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Chariot October 2011 - Norm Wakefield New Resource: Equipped to Love: Idolatry-free Relationships is now available on our website in ebook formats for iPad, Kindle, and Nook. You can also find it in the respective ebook stores for Amazon, Barnes and Nobles and Apple. If you have enjoyed this book or Anchored in Christ and God has used them in your life, would you consider writing a review on the pages at these stores for us? Thank you! In Honor of Joel McKerrill
I met a young
man with cerebral palsy, Joel McKerrill, and his family in Australia a
couple of years ago. Recently, through complications after a surgery, Joel
went to be with the Lord. Joel’s father asked if I would give a short
video presentation honoring Joel for his memorial service. This month’s
article is my effort to honor the Lord Jesus by honoring Joel. I hope it
will be an encouragement to those of you whose loved ones are now with the
Lord as well as an encouragement to love those dear ones God has given to
you.
After receiving
the news of the sudden loss of his children, Job reasoned rightly how he
should respond. "He said, 'Naked I came from my mother’s womb (I came
into this world with nothing) and naked I shall return there (I can’t
take anything of this world with me when I die). The Lord gave and the
Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord’" (Job. 1:21). In
Job’s response we see how a righteous man responds when he experiences
great loss: He humbles himself by recognizing that the people we love in
this world are temporal blessings from God, and that God is to be blessed
since He gave us those blessings.
I want to
encourage the McKerrill family and their friends as I honor God in
declaring the value and treasure Joel was to all of us in the years God
kindly gave him to us. To honor is to assign value. When Paul told the
Ephesian children to honor their parents, he meant for them to value or
treasure their parents by obeying them. When I speak of honoring God in
declaring the value and treasure Joel was to all of us, I mean that I wish
to declare that when we show value or in some way express that we treasure
a creature God has made, we are honoring God. So the first thing I want to
state clearly is that Joel with all
of his physical and mental weaknesses was part of God’s wonderful plan
and love for us. Some might ask...
"Are
you saying that God is responsible for Joel’s infirmities, sickness, and
death? How can a good and loving God cause such suffering?" My reply is
that the Scriptures are clear: God created man without these things. Once
sin entered into this world, for which man is completely responsible,
there has been nothing but calamity and suffering and death except for the
times God has caused well-being out of His infinite mercy and compassion.
The eternal,
redeeming truth is that God has a purpose for suffering and calamity and
even death (as in the cases of Jesus Christ and Lazarus). It is to display
His glory through His Son, Jesus Christ. Here is how this happens. In the
midst of our suffering, calamity, and death, God’s value is manifested.
He means for us to love Him and find our comfort, joy, and ultimate
satisfaction in Him rather than life in this world. Therefore, in God’s
eternal plan, this world is temporal and our courses are laden with
trials, disappointments, and heartaches in and through which God reveals
the power of having a relationship with Him through Jesus Christ. We can
be grateful for every good and perfect gift our Father in heaven gives us.
I now return to
my aim: honoring God by honoring Joel. I said that Joel
with all of his physical and mental weaknesses was part of God’s
wonderful plan and love for us--a gift God gave and then took away. Blessed
be the name of the Lord. Here’s the first reason I say Joel was a part
of God’s wonderful plan. The value of a person isn’t what we can get from
them.
Let me explain
how I came to this conclusion. According to Romans 3:10-12, God finds all
of mankind to be useless to Him in their fallen state. "There is none
righteous, not even one; there is none who understand, there is none who
seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless."
One might draw a conclusion from these verses that mankind is totally
useless to God, and that would be a wrong conclusion. Man may be useless
when it comes to righteousness, understanding, and seeking Him, however,
man has a tremendous value to God for another reason. The value of a person is what they draw out of us.
In our weak and
fallen state, we draw love out of God. For God to relate to us, He must
love us, therefore our uselessness is incredibly useful to Him. When He
loves us through Jesus Christ, we see the true character of God’s love.
It is selfless, life-giving, relational, and enduring. Consider this
awesome reality: for Jesus to love us, He had to experience His Father’s
love so He could express that love to us. In the same way, the weaknesses
and fallenness of other people draw the love of God out of us. For us to
relate to them, we also must experience the love of God the Father through
Jesus Christ so we can express that love to others.
Although Joel
has many qualities that you love about him such as his peacefulness,
contentedness, and affection, I suggest that he is to be honored because
God gave him to us for these years so that we might experience God’s
love and fullness. What a tremendous blessing Joel is to us! To love Joel and others
like him, one must go out of his way to notice him, speak to him, and give
to him. In doing so, you had the opportunity to know Jesus through your
relationship with Joel. You discovered in a small way what it was like for
Jesus to love you as you loved Joel. You walked away after ministering to
Joel with a deeper appreciation for God’s love for you in Christ and
your hearts more full and more joyful as the Holy Spirit poured through
you. To speak to Joel, to put a hand on his shoulder, to hug him in the
name of Jesus blessed both Joel and you. Having Joel in your lives was a
blessing from God that you might know Jesus Christ better. Here’s
another reason I say Joel was a gift from God to be honored. To love Joel was to love Jesus.
In Matthew 25
Jesus taught an amazing truth to His disciples. He said, "Truly I say to
you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even
the least of them, you did it to Me." What a good gift Joel was to us. We
honor Joel because Jesus gave him to us so we might have a tangible,
hands-on way to love and serve Him. How valuable Joel was to us! Here’s
a third reason I believe Joel is to be honored as a part of God’s
wonderful plan and love for us. Joel depended on the Lord
Although Joel
was not a child in age, mentally and emotionally, he was like a child.
