"Saul also went to his home at Gibeah, and with him went men of valor whose hearts God had touched." 1 Samuel 10:26
How did your 2010 go? For me, it was unequivocally the most difficult year of my life ending with me still battling a staph infection after 30 days. As I look ahead to the coming year I have been inspired by reading the words of 1 Samuel 10:26. I am asking for us all for a new, fresh, powerful, liberating, renewing touch in our hearts from the living God.
There is something so special about being touched. All of us as humans long to be touched. How precious is the gentle, inquisitive touch of a baby to a mothers face? Or when your dad touches your head and affectionately messes your hair? We are encouraged when a friend touches us with an arm around us or a pat on the back. How about the sensual, erotic touch of lovers expressing their love to one another? But the greatest touch of all is to be touched in the heart by God.
Oh how we need this touch in our heart and oh how willing is God to give us this touch as we approach 2011! The touch of God in the heart is an amazing and wonderful thing. Think of it; the very maker of the universe touching a heart. His touch is a deep touch because He touches us in our most vulnerable, intimate, and deep place, our heart. Our heart, the very core of our being, is the place that He touches.
"Saul also went to his home at Gibeah, and with him went men of valor whose hearts God had touched." Just think of what is being said here! God touched these men. As wonderful as all other touches are, it was God! Not a wife. Not a child. Not a parent. Not a friend. But God. The very One with the most perfect and loving and infinite power in the universe. The One with infinite authority and infinite wisdom and infinite love and infinite goodness and infinite purity and infinite justice. That One touched their heart and wants to touch our heart.
The touch of God is awesome because it is a real touch. Just as Jesus full of mercy and compassion touched lepers, cripples, and blind men; God wants to touch you in the greatest most needful place to be touched, your heart. The valiant men were not just spoken to. They were not just swayed by a divine influence. They were not just seen and known. God, with infinite condescension, touched their heart. God was that close.
What in your heart needs to be touched? A deeply broken heart like mine? A hardened heart? A lonely heart? A fearful heart? A humbled heart? A cold heart? A divided heart? A loveless heart? A sad heart? Whatever it might be, God wants to touch your heart as you enter 2011 with His touch.
Oh how I love the touch of God on my heart. There is no other touch quite like it is there? I can never get enough of His touch and as I come into this new year I desperately need it and desire it more and more. I want it for myself and for all of you readers. O for the touch of God!
Would you join me in asking God to touch our hearts anew and afresh for His glory and our delight. I pray that he would touch all of our hearts with His life, His healing, His grace, His renewal, His mercy, His love, His faith, His freedom, His joy, His power, His heat, His light, His softening, His tenderness, His desire, and His peace this week.
O Lord, come. Come that close. Come so close that you touch my heart. Come and touch me. AMEN!
Longing for His touch in my heart and yours,
Bill
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
THINKING DEEPER ABOUT THE TRINITY
I have been reading John Owen's profound and wonderful 17th century work titled Communion With the Triune God. It has caused me to think deeply about the doctrine of the Trinity. I believe unequivocally in the truth that there is one, and only one, true God, and that there are three divine persons in the one God: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit. I believe this because the Bible unshakably speaks of one true God, not three Gods, and yet reveals the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit all as God, and as distinct persons.
In his systematic theology Wayne Grudem summarizes the teaching of scripture in three statements:
1. God is three persons
2. Each person is fully God
3. There is one God
Justin Taylor wrote about trying to explain the Trinity to his daughter and put it this way:
One simple way to get at the difference between person and substance/essence/nature is to say that the Trinity is “three who’s” and “one what.” Who is God? Three persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. What are they? The One true God.
Any way you put it, the doctrine of the Trinity is highly perplexing and exceedingly difficult to understand. It is a mystery. John Piper writes:
If this perplexes you, keep in mind: We are in no position as creatures to dictate to our Creator what he may or should be like. God is absolute reality. He was there before anything else was, and he did not come into being, but always was. Therefore nobody made him the way he is, and there is no reason he is the way he is. He simply is. That is his name: "I Am Who I Am" (Exodus 3:14). Our role is not to say what can and can't be in God, but to learn who he is and who we are, and to shape our lives according to his reality – his will. We submit to the way he is. He doesn't submit to the way we are or the way we think he should be.
People have tried to use analogies to attempt to understand it, all of which are helpful in an elementary way, but invariably turn out inadequate and misleading:
1. God is like a three leaf clover, which has three parts, yet remains one clover.
2. God is like a tree with three parts: the roots, the trunk, and branches that all constitute one tree.
3. God is like water that comes in three forms:steam, ice, and water liquid, solid, and gas.
I have wrestled with understanding the Trinity for 36 years. Nothing I have ever read has ever really satisfied my deep desire to understand. that is, until I read what Jonathan Edwards had to say about it in his An Unpublished Essay on the Trinity. You can read it for yourself at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/trinity/files/trinity.html.
He does an amazing job in communicating the meaning of saying God is three in one. It is well worth the read if you would be willing to go deep and bask in such wisdom. John Piper is helpful in summarizing Edwards profound understanding.
"There is God the Father, the fountain of all being, who from all eternity has had a perfectly clear and distinct image and idea of Himself; and this image is the eternally begotten Son. Between this Son and Father flows a stream of infinitely vigorous love and perfectly holy communion; and this is God the Holy Spirit. God's image of God and God's love of God are so full of God that they are divine Persons, not less.
So Jesus Christ, God the Son, is the perfect image of God the Father. He is a complete and living duplicate of the Father’s perfections. This is a great mystery. How can an idea, or reflection, or image of the Father actually be a person in His own right? Remember that God is God, and have neither the ability nor the right to try to manage who He is. We rest and wonder in faith.
Listen to how Piper describes the Holy Spirit:
I find it helpful to observe that the mind of God, as reflected in our own, has two faculties: understanding and will. In other words, before creation God could relate to himself in two ways: God could know himself and God could love himself. In knowing himself he begot the Son, the perfect, full and complete personal image of himself. In loving himself the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son.
Piper goes on and says,
So the Son is the eternal image that the Father has of his own perfections, and the Holy Spirit is the eternal love that flows between the Father and the Son as they delight in each other.
How can this love be a person in his own right? Words fail. But can we not say that the love between the Father and the Son is so perfect, so constant, and carries so completely all that they are in themselves that this love stands forth itself as a person in its own right?
C.S. Lewis tries to get this into a conceivable analogy:
You know that among human beings, when they get together in a family, or a club or a trades union, people talk about the “spirit” of that family, club or trades union. They talk about its spirit because the individual members, when they’re together, do really develop particular ways of talking and behaving which they wouldn’t have if they were apart. It is as if a sort of communal personality came into existence. Of course it isn’t a real person: it is only rather like a person. But that’s just one of the differences between God and us. What grows out of the joint life of the Father and Son is a real Person, is in fact the Third of the three Persons who are God.
All these things are deep, deep, and profoundly difficult to comprehend. Jonathan Edwards concludes in his essay,
I don't pretend fully to explain how these things are and I am sensible a hundred other objections may be made and puzzling doubts and questions raised that I can't solve. I am far from pretending to explaining the Trinity so as to render it no longer a mystery. I think it to be the highest and deepest of all Divine mysteries still, notwithstanding anything that I have said or conceived about it. I don't intend to explain the Trinity. But Scripture with reason may lead to say something further of it than has been wont to be said, though there are still left many things pertaining to it incomprehensible.
I am glad that God has revealed Himself in the word as one God, who exists in three persons. It is helpful to me to read Edwards and Piper and find some deeper understand in my belief and affirmation that there is only one God, and that He exists in three Persons.
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways! "For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been His counselor?" "Or who has given a gift to Him that He might be repaid?"For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen. Romans 11:33-35
Loving and communing with the Triune God,
Pastor Bill
In his systematic theology Wayne Grudem summarizes the teaching of scripture in three statements:
1. God is three persons
2. Each person is fully God
3. There is one God
Justin Taylor wrote about trying to explain the Trinity to his daughter and put it this way:
One simple way to get at the difference between person and substance/essence/nature is to say that the Trinity is “three who’s” and “one what.” Who is God? Three persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. What are they? The One true God.
Any way you put it, the doctrine of the Trinity is highly perplexing and exceedingly difficult to understand. It is a mystery. John Piper writes:
If this perplexes you, keep in mind: We are in no position as creatures to dictate to our Creator what he may or should be like. God is absolute reality. He was there before anything else was, and he did not come into being, but always was. Therefore nobody made him the way he is, and there is no reason he is the way he is. He simply is. That is his name: "I Am Who I Am" (Exodus 3:14). Our role is not to say what can and can't be in God, but to learn who he is and who we are, and to shape our lives according to his reality – his will. We submit to the way he is. He doesn't submit to the way we are or the way we think he should be.
People have tried to use analogies to attempt to understand it, all of which are helpful in an elementary way, but invariably turn out inadequate and misleading:
1. God is like a three leaf clover, which has three parts, yet remains one clover.
2. God is like a tree with three parts: the roots, the trunk, and branches that all constitute one tree.
3. God is like water that comes in three forms:steam, ice, and water liquid, solid, and gas.
I have wrestled with understanding the Trinity for 36 years. Nothing I have ever read has ever really satisfied my deep desire to understand. that is, until I read what Jonathan Edwards had to say about it in his An Unpublished Essay on the Trinity. You can read it for yourself at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/trinity/files/trinity.html.
He does an amazing job in communicating the meaning of saying God is three in one. It is well worth the read if you would be willing to go deep and bask in such wisdom. John Piper is helpful in summarizing Edwards profound understanding.
"There is God the Father, the fountain of all being, who from all eternity has had a perfectly clear and distinct image and idea of Himself; and this image is the eternally begotten Son. Between this Son and Father flows a stream of infinitely vigorous love and perfectly holy communion; and this is God the Holy Spirit. God's image of God and God's love of God are so full of God that they are divine Persons, not less.
So Jesus Christ, God the Son, is the perfect image of God the Father. He is a complete and living duplicate of the Father’s perfections. This is a great mystery. How can an idea, or reflection, or image of the Father actually be a person in His own right? Remember that God is God, and have neither the ability nor the right to try to manage who He is. We rest and wonder in faith.
Listen to how Piper describes the Holy Spirit:
I find it helpful to observe that the mind of God, as reflected in our own, has two faculties: understanding and will. In other words, before creation God could relate to himself in two ways: God could know himself and God could love himself. In knowing himself he begot the Son, the perfect, full and complete personal image of himself. In loving himself the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son.
