The Phil Files

Stubbornness is not often counted as a positive character trait. I know most of the things over which I display my stubbornness are usually not worth the hassle it causes other people and myself. But there is a kind of stubbornness that is a holy trait. We’ll call it “God stubbornness.” (BTW, today’s insights come from yesterday’s daily Bible reading, Acts 5, I’m a little late on this because I traveled out of town for a funeral yesterday.)

Being God-stubborn means being stubborn for the same things God is — loving the world, faithfulness, loving-kindness, merciful, not wanting people to perish, and willing to do anything to communicate His care. It took awhile, but the apostles of Jesus began to demonstrate some God stubbornness in their lives. Acts 5 gives us a glimpse at one of these times:

//Inspiration: Acts 5:29Peter and the other apostles replied [when threatened with persecution and possible death], “We must obey God rather than human beings.”

//Incarnation: Do I love the things God loves? Am I willing to stand up for what God wants and where is His heart is? Am I willing to do it even in the face of threats? Are bringing people closer to God and sharing the message of Jesus the most important things in my life?For me to ever experience the power of God in the ways the early believers did, I’ve got to be able to live what these once fearful followers of Jesus do in the book of Acts: share God’s love with boldness, conviction, passion, love, and God-stubbornness.

//Invitation:O Holy Father, you are the Almighty, and I am your servant. Make me courageous and compassionate so that I can share Your grace with others with the same grit and determination, a real G0d-stubbornness, that Jesus demonstrated and the apostles followed. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 

Write them on the tablet of your heart.

Hmm. I’ve spent a lot of time learning facts — facts about history, facts about sports, facts about the weather, … facts about the Bible. Facts are important. Committing facts to memory can be crucial in all sorts of situations. However, when it comes to God’s stuff, the matters of love and faithfulness, facts play second fiddle to something else — my heart!

Knowing God, following Jesus, and being led by the Holy Spirit have often been reduced to religious practices, rules, and traditions. Like you, I am guilty of trying to reduce my life with God to manageable “go do” lists, and “go and do not do” lists. This makes things feel simple … formulaic … and quantifiable. I can make my own lists and decide who is in and who is out on the God stuff.

But God … this great and often repeated line in Scripture has a way of scrambling all sorts of human perversions of God’s grace and it wreaks havoc on our formulaic attempts of taming our lives with God. It most certainly re-arranges and re-orders my soul’s priorities in this matter.

But God … emphatically, repeatedly and consistently reminded His people that walking with Him centers on two holy habits of the heart: love and faithfulness. In all the discussion of the bits of wisdom in the Proverbs, maybe one of the very most important ones — second only to fear God — is this:

//Inspiration: Proverbs 3:3
Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.

//Incarnation:
God won’t let me settle for externals: not external religious observances, not external actions, and not external holiness. No, the Father wants love and faithfulness etched permanently on the tablet of my heart. He wants His words and His will alive in my interior world informing and transforming me from the inside out. Yes, the Almighty wants my obedience. Yes, the Holy One wants me to strive to be holy in everything I do and say and think. But without love and faithfulness etched into the fabric of my heart, sooner or later, the duplicity will out me and I will be revealed — my fake holiness, my skin-deep commitment, and my shifting loyalty exposed.

//Invitation:
O God, so full of both glory and grace, I recognize that love and faithfulness are two primary attributes of your character. I confess that they are not so easy for me to reproduce. I confess further, that a part of me of would like to reduce these attributes to a list of “how to” steps. Deep in my soul, however, I know that only your Spirit can help etch these attributes of your character into my heart. So I ask, and I commit to earnestly seek, the deep water of your grace and open my heart to have You make Your character real in me, heart and soul deep. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.