Holiness, Godliness, Usefulness
10/19/2014, by John Kincaid
Lesson 394: God Draws Us Closer
All good parents set loving boundaries for their children. If a child chases a ball into the street, they didn’t realize that they could have been run over by a car. Our duty is to make sure they remember next time.
God disciplines those He loves, to make us more aware of what He requires, more careful, and to protect us from more serious errors in the future.
When we wish that God would not discipline us, we are really wishing that God would stay out of our lives.
It is a great blessing that God will not grant this wish to His children. He promised never to leave or forsake us; believers have His ongoing presence forever.
But this also means He has promised to confront us when we abandon Him. God wants to be nearer to our hearts each day, and to draw us closer to Him.
2 Tim.3:10-11, Paul said to Timothy, “You know about my sufferings … Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.” The Greek word for rescued means that Jesus drags us to Himself.
The same word is translated as delivers in 1 Thes.1:10 "Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come." It means that the rescuer delivers the victim by drawing the victim toward the rescuer.
God’s main purpose is not to deliver people from danger; it is to draw them closer to God.
About This Series
The goal of this series is to become more useful in serving the Lord Jesus Christ, as an instrument in the Redeemer's hand. The theme verses for the series are Ephesians 4:22-24, Philemon 11, 2 Timothy 2:21
- to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,
- and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
- Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me.
- Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.
