Psalm 71:1-3 English Standard Version

Forsake Me Not When My Strength Is Spent

¹ In you, O Lord, do I take refuge;
    let me never be put to shame!
² In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me;
    incline your ear to me, and save me!
³ Be to me a rock of refuge,
    to which I may continually come;
you have given the command to save me,
    for you are my rock and my fortress.

In a sea of drowning people God pointed His grace at me and said, “Save that one.”

When thinking back upon my salvation story it doesn’t feel like that. The first inkling of salvation I can remember was being grasped by a power I did not understand. It felt like an introduction, as if God was saying, “I am the God that can change you.” How He did it and why He did it escaped me.

Even today, decades after my salvation, I still am in awe of why He chose me. I wasn’t the only person drowning in a sea of sin. Why me, when that moment? I can only be grateful that He did.

Kingdom living can get busy. We find ourselves caring more about others than ourselves. That is as God intended but along with that burden of love there is a danger of getting so busy we allow those early days to slip from our memory.

At a certain age we can begin to see what God has done in us and begin to understand why God chose us from the beginning. He knew what He could do with this lump of clay. We see all lumps of clay alike but not so God. He sees the finished product before He even made the choice.

Don’t get so busy that we forget it was God who chose us and not we who chose Him.

John 14:9 English Standard Version (ESV) Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

Is this the essence of discipleship? Let us modify the statement to this present day. “Whoever has seen me has seen Jesus. How can you say, ‘Show us Jesus’?”

The essential truth here lies within the context of “I have been with you so long”. To know someone deeper than the superficial appearances takes time. We all appear to be just like any other human and we are physically. The spiritual aspects of our lives are not readily noticeable. It takes time by unbelievers to see that side of us. We are the same but somehow different.

That difference can only be revealed by the Holy Spirit. Every effort on our part to “be good” will be seen as human effort. Any good 12 step program will tell you that. The issue long term is not effort it is character. God through the power of the Holy Spirit is building Jesus character qualities within each of us. It will no longer be a human effort it will be the new creature being true to our new nature.

It takes time to build character and it takes time to reveal character. We must not give up on the lost just because in the early days they don’t see us for who we are in Christ. If God has placed a person in your life to disciple then do not give up hope that the Holy Spirit will reveal Jesus to them.

“I was once like you.”

Ephesians 2:3-5 English Standard Version (ESV)

³ among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the bodyand the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. ⁴ But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—