Piper goes on and says,
So the Son is the eternal image that the Father has of his own perfections, and the Holy Spirit is the eternal love that flows between the Father and the Son as they delight in each other.
How can this love be a person in his own right? Words fail. But can we not say that the love between the Father and the Son is so perfect, so constant, and carries so completely all that they are in themselves that this love stands forth itself as a person in its own right?
C.S. Lewis tries to get this into a conceivable analogy:
You know that among human beings, when they get together in a family, or a club or a trades union, people talk about the “spirit” of that family, club or trades union. They talk about its spirit because the individual members, when they’re together, do really develop particular ways of talking and behaving which they wouldn’t have if they were apart. It is as if a sort of communal personality came into existence. Of course it isn’t a real person: it is only rather like a person. But that’s just one of the differences between God and us. What grows out of the joint life of the Father and Son is a real Person, is in fact the Third of the three Persons who are God.
All these things are deep, deep, and profoundly difficult to comprehend. Jonathan Edwards concludes in his essay,
I don't pretend fully to explain how these things are and I am sensible a hundred other objections may be made and puzzling doubts and questions raised that I can't solve. I am far from pretending to explaining the Trinity so as to render it no longer a mystery. I think it to be the highest and deepest of all Divine mysteries still, notwithstanding anything that I have said or conceived about it. I don't intend to explain the Trinity. But Scripture with reason may lead to say something further of it than has been wont to be said, though there are still left many things pertaining to it incomprehensible.
I am glad that God has revealed Himself in the word as one God, who exists in three persons. It is helpful to me to read Edwards and Piper and find some deeper understand in my belief and affirmation that there is only one God, and that He exists in three Persons.
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways! "For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been His counselor?" "Or who has given a gift to Him that He might be repaid?"For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen. Romans 11:33-35
Loving and communing with the Triune God,
Pastor Bill
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
A PASSION FOR YOUR PASSION
“Do not be slothful in zeal; be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.”
Romans 12:11
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”
Matthew 22:37
I believe that one of the most important qualities of authentic Christianity is passion. Passion is a strong feeling, an emotion that is packed with intensity. At times it carries a sense of urgency that something great is at stake. Passion is the driving force within us that motivates us to action and focuses our life's attentions in such a way that we have an impact on those around us.
The apostle Paul was aflame with the passion of God. He burned up the pages of the Bible with his burning heart for Christ. He said in Acts 20:24: "I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may accomplish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.” Or in Philippians 3:7-8: "But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ." His zeal and sense of purpose eminent qualified him to write these three commands in Roman 12:11, “Do not be slothful in zeal; be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” So here God commands us to have a passion for Him.
Another word for passion would be love. Jesus said in Matthew 22:37, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”
In my own experience, I have found it impossible to obey this commandment. First, because of the smallness of my own affections for someone of such worth and glory as Jesus. Secondly, because I have been unable to maintain any consistent intensity in my affections towards Him. Thirdly, because of the inconsistency and weakness of my own affections being directed towards other things instead of Him. Fourthly, because of my hypocritical love for His gifts rather than towards Him. Fifth, because I get caught up in acts of love rather than my heart feeling love towards Him. Sixthly, because I believe that human love is inadequate in loving a divine being because Jesus commands us to love God with divine love. How can I love God with divine love when I am human, fleshly, and sinful? In short, my best efforts to obey the great commandment fail!
So what does it mean to have a wholehearted love and passion for God? I have discovered in the scriptures and in my own life and experience that if it is going to happen, God Himself must take the steps to kindle afresh in our hearts the flame of fascination and love for Him. Only God can awaken in our souls the marvel and wonder that He is worthy. God must restore the mystery, the wonder, the excitement of all that He is for us in Jesus. This is the awakening of the heart into the fullness of what God has created us and redeemed us to experience. It’s an awakening to passion for God and unashamed, extravagant affection for Jesus. It is a move of God to empower you, motivate you, and enable you to love God with all of your heart soul, mind, and strength!
Dear reader, God created you, chose you, and redeemed you to be a lover of God. What does that mean? I think it means to enjoy Him, to delight in Him, to be astounded and absorbed with Him, to be astonished, amazed, and awed by Him, to be smitten and stunned by Him, to be obsessed and preoccupied with Him, to be fascinated, captivated, intoxicated, and exhilarated with Him, to be enthused and entranced with Him, to be excited and exhilarated with the revelation of Himself in Jesus.
I envision what our lives would be like if this were an accurate description of our relationship with God. I suspect it would be more difficult to sin, easier to love, forgive, and accept people, that reading the Bible would never be remotely boring, fellowship with other Christians would be a delight, that I would display uncommon boldness and courage in sharing Christ with the unsaved, that I would be less attached to money and things and would instead find generosity far more easily, that my worship would be filled with passion and extravagance, that my serving the Lord would be a great joy.
What are the odds of a typical unbeliever using the above list of words to describe Christians? Something has to change! And if you and I are going to change, God Himself must take the steps to kindle afresh in our hearts the flames of passionate love for Him. God created you for the first and greatest commandment, to be a lover of God. And that is what He is up to in your life! With a resolute determination that cannot be thwarted He is arousing and stirring and wooing and beckoning the hearts of this church into a passionate and intimate love affair with His Son, Jesus Christ. Let me show you how God is doing this.
It takes God to love God. Loving God requires a loving God. It takes the passion of God to have a passion for God. To love God as we were made to love Him requires God to take the initiative for only then will slumbering and self centered souls be aroused to seek Him with all of our hearts and relish the revelation of Himself in His Son Jesus Christ.
When God commands us to do-love Him, being on fire for Him, rejoice in Him, God also gives the love, the passion, and the joy that we need in order to obey Him! Remember Augustine who said, “Give me the grace [O Lord] to do as you command, and command me to do what you will! . . . O holy God . . . when your commands are obeyed, it is from you that we receive the power to obey them.”
Think about many of the impossible commands that deal with our emotions and the promises that go with them in the Bible:
Command: "Rejoice in the Lord always" (Psalm 37:4; Philippians 4:4) Promise: “Thou hast put gladness in my heart.” (Psalm 4:7).
Command: "Obey from the heart" (Deuteronomy 30:2) Promise: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts"(Jeremiah 31:33)
Command: "Fear the Lord" (Psalm 34:9) Promise: “I will put my fear in their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:40).
Command: "Be filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:16) Promise: “I will put a new spirit within you” (Ezekiel 11: 9; Ezekiel. 36:27).
Dear reader, can you see that God is in the “putting” business”?
The Holy Spirit pours out God's very affection into the human heart regardless of our sinful, weak, and passionless hearts. It is a supernatural activity that transcends the human condition. As Paul says, "Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us" (Romans 5:5). The Holy Spirit releases in us the capacity to love and know God far beyond our ability with His ability. That is one of the most dynamic dimensions of the grace of God for the redeemed: that our hearts burn with love and are fascinated with the knowledge of God. What God commands, God gives!
Next: How to receive this passion.
Prayer
"Father in heaven, I have heard your command to be boiling in my spirit for you. I agree with Your Son Jesus that it is required of me to love You with all of my heart, all of my soul, all of my mind, and all of my strength. Yet, I confess that my attempts to love You in the way that You require and the way that You deserve have utterly failed. I ask in faith and trust that You would grant to me an impartation of the Holy Spirit to love Jesus Christ, to rejoice in Him, and to burn with a flaming passion in my heart for Him. I ask this in Jesus Name, AMEN!
Romans 12:11
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”
Matthew 22:37
I believe that one of the most important qualities of authentic Christianity is passion. Passion is a strong feeling, an emotion that is packed with intensity. At times it carries a sense of urgency that something great is at stake. Passion is the driving force within us that motivates us to action and focuses our life's attentions in such a way that we have an impact on those around us.
The apostle Paul was aflame with the passion of God. He burned up the pages of the Bible with his burning heart for Christ. He said in Acts 20:24: "I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may accomplish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.” Or in Philippians 3:7-8: "But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ." His zeal and sense of purpose eminent qualified him to write these three commands in Roman 12:11, “Do not be slothful in zeal; be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” So here God commands us to have a passion for Him.
Another word for passion would be love. Jesus said in Matthew 22:37, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”
In my own experience, I have found it impossible to obey this commandment. First, because of the smallness of my own affections for someone of such worth and glory as Jesus. Secondly, because I have been unable to maintain any consistent intensity in my affections towards Him. Thirdly, because of the inconsistency and weakness of my own affections being directed towards other things instead of Him. Fourthly, because of my hypocritical love for His gifts rather than towards Him. Fifth, because I get caught up in acts of love rather than my heart feeling love towards Him. Sixthly, because I believe that human love is inadequate in loving a divine being because Jesus commands us to love God with divine love. How can I love God with divine love when I am human, fleshly, and sinful? In short, my best efforts to obey the great commandment fail!
So what does it mean to have a wholehearted love and passion for God? I have discovered in the scriptures and in my own life and experience that if it is going to happen, God Himself must take the steps to kindle afresh in our hearts the flame of fascination and love for Him. Only God can awaken in our souls the marvel and wonder that He is worthy. God must restore the mystery, the wonder, the excitement of all that He is for us in Jesus. This is the awakening of the heart into the fullness of what God has created us and redeemed us to experience. It’s an awakening to passion for God and unashamed, extravagant affection for Jesus. It is a move of God to empower you, motivate you, and enable you to love God with all of your heart soul, mind, and strength!
Dear reader, God created you, chose you, and redeemed you to be a lover of God. What does that mean? I think it means to enjoy Him, to delight in Him, to be astounded and absorbed with Him, to be astonished, amazed, and awed by Him, to be smitten and stunned by Him, to be obsessed and preoccupied with Him, to be fascinated, captivated, intoxicated, and exhilarated with Him, to be enthused and entranced with Him, to be excited and exhilarated with the revelation of Himself in Jesus.
I envision what our lives would be like if this were an accurate description of our relationship with God. I suspect it would be more difficult to sin, easier to love, forgive, and accept people, that reading the Bible would never be remotely boring, fellowship with other Christians would be a delight, that I would display uncommon boldness and courage in sharing Christ with the unsaved, that I would be less attached to money and things and would instead find generosity far more easily, that my worship would be filled with passion and extravagance, that my serving the Lord would be a great joy.
