For a webpage of testimonies of miraculous deliverances from addictions I interviewed a number of people. I became increasingly perplexed to learn that it seemed everyone who had experienced such a miracle still had one addiction often smoking, but not always that caused them great shame and embarrassment as they kept floundering in their attempts to beat that particular habit. Since helping people be freed from besetting sins is most important to me, I earnestly sought God about this puzzle.
I discovered there are two types of divine deliverances from slavery to sin. There is the sudden deliverance that takes almost no effort on the persons part, and there is the slow deliverance that requires the person to cooperate with God in fighting a prolonged, painful battle with temptation.
The deliverance where God does it all, is a manifestation of Gods power and brings him great glory. The deliverance that hinges on our partnership, however, is a manifestation of Gods love and wisdom, and brings us eternal glory.
In the second type, God risks his name being blackened whenever we fall and he dares share with us the honor when we win. Like nothing else, the prolonged battle builds within us the Godlike character that equips us to rule with God for all eternity. God loves us so much that eventually the opportunity for this training comes to all of us.
Often what most keeps us bound to sin is that we are inadequately motivated. Anyone, for instance, who thinks he cant stop stealing suddenly finds new power to resist when a police officer is near. The removal of temptation might make our actions more Godlike but it wouldnt do a thing to make our heart more Godlike. It would do nothing to heighten our motivation to do what is right.
To be like Christ is to sweat blood praying, Not my will. Jesus, who might just happen to know a bit more about it than your average evangelist, said that to be his follower we must deny ourselves (Luke 9:23, note the context). If Bills flesh is crying out for sin and he fights that desire, he is denying himself. With every seconds resistance he is becoming more like his Savior. Take away the craving for sin, however, and that opportunity is lost. Without that nagging itch to sin, Bill could act as godly as an archangel while pursuing his own desires as selfishly as the devil. Even the devil can act like an angel of light, says Scripture. What matters is ones motives for acting that way. There is no glory in acting godly if your heart is black.
Rather than help us, the weakening of temptation would merely deceive us by concealing just how much unlike God our motives and heart really are. It could also produce false confidence, lulling us into straying dangerously far from God into enemy territory.
To better understand the importance of motives, consider for a moment what might motivate a married man to stop looking at other women.
1. Sheer selfishness
If his wife catches him eyeing women one more time, shell divorce him and that would cost him mega bucks, people might think him a loser and he would have to do more housework.
2. He couldnt bear for her to withdraw her love
Thats a far nobler motivation. He forces himself not to eye other women because his wifes love and approval mean everything to him.
3. Hed hate for his wife to be hurt
Thats even better. He restrains himself because even if she kept loving him, he doesnt want her to feel the slightest hurt.
4. He longs to make her as happy as he possibly can
Better still: he doesnt want merely to avoid hurting her, he passionately seeks her happiness, and for this he keeps his eyes pure.
5. He longs to do what is right
Another advance: even when his wife would never know, he still forces himself to not look at other women, simply because he wants to remain faithful to her.
6. He only has eyes for her
Through persistent effort he has eventually so trained himself to delight exclusively in his wife that every other woman might as well be wallpaper. (This does not mean he is never tempted because temptation is spiritual rape whereby hostile spiritual powers assault us with feelings that come from them, not from our heart. Even Jesus suffered a violation of his purity that came from the devil, not his heart. Nevertheless, his training keeps casual temptation at bay.)
Slide your eyes back down those numbered lines and note the progression. God is working within us, seeking to coax us through a similar progression in our motives for serving God; advancing from fear of punishment, to not wanting to hurt God, to longing to delight God. Each higher motivation should add to, not replace, lower ones. Thus we should never lose our longing to delight God, but we can add to it by becoming so like God that we do right not only because it thrills our divine Lover but also simply because it is right. Finally, our heart can be so Godlike that we find ourselves doing the right thing because it is our very nature our heart response. But for our motivation to be perfect, underneath that unthinking response must be the other levels of motivation, right down to being terrified of the consequences of disobeying God.
Of course, the holy Lord neither wants us to fail, nor tempts us. He simply doesnt always cover our inadequacies by miraculously removing temptation. The resulting struggle helps bring us to the point where, in the words of Jesus, we hunger and thirst after righteousness, displaying a passion for holy living worthy of a child of God.
Heres how it works: whenever we surrender to temptation, it hurts us, either by the natural consequences of sin or by the conviction and disappointment we feel at having failed. For a Christian, the end result of the unpleasantness of failing is that we learn to hate sin more, appreciate Gods love and grace more, and realize more fully how as an embryo must draw everything from its mother for its survival, so we desperately need to draw upon God and his fellowship for everything that sustains our spiritual life.
