One of the home improvement jobs I hate the most but which seems to generate the most dramatic difference is that of stripping off ugly, dirty, outdated wall paper and painting a fresh new coat of color to warm or brighten up a room. It completely transforms an area, making it a desirable space in which to live. All my stripping projects have been awful but some were beyond awful; just absolutely wretched! One such job I became completely exasperated with was the entry way of our house. I didn’t like what I saw and wanted people to have a positive first impression upon entering our home. I had a vision for the finished product knowing it was going to require some hard work, effort and patience to obtain. As I began the work, I instantly realized it was not going the way I thought it would and I began to question if I would be able to endure this project after all. I wondered if I would ever get through the resistive process of those tiny pieces of stubborn paper barely surrendering to my touch and coaxing. In spite of pleading with that obstinate paper, it remained a painstaking process of removal. I was just going to have to commit to see it through to the end no matter how long or how horrible the job, because once the project was begun, there was no turning back. I somehow found the endurance to persevere and just keep chipping, scraping, pealing, groaning, sighing and complaining until the job was complete and revealed what was beneath all that effort; a blank canvas with which I could start over. I now had the opportunity to clothe those bare walls with such a striking makeover that upon entering the front door people would remark with exclamation of the beautiful transformation which had occurred.
When God is dealing with us in a similar manner of stripping
us, scraping away at what must go so He can expose and transform a glorious
work in us, it feels like we are in trouble; like we aren’t doing enough or
the right thing to get rid of an unwanted circumstance; or we’ve somehow sinned
and have not made enough restitution or repentance. It causes us to fear we might give up, yet we
fight to hold on. We feel guilty because
of the ongoing tug of war between faith in our good God and the doubt that
tries to creep in and sabotage that faith.
We may feel very vulnerable, exposed, weak, uncertain, ashamed, awkward,
and even withdrawn. We may succumb to
anger and lash out at the God who seems to have turned a deaf ear toward
us. It seems like He is no where in
proximity of us or our circumstances. The heavens seem like brass as our cries
for help or relief seem to go unanswered. This is the familiar nightmare
playing itself out which so many of us have.
In this, which seems like the reoccurring dream so many of us have, we feel
as if we are walking around naked when everyone else is dressed. This spiritual
stripping can be completely frustrating, exasperating, and disenchanting.
The first nakedness we see in the Bible is with Adam and
Eve. They were naked and there was
nothing awkward or uncomfortable about it all, not because they were
exhibitionists, but because they were clothed in the glory of God. There was no knowledge of life any other
way. When one is fully clothed in the
pure glory of God it causes there to be no fear or shame or anything else
objectionable, Genesis 2:25. This glorious state was so amazing that Adam
and Eve walked in absolute peace. They
walked with God in perfect fellowship.
Their Father who created them, gave them the enjoyable task of being
fruitful and multiplying, demonstrating that He had nothing but good success in
His plan for His precious children’s lives.
Despite the fact they had perfect paradise on Earth, however, they chose
to believe the lie of the slithery serpent, thereby opening themselves up to
knowledge of things of which God wanted to spare them. Genesis 2:17-But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die. Hence, the state we are now all born;
having dreadful things ingrained into the fabric our nature which causes
separation from a most Holy God.
Genesis 3:7 And
the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves
together, and made themselves aprons.
Out of fear and shame over their own choice to be stripped
of the glory of God, Adam and his wife now had to find a way to cover
themselves. They soon found out as do we
all that when we try to “cover” ourselves, our foolish attempts are insufficient
because our work apart from God is useless and in vain, John
15:5, Psalm 127:1.
Genesis 3:21-Unto
Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed
them.
God, in the beauty of His love for us, finds a way to properly
cover us. However, a sacrifice must be
made, so we see record of the first death in the Bible. The death of animals was necessary, as their
coats were needed to clothe man. This is
a picture of a far better sacrifice we would have in Jesus, whose body was
given to save and cover us.
Since God is the source of Life and wants His family back, He
has found a way to reverse the curse and recover our relationship with Him. This
is a painful process, however, as it involves death. First, it involved the death of Jesus so that
through Him we could be saved through accepting His sacrifice in taking our
place as we could never accomplish what He alone was able. He therefore, becomes our all sufficient covering.
The second death is our own as we lay
down our life in full surrender to Him as our Lord and permit Him to strip us
of every hindrance that would impede His perfection working in our lives. John
3:30-He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.
Just as Adam and Eve could not sufficiently clothe themselves
for what they would encounter in a newly fallen world, neither can we of our
own nature be equipped to handle what is necessary to be fruitful and multiply
in this life. Although He has clothed us
with His righteousness in saving us from spiritual death and we will live
forever with Him, there is still death that needs to occur. This comes in the form of stripping…stripping
us of what has to go from our human nature in order to advance in the nature He
has placed inside of us upon our salvation.
There is no magic button to push when we get saved that automatically
transforms us into a perfect Christian.
That’s why we still sin, although the new spirit within us doesn’t want
to any longer. The tug of war within
ourselves begins as our soul and body which needs to be renewed and transformed
wages constant conflict with our new spirit man. The part which must die tries desperately to stay
in control and alive yet well knowing it is being crucified and will eventually
surrender to death, Romans 12:2, John
12:24.
