The Day of New Beginnings

Learning to Receive

 

Heb. 4:16. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
 
This sounds like such an easy thing to do. It’s not as if God is saying to do some hard thing to obtain help and mercy. But that is the rub. The fact is, it is very difficult to receive from the Lord. It takes a work of the Holy Spirit within us before we learn to let go of all our strivings and efforts and simply receive from God. Yes, we accept Jesus into our lives by faith, knowing we can do nothing to merit salvation. But from that point on there is a subtle, subconscious striving to merit favor before the Lord. We devote much time to Bible study, prayer, fasting, and worship, etc. Now, all these things may be profitable, but they are not endeavors to earn His blessings. There is an innate need within our religious flesh natures to be justified before the Lord. But because the flesh nature is incapable of true humility, it ever seeks to earn what God has determined will come only through grace. That is the boastful pride of life John speaks of in 1st John 2:16. 
 
Everything in our culture is based on earning our keep. A man takes pride in providing for his family. He is the bread winner. If he has to accept charity or a hand out, he feels humiliated. This drive is so engrained within us we never give it a second thought. Condemnation is the foremost thing that keeps us from receiving from God. Something within us simply will not open up to receive from the Lord if we don’t “feel” worthy. Yet, the entire Gospel is based on one thing: “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8).” 
 
The story of Naaman is the leper is a classic example of the boastful pride of life:
 
2nd Kings 5:
1* ¶ Now Naaman, captain of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man with his master, and highly respected, because by him the LORD had given victory to Aram. The man was also a valiant warrior, but he was a leper.
 2* Now the Arameans had gone out in bands and had taken captive a little girl from the land of Israel; and she waited on Naaman's wife.
 3* She said to her mistress, "I wish that my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria! Then he would cure him of his leprosy."
 4* Naaman went in and told his master, saying, "Thus and thus spoke the girl who is from the land of Israel."
 5* Then the king of Aram said, "Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel." He departed and took with him ten talents of silver and six thousand shekels of gold and ten changes of clothes.
6 He brought the letter to the king of Israel, saying, "And now as this letter comes to you, behold, I have sent Naaman my servant to you, that you may cure him of his leprosy."
 7* When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, "Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man is sending word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? But consider now, and see how he is seeking a quarrel against me."
 8* It happened when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, that he sent word to the king, saying, "Why have you torn your clothes? Now let him come to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel."
 9* ¶ So Naaman came with his horses and his chariots and stood at the doorway of the house of Elisha.
 10* Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, "Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh will be restored to you and you will be clean."
11* But Naaman was furious and went away and said, "Behold, I thought, 'He will surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper.'
 12* "Are not Abanah and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?" So he turned and went away in a rage.
 13* Then his servants came near and spoke to him and said, "My father, had the prophet told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, 'Wash, and be clean'?"
 14* So he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child and he was clean.
 
Naaman was furious because Elisha told him to simply wash himself in the Jordan. He went away from the prophet in a rage. But Naaman’s servants came to him and said, “My father, had the prophet told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, 'Wash, and be clean'?" 
 
We are to be products of the grace of God. This is what glorifies the Lord. When we strive to earn what God has freely given us, it shuts off the very blessings we are eager to receive. Jesus said, “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom (Luke 12:32).” But what about all those Scriptures that speak of persistence and endurance and the violence of spirit to take the Kingdom? What about the initiative we must have to appropriate from God and lay hold of the promises? That is all true too. “But I thought you said you couldn’t earn your way into the blessings of God?” Here is the way it works. We all pass through different realms of spirit in God. Each realm of spirit is a specific relationship to the Lord. Heb. 4:14 says, “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.” Jesus has passed through the heavens blazing the trail for us to follow. As we ascend spiritually, we too pass through the heavens, and in each level the Lord manifests Himself to us in a certain way. In our ascension in God, we must all pass through the realm in which the Lord seems to be to us the Unrighteous Judge (Luke 18:1-8). This is a very necessary step in our spiritual growth. It is in this realm that we learn to persevere and seek after the Lord with all our hearts. It’s here that we learn warfare and grow strong in the Lord. But this realm gives way to a yet higher realm. We find this illustrated perfectly in Luke 11:
 
5 Then He said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and goes to him at midnight and says to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves;
 6* for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him';
 7* and from inside he answers and says, 'Do not bother me; the door has already been shut and my children and I are in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.'
 8 "I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will get up and give him as much as he needs.
 9* "So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
 10 "For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened.
11 "Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he?
 12* "Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he?
 13* "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?
 
Notice that there are two different realms in operation here. The first realm covers verses 1-10. It speaks of persistence and a perseverance of heart until we receive what we are after. Jesus says in verse 8 that the person will not get up and give the seeker anything because he is his friend, but because of persistence he will give the seeker as much as he needs. The literal Greek of verse 9 reads, “Ask and keep asking and it will be given to you, seek and keep seeking and you will find, knock and keep knocking and it will be opened to you.” These are principles we must apply to ascend into the next realm described in verses 11-13. Here, Jesus speaks of simply asking and receiving. He likens this realm to a son relating to his father. It’s a new relationship with the Lord that opens up! In this realm no amount of effort we put forth obtains the promises of God. In this place we learn to simply open our hearts and receive. 
 
To move into all that God has provided for us we must learn to receive as a little child. Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all." Learning to receive flows out of a father-son relationship with the Lord. In this relationship all the goodness and grace and lovingkindness of the Father’s heart is revealed to us. It would be excellent to trace through a good concordance such words as “freely gives” and “free gift”. These words are the backbone of the Gospel. Its amazing how right there in plain sight, verses we have read a thousand times come alive in a new way as we understand how God’s provision is completed in our lives. As the work of the Holy Spirit has its way in us, we find the guilt and pride and striving of the religious flesh nature crucified. This doesn’t mean that what we learned in previous realms is no longer valid, only that we will relate to them in light of the new realm that comes. How then do we receive from the Lord? Again, Jesus gives us the perfect example in Mat. 6:24-34:
 
26* "Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?
 27* "And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?
 28* "And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin,
 29* yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.
 
Like the lilies of the field, we just open our hearts, lift up our arms and receive. Jacob Boehme (1576-1624), had a remarkable revelation of the Lord. In a message titled, Man in the Restored Image, he wrote, “Mortification of self-will and the recipiency of grace, is all a human can do to work out his own salvation.”
 Amen!