Let Him train you

We find Orthodoxy and Orthodox teachings in many places, not always within the Church enclosure. This proves that there is, as the Bible teaches, only one gospel, only one church, an unchangeable gospel, an indivisible church. Long before words like 'orthodox' came into use to distinguish the stale from the fresh—heresy is stale, always a recycling of outdated, unworkable ideas, orthodoxy is fresh, always a treasury of supple, living words to feed every hunger—long before, and long after, there was, is, and will be self-evident truth issuing from the servants of God, who not knowing themselves but only their Lord, speak His words, do His actions, speak the facts of His reality. None but the Most-High, the Triad Holy, is infallible, yet He unweaves our human minds from mere earth to knit them into the fringes of His seamless Spirit, making us one in Him as is the Father, the Son, and the Life-Creator, One without second, to Whom is no partner, only We, in whose Divine image man was made, and Man is remade. Such truth as this, is a refreshment to the soul, to the world when it seeks it, but only those with ears, as the Lord says, shall hear. As for the others, they hear and hear but do not understand. Let's keep seeking the truth, and live it, wherever we find it, wherever we hear the Shepherd's voice, as we follow Him, the sheep of His pasture, the flock that He guides.

Submit to God’s Training

by Pastor Zac Poonen
of Christian Fellowship Church, Bangalore, India

Whenever God wants to do something for His people, He always begins with a man. He had to find a suitable man before He could deliver the Israelites. The training of Moses took 80 years—and it wasn’t academic training alone. Moses was trained in the best academies of Egypt, but that did not qualify him for God’s work. In Acts 7, Stephen says that Moses was mighty in both word and deed. He was a strong man, and an eloquent speaker at the age of 40. He was a great military leader, a very rich person, and had been educated with the best education that the most advanced country in the world could give—for Egypt was the world’s only superpower in those days. At the end of it all, he was unfit to serve God. Stephen says that Moses thought that the Israelites would recognise that God had raised him up to deliver them. But they did not recognise him as their leader. All his earthly fame and abilities could not prepare him for the task God had prepared for him.

Today, many Christians imagine that they can serve God just because they have Bible knowledge, musical ability and plenty of money. But they’re mistaken. They need to learn a lesson from Moses’ life: 40 years of the best that this world could give him could not prepare him for God’s service. God had to take him through another 40 years in the wilderness, in a totally different environment from the palace, in order to equip him. He had to be broken of his human strength. And God accomplished this by making him look after sheep, and by allowing him to live with his father-in-law and work for him—for 40 long years. Living with one’s father-in-law for even one year can be quite humiliating for a man! I know that many married women in India live with their fathers-in-law all their lives. But it’s different when a man has to live with his wife’s father and work for him as well. That can be quite a humbling experience for a man. But that’s how God broke Moses. That was how God broke Jacob too. He too had to live with his father-in-law for 20 years. God uses fathers-in-law and mothers-in-law to break His children.

What all the universities in Egypt could not teach Moses, he learnt in the wilderness, looking after sheep and working for his father-in-law. At the end of those 40 years, Moses is so broken that he who was once so eloquent and who thought he could deliver Israel, now says, “Lord, I am unfit. I cannot speak properly. Please send somebody else to lead your people.” It was then that God said, “At last you are ready. I will send you to Pharaoh now” (Exodus 4:10-17).

What is the lesson we learn from Jacob and Moses? Just this: When you think you are ready, you are not. When you think you are capable, that you are strong, that you have knowledge, that you can speak and sing and play musical instruments, and do wonderful things for God, God says, “You are unfit. I have to wait until you are broken.” With Jacob that process took 20 years, with Moses it took 40 years, with Peter it took 3 years, and with Paul at least 3 years. How long will it take with us? That depends on how quickly we learn to submit under God’s mighty hand.

How long does it take to go through school from First Standard (Grade) to Twelfth Standard (Grade) ? 12 years? Yes, if you pass each year. But I know children who have taken 16 years to complete 12 classes in school. I know medical students who have taken up to 15 years to complete a 5-year medical course!! How long anyone takes to finish school depends on how quickly he learns his lessons. It is the same in the Christian life too.