The Closed Door
Gateway to Spiritual Fullness
Gateway to Spiritual Fullness
Common Folk, Uncommon Glory
Mary’s illness is a swift shaking and sobering wake-up call to me.
The Lord knows how to touch the “hollow of my thigh” and bring me to
my knees, and deservedly so. While she embraced the suffering as a
rare honor that the Lord bestowed upon her, I knew deep down that I
was the one in need of the Lord’s chastening. This whole ordeal
humbled me and gave me plenty to repent for.
I know she will come out of this affliction a better blossom with even
sweeter fragrance of Christ than she already had before. I on the other
hand tremble that I might obscure, through my own murkiness, what the
Lord is trying to do in fashioning a common vessel which is destined to
contain uncommon glory.
As I watch my dear wife suffer through an extensive battery of X-Rays,
blood works, CT Scans, MRI’s, spinal cord injection and surgery…I am
discovering that there is something extraordinary (and contrary to
man’s thinking) about the way the Lord constructs His vessels of
honor.
As much as we all love the story of Moses about all his astonishing
power, deeds and grace, it has ironically helped strengthen a natural
concept about man’s greatness. For sure, there are more than enough
examples in the Old Testament to corroborate that God uses great men
to bring to an end one evil generation and usher God’s people into
another era of peace and prosperity wherein righteousness rules.
Men in general view greatness as though it is attained through
diligence, hard work and determination. What we often fail to realize is
that the greatness that Moses and others possessed was not their
own – it was from entirely a different source. It in fact was wrought
into them as they finally came to the end of themselves and
surrendered to the hand of the Lord.
Christians are fond of phrases like, “the mighty man of God,” “man
who stands in the gap,” “man who stands against the tide,” to give
tribute to the gifted and powerful leaders who carry the banner of the
Lord’s testimony or recovery. Volumes have been written about great
men and women greatly used of the Lord; and we'd find ourselves in
wide-eyed admiration and envy of what they accomplished. They have
become inspiration and patterns to countless Christians zealous for
the Lord’s work and ministry.
What has been largely ignored is the fact that all these men and women
had to be brought to absolute destitute state before the Lord can
reconstitute them with His own character, mind and feelings so that
they can begin to display God’s own greatness and glory. We would
do well to remember that the Lord's character is constituted, not
learned.
Much attention has been given to God’s vessels of honor in characters
like Moses, David and his mighty men of valor, the Apostle Paul, etc.
Rarely would we hear any message on common and ordinary believers
in the Bible.
In 1974, I came across a book by Harry Foster (of Honor Oak
fellowship) titled “Speaking Anonymously.” I was at once impressed
about the unnamed characters in the Bible. What Noah’s wife and
Jonathan’s armor-bearer did in terms of fulfilling God’s purpose and
desire left an indelible impression in me.
With all due respect, Moses was a great man of God. So was David,
and so was Paul. No question about it. The question is, does the
Lord only select great men of God to carry out His work, or does He
also use common folk like you and me? More importantly, the question
should be, what makes a man a “great man of God” in the first place?
In the natural realm, Moses was great in every sense of the word for
much of his first 40 years. He was raised and educated in Pharaoh’s
courts, empowered with military command, trusted with planning and
building, gifted with oratorical skill, and he was consumed with a
burning zeal to serve God. The religious world would fall head over
heels to make a man of this caliber their great leader.
But not God.
God not only rejected Moses as a spiritual leader, He deemed him as
being totally unsuitable – except for being a sheep-herder in the back
side of the desert – for the next 40 years of his life. God cannot use
any of Moses’ greatness until every last drop of it got drained into the
sand.
When a royal vessel is reduced to a common vessel – humbled and
abased, and barely articulate – then will God have secured His vessel
of honor, way past his prime and not a minute sooner, I might add.
We see the same pattern in Paul also.
Throughout the Bible, man is consistently portrayed as being unreliable,
helpless, weak, in need of a Savior and deliverance. “For all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God,” declares Paul. The
Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John again and again
reminds us of our human frailty and our desperate need of a Savior.
Example after example has been given of poor wretched and destitute
vessels of clay finding Life, Grace and Peace and fullness in the
person of Jesus Christ.
The Scripture is full of references about the lowly, contrite, despised
and afflicted who cried out for mercy and were met with the bosom of
God. David repented of his despicable sin after Nathan the prophet
pointed him out. In deep contriteness, David realized, "The sacrifices
of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, Thou
will not despise” (Ps. 51:17).
Paul made it clear regarding man’s lowly state, “God has chosen the
foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the
weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the
base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things
that are not, that He might nullify the things that are” (I Cor. 1:27-28).
God has further ordained that His greatness would be shown forth in
and through weak and foolish vessels of clay, i.e. "power is perfected
in weakness" (II Cor. 12:9), and "when I am weak, then I am strong" (II
Cor; 12:10b).