Like many delays in answered prayer, God not responding to a lazy prayer the way we had hoped serves to purify our motives and to stretch our faith and so expand it.
What seems a simple solution in this case the removal of temptation often turns out to be a superficial solution. God is rarely interested in the superficial. He wants to do a work so deep that it gains you eternal glory.
New Christians seem to get instant answers to their every little prayer and yet mature Christians often endure rough times. This is like the way a mother attends to her newborns tiniest whimper but as the years roll on this level of attention diminishes. That in no way suggests diminishing love. She is wisely co-operating with, and encouraging, the growth process within her darling. Like an older brother, we can sometimes get jealous of the pampering that baby Christians receive but its not that we are loved less, its just that God is pleased with our development and believes we can now handle more.
So through all sorts of things happening to us and in us, God is working on our motives, purifying and intensifying them, or working on some other aspect of our character, making us more and more like himself. Gods passion is that we experience divine joy eternal glories beyond our present comprehension that make what we presently call happiness seem like plain sugar compared with an exquisite banquet. But we can partake of Gods joy, only if we first partake of his nature. For a cat to appreciate human pleasures, it would have to become human. Even a human child cannot fully enter adult pleasures until he loses childish tastes and irresponsibilities and becomes like an adult. Likewise, we can only truly enter the joy of the Lord (Matthew 25:23) by becoming like the Lord. And it is toward that end that God is constantly working.
Note that Romans 8:28-29 says God works everything that happens, not causes everything that happens. We must understand that we presently live in a battle zone a world filled with Gods enemies. So some things that hit us are attacks from anti-God forces. God doesnt initiate everything that happens to us, and yet he manipulates everything, so that things hurled at us in satanic fury are so ingeniously deflected by the Almighty that they end up achieving good. And the good that our Perfect Lord is working toward, is our ultimate good, not what we always instantly recognize as being good. Gods goal is not instant bliss but the eternal bliss of us becoming like the eternal Son of God, perfect in love and purity and wisdom and glory.
A man in my ministry team told me he did not feel worthy to minister to people suffering in ways that he had never suffered. His use of the word worthy hit me. Suffering makes us worthy not just worthy of eternal glory when we come through with our faith intact, but worthy to minister to others. The eternal Son of God always has been so indescribably worthy of honor and of our love that it would seem impossible to increase it, and yet there are ways in which what he suffered makes him even more worthy. We can follow in his footsteps.
When looking down from heaven, everything on earth is viewed upside down. But heavens perspective is the right one.
We find Jesus teaching perplexing because he was forever turning things right side up. He taught, for instance, that among the worst things that could happen to you on earth is that you are rewarded (Matthew 6:1-5,16) or that people speak well of you (Luke 6:26). He said youre blessed when you mourn, or are poor, or are persecuted. The first shall be last, the greatest shall be the least and its more blessed to give than to receive. Another example of us seeing things the wrong way is when someone finally discovers that the busier we are, the longer not the less we need to be in prayer.
When you are in heaven looking back over your past life, what will you regard as the most exciting aspects of earthly life? All earths pleasures will be totally eclipsed by heavens pleasures, so the pleasures of your past will no longer impress you. Relationships and fellowship enjoyed on earth will also be completely outdone by heavens perfect communication and love. With the wisdom of hindsight we will all agree that the most wonderful thing about our stay on earth was the trials. That sounds ridiculous, even though we know Scripture affirms that so much good results from hard times that it urges us to rejoice whenever trials hit us. Lets explore this mystery.
There were two passions driving the great apostle Paul, which it would do us good to have within us. One of his longings to know Christ (Philippians 3:10) will, for all of us, reach thrilling pinnacles in heaven. The other to share in Christs sufferings (Romans 8:17; Philippians 3:10; Colossians 1:24; 1 Peter 4:13) we will be deprived of in heaven. We will only be able to wistfully look back to past opportunities. In glory, when at last our eyes are opened to just how much our Lord has done for us and how wonderful he really is, it will at last get through our thick heads why the disciples rejoiced over the privilege of being flogged and humiliated for Jesus (Acts 5:40-41). What we will lament in Paradise is that the opportunity to express the depth of our love by suffering for Christ has passed us by. And we will nostalgically miss the trials. Heres why:
Although we will have many thrilling things to do in heaven, well be rather like former football champions who have retired and gone into sports administration. Life will be easier. There will be no more injuries, no more tedious, grueling training sessions, no more agonizing over mistakes made on the field, but the opportunity to gain more glory and become a greater hero will have forever passed.
So life is exciting. And the greatest thrills it offers are the pain and dangers and challenges. Forget about a soft life. Leave that to your heavenly retirement. Nows your time for glory. Youre a champion in the making; someone increasingly bearing the likeness of God himself; someone the Almighty will forever smile upon with Fatherly pride.