Devotional for April 28

“For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13).

 

Most of us know St. Augustine, for his famous quote, “You have made and drawn us to yourself, and our heart is restless until it reposes in You.”  The book that contains this quote, The Confessions, contains many other prayers and conversations with God from arguably the most influential person of the Christian church after the Apostle Paul.

 

While recently reading the book, I came across the following prayer, “Give what you command, and then command whatever you will.”  This brief prayer of Augustine recognizes God’s right to command, but that with the command, He gives the grace to carry out the command. Otherwise, God would be a tyrant, demanding what we cannot perform.

 

There are many commands in the New Testament that seem quite difficult if not humanly impossible to obey; commands calling us to forgive our enemies, to reject lust and anger, to avoid judging, to turn the other check (Sermon on the Mount).  There are commands to “rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks” (I Thess. 5:16-18), and “Do all things without complaining and arguing” (Phil 2:14).

  

Anyone who has endeavored to practice these commands will understand their difficulty.  But with Augustine’s reasoning, every command becomes promise.  It points us to what we can become and will become if we pray for and appropriate the grace of God in our lives.  God does not command what He will not give.

  

When God commands us to perform any particular task, i.e., to preach the gospel, or to leave our home and go abroad in His service, we have the assurance that God will give the grace and strength to perform His will (command).  Instead of seeing God’s commands as impossible duties, Augustine’s statement teaches us to view them as the promise of our possibilities.  If God gives what he commands (and He will), then let Him command whatever He will.