With regard to men's lowly state, one of my favorite images from the
Old Testament is the one where David hid in the cave of Adullam when
he was being chased by King Saul (I Sam. 22:1-2). Not a pretty picture,
I know, but it did portray Christ, typified by David, humbling Himself in
the darkened world (the cave of Adullam) that rejected Him. Only a
small band of misfits gathered around him. Today, in our "cave of
Adullam" are we not also a band of misfits gathering around our
heavenly "David" who has opened our blind eyes to be drawn to the
splendor of His majesty?
Then as it is now, the secret to finding, and continually finding, Life,
Grace, Peace and Fullness is still in recognizing our own wretchedness
and His preciousness. No one, Moses and Paul included, has yet
earned a way to God’s praise through his own great works or mighty
deeds.
The secret to becoming a vessel of honor that may be greatly used of
the Lord is simple: just recognize that we’ll always be vessels of clay
and we’ll always be in desperate need of a Savior. He will do the rest.
And we can rest assured of it. Literally.
I cannot tell you how much and how often I have been deeply touched
by the offer of compassion, prayer, practical help from simple brethren,
and from children, since my dear Mary was diagnosed with Lung
Cancer.
By the outpouring of support, encouragement, prayers, affections from
saints all over the country, and from as far away as Canada, Brazil,
India and Taiwan (not to mention all the practical help of rides, food
and visits from local saints, and from my bosses and colleagues),
you’d think my dear wife is an important spiritual pillar of the church!
Well, maybe she is, but in a vastly different sort of way.
Mary is as plain and simple and unpretentious a vessel of clay as they
come – you know I speak accurately. What is uncommon about her is
the extraordinary glory of Christ that shines through her, especially
now that her "alabaster jar" is broken.
What made her the object of so much affections? She owns no title
nor “ministry,” has done no mighty deeds, possesses little gift and can
barely articulate. Her secret is simple: she recognizes that she is but a
lowly vessel of clay, and she is always in need of the Lord. And as
such, the Lord has been able to lay hold of her and infuse her with His
own lowly and caring nature and radiate it into people around her.
Power and greatness is all summed up in the Lamb of God, in one
word, lowliness. The sad truth is, it’s so simple most people miss it.
Most of us strive to be somebody that we’re not meant to be and do
some mighty deeds that only He can do.
Common folk, uncommon glory. Noah’s wife and Jonathan’s armor-
bearer notwithstanding, the Bible is actually full of folks like these –
Aquila and Priscilla, Onesimus, Rufus, Rufus’ mother, Tertius, Lazarus,
grandma Lois, Dorcas, Lydia or Abraham’s old servant…to name just a
few.
In the first-century church, these common folk were the backbone of
the church, not the apostles or the elders – with all due respect. They
were the ordinary neighbors, house wives, workers, merchants,
soldiers, jailers, government officials…. They all served the Lord right
where He placed them and in whatever capacity He gave them.
It’s pretty clear to me that we, God’s chosen people, are the “foolish,”
the “weak,” the “despised,” and the “things that are not.” What seems
ironic to me is that many Christians, especially the gifted ones, strive
to be the “wise,” the “strong,” the "powerful." And the notable and the
powerful leaders demand following from their fellow-sheep.
It may sound flippant, but I think one thing that ails the body of Christ
today is not the deficiency of “workers” or “ministers,” it is the
profusion of them. What the body of Christ lacks are the Lazaruses,
the Onesimuses, the Rufuses, and Rufus’ mother (by the way, Paul
calls this lady, “my mother” in Rom. 16:13), the Tertiuses, the
Dorcases, Lydias and grandma Loises…. In short, the body of Christ
needs vastly more common folk with uncommon glory.
I hear the Lord calling with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth!"
My prayer is that the Lord would reduce us to become common folk,
and that the leaders of today's churches start recognizing what
common yet amazing folk they have. Unless they start appreciating
their Lazaruses, Onesimuses, Rufuses, grandma Loises and Docases,
and stop pushing them to be what they were never chosen to be, their
churches will always have problems. I might add also that pushing the
common folk into following a prescribed “organic church” pattern isn’t
going to solve the real problem of the church either. Common folk
instinctively know how to practice simple church life; it’s the
“uncommon” folk who want to herd others into conformity.
I thank God for giving me a common clay vessel with uncommon glory
for a wife. She is the best wife a man can ask for. I certainly don’t
deserve her. But I thank the Lord for her.
A word of update: she has finally come out of the debilitating effects of
the spinal injection today. Tomorrow she goes in for a doctor
appointment. Radiation treatment on her neck is on tap for Friday and
the following Mon., Wed. Thank you all for your fervent prayers in our
behalf. You have no idea how much your prayers mean to us!