What are the odds of a typical unbeliever using the above list of words to describe Christians? Something has to change! And if you and I are going to change, God Himself must take the steps to kindle afresh in our hearts the flames of passionate love for Him. God created you for the first and greatest commandment, to be a lover of God. And that is what He is up to in your life! With a resolute determination that cannot be thwarted He is arousing and stirring and wooing and beckoning the hearts of this church into a passionate and intimate love affair with His Son, Jesus Christ. Let me show you how God is doing this.
It takes God to love God. Loving God requires a loving God. It takes the passion of God to have a passion for God. To love God as we were made to love Him requires God to take the initiative for only then will slumbering and self centered souls be aroused to seek Him with all of our hearts and relish the revelation of Himself in His Son Jesus Christ.
When God commands us to do-love Him, being on fire for Him, rejoice in Him, God also gives the love, the passion, and the joy that we need in order to obey Him! Remember Augustine who said, “Give me the grace [O Lord] to do as you command, and command me to do what you will! . . . O holy God . . . when your commands are obeyed, it is from you that we receive the power to obey them.”
Think about many of the impossible commands that deal with our emotions and the promises that go with them in the Bible:
Command: "Rejoice in the Lord always" (Psalm 37:4; Philippians 4:4) Promise: “Thou hast put gladness in my heart.” (Psalm 4:7).
Command: "Obey from the heart" (Deuteronomy 30:2) Promise: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts"(Jeremiah 31:33)
Command: "Fear the Lord" (Psalm 34:9) Promise: “I will put my fear in their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:40).
Command: "Be filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:16) Promise: “I will put a new spirit within you” (Ezekiel 11: 9; Ezekiel. 36:27).
Dear reader, can you see that God is in the “putting” business”?
The Holy Spirit pours out God's very affection into the human heart regardless of our sinful, weak, and passionless hearts. It is a supernatural activity that transcends the human condition. As Paul says, "Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us" (Romans 5:5). The Holy Spirit releases in us the capacity to love and know God far beyond our ability with His ability. That is one of the most dynamic dimensions of the grace of God for the redeemed: that our hearts burn with love and are fascinated with the knowledge of God. What God commands, God gives!
Next: How to receive this passion.
Prayer
"Father in heaven, I have heard your command to be boiling in my spirit for you. I agree with Your Son Jesus that it is required of me to love You with all of my heart, all of my soul, all of my mind, and all of my strength. Yet, I confess that my attempts to love You in the way that You require and the way that You deserve have utterly failed. I ask in faith and trust that You would grant to me an impartation of the Holy Spirit to love Jesus Christ, to rejoice in Him, and to burn with a flaming passion in my heart for Him. I ask this in Jesus Name, AMEN!
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
THOUGHTS WHILE BATTLING SEVERE INFECTION
I have been battling a serious staph infection in my body for 8 days. I have spent countless hours just laying in bed and suffering with pus sores all over my face, severe pain, weakness, fevers, headaches, sleepless nights, loneliness, discouragement, helplessness, and brokenness. These are some things I have thought much about.
1. I am going to die someday sooner than later
On Thursday my doctor told me that if I did not get to the hospital that I could die that day. This was rather sobering to a guy who is a serious surfer, gym rat, and hiker. I have always known that my day was coming but hearing the doctor say that I could die today was a serious wake up call. The reality is that there will be one today that will be my last. It is this unexpectedness of death that has encouraged me to take a second look and to admit that, yes, death might visit me as early as today.
Jesus tells a story that illustrates this in Luke 12:15-21:“Then he said to them, ‘Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.’ And he told them this parable: ‘The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.' Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’ But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”
I have been reminding myself of Jonathan Edwards, who at the age of nineteen wrote 70 resolutions, several of which dealt with reminding himself of his future death.
#7 Resolved, never to do anything which I would be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.
#9 Resolved, To think much, on all occasions, of my own dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death.
#17 Resolved, that I will live so, as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.
#19 Resolved, Never to do anything which I would be afraid to do, if I expected it would not be above an hour before I should hear the last trump.
An entry in his diary reads: Monday, Feb 24, 1724. "Let everything have the value now which it will have on a sick bed; and frequently, in my pursuits, of whatever kind, let this question come into my mind, How shall I value this on my deathbed? “ Jonathan Edwards lived with an awareness of his death and so must I. Death's reality for now on will cause me to live passionately and purposefully each day.
2. Don't waste your life!
John Piper wrote a whole book challenging us to not waste our life. When I finally get well, I know this I WILL NOT WASTE WHAT IS LEFT OF MY LIFE however long or short it is. What does it mean to not waste your life? It simply means this:
To live your life by a single God exalting, soul-satisfying passion. Paul spells it out in Philippians 1:21, "it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death". To not waste your life focuses on who God is in your life, becoming what he wants you to be, so that you can do what he wants you to do in this precious life. It means to pray, to think, to dream and to work in order to live and die for Christ, and for the joy of others. To not waste your life is to no longer live for yourself but to live your life the way God created us and saved us for.
Life is so short and so precious. As the saying goes “only one life will soon pass; only what’s done for Christ will last.” It is possible to waste your life. Few things make me tremble more than the possibility of taking this onetime gift of life and wasting it. over my life will be written the words: Bill's life was not wasted. Bill's life gladly displayed the glory of Christ, both in life and in death.
3. God really is enough.
For years I have heard this spoken throughout the Christian community and I have always taught this, and I earnestly believe with everything in me that it is true. But seeing it personally and having to live in that conviction has been another story, like the difference between seeing a picture of Hanalei Bay on Kauai and actually being there seeing it firsthand. Under all of the fear, pain, weakness, fevers, uncertainty, brokeness, and headaches there has been in my soul a quiet confidence, a firm foundation, an unshakable promise, and I am thankful that I have it. My world has sunk allot in the past seven months but I am continually anchoring my life in two truths:
He is in control of all things
He loves me deeply
"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,"For your sake we are being killed all the day long;we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered."No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:28-39
4. The only thing that matters is I am His.
This year I have found myself stripped of everything that once defined who I am. Here’s the truth that has slammed into me these past 7 months and as I lay helpless in bed all alone and staring at the ceiling. All the things that have defined me here on earth are gone, and I am simply His. I’m still meditating on that. That’s all I really am: His. "I am my beloved's and He is mine" (Song of Solomon 6:4)
And this means everything to me!
5. If there is no cross of Jesus, then I am in a lot of trouble.
Hearing the doctor say I could die, going to the emergency room, and still feeling lousy days later, has caused much soul searching. I have looked at my 36 years of being a Christian and 33 years as a pastor and realize that they will not get me into heaven. I have thought much about sin, my sin. When all is said and done, there is enough sin in me to damn me forever. I truly deserve God's just wrath (Romans 1:18). As I lay in bed and thought about God's righteousness, my sin, and Hell, it caused me to shudder, to tremble and feel dread. I recoiled at the reality of Hell and eternal judgement. But I also thought about the cross and let my sense of sinfulness again cause me to flee from it into the arms of Jesus, who died to save me from it.
The prophet Isaiah encouraged me to "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else" (Isaiah 45:22)
Jesus says in John 3:14-15 that "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,that whoever believes in him may have eternal life."
And Hebrews 12:2 exhorts us to be"looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God."
So I lay here a hopeless and helpless sinner and look and cling to and trust in the gift and grace of Jesus. I preach to myself that on the cross by sheer, free, divine grace:
- Jesus is my ransom that repays the tremendous debt I owe to God for my sin.
- Jesus is my substitute who bears my sin and my curse in Himself so that I can be freed from guilt and punishment.
- Jesus, whose cross is a vindication of God's righteousness so that he can be both just and the one who justifies me who has faith in Jesus.
- Jesus is the one who justifies sinners like me who trust Him. He bears upon Himself my just deserved punishment and I receive His goodness so that I can stand before God.
I am a great sinner, Jesus is a wonderful savior, and on Him and His mercy and grace and kind arms I fall.
Pastor Bill
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
THOUGHTS ON LOVING JESUS
"I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them." John 17:26 ESV
On the night before Jesus was crucified, Jesus prayed for you and me. That's right dear reader, Jesus prayed for you! Not only that, but of all the things that He could have asked the Father, I am astounded that this is what He asked for us:
"... that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them." What does Jesus ask the Father in Heaven, our Maker? That the very love that the Father has for His only begotten, most precious, most beloved Son would be in us! This is amazing! This is stupendous!
Jesus is asking that we would love Him in a way that whereby Jesus is as precious, as valuable, to us as He is to the Father in Heaven. There is no greater love in the entire universe than the love flowing between the Father and the Son in the holy Trinity. No love is more perfect, more powerful, more intense, more continuous, more pure, and more full of delight in the beloved, than the love God the Father has for the Son. It is energy of joy that makes hydrogen bombs look like firecrackers.
Oh, how the Father delights in the Son! Oh, how precious the Son is to the Father!
"This is my beloved Son, with whom 1 am well pleased," God the Father said at Jesus' baptism (Matthew 3:17).
"This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him," God the Father said at the transfiguration (Matthew 17:5).
"Jesus is the living Stone-rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him” (1 Peter 2:4).
In the entire universe none is more precious to God the Father than His Son, Jesus Christ. He is loved with perfect, infinite, divine love. That is how precious He should be to us.
Oh how much does the Father love the Son! Is this not a most wonderful thing,—that God's own love to Jesus should dwell in our hearts? And yet it is so. The love wherewith we love Christ, mark you, is God's love to Christ: "That the love that You have loved Me may be in them.”
Frankly when I read this, I get both excited and discouraged at the same time. First, I get discouraged because there is such a disconnect between Jesus' prayer and my own daily experience. My love for Jesus on my best days is weak, fickle, failing, inconsistent, and limited to my own capacity to love, which is pretty small. I find myself loving His gifts much more than Him. I often treasure the trivial, the inconsequential, the fleeting pleasures of life, and the trite, and am dull to what is lovely and important. In short, I need serious help to do what Jesus prays for me to do.
But when I read and contemplate this prayer hope rises within me and I get excited because I have hope that the Father, who hears the prayer of His Son, will Himself answer this prayer and do something supeernatural, outside of me, to me, and put in me. He will give me a capacity to love His Son in a way that Jesus deserves to be loved.
My imagination soars as I think about the possibility to love and enjoy Jesus with the very love and delight that the Father has for Him forever! Wow!
Three things in this life limit my ability to love and enjoy Jesus and help me to understand what I need from the Father:
1.Nothing in this world has a personal worth that is great enough to satisfy the deepest longings of our hearts.
