Monthly Archives: June 2019

"If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself." 2 Timothy 2:13

You're not as faithful as you could be.

I may not have met you, but I'm right! Right? Somehow your faith is not as steady, sturdy, regular, or deep as it could be or needs to be. You struggle with doubt and fear. The uncertainties in your life, perhaps right now, have nearly overwhelmed you. Or your faith has cooled to the point of irrelevance. Was it ever real?

The easiest preaching in the world is soaked in guilt and shame. A clever speaker could make someone the stature of Billy Graham squirm. After all, who among us is as perfectly faithful as we should be? It's always easy to point out faults, and all of us have them, especially when it comes to consistency in faith.

So it's likely that all readers who've stayed with me through this warm and uplifting beginning could agree with the first line. In fact, I'll embrace it, "I'm not as faithful as I should be." Perhaps my failure at this point is doubly disturbing, for I have the degrees and background that should make for really strong faith, in the original language no less.

An aside here, I have an MDiv, a Masters in Divinity. In the universe of academia there cannot possibly be a more pretentious-sounding degree. My Doctorate in Theology frankly sounds like a step down. Yet even though I have purportedly mastered The Divine I'm not as faithful as I could be.

Now let's shift from the negative destruction of error (my lack of faith) to the positive construction of truth, and this truth is very powerful: God is perfectly faithful to me. Even though I limp and doubt, God is faithful to me.

That's Paul's point in 2 Timothy. The author of half our New Testament included himself in the phrase "if we are faithless." I don't know that Paul ever reached the depths of faithlessness, but I do know from his other letters that he struggled, and wondered, and despaired and was disappointed. His response was not simply "I need to be more faithful!" The solution included "God is faithful to me." I find that extraordinarily comforting.

You will not make any progress if you consistently beat yourself up for not being faithful enough. You might as well despair because you can't fly. Life's shadows can make any of us wonder about the light. It's simply a part of being human.

A part of being God, however, is that He's always faithful to you. It's a major theme of the Psalms. One of our most beloved hymns is "Great Is Thy Faithfulness." God doesn't doubt or give up on you because it is His character to be perfectly consistent. In that consistency He has chosen to believe in you.

We tread in life on the borders of change and uncertainty. I believe that a great deal of our struggle with this inevitability arises from a lack of conviction, of having not made up our minds about the most important matters of life. Of course, I struggle with faith sometimes, and I can, and should, repeatedly affirm my faltering faith. "I do believe! I do believe!" And the struggle often remains.

How different it can be, however, if I will also say "You are faithful to me." I've then focused on God's enduring and unchanging character. We have moved here more deeply into the realm of grace. "I believe" is my response to God's revelation, and that takes work. God's affirmation that He will be faithful to me is His commitment based on grace. He simply will not give up on me no matter how I struggle with my faith in Him.

All of this means God will take care of me. That is settled. As Moses assured the people who faced a variety of enemies, "Do not be terrified or afraid of them, for the Lord God goes with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you" (Deut. 31:6).

Am I as faithful as I can or should be? Of course not. My lack of faith does create problems for me when I face an enemy such as fear, for example. If I trusted more I would certainly fear less. But whatever terrors swirl around we now have a firmer place to stand, even with a sometimes-feeble faith. For God is as faithful as He can be.

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis

June 30, 2019

"May He grant you your heart's desire and fulfill all your plans…May the Lord fulfill all your petitions." Psalm 20:4-5

One of the most common questions people ask me in my 35+ years of ministry is some form of "Is it all right to ask God for things?" The "thing" may be healing for a sick loved one, direction for life, a mate, even divine help for a sports team (which is always acceptable for the Kentucky Wildcats…but never for a team with a satanic mascot name, like, say, Duke).

The short answer is yes. Paul wrote that we should let all our requests be made known to God. All means all. When in doubt, ask. Don't be embarrassed or afraid of offending God. He knows what you want before you ask, according to Jesus, so you can't hide anything from Him anyway.

Paul was drawing on a deeply rooted biblical tradition. David in many psalms prayed for God to "fulfill your heart's desire, answer all your petitions, and accomplish all your plans." He had himself made known many times his desires, petitions, and plans and found God open and answering. He, and other psalmists, had a deep and abiding belief that God responded to us in our times of trouble. This conviction, I'm sure, was based not only on both David's personal experience, but also his understanding of God's character.

Jesus made God's character very clear. He consistently helped people with their most difficult problems. He taught that God is a joyful Giver knowing how to give good things to His children, and being very responsive to our pleas. When I read again Jesus' teaching about prayer I'm impressed that I usually expect too little from God, not too much.

And going back to Paul, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us. So somehow God takes what may be our most infantile and self-centered prayers and "filters" them so that, purged of any harmful or useless qualities, they can properly become part of what is best for us and the people for whom we pray.

I know the objections. In fact, I hear some people voice so many caveats about prayer that I wonder what they're left with. Yes, it's true that prayer mainly changes me. Yes, it's true that I can't change someone else through my prayers. Yes, it's true that God doesn't grant all my requests. Yes, it's true that I can sometimes treat God like a cosmic Santa Claus.

But it's also true that my prayers somehow release God's power into my life and the lives of people I pray for. God and prayer are powerfully mysterious, but I do know that my prayers are part of God's Providence.

My mother would conclude every phone conversation of my adult life with "I pray for you every day." How much of my life has been shaped by those prayers? I can't know, of course, but I'm greatly comforted by the conviction that God honored a mother's prayer for her son. And that conviction compels me to bring to God my desires, plans, and petitions for myself, and for you.

Grace and peace,

Dr. Terry Ellis

June 23, 2019

"For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord. "Plans for your welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11

GraceWaves are reminders for the most part. Seldom am I going to break some new ground, or reveal some new and deep insight. Frankly, I'm not that good. But I think I am a good "reminder."

Today I want to remind you that God is taking care of you. He has not forgotten you. He has not overlooked you or neglected you, and He is not idle. He is at work right now in your life.

This verse from Jeremiah is one of the most memorized and cherished in the Bible. It's a reminder to people in exile who only saw despair and hopelessness. Their minds were filled with questions and doubts. Perhaps they were on the edge of belief about to step out of that warm circle of light. Perhaps that's why God inspired Jeremiah to speak these words at that moment. "I'm taking care of you. You have a future. You have hope."

Perhaps you need some direction today, or reassurance, or a solution. That's a pretty safe bet actually. I've never met an honest Christian who didn't wonder and worry. We're destined in this life to "see through a glass darkly." We walk by faith and not by sight, and sometimes we tend to stumble rather than walk.

So perhaps today, in that muddle of your uncertainty, you need to be reminded that God still knows your name, loves you dearly, and is working out His marvelously mysterious Providence in your life right now.

We all tend to ascribe far too much power to our present discomfort and allow it to become a verdict on God's character. That's short-sighted, which of course God never is. He does take the long-term view, and I believe He's also concerned about the near-term blessings. That means He's giving you precisely what you need right now to be a fully functioning child of the Kingdom and is preparing your for eternity as well. Your task, as always, is to trust Him to make all things right in His perfect timing.

I really do love what John Piper wrote: "God is doing about 10,000 things in your life right now…You may be aware of three of them."

Maybe today's GraceWave is a reminder of one of those three things. I think it could be! So be patient, trusting, and hopeful. God is at work.

Grace and peace,

Dr. Terry Ellis

June 9, 2019