From the Scriptures we know that unless we all are converted and become
like children, we cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven and that heaven
is made up of such children. Joel’s dependence on the Lord for His care
through others reminds us that we must also live in utter dependence upon
the Lord for His care. We must become
dependent upon the Lord like Joel was dependent upon others–like
any child. We can honor Joel in this child-likeness and have confidence
that Jesus loves precious ones like Joel. Joel’s passing reminds us that this is not life.
I use the word "passing"
because that is what occurred. Joel passed from death to life. How easy it
is to think that our experience in this world is life. Joel’s life
reminds us that our hope is in what is to come. That’s why we should not
think of Joel as "was" but that Joel
is. When Martha talked with Jesus after Lazarus’ death, Jesus said
to her, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will
live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never
die. Do you believe this" (John 11:25-26)? Joel lives because Jesus is the
resurrection and the life. Joel has now passed from death into life. When
we are born into this world, we are born into death, but when we pass out
of this world in Christ, we pass into real life. We also
have good reasons to hope and rejoice for Joel. "We are made
whole in heaven."
1 John 4:2 says
that we will become like Jesus because we will see Him just as He is. I
have wondered if Jesus’ body was that of a 33 year-old, will everyone
who goes to be with the Lord be transformed into their 33 year-old body in
heaven without the effects of sin? Since in heaven we are redeemed from
all of the effects of sin, I’m concluding that there are no old or sick
people in heaven. Instead, all things become new and we are made whole.
Isn’t that hopeful? I think we may hope and imagine Joel, in perfect
redeemed health, running around open spaces in heaven with greatest
delight. He probably can’t wait to greet you at the portal to heaven
when you arrive. "Hey, Mom and Dad, watch this!" "That’s Him!"
Our loss is
Joel’s gain. He is beholding the face of Jesus. Imagine with me the
moment when Joel first saw the Lord Jesus Christ as he stood there before
Him. I wonder if in his heart came the exclamation, "That’s Him!
That’s my Lord and creator!" It is hoped that all of you today are
waiting with eager anticipation to behold the beauty of the Lord and
experience the fullness of satisfaction that comes in the presence of the
Lord that Joel and all of our loved ones who have gone on before us are
experiencing. What a blessed promise we have of eternal life through Jesus
Christ.
Finally today I
want you to be encouraged by these words of the Lord Jesus Christ. "I
will see you again."
When we lose
someone so precious as Joel, we grieve at our loss just like the disciples
grieved when they heard Jesus was going to leave them and go to the Father
in heaven. I think what He told them may encourage our hearts anytime we
think of Joel and miss him. "Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain,
because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she no
longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a child has been born
into the world. Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again
and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you" (John
16:21-22).
The Apostle Paul
wrote to the Romans that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains
of childbirth together until now. Joel’s suffering and passing are
examples of creation suffering the pains of childbirth. Our grieving is as
the pains of childbirth. However, by God’s grace, those who trust in
Christ have the first fruits of the Spirit. Therefore we are waiting
eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body (Rom.
8:22-23). So we have this hope today as we honor Joel’s going to the
Father in heaven. We will see him again. As we wait eagerly for that time
when we shall see Joel again, although we grieve, we do not grieve without
hope. There will come a time when we see him again and our hearts will
rejoice and no one will take our joy from us. So it is with all of our
loved ones who fall asleep in the Lord Jesus. A Benediction from 1 Peter 1:3-5
"Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great
mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which
is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven
for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a
salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." Amen. Would you like to be on the Elijah Ministries Prayer Team? You are invited to
join with me in ministering to men and their families in three ways. 1.
Please
pray about contributing to Elijah Ministries through a one time gift or on
a regular monthly basis. In doing so, you join what I call the "sending
team." I am able to dedicate myself to this ministry through the
contributions of brothers and sisters in Christ who want others to receive
what they have received through Elijah Ministries. You
can do so here. (Elijah
Ministries is a tax-deductible 501c3 and is financially accountable to an
overseeing board of 8 non-paid members from around the country.)
2.
Please
pray about joining my Facebook prayer team on The Spirit of Elijah
Ministries Facebook page. I post an invitation to pray and then a report
after the event. You can be a part of ministering the grace of God through
praying for these events. 3.
Please
pray about sharing resources that have encouraged you with your friends. The Chariot is also available as a podcast. You can automatically receive the Chariot each month in iTunes by subscribing here. (An RSS capable browser such as Internet Explorer 7 or Safari is required.)
If you
haven't visited our website, www.spiritofelijah.com,
please stop by sometime. You'll find: * Resources to equip you and your family * Previous Chariot articles * Norm's speaking schedule *
Free MP3 downloads * Subscribe to the Chariot Podcast here. * Various resources/pages translated and available in Spanish * An online store to purchase resources and make tax-free contributions by credit card
I invite you to be a part of the
moving of the Spirit of Elijah in your church, community, and the world.
How?
1.
Send this article to other men or families that you know would
benefit from it. You might inform them of the previous articles
available on-line at our website.
2.
Share resources from the Spirit of Elijah Ministries with others.
If Equipping Men or Rising to the
Call have been a blessing to you, then you know it will be
beneficial to others. Either share your resources, tell them about the
resources, or purchase a set or two as an investment in their lives. 3. Share with others what you have learned and put into practice in turning your heart to God, your wife, and your children. If God has done this in you, then He wants to affect others through you. 4. Join the Elijah Ministries email prayer team via Facebook and make intercession for others that their hearts would be turned in revival to the Lord, their wives, and their children.
Norm
Wakefield 10.11 To unsubscribe, click here.
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Chariot to chariot@spiritofelijah.com.
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