2. We do not have the strength to love and savor Jesus to His maximum worth.
3. All of our joys here on this earth come to an end. Nothing lasts.
But, for you and me, if the Father answers the prayer of Jesus, all this will change!
If God answers this prayer from Jesus, then the Father's love for His Son will become your love. If God answers this prayer, then God's delight in His Son will become your delight, and the object of His love and pleasure, Jesus, will be inexhaustible in His worth and value to you. In short, a supernatural miracle will take place within your heart. You will love Jesus with the Father's love!
Jesus will never become boring to you. Nothing and no one will ever compete for your affections for Jesus. Nothing will ever be more valuable to you than Jesus. Your ability to love this inexhaustible, eternal, infinite Son of God will no longer be confined and limited by human weakness. We will freely love and freely delight in Jesus the Son with the very delight and joy of His omnipotent loving and delighting Father. God's love for His Son will be in us and it will be ours, and this will never end because neither the Father nor the Son ever end. Their love for each other will be our love for them, and therefore, our love will never, ever die.
All true love that the Father delights in and accepts from us, is nothing but His own love, which has come streaming down from His own heart into our renewed minds. Jesus' longing and goal is that we see His glory and then that we be able to love what we see with the same love that the Father has for the Son, and He doesn't mean that we merely imitate the love of the Father for the Son. He means the Father's very love becomes our love for the Son, that we love the Son with the love of the Father for the Son. This is what the Spirit bestows in our lives: Love for the Son by the Father through the Spirit.
It can begin right now in your own experience as you agree with Jesus and join Him asking the Father for this ultimate desire of His Son for your own life. When you pray this prayer watch the love of God to begin working to change you so that you enjoy loving Him deeper, wider, higher, and stronger with His own love working within and pouring out and up towards His Son forever and ever and ever. May you want this. May you desire to be loved by God so that you can love God.
AMEN!
Exuberant about the Father's love for Jesus being in me,
Pastor Bill
On the night before Jesus was crucified, Jesus prayed for you and me. That's right dear reader, Jesus prayed for you! Not only that, but of all the things that He could have asked the Father, I am astounded that this is what He asked for us:
"... that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them." What does Jesus ask the Father in Heaven, our Maker? That the very love that the Father has for His only begotten, most precious, most beloved Son would be in us! This is amazing! This is stupendous!
Jesus is asking that we would love Him in a way that whereby Jesus is as precious, as valuable, to us as He is to the Father in Heaven. There is no greater love in the entire universe than the love flowing between the Father and the Son in the holy Trinity. No love is more perfect, more powerful, more intense, more continuous, more pure, and more full of delight in the beloved, than the love God the Father has for the Son. It is energy of joy that makes hydrogen bombs look like firecrackers.
Oh, how the Father delights in the Son! Oh, how precious the Son is to the Father!
"This is my beloved Son, with whom 1 am well pleased," God the Father said at Jesus' baptism (Matthew 3:17).
"This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him," God the Father said at the transfiguration (Matthew 17:5).
"Jesus is the living Stone-rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him” (1 Peter 2:4).
In the entire universe none is more precious to God the Father than His Son, Jesus Christ. He is loved with perfect, infinite, divine love. That is how precious He should be to us.
Oh how much does the Father love the Son! Is this not a most wonderful thing,—that God's own love to Jesus should dwell in our hearts? And yet it is so. The love wherewith we love Christ, mark you, is God's love to Christ: "That the love that You have loved Me may be in them.”
Frankly when I read this, I get both excited and discouraged at the same time. First, I get discouraged because there is such a disconnect between Jesus' prayer and my own daily experience. My love for Jesus on my best days is weak, fickle, failing, inconsistent, and limited to my own capacity to love, which is pretty small. I find myself loving His gifts much more than Him. I often treasure the trivial, the inconsequential, the fleeting pleasures of life, and the trite, and am dull to what is lovely and important. In short, I need serious help to do what Jesus prays for me to do.
But when I read and contemplate this prayer hope rises within me and I get excited because I have hope that the Father, who hears the prayer of His Son, will Himself answer this prayer and do something supeernatural, outside of me, to me, and put in me. He will give me a capacity to love His Son in a way that Jesus deserves to be loved.
My imagination soars as I think about the possibility to love and enjoy Jesus with the very love and delight that the Father has for Him forever! Wow!
Three things in this life limit my ability to love and enjoy Jesus and help me to understand what I need from the Father:
1.Nothing in this world has a personal worth that is great enough to satisfy the deepest longings of our hearts.
2. We do not have the strength to love and savor Jesus to His maximum worth.
3. All of our joys here on this earth come to an end. Nothing lasts.
But, for you and me, if the Father answers the prayer of Jesus, all this will change!
If God answers this prayer from Jesus, then the Father's love for His Son will become your love. If God answers this prayer, then God's delight in His Son will become your delight, and the object of His love and pleasure, Jesus, will be inexhaustible in His worth and value to you. In short, a supernatural miracle will take place within your heart. You will love Jesus with the Father's love!
Jesus will never become boring to you. Nothing and no one will ever compete for your affections for Jesus. Nothing will ever be more valuable to you than Jesus. Your ability to love this inexhaustible, eternal, infinite Son of God will no longer be confined and limited by human weakness. We will freely love and freely delight in Jesus the Son with the very delight and joy of His omnipotent loving and delighting Father. God's love for His Son will be in us and it will be ours, and this will never end because neither the Father nor the Son ever end. Their love for each other will be our love for them, and therefore, our love will never, ever die.
All true love that the Father delights in and accepts from us, is nothing but His own love, which has come streaming down from His own heart into our renewed minds. Jesus' longing and goal is that we see His glory and then that we be able to love what we see with the same love that the Father has for the Son, and He doesn't mean that we merely imitate the love of the Father for the Son. He means the Father's very love becomes our love for the Son, that we love the Son with the love of the Father for the Son. This is what the Spirit bestows in our lives: Love for the Son by the Father through the Spirit.
It can begin right now in your own experience as you agree with Jesus and join Him asking the Father for this ultimate desire of His Son for your own life. When you pray this prayer watch the love of God to begin working to change you so that you enjoy loving Him deeper, wider, higher, and stronger with His own love working within and pouring out and up towards His Son forever and ever and ever. May you want this. May you desire to be loved by God so that you can love God.
AMEN!
Exuberant about the Father's love for Jesus being in me,
Pastor Bill
Monday, November 22, 2010
A PECULIAR GRATITUDE THIS THANKSGIVING
"Praise the LORD! Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,for his steadfast love endures forever!" Psalm 106:1 ESV
This week being Thanksgiving Week has caused me to reflect upon gratitude. I am beginning to understand gratitude in deeper, more precious ways.
There is one kind of gratitude that can be found both inside and outside of Christianity. A drug addict might be thankful that he found some money to pay for his next fix. A thief may be thankful she did not get caught when she took some merchandise from a store. A worker may be thankful for a bonus received at Christmas from a boss he despises. A child might be thankful for the gift given at Christmas by a little known distant relative or grandmother.Sadly, there are times that we feel gratitude towards those to whom at the same time we may have a habitual bad feeling against them or perhaps have an indifferent to them as a person.
This gratitude is a mere natural thing, common to everyone. This common gratitude is spoken of by Jesus in both Luke 6:32-34 and Matthew 5:45-48,
“But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back…For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? ”
Our Lord shows us that being human is sufficient to motivate gratitude in mankind, or to affect their hearts with thankfulness to others for kindnesses received. This gratitude is merely natural, and when persons are thankful towards God primarily for benefits received, their thankfulness is only the exercise of a natural gratitude. Natural gratitude has no virtue whatsoever in God’s world and view of things. This kind of gratitude is no more pleasing to God than all other emotions that the natural man has apart from Him.
But there is a gratitude that is peculiar. It differs from and is higher than all gratitude that natural men both experience and express. It is a “peculiar gratitude”. A peculiar gratitude is not primarily, an enjoyment in the gifts and benefits God gives; which are secondary.”. A peculiar gratitude is not primarily, an enjoyment in the gifts and benefits God gives; which are secondary. It is a gratitude rooted in something else that comes before it, namely as John Piper suggests, “a delight in the beauty and excellence of God’s character.”
We see a great example of this in Psalm 106:1, "Praise the LORD! Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,for his steadfast love endures forever!" . Notice that gratitude here is ultimately linked in who and what God is, not in what He gives. It does not say, "Give thanks to the Lord, for He gives good things." Now, there is a sense in which this is very true.Psalm 103:2 tells us to "Bless the Lord.. and forget not His benefits" and James tells us that "every good and perfect gift comes from above"(James 1:17). All good gifts are occasions for the gladness of gratitude. but they are NOT the ultimate focus of our gratitude and joy. Gratitude ascends up the ladder of God's generous gifts until it stops in the goodness of God Himself.
It is easy to be thankful for the gifts and the many benefits we receive from them, but never take God, Himself into the picture.What I am saying is that it is easy for us to be thankful for the pleasure we take in the gifts and graces, but never even take God into the picture at all. When that happens, the pleasure, the joy, and the gratitude is not pleasure, joy, and gratitude in Him and it is dishonoring to Him. When people have affections towards God only or primarily for benefits received, their affection is only the exercise of a natural gratitude.
Suppose you were given a gift for your birthday. You open it and love the gift. Then you go around showing everyone the gift and telling everyone about what it means to you, but never once even look at or speak of the one who gave it. You are totally enthralled with the gift. But what would we say about you? We’d call you an ingrate! That’s because your joy and affection over the gift has no reference toward the goodwill or person of the giver. Jonathan Edwards calls it the gratitude of hypocrites. Their affections towards God are raised from time to time, primarily on this foundation of self-love or a conceit of God's love to them. You cannot show a person is precious to you by simply being happy with his gifts. Ingratitude proves that the giver of gifts is not loved but gratitude for gifts does not prove that the one who bestowed a gift is precious to you.
We are exhorted by Paul to do all things including thanks to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). Is God glorified if the essence of our gratitude is rooted in the worth of gift and not the excellency of the giver? Gratitude not rooted in the beauty and worth of God is nothing but brilliantly disguised idolatry.
Thew proper use use of God's gifts and pleasures is that they send our hearts upwards, or better yet, Godward, towards God with the joy of gratitude that finds its highest and firmest ground in the goodness of God Himself, not His gifts. This means that if these gifts are ever taken away, the deepest joy that we had through the gifts will not be taken away because God is still God and He is exceedingly good!
