ordinary, whereas something like “bacteria flagellum” would have been too bizarre. Poached egg fits perfectly, though I think beluga whale could have done the trick too.

And finally, lest you think good writing is all about counting words in a sentence and inserting the right vocabulary in some master Mad Lib, let me hasten to add that memorable prose is never the product of axioms adhered to faithfully. Every good rule of writing can be broken (including this one). You must develop an intuition for what sounds right and looks right. You need a feel for good rhythm and a feel for what feels predictable.

How do you get this intuition? Reading books on writing is one place to start; I have learned something from every such book I’ve read. But besides some basic gifting and inclination, there are really only two indispensable means for growing into a good writer: writing a lot, and reading even more.

 

The Power of Stories and the Habit of Understanding

Jonathan Rogers:

The moral benefit of a story goes far beyond the “moral of the story.” Almost by definition, an avid reader is in the habit of understanding what it’s like to be somebody else. Whatever the moral of the story, reading sharpens the skills of empathy, which is not only a moral virtue, but a huge advantage in any pursuit. Habit Five of Steven Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” boils it down: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Readers, you might say, are habitual understanders. A story allows a reader to join in the inner lives of its characters. Readers aren’t mere spectators or audience members. A well-written book allows them to experience what it’s like to be another person. And isn’t that the very basis of empathy and kindness? Isn’t it a key component of love?

Our natural tendency is to close in on ourselves, to be so concerned with our own interests, our own preoccupations that we find it hard to understand another person’s perspective. More than that, we find it very hard to understand our own selves.

Consider the case of David and Bathsheba. Because I tell stories for a living, one of my heroes is the prophet Nathan. He’s the one who had the unfortunate job of confronting David about his adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of her husband Uriah.

One has to be careful when exposing a king who has already demonstrated a willingness to murder in order to keep his guilt hidden. So Nathan made up a story. He told about a rich man with many flocks and herds and a poor man who had only one little lamb that he loved like a family member. When the rich man needed a lamb to feed a visitor, he took the poor man’s pet lamb rather than slaughter one of his own.

David was enraged. He vowed that the rich man would die for this injustice. That’s when Nathan brought the truth down like a thunderstroke: “You are the man.”

It was one of the great moments in the history of fiction. Cut to the heart, David repented of his sin. And Nathan the prophet lived to tell more stories.

Nathan’s story did what all great fiction does: it took David out of himself, and it gave him an emotional attachment to what it is good and right. Nathan didn’t tell the king anything he didn’t know already. David knew it was wrong to kill a man and take his wife. But he had built for himself a little world of self-justification and self-protection and self-indulgence that made it possible for him to ignore the moral facts of the matter. Nathan’s story took him out of that world and let him see what it looked like from the outside.

As the prophet Nathan knew, it’s not enough to know what’s right. People have to desire what’s right before they’ll do it consistently. Stories have a unique ability to shape a person’s sympathies—to change what they desire.

 

The Power of the Holy Spirit to Save the Worst of Sinners — J.C. Ryle

J.C. Ryle (1816-1900)
J.C. Ryle,
While there is life there is hope. The oldest, the vilest, the worst of sinners may be saved. Only let him come to Christ, confess his sin, and cry to Him for pardon,—only let him cast his soul on Christ, and he shall be cured. The Holy Spirit shall be sent down on his heart, according to Christ’s promise, and he shall be changed by His Almighty power into a new creature.
I never despair of any one becoming a decided Christian, whatever he may have been in days gone by. I know how great the change is from death to life; I know the mountains of division that seem to stand between some men and heaven; I know the hardness, the prejudices, the desperate sinfulness of the natural heart; but I remember that God the Father made the glorious world out of nothing. I remember the voice of the Lord Jesus could reach Lazarus when four days dead, and recall him even from the grave; I remember the amazing victories the Spirit of God has won in every nation under heaven; I remember all this, and feel that I never need despair. Yes! those very persons who now seem most utterly dead in sins, may yet be raised to a new being, and walk before God in newness of life.
Why should it not be so? the Holy Spirit is a mighty, merciful, and loving Spirit. He turns away from no man because of his vileness. He passes by no one because his sins are black and scarlet.
There was nothing in the Corinthians that He should come down and quicken them. Paul reports of them that they were “fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners.” “Such,” he says, “were some of you.” Yet even them the Spirit made alive. “Ye are washed,” he writes, “ye are sanctified, ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:9-11).
There was nothing in the Colossians that He should visit their hearts. Paul tells us that they walked in “fornication, uncleanliness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” Yet them also the Spirit quickened. He made them “put off the old man with his deeds, and put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him” (Col. 3:5-10).
There was nothing in Mary Magdalene that the Spirit should make her soul alive. Once she had been possessed with seven devils; time was, if report be true, she had been a woman proverbial for vileness and iniquity: yet even her the Spirit made a new creature,—separated her from her sins, —brought her to Christ,—made her last at the cross, and first at the tomb.
Never, never will the Spirit turn away from a soul because of its corruption. He never has done so;—He never will. It is His glory that He has purified the minds of the most impure, and made them temples for His own abode. He may yet take the worst of those who read this tract and make him a vessel of grace.
Why indeed should it not be so? The Spirit is an Almighty Spirit. He can change the stony heart into a heart of flesh; He can break the strongest bad habits like tow before the fire; He can make the most difficult things seem easy, and the mightiest objections melt away like snow in spring; He can cut the bars of brass, and throw the gates of prejudice wide open; He can fill up every valley, and make every rough place smooth. He has done it often, and He can do it again,
The Spirit can take a Jew,—the bitterest enemy of Christianity, the fiercest persecutor of true believers, the strongest stickler for Pharisaical notions, the most prejudiced opposer of Gospel doctrine,—and turn that man into an earnest preacher of the very faith he once destroyed. He has done it already.—He did it with the Apostle Paul.
The Spirit can take a Roman Catholic monk, brought up in the midst of Romish superstition,—trained from his infancy to believe false doctrine, and obey the Pope, —steeped to the eyes in error,—and make that man the clearest upholders of justification by faith the world ever saw; He has done so already.—He did it with Martin Luther.
The Spirit can take an English tinker, without learning, patronage, or money,—a man at one time notorious for nothing so much as blasphemy and swearing,—and make that man write a religious book, which shall stand unrivalled and unequalled in its way by any since the time of the Apostles. He has done so already—He did it with John Bunyan, the author of “Pilgrim’s Progress.”
The Spirit can take a sailor, drenched in worldliness and sin,—a profligate captain of a slave ship,—and make that man a most successful minister of the Gospel; a writer of letters which are a store-house of experimental religion; and of hymns which are known and sung wherever English is spoken. He has done it already. —He did it with John Newton.
All this the Spirit has done, and much more, of which I cannot speak particularly. And the arm of the Spirit is not shortened: His power is not decayed. He is like the Lord Jesus,—the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is still doing wonders, and will do to the very end.
from the J.C. Ryle Tract, The Power of the Holy Spirit. (which can be found at Evangelical Tracts)
View the original article here