This is fresh in my mind, having just finished the updating of my 1975 book Giving and Receiving, where I emphasize the sowing of seed, cultivating the crop, and reaping the harvest. There are at least three examples I can give from that book, all of which come from Genesis, and I refer to the principle on one occasion. The first example concerns the word "seed". "And God said, Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth. And it was so" (Genesis 1:11 ESV). The principle is set that plants and fruit trees in order to reproduce themselves produce seed, and many more plants and fruit trees are the result. God's specific intervention is not required, though He does supply the moisture and warmth required for growth.

We next see the promise of God to Noah, that "While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease" (Genesis 8:22). This is the first mention of agriculture, that is of humans putting seed into the ground with the aim of reaping a harvest. So God sets the principle of continuity. If there is daylight, then it will be followed by night, and just as surely, if seed is sown into the ground, it will grow and develop into food, and humans can reap the harvest.

After these two tremendous principles we are finally given a specific example of a man following God's program. "And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. The Lord blessed him, and the man became rich, and gained more and more until he became very wealthy" (Genesis 26:12-13). Isaac sowed and reaped, God blessed him and so he became rich. The principle has been around a long time, and it still works in whenever it is applied.

(You can get my Kindle book on Amazon.com and hopefully in paperback by the end of May. You can get F.E. Marsh's book from Book Depository, UK.)

I came across a church bulletin dated 1994, and I'm sure I did not go to the service but I may have picked it up at a bookstore associated with the church. For some reason, the church included the words of songs sung that day, and one jumped right off the page and into my consciousness. The chorus of the song says...

Don't put your limits on my God,
Don't tell me what I must believe.
If God's going to do His work He must be free.
Don't put Him in a little box
And say, "You must be orthodox."
For the love of God's unlimited to me.
(On the internet I found it was from a song written in 1981 by Lucille Olson.)

Did that strike a chord with you (pun intended)? The verses talk about rules and regulations given to worship God, and how "there really is a danger That you're worshiping the rules instead of God." How true!

Its the first line of the chorus, though, that should get implanted in our minds: "Don't put your limits on my God." I get many emails asking me if I believe this or that. If the questioner is really persistent, I will say I believe in the Apostles' Creed, which was good enough for the early church of the 2nd century. But of course even that gets me into trouble with some folk. And the reverse is true too -- I don't want to put my limits on your God either!

"Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?" (Jeremiah 32:27). "Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen" (Ephesians 3:20-21). That's my God!

And He did, by reconciling "us to Himself by Jesus Christ" (II Corinthians 5:18), "for he hath made him [to be] sin for us... that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" (5:21). The words "to be" are not in the Greek and this is why some translate it "he hath made him who knew no sin a sin-offering for us," reminding us of the Old Testament ritual for the forgiveness of sin.

The sin-offering had to provide a total forgiveness... that is, past and future sins. And this aspect worries some Christians because they think it implies a license to sin -- we can do what we like and God will forgive us.

Of course God forgives future sins; if He didn't you would not be saved. When Jesus died on the cross, you were not yet born and thus had not sinned, yet Jesus was a sin-offering for you. You accepted that when you confessed Jesus as Lord of your life. And if you respond to His unconditional love with your unconditional love, you will do what is pleasing in His sight. Yet if you do sin (I John 2:1), He's got you covered.

In addition, the sin-offering has to be continual. "The blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanses us from all sin" (I John 1:7b). The verb "cleanses" is present tense, continuous. "... Cleanses (removes) us from all sin and guilt [keeps us cleansed from sin in all its forms and manifestations]" (Amplified); "... The blood of Jesus His Son keeps continually cleansing us from every sin" (Wuest); "... is cleansing us from every sin" (Concordant). God keeps us cleansed! "Your sins are forgiven for his name's sake" (I John 2:12).

So God offers you total, continual forgiveness. Easter is a good time to quit trying to do it your way and count on His forgiveness.

A “pilgrimage” is a sojourning, a wandering without any constant abode or fixed holding. Jacob spoke of his life in this manner: “And Jacob said to Pharaoh, ‘The days of the years of my pilgrimage are one hundred and thirty years; few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage’” (Genesis 47:9 NKJV).

The Psalmist said, “I am a stranger in the earth; Do not hide Your commandments from me” (Psalm 119:19). In Ephesians we are described as “no longer strangers and foreigners [pilgrims], but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” Other references are Hebrews 11:13; 13:14; I Peter 2:11.

