God doesn't miss much

So God heard their groaning, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God saw the Israelites, and He took notice. – Exodus 2:24,25

The last phrase in the KJV reads something like, “and He had respect unto them”. Another translation says, “God acknowledged them.” God did not just look at the children of Israel in passing, and He did not respond to them simply because they were suffering. He remembered His covenant. The LORD put Himself into a contractual relationship with Abraham in response to Abraham’s willingness to believe. He restated this covenant to Isaac and to Jacob – especially to Jacob, changing his name to Israel.

(Abram/Abraham and Jacob/Israel had name changes. Isaac was named for the response that first the promise and then the actuality of his birth evoked, i.e., “Laughter”. Isaac was not renamed; he knew who he was.)

God acknowledged the legitimacy of the children of Israel – not as descendants of an earthly patriarch – but as His own children with whom He had a covenant and to whom He had obligated Himself.

When Jesus died on the Cross, He established a new and better covenant with all of humanity, an all-encompassing covenant. The Messiah, passing through pain, death, and the grave to a resurrected life, became the Israel of God, bringing salvation to all. As in Adam all died, it says, so in Christ all are made alive.

Oswald Chambers makes a couple of challenging statements about salvation. First, Chambers said, we should not push redemption into a future fulfillment: “Men are not going to be redeemed; they are redeemed.” We are not waiting on God to save us. He is waiting for us to enter into the covenant relationship with Him. Second, Chambers offers a slightly different take on the role of faith in salvation: “I am not saved by believing; I realize I am saved by believing.”

In Egyptian bondage, the Israelites did not feel much like children of God, heirs of a covenantal relationship that gave them access to the very Creator of heaven and earth. Nevertheless, this was the case. I may not feel like a child of God as I suffer in some bondage that seems as unbreakable as it is unbearable. Yet I am a legitimate son, a rightful heir of that better covenant in Christ.

We were talking about my granddaughter, EL-C, last night, reminiscing about little things that happened as she grew up. My daughter brought up a bike wreck that EL-C had when she was five or six. Their house was on a corner at the bottom of a steep grade. Grandma, Mom, EL-C, and I had been up at a little neighborhood playground on the other side of the block. Mom and Grandma ambled along while EL-C and I went on a little faster, rounded the block and started down the hill. Normally I could keep up with her on her bike, but the accelerating effects of gravity were not yet factored into her little organic calculator. Her bicycle tires were somewhat worn, and she did not apply the brakes anywhere close to soon enough. Couple all that with a moment of sheer panic, and the result was that she drove straight into the curb and did an impressive end-do onto a fortunately well-watered, plush lawn.

Amazingly, she broke her fall with her face. She has always been a talented child.

I got to her right away and scooped her up out of the neighbor’s yard. Her nose was bleeding but there was no other obvious damage. She was, however, wailing like a tornado siren. Her mother, still out of sight around the other corner, heard this and knew immediately it was her baby. Clogs shed, barefoot Mom ran down the hill, grabbed EL-C out of my arms as I reached the other side of the street, and carried her into the house to be suitably soothed and cleaned up. I took care of the bike. (On a side note, my granddaughter explained her accident by saying, “Poppy didn’t hold on,” -- that is, to the back of her bicycle seat. I didn’t bother to argue that Carl Lewis couldn’t have kept up with her.)

My daughter is a pretty good mother. Mothers will respond to the voices, and especially to the cries of their children. Normal people do not forget their offspring or ignore their suffering. God says that even if a mother could forget her child, He will not forget us.

If we are willing to believe what God says about us, willing to believe that we are His children, then we need not be surprised that He responds to our sufferings and breaks our fetters.

Three's Company

Passages in both Ephesians 5 and Colossian 3, speak about relationships: husbands and wives, children and parents, slave and masters. How we relate to others seems to be important to God. Let’s take a look at what Paul says in his letter to the church at Colossae.

Wives, be submissive to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and don't become bitter against them.

Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing in the Lord. Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so they won't become discouraged.

Slaves, obey your human masters in everything; don't work only while being watched, in order to please men, but work wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord. ... Masters, supply your slaves with what is right and fair, since you know that you too have a Master in heaven. -- Colossians 3:18-22,4:1

Notice, first, that these are perfectly paired statements. Nothing is asked of one side of the relationship without something being asked of the other. Yet it is not simply a reciprocal response. The requirements on each side are absolute. Husbands have to love their wives even if they "don't get no respect". Children have to obey their parents even if the parents are unworthy.

Here are the verses I left out, Colossians 3:23-25 –

Whatever you do, do it enthusiastically, as something done for the Lord and not for men, knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord -- you serve the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for whatever wrong he has done, and there is no favoritism.

As it says in Romans, "God is no respecter of persons". Our position in life is not what is important. Whether husband, wife, child, parent, slave, or master, none of that matters to God in its essence. What matters is what we do with it. A relationship, though it appears as a couplet, is really, then, a triad. Christ is between us, always. If a man's wife disrespects him, she is disrespecting Christ. If a man becomes bitter or is unfaithful to his wife, he is bitter and unfaithful to the Lord.

My job is to take my position, however humble or exalted, and see what I can do with it. I need to see if I can keep Jesus in focus when my kids are acting like fools, when my boss makes unreasonable demands, or my wife snatches the remote control.

Initially I was thinking about the husband and wife relationship as kind of a means of overcoming our natural tendencies. Men, especially young men, probably gravitate toward idolizing women, while women may tend toward wanting to be in control (for some reason I laugh even as I write that).

By acting in accordance to God's requirements, we are forced to refocus and put our eyes on Him. The woman who would manipulate her husband, because she can, will have to see that she is really trying to manipulate and control the Lord. A man unwilling to put the Lord first in his life is doing his wife a disservice by making an idol of her. The man who would fail to love his wife and give himself up for her must see that he is failing to love Jesus. Consider marriage as a means of helping your spouse and, at the same time, yourself reject the bondage of the old nature and live in the liberty of the kingdom.

What God is asking of us may not come easily, and perhaps that’s the whole point. We need to break free of the world’s perspective and see Him in the middle of everything.