Receiving With Joy

He was the lamp that was burning and was shining and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. (John 5:35)

This morning I read in the devotional book My Utmost for His Highest, something that I have forgot reading before but that is very important. Then when I opened my Bible and read this above verse again I realized there is a connection between the two.

What I read first was in reference to the words of Jesus about asking and receiving. He says that everyone who asks, receives. I guess that like most people I have always assumed that this means that unless I ask God for things or answers to prayer that I am in danger of not getting my needs met. But Chambers points out that this is not what Jesus is talking about.

Then my mind was taken to the verses where Jesus reminds us that God blesses the wicked along with the righteous in many ways without distinction. He causes the rain and the sun and many of His blessings to flow equally to those who reject Him right along with those who are seeking Him. And it is rather evident that those who are rebelling against God certainly are not asking for His blessings, but they are getting them and benefiting from many of them anyway.

The point that Chambers makes is that there is a difference between getting things from God and receiving things from God. I then remembered too that learning to receive – that very skill itself, receiving – is one of the fundamental skills needed for completing the maturity stage of infant. It is also an area where I have discovered I have a serious deficit in my own life. Oftentimes I find it very difficult to receive graciously from others and respond with spontaneous gratitude from my heart. Due to various malfunctions in my stunted maturity growth this has been a serious problem for me and one that has damaged many of my relationships with those around me.

I realize more now that it is not too hard for me to get things from other people, but I am still not very adept at receiving properly. For to receive implies a much more intentional attitude that involves a spirit of humility, gratitude, genuine appreciation and the ability or willingness to bond more with the hearts of those whom God sends into my life to minister to me. Since I grew up with a heavy dose of an independent spirit and I tend to prefer being a loner much of the time, I find it easier to get things from others than to simply receive with joy. And of course, with my increased understanding of the true meaning of joy that I now have, that also implies that I would be willing to accept someone genuinely wanting to connect with me even then their own baggage may be getting in the way of that happening smoothly.

I know this may sound a bit vague or confusing for a person who may not be familiar with much of the language that I am using and the revised definitions for many of the words that I have been learning about over the past few years. But given where I am right now in my own journey this is coming as yet another step forward that I sense God may be nudging me to move through. This lesson of learning to receive with grace and appreciation and being willing to bond with others without so much resistance is one of the most difficult remedial tasks of maturity that I think I might be facing.

So, given that context, when I read these words of Jesus to the Jews about their temporary joyful response to the testimony of John the Baptist, I can now see a connection between their pulling back from that initial enthusiasm about his ministry and my own issues in various parts of my own journey. Even in my current business I am facing a time where I am needing to take stock of my own attitude and emotional involvement and be reminded of why I was so excited when I first got started a few months ago. I am feeling compelled to return to my earlier levels of trust, of rest in God, of enthusiasm and joy that had such a powerful influence on my own testimony and energized it to be compellingly attractive to others who were initially apathetic or even as skeptical as I was when I first looked at this.

I find it intriguing that Jesus says here that these Jews had once been very excited about John's testimony and had actually rejoiced for awhile in his light. That means that they had not always been as critical and doubtful and negative as they had now become and that Jesus was trying to remind them of their first experience with the light and encourage them to go back to their first flush of emotions that the light had produced in their own hearts.

This also alerts me to the reality that God is interested in my feelings and emotions along with the accuracy of my beliefs. I have been raised to avoid emotions to a great extent which has seriously stunted my growth spiritually and has created enormous obstacles in my heart that I now find myself trying to work around or for which I need healing ministry. It is not that I want to switch from basing my relationship to God from a solid foundation of biblical truth to an emotional-based religion of feelings. But I have learned that if my connection with God does not include my affections and my passions and an awakening of strong emotional impulses from deep in my soul, then the chances of my religion lasting through times of severe crisis intact is dramatically threatened.

I don't see Jesus here criticizing these Jews for their excitement about John's messages and ministry and chiding them for not believing the facts he had presented to them without getting so emotionally worked up. Jesus is here appealing to those memories from their past and seeking to reignite those passions and those dampened fires of emotion once again and to allow them to be fueled even more by going further than what John had been able to do for them. Jesus was seeking to connect them with the Source of passion from which John's fire had started. Jesus' identity and reality was the reason that John was so wildly enthusiastic and had gotten the interest of so many people around him. But there was another step for people to take besides just responding to John's ministry. It was time to shift gears so to speak and to go even farther into the glorious light and become even more energized and joyful than they had ever experienced before.

But it was at this point that they had to make a choice that involved receiving. Those who had chosen to receive the testimony of John and embrace it with joy and, most importantly, put down roots into the truth about God and allow John's passionate messages to work conviction and transformation in their hearts – it was those who would be prepared to take the next step and begin to advance more securely in the greater light of truth that Jesus had come to convey.

The same is true with us today. It is not enough to just grasp the initial joy of hearing the gospel for the first time and then clinging to the early revelations we have been given as if that were all there were to knowing God and truth. There are innumerable examples of the tragedy this produces as people refuse to move past some point of revelation in their experience and admit that their earlier insights and beliefs may have been valid to start with but were incomplete and immature in their complexity. There is a desperate need for growth both in the arena of doctrinal accuracy and clarity as well as a deepening of the connection of our heart and affections and emotions through an intimate bonding with the heart of God on a very personal level.

All of us get things from God all the time. All of us are even recipients of messages from the Holy Spirit continuously. But clearly very few people seem to recognize that voice or are able to discern what it is trying to convey to them. It is not hard at all to get things from God since God is constantly pouring out blessings on an ungrateful world all the time. Most of the things we get from God go unnoticed and largely unappreciated. It takes a much more deliberate choice and personal involvement to move from getting things from God to actually receiving things from Him.

To receive from God instead of just getting things from Him implies an intentionality, a growing relationship, a deepening appreciation for His goodness and a submission to His authority in our lives with joy. And given that this is one of my weakest areas I feel almost like an outsider even as I write about these things myself. I am beginning to see the sense in all of this but I still feel like I am making observations more from the outside than from much experience. I am seeing something that I need to do much more myself even as my own mind begins to grasp the significance of what I am learning here.

Father, dramatically deepen my appreciation, my joy, my willingness to receive from You. Cleanse me of this horrid spirit of resistance to Your love and Your promises to always care about me, to be with me all the time and to provide for me. I am so often racked with doubt and fear and foreboding that is hard to shake off. Sometimes I can see the light of Your glory and passionate love more clearly and it feels so refreshing and energizing. I long to live in Your presence with confidence all of the time, not just taste it occasionally. I want to live a life of bold assurance in Your love for me and to feel my heart released to sing and dance and celebrate Your love with joy and abandon.

Right now all of that sounds terrifying to me and my fears of what others would think about me rush to the surface to prevent me from being embarrassed. But those fears are all based on lies about You that I suspect infected these Jews that You so longed to engage with in this chapter. Father, deliver me from their handicaps and train my heart to allow You full access to every part of my mind and heart and life. Teach me Your ways and fill me with much more of Your joy; cause me to rejoice with abandon and without reservations – and deliver me from evil, for Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever, Amen.