THE last several comments have delved into Isa. 30:15. It is one of five verses found at the foot of my signature closing along with Neh. 8:10; Job 2:10; Jas. 1:2; and Prov. 21:30. I’m often tempted to add a sixth, Phil. 3:12.
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
JOB 2:10 speaks to the acceptance of suffering, leading one to consider the place and importance of what I’ve come to term “desirable difficulties.” That term is not of my making, I’ve barrowed it from another. But as to Phil. 3:12, it alludes to the fact that we are redeemed to apprehend something greater than ourselves; as Paul David Tripp says in his book, A Quest for More, we are made for transcendence, and here Paul defines it as Christ.
I’m going to keep today’s intro to our reading short, but notice 1) the obvious reference to Phil 4:12, 2) the reading comes on the heels of the previous reading as the Lord waits upon us as we wait upon Him (Isa 30:18), and 3) the allusion to the tree, a fit metaphor and another Lesson from the Garden. With that, another exhortation from None But the Hungary Heart – 2-3 – Need, Then Supply.
In the inexorable riches of Christ,
Joe
Neh. 8:10; Isa 30:15; Job 2:10; Jas. 1:2; Prov. 21:30
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2-3. Need, Then Supply
“Not as though I had already attained. . . but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also l am apprehended of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:12).
The heavenly Husbandman develops a believer on the same principle that He does a tree: planting, growth, consolidation, rest, and then more growth. There are stages. We are shown our sin and need-self. Then we hunger for freedom and life-Christ. This is a progression. At first, we consider the shocking revelation of self the greatest of calamities; later, we realize that it is the pathway to the blessed revelation of our life in the Lord Jesus Christ.
“Before we can take on the likeness of the Lord Jesus, we must see ourselves and know how we look; we must be brought into the place where we are not dismayed nor cast down when we discover how little we are conformed to His image. It is only as we see our need, that we can be supplied.” -C.McI.
“It does us no good, but only discourages us if we see our failures and shortages and do not behold the beauty of Christ, and apprehend and experience our sufficiency in Him. On the other hand, if we see only what we are in Him and do not discern our defects; if we do not apprehend that which must be appropriated and worked out in us; if we do not see all that must be put off, and that Christ must be put on in actual control and manifestation, we become self-satisfied and puffed up-we lose our invaluable ‘need.’” -C.McI.
“I certainly do count everything as loss compared with the priceless privilege of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil. 3:8, Wms.).