No wonder the Apostle Paul can make statements like this: “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:7-9).
Peculiar gratitude rises in cherishing the preciousness of Christ above every gift from God including life itself. It is very difficult to communicate with people a love for God when it is mixed with a lifestyle characterized by love for self and demonstrated with normal gratitude rooted in our own self-interest. “Peculiar” gratitude is not rooted in the perspective that God loves us (though He does) , and then we see that He is lovely, but instead we first see that God is lovely, and that Christ is excellent and glorious, and thus our hearts are first captivated with this view and we are peculiarly thankful.
Jonathan Edwards says, “The saint's affections begin with God; and the love and affection that arises out of God’s love for them and the graces and gifts that He bestows are consequentially, and secondarily only, to the higher love that is grounded in God himself.” Self-love is not excluded from a gracious gratitude; the saints love God for His kindness to them: Psalm. 116:1, "I love the Lord, because he hath heard the voice of my supplication." We thank Him for every gift that comes from above (1 Timothy 4:3). We forget not his benefits (Psalm 103:2). In everything we give thanks (1 Thessalonians 5:18). But there is something deeper, something more precious, something infinitely more valuable, that lays the foundation for these grateful affections.
Jonathan Edwards says, “The gracious stirrings of grateful affection to God, for kindness received, always are from a stock of love already in the heart, established in the first place on other grounds, viz., God's own excellence; and hence the affections are disposed to flow out on occasions of God's kindness. The saint, having seen the glory of God, and his heart being overcome by it, and captivated with love to Him on that account, his heart hereby becomes tender and easily affected with kindnesses received.”
In a “peculiar” gratitude men are affected with the attribute of God's goodness and free grace not only as they are concerned in it, or as it affects their interest, but as a part of the glory and beauty of God's nature. That wonderful and unparalleled grace of God, which is manifested in the work of redemption, and shines forth in the face of Jesus Christ, is infinitely glorious in itself, and appears so to the angels; it is a great part of the moral perfection and beauty and wonder and majesty of God's nature. This would be glorious, whether it was exercised towards us or no; and the saint who exercises a gracious thankfulness for it, sees it to be so, and delights in it.
No wonder why Paul can exhort us to “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18-19)
John Piper says, “God is most glorified when we are most satisfied with him.” This is why a “peculiar” gratitude is not a duty, it is a delight. Gratitude to God without delight in Him dishonors God. That is why in God’s world, a peculiar gratitude is all that matters. May God give us a heart that delights in Him for who He is. May the gratitude we have this Thanksgiving Week for the gifts He gives us merely be an echo of our delight and happiness in the greatness and excellence of our wonderful, benevolent, and beautiful Giver.
Thanking God for God!
Pastor Bill
This week being Thanksgiving Week has caused me to reflect upon gratitude. I am beginning to understand gratitude in deeper, more precious ways.
There is one kind of gratitude that can be found both inside and outside of Christianity. A drug addict might be thankful that he found some money to pay for his next fix. A thief may be thankful she did not get caught when she took some merchandise from a store. A worker may be thankful for a bonus received at Christmas from a boss he despises. A child might be thankful for the gift given at Christmas by a little known distant relative or grandmother.Sadly, there are times that we feel gratitude towards those to whom at the same time we may have a habitual bad feeling against them or perhaps have an indifferent to them as a person.
This gratitude is a mere natural thing, common to everyone. This common gratitude is spoken of by Jesus in both Luke 6:32-34 and Matthew 5:45-48,
“But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back…For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? ”
Our Lord shows us that being human is sufficient to motivate gratitude in mankind, or to affect their hearts with thankfulness to others for kindnesses received. This gratitude is merely natural, and when persons are thankful towards God primarily for benefits received, their thankfulness is only the exercise of a natural gratitude. Natural gratitude has no virtue whatsoever in God’s world and view of things. This kind of gratitude is no more pleasing to God than all other emotions that the natural man has apart from Him.
But there is a gratitude that is peculiar. It differs from and is higher than all gratitude that natural men both experience and express. It is a “peculiar gratitude”. A peculiar gratitude is not primarily, an enjoyment in the gifts and benefits God gives; which are secondary.”. A peculiar gratitude is not primarily, an enjoyment in the gifts and benefits God gives; which are secondary. It is a gratitude rooted in something else that comes before it, namely as John Piper suggests, “a delight in the beauty and excellence of God’s character.”
We see a great example of this in Psalm 106:1, "Praise the LORD! Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,for his steadfast love endures forever!" . Notice that gratitude here is ultimately linked in who and what God is, not in what He gives. It does not say, "Give thanks to the Lord, for He gives good things." Now, there is a sense in which this is very true.Psalm 103:2 tells us to "Bless the Lord.. and forget not His benefits" and James tells us that "every good and perfect gift comes from above"(James 1:17). All good gifts are occasions for the gladness of gratitude. but they are NOT the ultimate focus of our gratitude and joy. Gratitude ascends up the ladder of God's generous gifts until it stops in the goodness of God Himself.
It is easy to be thankful for the gifts and the many benefits we receive from them, but never take God, Himself into the picture.What I am saying is that it is easy for us to be thankful for the pleasure we take in the gifts and graces, but never even take God into the picture at all. When that happens, the pleasure, the joy, and the gratitude is not pleasure, joy, and gratitude in Him and it is dishonoring to Him. When people have affections towards God only or primarily for benefits received, their affection is only the exercise of a natural gratitude.
Suppose you were given a gift for your birthday. You open it and love the gift. Then you go around showing everyone the gift and telling everyone about what it means to you, but never once even look at or speak of the one who gave it. You are totally enthralled with the gift. But what would we say about you? We’d call you an ingrate! That’s because your joy and affection over the gift has no reference toward the goodwill or person of the giver. Jonathan Edwards calls it the gratitude of hypocrites. Their affections towards God are raised from time to time, primarily on this foundation of self-love or a conceit of God's love to them. You cannot show a person is precious to you by simply being happy with his gifts. Ingratitude proves that the giver of gifts is not loved but gratitude for gifts does not prove that the one who bestowed a gift is precious to you.
We are exhorted by Paul to do all things including thanks to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). Is God glorified if the essence of our gratitude is rooted in the worth of gift and not the excellency of the giver? Gratitude not rooted in the beauty and worth of God is nothing but brilliantly disguised idolatry.
Thew proper use use of God's gifts and pleasures is that they send our hearts upwards, or better yet, Godward, towards God with the joy of gratitude that finds its highest and firmest ground in the goodness of God Himself, not His gifts. This means that if these gifts are ever taken away, the deepest joy that we had through the gifts will not be taken away because God is still God and He is exceedingly good!
No wonder the Apostle Paul can make statements like this: “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:7-9).
Peculiar gratitude rises in cherishing the preciousness of Christ above every gift from God including life itself. It is very difficult to communicate with people a love for God when it is mixed with a lifestyle characterized by love for self and demonstrated with normal gratitude rooted in our own self-interest. “Peculiar” gratitude is not rooted in the perspective that God loves us (though He does) , and then we see that He is lovely, but instead we first see that God is lovely, and that Christ is excellent and glorious, and thus our hearts are first captivated with this view and we are peculiarly thankful.
Jonathan Edwards says, “The saint's affections begin with God; and the love and affection that arises out of God’s love for them and the graces and gifts that He bestows are consequentially, and secondarily only, to the higher love that is grounded in God himself.” Self-love is not excluded from a gracious gratitude; the saints love God for His kindness to them: Psalm. 116:1, "I love the Lord, because he hath heard the voice of my supplication." We thank Him for every gift that comes from above (1 Timothy 4:3). We forget not his benefits (Psalm 103:2). In everything we give thanks (1 Thessalonians 5:18). But there is something deeper, something more precious, something infinitely more valuable, that lays the foundation for these grateful affections.
Jonathan Edwards says, “The gracious stirrings of grateful affection to God, for kindness received, always are from a stock of love already in the heart, established in the first place on other grounds, viz., God's own excellence; and hence the affections are disposed to flow out on occasions of God's kindness. The saint, having seen the glory of God, and his heart being overcome by it, and captivated with love to Him on that account, his heart hereby becomes tender and easily affected with kindnesses received.”
In a “peculiar” gratitude men are affected with the attribute of God's goodness and free grace not only as they are concerned in it, or as it affects their interest, but as a part of the glory and beauty of God's nature. That wonderful and unparalleled grace of God, which is manifested in the work of redemption, and shines forth in the face of Jesus Christ, is infinitely glorious in itself, and appears so to the angels; it is a great part of the moral perfection and beauty and wonder and majesty of God's nature. This would be glorious, whether it was exercised towards us or no; and the saint who exercises a gracious thankfulness for it, sees it to be so, and delights in it.
No wonder why Paul can exhort us to “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18-19)
John Piper says, “God is most glorified when we are most satisfied with him.” This is why a “peculiar” gratitude is not a duty, it is a delight. Gratitude to God without delight in Him dishonors God. That is why in God’s world, a peculiar gratitude is all that matters. May God give us a heart that delights in Him for who He is. May the gratitude we have this Thanksgiving Week for the gifts He gives us merely be an echo of our delight and happiness in the greatness and excellence of our wonderful, benevolent, and beautiful Giver.
Thanking God for God!
Pastor Bill
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
THOUGHTS ON BEING COMPLETELY SATISFIED YET INSATIABLY HUNGRY
“In the path of your judgments,O LORD, we wait for you; your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul.My soul yearns for you in the night;my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.For when your judgments are in the earth,the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.” Isaiah 26:8-9
"Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.”
Luke 6:21
“Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”
Psalm 90:14
"My soul longs and even yearns for the courts of the LORD; My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God."
Psalm 84:2
I remember as a little kid being invited to a friend’s house to eat. My friend’s mother made a banquet type meal complete with Chicken Parmesan, spaghetti, salad, garlic bread, and spumoni ice cream. (At least it is my idea of a banquet!) But before I went I didn’t know what I was going to be having for supper. I was afraid that it might be a meal like my mother’s favorite meal. I called this “the meal from hell”. It consisted of a combination of pork chops, liver, or spam, along with broccoli, hominy (which I called agony), and Swanson’s T.V. Corn Bread (whose constitution was much like eating sawdust!) So dreading the possibilities I loaded up beforehand upon good old peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (also known as PB and J). As a result, when I got to my friend’s house, to my surprise my dream feast was being served, but to my disappointment I had absolutely no appetite and therefore ended up passing on the meal. I missed out on the feast because I settled for a sandwich.