Oliver Peng
Sept. 7, 2009
Mary’s illness is a swift shaking and sobering wake-up call to me.
The Lord knows how to touch the “hollow of my thigh” and bring me to
my knees, and deservedly so. While she embraced the suffering as a
rare honor that the Lord bestowed upon her, I knew deep down that I
was the one in need of the Lord’s chastening. This whole ordeal
humbled me and gave me plenty to repent for.
I know she will come out of this affliction a better blossom with even
sweeter fragrance of Christ than she already had before. I on the other
hand tremble that I might obscure, through my own murkiness, what the
Lord is trying to do in fashioning a common vessel which is destined to
contain uncommon glory.
As I watch my dear wife suffer through an extensive battery of X-Rays,
blood works, CT Scans, MRI’s, spinal cord injection and surgery…I am
discovering that there is something extraordinary (and contrary to
man’s thinking) about the way the Lord constructs His vessels of
honor.
As much as we all love the story of Moses about all his astonishing
power, deeds and grace, it has ironically helped strengthen a natural
concept about man’s greatness. For sure, there are more than enough
examples in the Old Testament to corroborate that God uses great men
to bring to an end one evil generation and usher God’s people into
another era of peace and prosperity wherein righteousness rules.
Men in general view greatness as though it is attained through
diligence, hard work and determination. What we often fail to realize is
that the greatness that Moses and others possessed was not their
own – it was from entirely a different source. It in fact was wrought
into them as they finally came to the end of themselves and
surrendered to the hand of the Lord.
Christians are fond of phrases like, “the mighty man of God,” “man
who stands in the gap,” “man who stands against the tide,” to give
tribute to the gifted and powerful leaders who carry the banner of the
Lord’s testimony or recovery. Volumes have been written about great
men and women greatly used of the Lord; and we'd find ourselves in
wide-eyed admiration and envy of what they accomplished. They have
become inspiration and patterns to countless Christians zealous for
the Lord’s work and ministry.
What has been largely ignored is the fact that all these men and women
had to be brought to absolute destitute state before the Lord can
reconstitute them with His own character, mind and feelings so that
they can begin to display God’s own greatness and glory. We would
do well to remember that the Lord's character is constituted, not
learned.
Much attention has been given to God’s vessels of honor in characters
like Moses, David and his mighty men of valor, the Apostle Paul, etc.
Rarely would we hear any message on common and ordinary believers
in the Bible.
In 1974, I came across a book by Harry Foster (of Honor Oak
fellowship) titled “Speaking Anonymously.” I was at once impressed
about the unnamed characters in the Bible. What Noah’s wife and
Jonathan’s armor-bearer did in terms of fulfilling God’s purpose and
desire left an indelible impression in me.
With all due respect, Moses was a great man of God. So was David,
and so was Paul. No question about it. The question is, does the
Lord only select great men of God to carry out His work, or does He
also use common folk like you and me? More importantly, the question
should be, what makes a man a “great man of God” in the first place?
In the natural realm, Moses was great in every sense of the word for
much of his first 40 years. He was raised and educated in Pharaoh’s
courts, empowered with military command, trusted with planning and
building, gifted with oratorical skill, and he was consumed with a
burning zeal to serve God. The religious world would fall head over
heels to make a man of this caliber their great leader.
But not God.
God not only rejected Moses as a spiritual leader, He deemed him as
being totally unsuitable – except for being a sheep-herder in the back
side of the desert – for the next 40 years of his life. God cannot use
any of Moses’ greatness until every last drop of it got drained into the
sand.
When a royal vessel is reduced to a common vessel – humbled and
abased, and barely articulate – then will God have secured His vessel
of honor, way past his prime and not a minute sooner, I might add.
We see the same pattern in Paul also.
Throughout the Bible, man is consistently portrayed as being unreliable,
helpless, weak, in need of a Savior and deliverance. “For all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God,” declares Paul. The
Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John again and again
reminds us of our human frailty and our desperate need of a Savior.
Example after example has been given of poor wretched and destitute
vessels of clay finding Life, Grace and Peace and fullness in the
person of Jesus Christ.
The Scripture is full of references about the lowly, contrite, despised
and afflicted who cried out for mercy and were met with the bosom of
God. David repented of his despicable sin after Nathan the prophet
pointed him out. In deep contriteness, David realized, "The sacrifices
of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, Thou
will not despise” (Ps. 51:17).
Paul made it clear regarding man’s lowly state, “God has chosen the
foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the
weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the
base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things
that are not, that He might nullify the things that are” (I Cor. 1:27-28).
God has further ordained that His greatness would be shown forth in
and through weak and foolish vessels of clay, i.e. "power is perfected
in weakness" (II Cor. 12:9), and "when I am weak, then I am strong" (II
Cor; 12:10b).
