Below is a copy/paste from John Piper's Future Grace article (from book), also found here on Desiring God website. We were watching a video yesterday with our Bible study, by Piper and he quoted his "waterfall" quote. I tried to find it, but I found this article instead. I thought it was so good, I'd put it on my blog, here :O). It is a good reminder for me (and maybe you too) as we wait for a referral, to give thanks that referral will most likely happen, and God knows this child(ren) and has chosen them for us. Even through the hiccups and flawed process. Or maybe the waterfall illustration is a good way to direct our prayers for a decision, if a referral has already been presented, "Lord, where are you directing us to be instruments of your grace, direct us." For sure, a good reminder in the Christian life in general, to be thankful for what God will do in the future.
My paraphrase on the waterfall quote I couldn't find: we are to walk under that waterfall of grace that comes down from God, because all the needs around us, our home, our church, the widows, the orphans, the sick and dying, etc., we want to be instruments of His grace, as opposed to doing these things in our own strength, perhaps overwhelmed, we may just give up, retreat from opportunities to show His love because we feel we can't really make a difference, or of burn out, or cold spirit. And it should be a comfort to us that God is not calling us to do everything, or be in two places at one time.
The waterfall analogy helps me in self-pity...say, if I wasn't invited to a gathering, or perhaps I'm not feeling useful or needed in a particular area, even rejected. This is not where the waterfall is, but its somewhere! We are to find that waterfall of His grace, and give thanks. He has a purpose for us, or we wouldn't be here.
I'll find that waterfall quote and post later.
update: I found it: " ...you posture yourself, and you maneuver your life, and you devote energy and effort and time and creativity to positioning yourself under the waterfall of God's continual blessing, so that he remains the source and you remain the empty receiver. You remain the benificiary, he remains the benefactor; you remain hungry, he remains the bread; you remain thirsty, he remains the water. You don't ever do the blasphemous role-reversal on God. We've got to find a way to serve in a way that is in the strength that God supplies. I am on the receiving end when I am serving. Otherwise I put God in the position of a beneficiary; I become his benefactor, and now I am God. And there are many such religions in the world."
FUTURE GRACE
Gratitude is a joyful emotion for worship, but a dangerous motive for obedience. We are commanded in no uncertain terms to be thankful. “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts ... and be thankful” (Colossians 3:15). “In everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). How can we not be thankful when we owe everything to God?
But when it comes to obedience, gratitude is a dangerous motive. It tends to get expressed in debtor’s terms. For example, “Look how much God has done for you. Shouldn’t you, out of gratitude, do much for him? Or: “You owe God everything that you are and have. What have you done for him in return?”
I have at least three problems with this kind of motivation. First, it is impossible to pay God back for all the grace he has given us. We can’t even begin to pay him back, because Romans 11:35-36 says, “Who has given a gift to God that he might be repaid? [Answer: nobody] For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever.” We can’t pay him back because he already owns all we have to give him.
Secondly, even if we succeeded in paying him back for all his grace to us, we would only succeed in turning grace into a business transaction. If we can pay him back it was not grace. If someone tries to show you a special favor of love by having you over for dinner, and you end the evening by saying that you will pay them back by having them over next week, you nullify their grace and turn it into a trade. God does not like to have his grace nullified. He likes to have it glorified (Ephesians 1:6, 12, 14).
Thirdly, focusing on gratitude as a motive for obedience tends to overlook the crucial importance of future grace. Gratitude looks back to grace received in the past and feels thankful. Faith looks forward to grace promised in the future and feels hopeful. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for” (Hebrews 11:1).
This faith in future grace is the motive for obedience that preserves the gracious quality of human obedience. Obedience does not consist in paying God back and thus turning grace into a trade. Obedience comes from trusting in God for more grace—future grace—and thus magnifying the infinite resources of God’s love and power. Faith looks to the promise: “I will be with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9), and ventures, in obedience, to take the land.
The biblical role of past grace—especially the cross—is to guarantee the certainty of future grace: “He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all (past grace), how shall he not with him freely give us all things (future grace)?” (Romans 8:32). But trusting in future grace is the motive and strength of our obedience. The more we trust in future grace the more we give God the opportunity in our lives to show the glory of his inexhaustible grace. So take a promise of future grace and do some radical act of obedience on it. God will be mightily honored.
Stepping forward onto future grace,
Pastor John
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