I am afraid that many of us are in danger of becoming peanut butter and jelly Christians stuffed with other food that has robbed us of an appetite for God. Every day of your life a war goes on in regards to our appetites. Every one of us have been born with appetites and desires. They dictate what directs us and what satisfies us; whether it is the cravings of our physical hunger, the desire for the things that this world offers, or the deep longings of our souls for God.
Augustine said, “Oh Lord thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts can find no rest except we find it in Thee.” The heart of man is full of restlessness and longing. We are both afflicted and blessed with a chronic restlessness, an insatiable soul-thirst for this reason: that we might keep looking until we find Christ, and that having found him we might be turned back to Him again and again when we leave His spring to taste of other springs and find them lacking.
Is it no wonder that Jesus said in John 6:35: "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. Or in John 4:14, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."
Salvation is the awakening of our appetites for God. It is an appetite from God that gives the palette of our souls for Him. “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good”, says the Psalmist (Psalm 34:8). Once you have tasted the Lord, nothing less will ever satisfy your longings. It is no wonder, for when we taste of God’s ultimate goodness, anything else would be like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches compared to Filet Mignon!
When we are converted God awakens in us we a new appetite for Him and a new delight in God. Saint Augustine describes this in his description of his own conversion when he writes:
“How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys that I once feared to lose was now a joy to part with.You drove them from me, you who are the true sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood, you who outshine all light, yet are hidden deeper than any secret in our hearts, you who surpass all honor, though not in the eyes of men who see honor in themselves…Oh Lord my God, my light, my wealth, and my salvation!”
One might think that those who are satisfied most with God are the least hungry. When we eat a full meal of steak and our favorite pie until we are full, we say that we want no more because our physical appetite has been satisfied. But not so with the hungry, thirsty, feasting Christians. They turn often from the innocent pleasures of the world to linger more directly in the presence of God through the reading of the revelation of His Word. And there they eat the Bread of Heaven and drink the Living Water by prayer, meditation, and faith. But, paradoxically, it is not so that they are the least hungry saints. The opposite is the case. The strongest, most mature Christians I have ever met are the hungriest for God. They feast upon Him and are satisfied, yet the taste for God continues and ever increases. Their cry to God is an insatiable "More, More, More!" The desire creates the delight and the delight creates a deeper desire which leads to deeper delight and so on and on throughout this earthly journey until glory. Why? Because God is an inexhaustible fountain, an infinite feast, and a glorious Lord.
When you begin to drink at the River of Life and eat the Bread of Heaven, and know that you have found the end of all your longings, you only get hungrier for God. The very satisfaction creates an even greater longing. “We taste Thee, O Thou Living Bread, And long to feast upon Thee still; We drink of Thee, the Fountainhead And thirst our souls from Thee to fill,” said Bernard of Clairveux.
The more satisfaction you experience from God, while still in this world, the greater your desire for the next. C.S. Lewis describes this wonderfully supernatural, peculiar appetite: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world…It was when I was happiest that I longed the most…The sweetest thing in all of my life has been the longing…to find the place where beauty came from.” How wonderful it is for God to awaken in the soul of a person the longing for God above all of His gifts. For, as C. S. Lewis said, "Our best havings are our wantings." In the truest sense, the greatest gift from God is the gift He gives us of stirring an appetite for Him above His gifts!
John Piper gives a great description of a person who feasts upon the Lord Jesus.
“The more deeply you walk with Christ, the hungrier you get for Christ … the more homesick you get for heaven ... the more you want "all the fullness of God" . . . the more you want to be done with sin ... the more you want the Bridegroom to come again ... the more you want the Church revived and purified with the beauty of Jesus ... the more you want a great awakening to God's reality in the cities ... the more you want to see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ penetrate the darkness of all the unreached peoples of the world ... the more you want to see false worldviews yield to the force of Truth ... the more you want to see pain relieved and tears wiped away and death destroyed ... the more you long for every wrong to be made right and the justice and grace of God to fill the earth like the waters cover the sea.”
Oh reader, beloved one of God, if you don't feel strong desires for God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are not satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world that your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great thing. God did not create you for this. He has created you to have an appetite for God and it can be awakened.
My prayer for us all is that God might awaken us to a new hunger for Himself. That He might remove the callouses from the taste buds of our heart, and cause us to drink deeply, and savor the magnificence of Jesus and we will become so satisfied with Him that we will glorify Him like David saying from our hearts and our preferences:
O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water…as the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God… Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." (Psalm 63:1; 42:1; 73:25)
Satisfied yet insatiably hungry,
Pastor Bill
"Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.”
Luke 6:21
“Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”
Psalm 90:14
"My soul longs and even yearns for the courts of the LORD; My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God."
Psalm 84:2
I remember as a little kid being invited to a friend’s house to eat. My friend’s mother made a banquet type meal complete with Chicken Parmesan, spaghetti, salad, garlic bread, and spumoni ice cream. (At least it is my idea of a banquet!) But before I went I didn’t know what I was going to be having for supper. I was afraid that it might be a meal like my mother’s favorite meal. I called this “the meal from hell”. It consisted of a combination of pork chops, liver, or spam, along with broccoli, hominy (which I called agony), and Swanson’s T.V. Corn Bread (whose constitution was much like eating sawdust!) So dreading the possibilities I loaded up beforehand upon good old peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (also known as PB and J). As a result, when I got to my friend’s house, to my surprise my dream feast was being served, but to my disappointment I had absolutely no appetite and therefore ended up passing on the meal. I missed out on the feast because I settled for a sandwich.
I am afraid that many of us are in danger of becoming peanut butter and jelly Christians stuffed with other food that has robbed us of an appetite for God. Every day of your life a war goes on in regards to our appetites. Every one of us have been born with appetites and desires. They dictate what directs us and what satisfies us; whether it is the cravings of our physical hunger, the desire for the things that this world offers, or the deep longings of our souls for God.
Augustine said, “Oh Lord thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts can find no rest except we find it in Thee.” The heart of man is full of restlessness and longing. We are both afflicted and blessed with a chronic restlessness, an insatiable soul-thirst for this reason: that we might keep looking until we find Christ, and that having found him we might be turned back to Him again and again when we leave His spring to taste of other springs and find them lacking.
Is it no wonder that Jesus said in John 6:35: "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. Or in John 4:14, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."
Salvation is the awakening of our appetites for God. It is an appetite from God that gives the palette of our souls for Him. “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good”, says the Psalmist (Psalm 34:8). Once you have tasted the Lord, nothing less will ever satisfy your longings. It is no wonder, for when we taste of God’s ultimate goodness, anything else would be like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches compared to Filet Mignon!
When we are converted God awakens in us we a new appetite for Him and a new delight in God. Saint Augustine describes this in his description of his own conversion when he writes:
“How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys that I once feared to lose was now a joy to part with.You drove them from me, you who are the true sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood, you who outshine all light, yet are hidden deeper than any secret in our hearts, you who surpass all honor, though not in the eyes of men who see honor in themselves…Oh Lord my God, my light, my wealth, and my salvation!”
One might think that those who are satisfied most with God are the least hungry. When we eat a full meal of steak and our favorite pie until we are full, we say that we want no more because our physical appetite has been satisfied. But not so with the hungry, thirsty, feasting Christians. They turn often from the innocent pleasures of the world to linger more directly in the presence of God through the reading of the revelation of His Word. And there they eat the Bread of Heaven and drink the Living Water by prayer, meditation, and faith. But, paradoxically, it is not so that they are the least hungry saints. The opposite is the case. The strongest, most mature Christians I have ever met are the hungriest for God. They feast upon Him and are satisfied, yet the taste for God continues and ever increases. Their cry to God is an insatiable "More, More, More!" The desire creates the delight and the delight creates a deeper desire which leads to deeper delight and so on and on throughout this earthly journey until glory. Why? Because God is an inexhaustible fountain, an infinite feast, and a glorious Lord.
When you begin to drink at the River of Life and eat the Bread of Heaven, and know that you have found the end of all your longings, you only get hungrier for God. The very satisfaction creates an even greater longing. “We taste Thee, O Thou Living Bread, And long to feast upon Thee still; We drink of Thee, the Fountainhead And thirst our souls from Thee to fill,” said Bernard of Clairveux.
The more satisfaction you experience from God, while still in this world, the greater your desire for the next. C.S. Lewis describes this wonderfully supernatural, peculiar appetite: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world…It was when I was happiest that I longed the most…The sweetest thing in all of my life has been the longing…to find the place where beauty came from.” How wonderful it is for God to awaken in the soul of a person the longing for God above all of His gifts. For, as C. S. Lewis said, "Our best havings are our wantings." In the truest sense, the greatest gift from God is the gift He gives us of stirring an appetite for Him above His gifts!
John Piper gives a great description of a person who feasts upon the Lord Jesus.
“The more deeply you walk with Christ, the hungrier you get for Christ … the more homesick you get for heaven ... the more you want "all the fullness of God" . . . the more you want to be done with sin ... the more you want the Bridegroom to come again ... the more you want the Church revived and purified with the beauty of Jesus ... the more you want a great awakening to God's reality in the cities ... the more you want to see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ penetrate the darkness of all the unreached peoples of the world ... the more you want to see false worldviews yield to the force of Truth ... the more you want to see pain relieved and tears wiped away and death destroyed ... the more you long for every wrong to be made right and the justice and grace of God to fill the earth like the waters cover the sea.”
Oh reader, beloved one of God, if you don't feel strong desires for God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are not satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world that your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great thing. God did not create you for this. He has created you to have an appetite for God and it can be awakened.
My prayer for us all is that God might awaken us to a new hunger for Himself. That He might remove the callouses from the taste buds of our heart, and cause us to drink deeply, and savor the magnificence of Jesus and we will become so satisfied with Him that we will glorify Him like David saying from our hearts and our preferences:
O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water…as the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God… Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." (Psalm 63:1; 42:1; 73:25)
Satisfied yet insatiably hungry,
Pastor Bill
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
THOUGHTS ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD
The great puritan of the 17th century, John Owen, wrote a seminal book on sanctification titled "The Mortification of Sin in The Life of the Believer". In his twelfth chapter, Owen suggests that the more thoughtful you are about the excellence of who God really is, the more you realize your own distance from Him.
