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| Video: 2:43 |
Often I have wondered and shamed
myself why I didn’t serve God as a soldier of the cross with the same fanatical
zeal and compulsive hunger and thirst of desiring to be a Navy SEAL. What kind
of soldier of the cross would we be if we ate, drank, and dreamed of nothing
else but being like the One who is with us all the time or who we will spend an
eternity with? Someone said, “We are not going to be able to treat Jesus in
heaven like we treated Him on earth,” hmm. Why don’t we honor or worship Yahweh
with the conviction of a Paul or an Eric?
It sounds a little bit of being so heavenly-minded that we are of no earthly good, but I contend as a soldier of Jesus Christ that we are of no earthly good as believers if we are not heavenly-minded (Col 3:1-2)! And Eric did win a gold medal on earth and in heaven! Neither one of these godly men rang that bell announcing, “I quit!” No, they finished the race; they both completed their respective missions (God’s will for their lives).
It sounds a little bit of being so heavenly-minded that we are of no earthly good, but I contend as a soldier of Jesus Christ that we are of no earthly good as believers if we are not heavenly-minded (Col 3:1-2)! And Eric did win a gold medal on earth and in heaven! Neither one of these godly men rang that bell announcing, “I quit!” No, they finished the race; they both completed their respective missions (God’s will for their lives).
Isn’t these the kind of questions we must all ask ourselves as believers? Why are we not pursuing Christlikeness
with the totality of our being: intellectually, emotionally, and volitionally
at all times? We all have the Holy Spirit living within us if we are born
again; so the problem is not weakness but a matter of the will. All the
candidates in BUD/S were physically able to complete the course, but still, there
was that 95% dropout rate!
At times serving God, there comes a time where we take a
step back and watch God be God, but most of the time it is the routine of
stepping up in faith and watching God do a thing, and that’s a matter of the
will launching out in trust. The judgment seat of Christ for the believers would be
meaningless if our will had nothing to do with service. Where is the passion to
hunger and thirst to honor, worship, and serve God (Psa 42:1-2; 63:1; 84:2;
143:6) and longing for the joy of fellowship with Him (Psa 16:11; Acts 2:28)?
Is this not the manner of giving Christ the preeminence or putting Him first in
our lives (Col 1:18)? Only Jesus can satisfy the unquenchable (Psa 23:1-2; 107:9;
Jn 4:14; 6:35).
Why are we not giving Him our
all? Why is quitting always an option in the back of our minds? Why do the
circumstances of life so easily discourage and deter us from serving Him? Why
are we not moving forward into the fray with the heart of the lion of Judah (Lk
22:42)? Why are we not choosing the greater riches of Christ than the fame and
material success of the world? Oh, are these not some of the questions that
haunt our souls! We drown them all out by staying busy, busy, busy… but
they ain’t going away! They will resurface when we take a breather.
It was said of Eric Liddell that
he had an awareness of Jesus being with him all the time; why are we not living
out that awareness in light of Heb 13:5? This may give an answer to all of
those rhetorical questions above. We can’t be aware of God’s presence if we are
not walking with Him (cf. Amos 3:3). Allow me to attach a note to that
statement; God is with us whether or not we are aware of His presence. But I
seriously doubt there is the power of victory exuding in our lives in such
spiritual insensitivity. I have said this before; our
lives would be revolutionized if we practiced the presence of Christ in our
life on a daily basis. It changed Eric so much that the world couldn’t get
him to change his mind about refusing to run on Sunday, not even for an Olympic
event!
Whether Eric Liddell supposedly
told these words in real life to his sister as portrayed in Chariots of Fire or not, I love this
quote, “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast.
And when I run I feel His pleasure.” What
good is a passion if it runs outside the will of God? Running on Sunday was
outside the boundary of God’s will for Eric. We don’t change the world; it
changes us if we allow it. Eric wouldn’t let it. What an example he left for
us to emulate; there is nothing worth having if it goes against the will of God
for our lives!