All believers are on a pilgrimage on planet Earth, heading for our home country in Heaven, and God wants to see us progress. For example, in Philippians 1:25, Paul wrote, “And being confident of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy of faith.” The Philippian believers needed a teacher for their progress [growth, advancement] and joy in the faith. Later, Paul wrote he’d rather go to heaven but he needed to stay around for the believers’ sake.

In Ephesians 4:15 believers are encouraged to be “speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head–Christ.” And in I Peter 2:2 we have that well-known illustration, “As newborn babes, desire the genuine milk of the word, that you may grow by it.” So even though we are “complete in Him” there is room for growth as we allow our completeness to show out in various areas of our lives.

Many years later Paul wrote to Timothy: “Meditate on these things; give yourself entirely to them, that your progress may be evident to all [or, in all things]” (I Timothy 4:15). Yes, we are pilgrims on Earth and we need the Word of God to make progress!

The apostle deals with the believer’s stand under three general headings as follows:

Stand Fast In The Lord
Philippians 4:1, “Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so STAND FAST IN THE LORD, my dearly beloved.” There was a time when the writer thought that this blessed verse was merely an exhortation to stand fast by His help, but we have come to see much more in it now. God has given us a position in Christ. The apostle tells us in Ephesians 1:6 that we have been “accepted in the Beloved” while in Colossians 2:9,10 he says, “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the godhead bodily, and ye are complete in him…”

If God, then, sees us in Christ, let us take our stand there.

Would men require of us works for salvation or have us append to our salvation works once required? Would they tell us what more we must do to belong to the Church or to be complete as Christians? Let us tell them that we have been accepted in the Beloved and that God sees us complete in Him. Let us “stand fast in the Lord.”

Would the world allure us or Satan tempt us to doubt our salvation by pointing to our failures? Let us remember that God, in His own sovereign grace, has made us accepted in Christ and let us “stand fast in the Lord.”

Stand fast in the faith
In I Corinthians 16:13 our apostle goes a step farther: “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.” This follows naturally.

It is blessed to know that God accepts us in the Beloved and to take our stand in Christ, but it is more blessed to know why, — to be “established in the faith,” to have “the full assurance of understanding.”

By “the faith,” of course, is meant the doctrine [teaching] and it must be borne in mind that when Paul speaks of “the faith” he refers, not to the message of John the Baptist or of Christ on earth or even of Peter at Pentecost, but to “the faith which should afterwards be revealed,” — that glorious message which is the capstone of divine revelation, the “one faith” of Ephesians 4:5, which he calls elsewhere “My gospel” and “the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me.” (Romans 16:25, II Timothy 1:13).

It is this message of grace and glory which our adversary so bitterly hates and so violently opposes.

Stand fast in the fight
Little wonder that the apostle says in Philippians 1:27: “Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye STAND FAST IN ONE SPIRIT, WITH ONE MIND STRIVING TOGETHER FOR THE FAITH OF THE GOSPEL.”

Depend upon it — where there is faith there is a fight. Satan will see to that. So many of God’s dear people fail to realize this. They gladly accept His love and grace, but draw back when called upon to stand in battle for Him. They do not seem to realize that God has committed to us His precious deposit — the most glorious message ever proclaimed on earth — and that we are responsible to guard and defend it. They do not feel keenly enough their responsibility to keep God’s message of grace pure and unsullied. While Satan continues to use even Church leaders to adulterate and neutralize that powerful message they allow the process to go on without a protest. They say “Let us not have trouble. Anything to keep peace” — as though our adversary would ever let us proclaim God’s truth in peace! In common parlance, “They do not have what it takes.”

Timothy, though such an earnest man of God, had some of this timidity about him and Paul seems concerned about it as he writes exhorting him: “Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God” (II Timothy 1:8).

“Fight the good fight of [the] faith” (I Timothy 6:12). “Endure hardness as a good soldier of jesus christ” (II Timothy 2:3).

Surely in these crucial times we need particular grace lest we withdraw from the fight or — God forbid! — fail to see why there should be any fight at all.

It is remarkable that “we have this treasure in earthen vessels,” but God has done this “that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us,” and weak as we are in ourselves, He will enable us to “keep” that sacred deposit “by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us” (II Corinthians 4:7, II Timothy 1:14).

By God’s grace, then, let us stand fast in the Lord, in the faith, in the fight. — C.R. Stam