Exam time: Faithfulness of God

Psalm 121 :   I lift my eyes to the hills....where does my help come from ?   My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and earth.

Philippians 1: 6 : Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Anybody likes Exams ?  I don't.  I can still remember exam time in Melbourne.  It was late September, early October.  The cold blistering winter has gone.   Spring was in the air.  The sun is warming one's face once more.  The flowers came out in all its glory.  Time to go out and wander around in the gardens, particularly if you have a good friend with you.   But no.   It was the time for preparation of the exams.  So day in and day out we park ourselves in the library, from 8.30 in the morning to 11 pm at night......doing what ?  studying.

That was not the worst part, for me the worst part was in sitting the exam.  I used to cram like everyone else right to the end.   So that things were literally oozing out of one's mind.  A case of over saturation.   We  sat our exams in a huge hall, 3 or 4 times the size of the Show building.  You can't even see people clearly from one end of the hall to the other.  And it was a night mare trying to find your number and your right seat. When I finally found my seat and start looking at the paper then my brain froze. I can't add three to four........  and it took a long time to unfreeze the brain.  Usually right at the end, when one has to hand up the paper. Despite all that I came through OK, although the math dept wrote me a letter saying that I better not take second year maths as my pass was a very marginal one.    I did Maths II anyway and passed and no more nasty letter from the department.

So what is God's part in my sitting of the exam. ?  What is his part in sitting your exam.......?  Can I rely on God to pass my exam ?   Can God do a miracle and get me through even though I did not study ?

All I can say is that God is interested in your exam as much as he is interested in you.   For the Christians there is no dividing line between what is secular and what is sacred.  God loves me with the max love that he can give each day, every day......and his love is not limited to my performance......He loves me if I spend time studying his word and he loves me when I skip Bible and prayer during exam time.

You see God knows I am fallible, I am human, so I do not need to earn his favour.....  Some people feel that if you do not neglect your Bible reading during exam, you would do better......  So I actually spend the first half hour in the library reading the Bible and praying...... God doesn't mind that, but I don't think that actually made any difference to my exam result.......  The point is if I ask God to help me, he does. And he does so without having first looking up to see my spiritual status......  The Bible does say however that God honours those who honour him... I leave you to sort that one out whether that relates to the exam. Contrary to popular opinion, God is actually working in you and in me each day, transforming me to be like his Son.....  Philippians 1:6 says that God who has begun a good work in us, will bring it to perfection until the day of Christ.....that is until Jesus comes back....

How does God do it ?   I believe he does it through the work of his Holy Spirit.....and he does it in three ways:
a. in renewal
b. in revival
c. in restoration

Renewal:
With the advent of the charismatic movement, there has a lot of teaching about renewal. What is renewal anyway ?   It is to make new again. What has been lost through constant use. After a long day's work, you feel weary and tired and jaded and bad tempered. The Bible talks about the youth who waits upon the Lord shall renews his strength (Isa. 40:28-31).  And when one gets old, and feeling the limitations of one's strength. We read in Psalm 103: 5 : So that your youth is renewed like the eagles.... get young the second time round.... What about our minds? Often our minds get so squashed not only with our studies, but with every theory and philosophy of this world. Paul writes of renewal of our mind  Romans 12:2   Our minds can think new, creative thoughts that come from God and not merely from this world. I often pray when I sit for exams that God who created everything in this world and who would know Chemistry, Biology and Physics and accounting better than anybody else, will give me his mind. But most important God wants to renew his relationship with us. We may have taken God for granted. Revelations2:4. A church that has lost its first love...... Body mind heart and spirit .....being renewed daily :  2 Cor. 2:16 -18   Therefore we do not lose heart.... though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.

Revival :
Revival is different from renewal.  Revival brings life back to what is dead. W hereas renewal makes new, afresh, what has been stale, worn out, things that gone into the rut. The best illustration of revival is Ezekiel 37:  the valley of the dry bones.  
I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry.......  a dreadful hopeless and helpless sight.....
Son of man: Can these bones live ?   God asked Ezekiel.....
Ezekiel was not so sure: so he said: Sovereign Lord, you alone know.
The story that follows was very exciting: God asked Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones :  that is speaking to the bones on God's behalf : with the Word of God.....
and Ezekiel did....and spoke life to the dead bones.....
and they came to life nosily...and became a big army, on their feet.....

Sometimes there is a deadness in our spirit, a deadness in our worship, a deadness in our relationship with God, a deadness in the community in which we live.... Try as we would, nothing happens, and nothing works, and the more we try, the worst it seems. God's sovereign work is to bring life....life instead of death... Joy instead of sorrow; hope instead of hopelessness.   Power instead of helplessness.   You who were dead in your transgressions and sins.....he has made alive (Eph 2:5)  Like Ezekiel we may need to trust God in an impossible situation and see the glory of God filling our hearts and filling our homes and filling our land.....

Restoration:
I don't know whether you have been to a car museum....But it is amazing to see old cars....more than a hundred years old being restored to a gleaming shape: as good as if not better than new... There was so much painstaking work in restoration.  Every part, every nut and screw, has to be perfect.  And if it is damaged, it has to be made again......  If the paint is imperfect, it has to be sanded down to the metal and start all over again.......

God's work in restoring us is just as painstaking, just as slow, but steadily and surely, just as an experienced car restorer works on his car, so God, by his Spirit, works on us.....  You may have been damaged or hurt badly by a relationship, you may have been damaged by drugs, alcohol and other things, you may have been damaged by sin.  But God delights to bring wholeness to what is broken, to bring his glory to rest on us we are unworthy.   And just as we look amazed at a vehicle that is restored to its former glory,  so the hosts of heaven will look amazed at what God has done......  God's word says:  I will restore to you the years that the locusts have eaten.....Joel 2:25....

So this is our God....he is faithful....in what he has promised....

And when you are under pressure this week and next week: remember: God will renew you, revive you and restore you.....whether you are in the exam room or whether you are out on the street, the Lord's eye is on you and need not fear.....he will rejoice over you and sing his song over you because he delights in you....you are his inheritance and his treasure....