John Owen challenges us to "think greatly of the greatness of God." The apostle Paul encourages us in 2 Timothy 2:7 to "think about these things and the Lord will give you understanding." Oh how much God wants us to think about Him and as we do, He will help us to understand who He is and what He does by His Holy Spirit. We think, He helps. Think about this. This infinite, self existing, holy other, creator and sustainer of the universe, wants us to know Him and has revealed Himself all sorts of wonderful truths about who He is to us His creatures in His Word. I am full of awe and wonder at such condescension and relational love for us.
Oh, how little we really know of God! When I contrast what I know of Him in comparison to who He really is I know just enough to be utterly humbled in the little knowledge and understanding that I really have. The more I learn of Him, the more I am humbled! There is an infinite chasm between my knowledge of God and who God really is! Since I am finite, no matter how much I learn about Him, I have only begun to scratch the surface of knowing Him. Therefore, this lifetime is a movement of vision quest to continue growing ever increasing in the knowledge of Him. Like Paul, "I want to know Him..." (Philippians 3:10)
Owen says, "We speak much of God, can talk of His ways, His works, His counsels, all the day long; the truth is, we know very little of Him. Our thoughts, our meditations, our expressions of Him are low, many of them unworthy of His glory, none of them reaching His perfections."
The apostle Paul says that we are able to "behold the glory of the Lord...as in a glass or mirror" (2 Corinthians 3:18 NKJV). What this means is that in the New Covenant , by the sovereign grace of God through the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, we are able to "see" the beauty, worth, and excellence of the glory of God but infinitely limited "as in a glass". That is why in 1 Corinthians 13:12 Paul says, "we see through a mirror dimly...we know in part" (ESV). Jonathan Edwards speaks of God like an ocean. Well, if God is like an ocean, then my knowledge of Him is like a little tea cup of ocean water. When I was a young man I was such a foolish know it all I when it came to knowing God. Thankfully, as I have grown older, I realize how foolish and childish were my notions of God. Owen says, "all our notions of God are but childish in respect to His infinite perfections...we may love honor, believe, and obey our Father; and He accepts our childish thoughts, for they are but childish. We see...but know very little of Him."
Why is it that no matter what we know of God that we know so little of Him? Because it is GOD that we claim to know. Remember Paul praying that we would know the love of God which is unknowable (Ephesians 3:19)? What an amazing paradox, we are called to know what in this life we cannot know and we press into it. No wonder, He is God, we are creatures; He is immortal, we are mortal; He is infinite, we are finite; He is unlimited, we are limited; He is independent, we are dependent; and so on.
Paul says of God in 1 Timothy 6:16, "who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen." In this light, a wise Christian can only say that as he considers God and all He is and all that He does, he realizes that he knows nothing. Nevertheless, oh how wonderful it is that at least we are able to know something of this unknowable being.
He has revealed Himself in the light of His glory in the face of Jesus (2 Corinthians 4:4,6; John 1:14,18). Therefore, we can know, see, understand, and speak about His ways and His works because we can see Him in Jesus. He is not a God who is hidden but rather a God that wants to be seen and savored by His creatures. Though we see Him dimly or limited, we see Him in the illuminating light of the Spirit of God, as Owen puts it "In a saving, soul transforming light, and this is what gives us communion with God." With that knowledge, we can love Him, enjoy Him, delight in Him, serve Him, worship Him, believe Him, obey Him, and speak of Him in a soul saving, soul transforming light. Owen concludes that "notwithstanding all this, it is but a little portion we know of Him."
J.I. Packer says, "The people who know God think great thoughts about Him." John Owen tells us that the revelation of God and His great love “deserves the severest of our thoughts, the best of our meditations, and our utmost diligence in them...What better preparation can there be for our future enjoyment of Christ than in a constant previous contemplation of that glory in the revelation that is made in the gospel." May we dedicate ourselves to be ever increasing in the grace and knowledge and contemplation of our Maker, our Redeemer, and our God.
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?" "Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?" For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen" (Romans 11:33-36)
Longing to know Him more and more,
Pastor Bill
John Owen challenges us to "think greatly of the greatness of God." The apostle Paul encourages us in 2 Timothy 2:7 to "think about these things and the Lord will give you understanding." Oh how much God wants us to think about Him and as we do, He will help us to understand who He is and what He does by His Holy Spirit. We think, He helps. Think about this. This infinite, self existing, holy other, creator and sustainer of the universe, wants us to know Him and has revealed Himself all sorts of wonderful truths about who He is to us His creatures in His Word. I am full of awe and wonder at such condescension and relational love for us.
Oh, how little we really know of God! When I contrast what I know of Him in comparison to who He really is I know just enough to be utterly humbled in the little knowledge and understanding that I really have. The more I learn of Him, the more I am humbled! There is an infinite chasm between my knowledge of God and who God really is! Since I am finite, no matter how much I learn about Him, I have only begun to scratch the surface of knowing Him. Therefore, this lifetime is a movement of vision quest to continue growing ever increasing in the knowledge of Him. Like Paul, "I want to know Him..." (Philippians 3:10)
Owen says, "We speak much of God, can talk of His ways, His works, His counsels, all the day long; the truth is, we know very little of Him. Our thoughts, our meditations, our expressions of Him are low, many of them unworthy of His glory, none of them reaching His perfections."
The apostle Paul says that we are able to "behold the glory of the Lord...as in a glass or mirror" (2 Corinthians 3:18 NKJV). What this means is that in the New Covenant , by the sovereign grace of God through the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, we are able to "see" the beauty, worth, and excellence of the glory of God but infinitely limited "as in a glass". That is why in 1 Corinthians 13:12 Paul says, "we see through a mirror dimly...we know in part" (ESV). Jonathan Edwards speaks of God like an ocean. Well, if God is like an ocean, then my knowledge of Him is like a little tea cup of ocean water. When I was a young man I was such a foolish know it all I when it came to knowing God. Thankfully, as I have grown older, I realize how foolish and childish were my notions of God. Owen says, "all our notions of God are but childish in respect to His infinite perfections...we may love honor, believe, and obey our Father; and He accepts our childish thoughts, for they are but childish. We see...but know very little of Him."
Why is it that no matter what we know of God that we know so little of Him? Because it is GOD that we claim to know. Remember Paul praying that we would know the love of God which is unknowable (Ephesians 3:19)? What an amazing paradox, we are called to know what in this life we cannot know and we press into it. No wonder, He is God, we are creatures; He is immortal, we are mortal; He is infinite, we are finite; He is unlimited, we are limited; He is independent, we are dependent; and so on.
Paul says of God in 1 Timothy 6:16, "who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen." In this light, a wise Christian can only say that as he considers God and all He is and all that He does, he realizes that he knows nothing. Nevertheless, oh how wonderful it is that at least we are able to know something of this unknowable being.
He has revealed Himself in the light of His glory in the face of Jesus (2 Corinthians 4:4,6; John 1:14,18). Therefore, we can know, see, understand, and speak about His ways and His works because we can see Him in Jesus. He is not a God who is hidden but rather a God that wants to be seen and savored by His creatures. Though we see Him dimly or limited, we see Him in the illuminating light of the Spirit of God, as Owen puts it "In a saving, soul transforming light, and this is what gives us communion with God." With that knowledge, we can love Him, enjoy Him, delight in Him, serve Him, worship Him, believe Him, obey Him, and speak of Him in a soul saving, soul transforming light. Owen concludes that "notwithstanding all this, it is but a little portion we know of Him."
J.I. Packer says, "The people who know God think great thoughts about Him." John Owen tells us that the revelation of God and His great love “deserves the severest of our thoughts, the best of our meditations, and our utmost diligence in them...What better preparation can there be for our future enjoyment of Christ than in a constant previous contemplation of that glory in the revelation that is made in the gospel." May we dedicate ourselves to be ever increasing in the grace and knowledge and contemplation of our Maker, our Redeemer, and our God.
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?" "Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?" For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen" (Romans 11:33-36)
Longing to know Him more and more,
Pastor Bill
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
THOUGHTS FROM A NIGHT UNDER THE STARS
"...it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be MAGNIFIED in my body, whether by life or by death." Philippians 1:21 NKJV
I have a regular habit in my life to go outside on a clear night, lay down on my driveway, and look up at the stars. Stargazing causes me to dream, long, pray, worship, and wonder at their grandeur, beauty and the infinite glory of my creator's brilliant design. As I observe the vast blanket in the night sky riddled with pinprick little lights I wonder,"what do these stars really look like?" My limited knowledge in astronomy reminds me that there is vastly more to these little bright dots then meets my naked eye. So, occasionally I will bring out my high powered binoculars to get a better glimpse of what is really there. Someday, I would love to have a telescope to catch even a greater glimpse.
Recently, while gazing from my driveway at the night sky, my mind wandered to an amazing statement by the apostle Paul. When the apostle Paul thought of his time here on earth as he wrote to his beloved friends in Philippi, he wrote one of his most inspiring purpose statements, "now as always, Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether by life, or by death."
King David was a like minded, God entranced, God besotted, God loving man who echoed a very similar phrase: "I will magnify God with thanksgiving."(Psalm 69:30). Another time he sang in Psalm 34:3, "O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together," This was the heart cry of every Old Testament saint. Mary said in Luke 1:46, "My soul magnifies the Lord." And now it is the longing of every true Christian.
In Philippians 1:20 Paul applies this thought to his own experience, desiring that Christ will be magnified in his body whether by his life or his death. Paul wanted to magnify Christ in the way he lived, in the way he died, and he wanted to show it now and always in his body!
The word "magnify" can be used in two different senses. It can mean: make something appear greater than it is, as with a microscope or a magnifying glass. When I was a kid I used to love to take tiny spiders and put them under the microscope and see their frightening heads magnified. It would scare the daylights out of me. I am glad that spiders are so tiny.
Or it can mean, make something that may seem small or insignificant appear to be as great as it really is. This is what our great telescopes help us begin to do with the magnificent universe that once upon a time spilled over from the brim of God's glory. Look out at the those pinprick lights with a telescope and you begin seeing an amazing world that is vastly more glorious than what you see with the naked eye: nebula's, red giant stars, white dwarf stars, binary star systems, comets, distant and vast spiral galaxies, novas and supernovas and all are glorious to be seen.
So there are two kinds of magnifying: microscope magnifying and telescope magnifying. The one makes a small thing look bigger than it is. The other makes a big thing begin to look as big as it really is.
