“Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”
~ Psalms 37:4
I was just sitting there, half listening to singer Jeff Anderson give part of his testimony. Suddenly what he was saying began to sound familiar and I found myself listening more closely.
The singer was using phrases like “entitlements” and “anger at God” and “it’s just life.” I had used those very terms, and often as I rationalized my life.
Just recently in one of my secular columns I had been voicing my opinion on how we had become a nation of entitlements, and not just those on the liberal side either; conservatives got just as many too. I opined that I wasn’t much for entitlements.
But until Jeff Anderson said it, I had never given much thought to “Christian entitlements”. That concerns the idea that after I got saved, that somehow meant that The Lord owed me something. That if I was a “good Christian” and living for Christ and making Him my Lord, well then, God had an obligation to answer certain prayers and answer them in the way that I expected Him to.
And if God didn’t come through, well then I had a right to be angry with Him! After all, He was indeed the Sovereign Provident and He can do anything!
But as I sat there in that church service, that Still-Small-Voice began to nudge me.
Not only did He nudge me, but He began to convict me and enlighten me.
I realized that somewhere in the recent past, say the last decade or so, I had strayed in my thinking and it had happened so slowly that I wasn’t even aware of it, until this Sunday morning.
I was saved at the ripe young age of nine, back on August 9, 1954, at Victorious Life Youth camp, somewhere in the remote region of Eastern Wisconsin. It was an intellectual decision; I had the head knowledge to know Who Christ was and what He had done for me. And so I had walked forward at an altar call and accepted Christ as Savior. After all it was the logical thing to do.
When I was twelve, I remember lying in bed one night and pondering the fact of eternal Hell, and I was sacred out of my wits. What if my salvation wasn’t real and I ended up there? It was then that I answered Christ’s call with my heart and emotions, spurred on by my fear. You see, we need both head and heart knowledge to be a son of God.
The years went by and I grew up and in my late twenties I began to really study God’s Word, and along with that I began to acquire “life verses”; Promises in God’s Word that I could claim as mottos for my walk.
I was hunting one day when The Lord gave me the verse that you read in the beginning of this testimony. And over the years the first half of that verse became all-important to me; to delight in God; to put Him first always.
Now as I sat listening to the singer, The Holy Spirit began to show me that I wasn’t doing that any longer; instead I had reversed that motto; now I was asking Him to give me the desires of my heart and then I would give Him the glory.
The frustrating part is that I wasn’t even aware that I had reversed it!
When Joseph began his sermon on Acts 4:32-36, he came to one part and declared, “We are saved to serve God.”
Right there it affirmed what I was becoming to understand; or rather what The Holy Ghost was telling me; I had been expecting God to be my Heavenly Servant, instead of the other way around.
I Timothy 4:6 says, “you will be a good servant of Christ, constantly nourished by the words of faith of the sound doctrine which you have been following.”
But I wasn’t being the “good servant”; I was trying to be the unconscious master, and I was horrified at the thought!
I realized that God blesses me out of His choosing to give me favor, not because He was obligated to do so. He wants to because He loves me as my Heavenly Father, not because He has to!
And with that new-found revelation, I confessed my sin (sin I didn’t even know that I had) then and there while Joseph preached on.
Hopefully and prayerfully I pray that I have learned my lesson for good this time, and I’ve progressed back to my “first love”, and the first half of Psalms 37:4 will again be my motto. That means I don’t expect The Lord to answer the second part of that verse unless He chooses to, not because I expect Him to. In fact, I’m trying to not even think about that second half.
I’m so thankful that God is so long-suffering with me and my hidden sins. I’m also thankful that for some 57 plus years now, starting in August 1954, I’ve had Christ interceding for me and defending me against the Accuser of the brethren.
How can I not delight in Him knowing just that one fact!
So, here’s the challenge to you; Is Christ your Lord or are you wanting Him to be your servant? If God is not your Lord in everything you think, say and do, why not?
My Testimony
Larry Lightner
For: Calvary chapel Silver City
December 2011 Installment
