The Corrs sing ‘What can I do to make you love me? What can I do to make you care? What can I say to make you feel this? What can I do to get you there?’ Many people
have asked of God these questions. What
might he say? Later! First a story from the
book of Acts…
It’s a remarkable scene.
Once again illustrating that righteous living can lead to
suffering. Paul has just freed a slave,
a young girl inflicted with an unclean Spirit, and the result… suffering. The girl had fallen into the wrong
hands. The unclean Spirit had left her
insane but also with the ability of predicting the future. A group of people took possession of her and
exploited the gift for their own reward.
When they heard that Paul had healed her, freed her, bought her into her
right mind in the power of Jesus Christ, they are unhappy and rise up a rabble
to force Paul and Silas to face prosecution.
Guilty is the verdict. Paul and
Silas are stripped naked, beaten, battered, bruised and forced into the high
security part of the prison, their feet in stocks. Unable to move because of the stocks, cramps
would set in – agony -hour after hour. Yet in our remarkable scene we see Paul
and Silas naked, battered and in stocks singing hymns and praying. Why? How?
There are many remarkable scenes in the bible. Many people whose righteous living leads to
suffering. Abel is murdered for giving
God an appropriate gift of worship, Joseph thrown into prison for resisting
temptation, Elijah given an assassination notice having defeated the Baal
prophets, Jesus crucified yet blameless.
Righteous living leads to suffering.
Yet Paul knew that God was with him.
I love the passages of Joseph in prison as it reminds us almost every
verse that God is with him. In fact that
is the heartbeat of the whole Bible. God
is with us… God is with us… God is with us… so he sings in his pain, in his
imprisonment… in his suffering… he praises God for all He is, all He has done
and all that is prepared for eternity. Whatever
you are going through at the moment… God is with you… God is with you.
Whilst he sings there is a massive earthquake. The cells shake, the shackles loosen, freedom
gained… but Paul remains. The Jailor
seeing the doors opened presumes their escape and imagines the punishment to be
faced. He draws a sword ready to take
his own life. But just in time Paul
shouts… ‘Stop, we are all here’. He puts
the sword down and comes running to the man who had been singing hymns and says
‘What must I do to be saved’? The
question all preachers want to be asked!
What must we do? What jobs? What
tasks? How must I live? How can I prove myself?
Questions from the prison but often ours too, what must we do to be
saved’. Paul gives the wonderful answer,
‘nothing’. There is nothing we can do to
be saved because the work has already been done by Jesus Christ. All we can do is believe in Him and get to
know Him. The work has been done. We
cannot earn salvation by ourselves we can only believe in Jesus who has done it
all for us. When we know Him we will
only want to follow Him, but for now… Nothing… Just believe.
This year I am reading ‘Choose life – 365 readings for
radical disciples’ by Simon Guillebaud.
He tells this remarkable story. A
poor Burundian woman found herself in a violent marriage. The abusive husband would give his wife lists
of chores to be done by the time he got home.
If the work was not done… trouble… he would beat her mercilessly. She was beaten every night. To her relief the awful husband became sick
and died. A few years later she married
a loving and kind man. Gone were the
beatings… Gone were the lists… Gone was fear…
She simply loved to serve him.
Months into her new marriage, whilst cleaning the house, she came across
one of those old lists. She opened it
and read it, awful memories coming back.
But then, to her amazement she realised she had completed everything on
the list. What she could not accomplish
motivated by fear and punishment, she had easily fulfilled energised by love.
What can I do to be saved? Nothing!
Every question from the Corrs – nothing!
There is nothing the Jailor or you can do to make God love you any more
or any less. Stop trying! God is the God of love and relationship. So much so he sent Jesus so that we could
once again be in relationship with Him.
By believing in this we get to know Him, enjoy Him, and all of sudden we
are amazed that we are like Him and sharing Him with all we meet. But this does not come from a list of jobs, a
type of behaviour, following a rule book… but from relationship, a relationship
that comes through faith in Jesus Christ.
Maybe you are going through a difficult time? Maybe you
are asking, 'there must be more to life than this'? Maybe you are with the Jailor asking 'what
must I do to be saved'? Perhaps you are singing with the Corrs 'what can I do to make you love me?' May you hear the
answer from Paul, absolutely nothing! It
has all been done. Just believe, be in
relationship with Him and enjoy Him every minute of every day. The rest will take care of itself!
You may find this song helpful… many Christians over many
years have found different versions to be so!