It seems as if it was yesterday I was running with a group of
men along the beach desiring to be a part of an elite warrior class. I didn’t
know the Lord then, but now that I am a soldier of Jesus Christ (2 Tim 2:3-4),
I, like Eric, believe God made me for a purpose, and when I run the race of
faith I feel His pleasure; we should all feel this way. Blessings follow
obedience, but obedience also leads to sacrifice (Lk 9:23; cf. Jn 10:27). To run the race of faith cost
both Paul and Eric, and they were more than willing to put it on the altar of no
greater love (cf. Mk 12:30).
Paul was like a runner in the
Grecian games, but unlike the earthly games that had a finish line, he
continually pursued the prize of being like Christ in the here and now and
ultimately becoming Christlike in the hereafter. Though the goal was
continually ahead of him, he never lost sight of it in the race of faith; the
key was in the hungering and thirsting for righteousness (Mt 5:6), to be more
and more like the One who we will be with for all eternity. It makes sense; doesn’t it?
These verbs, hunger and thirst
in the Matthew passage, are in the present tense; meaning it is a continuous
hunger and thirst; it never abates while you are alive and kicking. It’s a
spiritual way of life. Even though we are filled or satisfied we long for more
and more and more of Christ. With a natural hunger and thirst, you never take
your mind off of food or drink; you never lose sight of the objective to put
something down the chute because there is a constant gnawing in your gut and dryness
in your throat to remind you.
With spiritual hunger and
thirst, the Holy Spirit lives within us, reminding us of the need to grow and
mature in Christ; it’s a never-ending process this side of eternity; we never
arrive as the Holy Spirit works practical righteousness throughout our lifetime
of struggling with the presence of sin in the process of sanctification (Gal
5:16; Eph 5:8).
Nearing the close of his life,
Paul told Timothy, “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and
the time of my departure is at hand. I have
fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim
4:6-7). The finish line was his imminent death. For Paul running the race of
faith was being more like Christ in his own spiritual development and service
to Him each and every day until he could run no further. He knew that
after his death at the hands of Nero, He would be in the presence of God,
experiencing the long-awaited ultimate sanctification of Christlikeness (1 Jn
3:2).
This is the hunger and thirst
for righteousness that must consume us, overtake us – to be less like self and
more like Him with each passing day. Paul knew there was no finish line on this
side of eternity on being like Christ; it required being with Christ in glory.
And never was a hunger and thirst to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus
Christ ever more evident than in the life of Paul (Php 3:10); he wanted more
(cf. Php 3:8). It was a hunger and thirst that grows into a relentless passion that
knows no bounds, unfettered to people, places, or things, and unmoved from its
desire to please God above all else – to be like Him.
Eric wanted to run the race of
faith because, like Paul, he felt God’s pleasure when he did. Of course Paul
was not a gifted athlete like Eric, but both men were propelled by their belief
in God to give up down here for something far better up there in eternity that
will far surpass the trappings of worldly gain and success in a world that is rapidly
passing away.
Both men were chariots of fire
or chariots of the Spirit for God’s glory. Though the phrase “chariots of fire”
in Scripture is more a symbol of power and protection given unto us by God (2
Kgs 2:11; 6:17), in this article I have taken the liberty to describe
metaphorically those who hunger and thirst after Christlikeness as chariots of
fire or chariots of the Spirit. For both men, the words of Jim Elliot who died in
1956 in Ecuador by the very people he was trying to reach for Christ come to
mind,
“He is no fool who gives what he
cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”
This is the mindset of chariots
of the Spirit. Paul was an apostle and missionary; Eric was an Olympic champion
and a missionary to China. They both had an uncompromising passion for the will
of God and touched wounded lives. They both knew what counted for eternity for
they were chariots of God in their days whose hunger and thirst for
righteousness and doing the right things were set ablaze by the Holy Spirit.
The question remains for us; are we more concerned with hauling stuff around
like a wagon of the world or being chariots of God, feeling His pleasure when we
run for Him? <><
Bring me my
bow of burning gold
Bring me my
arrows of desire
Bring me my
spear, o clouds unfold!
Bring me my
chariot of fire.
William
Blake (1757-1827)
“If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who
believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of
living water.” Jn 7:37b-38
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| End of Series |
