For all people?

I have been digging into the book of 1 Timothy for about 8 months now. This past couple weeks I was meditating on these verses:

1 Timothy 2:3-6

3 This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. 

But I couldn't understand why verse 4 and 6 emphasize God's desire and Christ's ransom for all people. It seems so simple right: God loves all people and  Christ died for all people. Yet the reality seems so befuddling: not all people come to a knowledge of the truth and many reject being saved through the ransom of Christ. 

Then in the midst of my own struggle around ministry and what defines success I think I came to understand a little more. I have said for years that in ministry faithfulness is the only measure of success. For Jeremiah was as successful as Paul because both were faithful to God's mission he gave them. Paul saw more tangible fruit in his life. Yet what seemed fruitless in Jeremiah's ministry has come to bear much fruit as the words of Jeremiah comfort us today in hard times. 

But our theology and doctrine is tested by our circumstances and our actions. And in the face of this year of ministry what I truly believed has become clear. I actually did measure myself and my ministry by the tangible fruit it bore or didn't bear. And I found myself wanting by my standards. There are some amazing and powerful things happening that have happened this year in the ministry and in my life. But I was blinded from it by my own expectations and demands of myself and God. 

As I prepare for East Asia I feel the weight of leading a trip that is beyond my abilities and yet also my responsibility. I began to ask this question: What if God is more concerned about people than events? What would that look like? At first I couldn't imagine it because through my lens people are impacted by events and the events have to go a certain way. But as I grow and see the mysteries of life I think I am finding that people are shaped not by events being successful again after again but by the mix of life and success and failure and the slow shaping of our character. In fact what seems a failure to the world may actually bear the most fruit in the heart of a man. 

So I thought if a ministry or mission trip doesn't see tangible fruit is it worth it? I began to count the costs and quickly say how could it be worth it if nothing comes of it. But what if this one event of a short mission trip is just one part of a series of events and God changes our hearts or the hearts of those we go to. But even then what if someone never accepts Jesus. Would it still be worth it? Would a life of fundraising and looking foolish on campus be worth it? 

And 1 timothy:5,6 came back to me. 

Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all people.

And I thought was it worth it for Jesus to suffer and die as a ransom for someone even if they never accept it. For it says he gave himself as a ransom for all people, not only the ones who would believe. 

If Jesus-God himself counted a person worth suffering and dying for a person knowing that they would never come to believe and receive it then the most precious sacrifice and gift was still worth giving. Jesus willingly looked at those who accuses and rejected and persecuted him with love. He counted them worthy, he loved them like no other even as they rejected his love and sacrifice. 

If my model is Jesus then I have to say yes it is absolutely worth it to love and sacrifice hoping they might receive what Jesus did for them, but endure in loving never knowing if they will receive the Love of Christ that hopefully flows through me. 

Lord do a new work work in my heart to love like this, to love like Jesus to the very end believing it is absolutely worth the cost. 

Amen

True Righteousness

Sometimes I struggle to keep a righteousness by the law or by my own strength.

But this is what Isaiah says in chapter 64:6

All of us have become like one who is unclean,

    and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;

we all shrivel up like a leaf,

    and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

Our righteousness the best we can do not even considering our sins are like filthy rags.  Yet in Christ we can say Amen my righteousness does not come from my works. In fact we bring nothing except sin and punishment by our acts. For it is Christ's righteousness on which we stand.

2 Corinthians 5:21

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Lord teach me to say with Paul even as he counts his "good" works as he repeats his resume of righteousness by his own strength as he wrote in Philippians 3

7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

I think sometimes I trade the law for a law of my heart condition instead of the grace of God through Christ. Lord God you know my heart, you know that by my own strength I cannot attain righteous, and I cannot will my heart to change. But on my knees I might find in you God strength and healing and grace as I ask you to change my heart God. 

Lord teach me this, sink it deep in my heart as I struggle in the face of ministry and the seemingly insurmountable China GP. Lord teach it to me in my works and in my sins that my identity and righteousness come from Christ alone through faith. Bring me back to faith in what Jesus has already done for me and all people.
Amen

Jesus' attitude

Philippians 2

Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.

As I prepare for China I am counting the costs of giving up my rights and loving and accepting a system foreign and at first uncomfortable to me. It makes me appreciate Jesus so much more!

Lord help me to be humble like you in love. 
Amen