Just as John 1 tells us, Jesus was the Word and was with
God, and then became flesh, so does that same Word work in us. It starts to mold us from the inside, then
manifests in our flesh, becoming apparent on the outside that God is cultivating
a new person in us. It’s no wonder then
that our fleshly ways must be revealed; stripped of what is keeping them veiled
and holding us back from God’s purposes and wonderful plans for our lives. This is a divine process which if we will
surrender as a holy sacrifice to the Lord whatever He chooses to reveal, and ask Him to crucify
or strip it away, it will wield a magnificent transformation in us whereby we
will then more reflect the nature of the Lord.
God in His wisdom knows that we will attempt to clothe
ourselves in our own ability, education, doctrines, pride, careers, past life
experiences, etc.; hence the need for the day to come when we will be stripped
of what we have come to rely on consciously or subconsciously. Although it feels absolutely terrible to our
exposed “flesh”, in the genius of a good and loving God, it is actually a mark
upon His sons and daughters of excellence.
When we are going through this refining, stripping process, we
are actually in good company, being in the ranks of others who possessed
excellent spirits and were stripped: Joseph, Joshua and Caleb, Moses, Paul,
David, Daniel to name just a few. If we will yield to the process of being
stripped, the outcome will far outweigh the pain, suffering or eradication of
what we gave up. Paul said, “Indeed, I count everything as loss because
of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have
suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may
gain Christ,” Philippians 3:8.
Joseph was stripped of his beautiful coat of favor his
father gave him, Gen 37:23. He was plunged into a pit of bondage, forsaken
by his family yet it was all a proving ground; proving God was with him and
causing others to finally be able to receive what God wanted to pour out
through His refined vessel, Joseph.
Joshua and Caleb had to wander around in the desert for
forty years with a bunch of gripey, ungrateful idolaters who because of their continual
bad choices and refusal to trust in God, they did not get to enter the promises
God had awaiting them. However, Joshua
and Caleb riveted their focus on their amazing God, refusing to gaze on the
problems. God therefore caused them to
possess an excellent spirit through the trials of the wilderness so they were
prepared and therefore able to enter into the Promised Land.
Others mentioned above had their education, lifestyles,
positions, provisions, security, capabilities, families, homes, etc. stripped from
them in order that they could eventually be built back up by the Lord with
nothing but success awaiting them. They
were able to fulfill the calls on their lives and rejoice in God taking the
time to turn their circumstances around for their good, re-clothing them in His
finest apparel.
I would be remiss to not mention our Lord Jesus, who allowed
Himself to be stripped of His omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence in
order that He could be contained in an Earthly body instead of His spiritual
one. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was
rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might
become rich, 2 Corinthians 8:9.
We need to resist the temptation to be the child in the
backseat asking, “Are we there yet?” It’s
going to feel longer than we want because we are impatient by nature and as God
told me a few Sundays ago during worship at church, “It takes time for Me to
produce fine wine.” When we ask how much
longer we are going to have to endure this; we intuitively already know the
answer, “As long as it takes.” This may
not seem like an answer at all in the midst of our torment, but if we will do
our best to surrender to God, letting Him have His way in this stripping,
trying to maintain a grateful attitude in understanding that it will be for our
good and Kingdom purpose, it will help us endure. We can be honest with the Lord, going to Him
about our discomfort, frustration, even anger because He is touched with the
feelings of what it’s like to be human, Hebrews
4:15. We can ask Him for His help
and grace to endure what we must and that although we don’t like this stripping
wilderness process, we trust Him. In
this, we will have a different attitude than the children of Israel who
complained, and turned their backs on the Lord in their distrust of Him. In our endurance, we will reap a harvest,
thereby returning to the garden of Paradise unashamed, at peace, fruitful and in
perfect fellowship with our Father.
Just as Adam and Eve were to multiply, we are to conceive by
the Lord and give birth to what He is causing to emerge in and through us. When a woman is near the end of her pregnancy
and the doctor feels she has been pregnant long enough they may perform a
procedure called “stripping the membranes”.
This is a process to separate the amniotic sac which holds and protects
the baby, from the wall of the uterus which was the place of growth and
nurturing. It is to hopefully start
labor to bring forth the baby. In an
article by Journal of
Midwifery & Women's Health 2009;54(3):259-260, Posted on
Medscape Today News this revealing statement is made:
“Sometimes, at the end of pregnancy, it seems the pregnancy
will never end -- we can all become impatient and wish we could make labor
begin; membrane stripping may cause you to lose sleep and be uncomfortable in
the days before your labor starts -- the best way to get ready for your infant
and for labor is to remain as rested as possible.”
There will come a time which He knows best to begin the
process of stripping. This is a mark of
maturity in that you are now ready to come forth and no longer need to be
hidden away and protected as an unborn baby. He wants you to make your appearance in the
world and launch the call for why He placed you here. This process can happen
several times in our lives, however, as He continues to stretch and increase
us. In His love and mercy, He will
clothe us with far better than what He had to strip off, giving birth to a new
us which now looks more like Him with each step of the process
The stripping/refining process seems to expose, yet He
clothes. In the stripping process we
trade our shoddy wardrobe for what is in His holy closet:
Strength and dignity-Proverbs
31:25
Love-Colossians 3:14
Salvation and Righteousness-Isaiah 61:10
Praise-Isaiah 61:3
Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience-Colossians 3:12
Christ-Galatians 3:27-No
better garment!
1 Peter 5:10
But the God of all grace, who has called us to his eternal glory by Christ
Jesus, after that you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish,
strengthen, settle you.
Ezekial 16:8 When
I passed by you again and looked upon you, indeed your time was the time of
love; so I spread My wing over you and covered your nakedness. Yes, I swore an oath to you and entered into
a covenant with you, and you became Mine,” says the Lord God.
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