With regard to men's lowly state, one of my favorite images from the
Old Testament is the one where David hid in the cave of Adullam when
he was being chased by King Saul (I Sam. 22:1-2). Not a pretty picture,
I know, but it did portray Christ, typified by David, humbling Himself in
the darkened world (the cave of Adullam) that rejected Him. Only a
small band of misfits gathered around him. Today, in our "cave of
Adullam" are we not also a band of misfits gathering around our
heavenly "David" who has opened our blind eyes to be drawn to the
splendor of His majesty?
Then as it is now, the secret to finding, and continually finding, Life,
Grace, Peace and Fullness is still in recognizing our own wretchedness
and His preciousness. No one, Moses and Paul included, has yet
earned a way to God’s praise through his own great works or mighty
deeds.
The secret to becoming a vessel of honor that may be greatly used of
the Lord is simple: just recognize that we’ll always be vessels of clay
and we’ll always be in desperate need of a Savior. He will do the rest.
And we can rest assured of it. Literally.
I cannot tell you how much and how often I have been deeply touched
by the offer of compassion, prayer, practical help from simple brethren,
and from children, since my dear Mary was diagnosed with Lung
Cancer.
By the outpouring of support, encouragement, prayers, affections from
saints all over the country, and from as far away as Canada, Brazil,
India and Taiwan (not to mention all the practical help of rides, food
and visits from local saints, and from my bosses and colleagues),
you’d think my dear wife is an important spiritual pillar of the church!
Well, maybe she is, but in a vastly different sort of way.
Mary is as plain and simple and unpretentious a vessel of clay as they
come – you know I speak accurately. What is uncommon about her is
the extraordinary glory of Christ that shines through her, especially
now that her "alabaster jar" is broken.
What made her the object of so much affections? She owns no title
nor “ministry,” has done no mighty deeds, possesses little gift and can
barely articulate. Her secret is simple: she recognizes that she is but a
lowly vessel of clay, and she is always in need of the Lord. And as
such, the Lord has been able to lay hold of her and infuse her with His
own lowly and caring nature and radiate it into people around her.
Power and greatness is all summed up in the Lamb of God, in one
word, lowliness. The sad truth is, it’s so simple most people miss it.
Most of us strive to be somebody that we’re not meant to be and do
some mighty deeds that only He can do.
Common folk, uncommon glory. Noah’s wife and Jonathan’s armor-
bearer notwithstanding, the Bible is actually full of folks like these –
Aquila and Priscilla, Onesimus, Rufus, Rufus’ mother, Tertius, Lazarus,
grandma Lois, Dorcas, Lydia or Abraham’s old servant…to name just a
few.
In the first-century church, these common folk were the backbone of
the church, not the apostles or the elders – with all due respect. They
were the ordinary neighbors, house wives, workers, merchants,
soldiers, jailers, government officials…. They all served the Lord right
where He placed them and in whatever capacity He gave them.
It’s pretty clear to me that we, God’s chosen people, are the “foolish,”
the “weak,” the “despised,” and the “things that are not.” What seems
ironic to me is that many Christians, especially the gifted ones, strive
to be the “wise,” the “strong,” the "powerful." And the notable and the
powerful leaders demand following from their fellow-sheep.
It may sound flippant, but I think one thing that ails the body of Christ
today is not the deficiency of “workers” or “ministers,” it is the
profusion of them. What the body of Christ lacks are the Lazaruses,
the Onesimuses, the Rufuses, and Rufus’ mother (by the way, Paul
calls this lady, “my mother” in Rom. 16:13), the Tertiuses, the
Dorcases, Lydias and grandma Loises…. In short, the body of Christ
needs vastly more common folk with uncommon glory.
I hear the Lord calling with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth!"
My prayer is that the Lord would reduce us to become common folk,
and that the leaders of today's churches start recognizing what
common yet amazing folk they have. Unless they start appreciating
their Lazaruses, Onesimuses, Rufuses, grandma Loises and Docases,
and stop pushing them to be what they were never chosen to be, their
churches will always have problems. I might add also that pushing the
common folk into following a prescribed “organic church” pattern isn’t
going to solve the real problem of the church either. Common folk
instinctively know how to practice simple church life; it’s the
“uncommon” folk who want to herd others into conformity.
I thank God for giving me a common clay vessel with uncommon glory
for a wife. She is the best wife a man can ask for. I certainly don’t
deserve her. But I thank the Lord for her.
A word of update: she has finally come out of the debilitating effects of
the spinal injection today. Tomorrow she goes in for a doctor
appointment. Radiation treatment on her neck is on tap for Friday and
the following Mon., Wed. Thank you all for your fervent prayers in our
behalf. You have no idea how much your prayers mean to us!
Oliver Peng
Sept. 7, 2009
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