So when Paul Paul does not mean: "I will make a small God look bigger than He is. He means: "I will make a big God begin to look as big as He really is." We are not called to be microscopes, but telescopes. Christians are not called to be con men who magnify their product out of all proportion to reality when they know the competitor's product is far superior. There is nothing and nobody superior to God. And so the calling of those who love God is to make his greatness begin to look as great as it really is. The whole duty of the Christian can be summed up in this: feel, think and act in a way that will make God look as great as He really is. Be a telescope for the world of the infinite starry wealth of the glory of God.
We may think, “Christ is the Almighty God, Creator of the universe. How can I possibly magnify, exalt or glorify Him?” Think of Him as being a distant star. It may be more brilliant than our own sun, but to the human eye, it is just a dim speck in the night sky. To many in this world, Christ is that way. He is the very splendor of God, brighter than a billion suns. But the world does not see Him that way. So God has purposed that the believer is to be a telescope to bring the truth about Christ into view for the unbeliever. Through us, and especially through how we handle trials, Christ is magnified to a skeptical, unbelieving world. The calling of those who love God is to make his greatness begin to look as great as it really is.
Let us catch this purpose and it will revolutionize the kind of questions we ask in our daily lives. In view of Paul’s circumstances, it is remarkable that his main focus was not on getting released from prison, but rather on magnifying Christ. How can I magnify Christ in this situation, this relationship, this trial? If this world is going to see Christ, they will see Him in our lives. He will be revealed through our bodies. Paul desires that Christ “be magnified in my body” Our hands must be His hands, our eyes His eyes, our mouth His mouth our feet His feet. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body”. In this life Christ must be exalted and magnified in the bodies of those who believe in Him, or He will not be magnified at all. The reason for this is that God dwells only within His children. And if He is to be seen at all in this life, He must be seen in the lives of those who know Him.
Isn't this wonderful? Does this excite you like it does me?
Paul's passion was that his tongue will speak warmly of his Savior. He will exalt his name in testimony, in prayer, and in preaching. His knees will bend before the great, high and holy Lord. His hands will be zealous in serving the cause of such a Friend. His feet will run messages for the Lord. His eyes will see His glories everywhere and His likeness in all his people. His ears will hear his word and in His heart there will be a melody of praise to Him. Always in his body he will exalt the Messiah.
Oh dear reader, you were made for this and you were redeemed for this. This is your purpose ordained by God for His glory and your soul’s satisfaction and delight! There will always be a serious or mild sickness in your soul until you embrace this calling. So be encouraged, be focused, Let Christ be Magnified Through You! “Now! Always!" says Paul. So let us Magnify Christ now and always no matter what.
Pastor Bill
I have a regular habit in my life to go outside on a clear night, lay down on my driveway, and look up at the stars. Stargazing causes me to dream, long, pray, worship, and wonder at their grandeur, beauty and the infinite glory of my creator's brilliant design. As I observe the vast blanket in the night sky riddled with pinprick little lights I wonder,"what do these stars really look like?" My limited knowledge in astronomy reminds me that there is vastly more to these little bright dots then meets my naked eye. So, occasionally I will bring out my high powered binoculars to get a better glimpse of what is really there. Someday, I would love to have a telescope to catch even a greater glimpse.
Recently, while gazing from my driveway at the night sky, my mind wandered to an amazing statement by the apostle Paul. When the apostle Paul thought of his time here on earth as he wrote to his beloved friends in Philippi, he wrote one of his most inspiring purpose statements, "now as always, Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether by life, or by death."
King David was a like minded, God entranced, God besotted, God loving man who echoed a very similar phrase: "I will magnify God with thanksgiving."(Psalm 69:30). Another time he sang in Psalm 34:3, "O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together," This was the heart cry of every Old Testament saint. Mary said in Luke 1:46, "My soul magnifies the Lord." And now it is the longing of every true Christian.
In Philippians 1:20 Paul applies this thought to his own experience, desiring that Christ will be magnified in his body whether by his life or his death. Paul wanted to magnify Christ in the way he lived, in the way he died, and he wanted to show it now and always in his body!
The word "magnify" can be used in two different senses. It can mean: make something appear greater than it is, as with a microscope or a magnifying glass. When I was a kid I used to love to take tiny spiders and put them under the microscope and see their frightening heads magnified. It would scare the daylights out of me. I am glad that spiders are so tiny.
Or it can mean, make something that may seem small or insignificant appear to be as great as it really is. This is what our great telescopes help us begin to do with the magnificent universe that once upon a time spilled over from the brim of God's glory. Look out at the those pinprick lights with a telescope and you begin seeing an amazing world that is vastly more glorious than what you see with the naked eye: nebula's, red giant stars, white dwarf stars, binary star systems, comets, distant and vast spiral galaxies, novas and supernovas and all are glorious to be seen.
So there are two kinds of magnifying: microscope magnifying and telescope magnifying. The one makes a small thing look bigger than it is. The other makes a big thing begin to look as big as it really is.
So when Paul Paul does not mean: "I will make a small God look bigger than He is. He means: "I will make a big God begin to look as big as He really is." We are not called to be microscopes, but telescopes. Christians are not called to be con men who magnify their product out of all proportion to reality when they know the competitor's product is far superior. There is nothing and nobody superior to God. And so the calling of those who love God is to make his greatness begin to look as great as it really is. The whole duty of the Christian can be summed up in this: feel, think and act in a way that will make God look as great as He really is. Be a telescope for the world of the infinite starry wealth of the glory of God.
We may think, “Christ is the Almighty God, Creator of the universe. How can I possibly magnify, exalt or glorify Him?” Think of Him as being a distant star. It may be more brilliant than our own sun, but to the human eye, it is just a dim speck in the night sky. To many in this world, Christ is that way. He is the very splendor of God, brighter than a billion suns. But the world does not see Him that way. So God has purposed that the believer is to be a telescope to bring the truth about Christ into view for the unbeliever. Through us, and especially through how we handle trials, Christ is magnified to a skeptical, unbelieving world. The calling of those who love God is to make his greatness begin to look as great as it really is.
Let us catch this purpose and it will revolutionize the kind of questions we ask in our daily lives. In view of Paul’s circumstances, it is remarkable that his main focus was not on getting released from prison, but rather on magnifying Christ. How can I magnify Christ in this situation, this relationship, this trial? If this world is going to see Christ, they will see Him in our lives. He will be revealed through our bodies. Paul desires that Christ “be magnified in my body” Our hands must be His hands, our eyes His eyes, our mouth His mouth our feet His feet. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body”. In this life Christ must be exalted and magnified in the bodies of those who believe in Him, or He will not be magnified at all. The reason for this is that God dwells only within His children. And if He is to be seen at all in this life, He must be seen in the lives of those who know Him.
Isn't this wonderful? Does this excite you like it does me?
Paul's passion was that his tongue will speak warmly of his Savior. He will exalt his name in testimony, in prayer, and in preaching. His knees will bend before the great, high and holy Lord. His hands will be zealous in serving the cause of such a Friend. His feet will run messages for the Lord. His eyes will see His glories everywhere and His likeness in all his people. His ears will hear his word and in His heart there will be a melody of praise to Him. Always in his body he will exalt the Messiah.
Oh dear reader, you were made for this and you were redeemed for this. This is your purpose ordained by God for His glory and your soul’s satisfaction and delight! There will always be a serious or mild sickness in your soul until you embrace this calling. So be encouraged, be focused, Let Christ be Magnified Through You! “Now! Always!" says Paul. So let us Magnify Christ now and always no matter what.
Pastor Bill
Monday, October 25, 2010
WHAT IT MEANS TO RECEIVE CHRIST
"But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God" John 1:12 ESV
Recently I was discussing with a dear friend about the gospel and communicating it to others. So I asked my friend to share with me her understanding of the gospel. As she began sharing she threw out biblical terms such as glory, fellowship, sin, wrath, judgement, redemption,God's righteousness, holy, grace,believe, receive, and repent. When I pretended I was a non-Christian and asked her what these terms meant, she had a great difficulty defining those terms for me. Now this is a seasoned, on fire, and godly woman. it came to me, if she had such difficulty defining her terms, what about the rest of the Christian community?
When sharing the gospel or anything pertaining to our faith, it is imperative that we know what we are talking about. Ignorance is not bliss and having wrong ideas of what the bible teaches can lead ourselves and others to false conclusions and convictions.
I was especially thinking about the term we use of "receiving Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior". I have had so many tell me about so and so receiving Jesus into their heart or someone who was led to make a decision for Jesus Christ. Now the bible speaks of receiving Jesus, but what does that mean and what does it not mean? There are so many people who say they have received Christ and believed Christ who give little or no evidence that they are spiritually alive. We will often times say that because Fred once received Christ, even though his life demonstrates little or no evidence of change, that because he received Christ, he is in no matter what.
Last week I wrote about what it means to love God. The bible defines loving God in terms of treasuring Christ, savoring Christ, cherishing Christ, or supremely valuing Christ.
But what of those who are unresponsive to the spiritual beauty of Jesus? Who are unmoved by the glories of Christ. Who don't have the spirit of the apostle Paul when he said, "I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ" (Philippians 3:8)? This is not their spirit, yet they say they have received Christ. So to me it looks as though it is possible to "receive Christ" and yet to not " receive Him" for who and what He really is. Thus, we demean His worth and do not really "receive" Christ at all.
This is why I so strongly believe we need to add a new term in defining what it means for someone to become a Christian and receive Christ: Make Jesus Christ Your Supreme Treasure. I think it is much more helpful and forthright in clearly telling others what it means to love, follow, and receive Jesus. Treasuring God is the essence of loving God.
Let me describe why I think this is so important. One way to describe this problem is to say that when these people "receive Christ," they do not receive him as supremely valuable. They receive him simply as sin-forgiver (because they love being guilt-free), and as rescuer-from-hell (because they love being pain-free), and as healer (because they love being disease-free), and as protector (because they love being safe), and as prosperity-giver (because they love being wealthy). They don't receive him the way Paul did when he spoke of "the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." They don't receive him as he really is—more glorious, more beautiful, more wonderful, more satisfying, than everything else in this world, this life, and the whole universe. They don't prize him or treasure him or cherish him or delight in him.
Such a "receiving" of Christ is the kind of receiving that anyone can do. Any unregenerate, "natural" person can do this. This is very doable. This is a "receiving" of Christ that requires no change in human nature. You don't have to be born again to love being guilt-free and pain-free and disease-free and safe and wealthy. All natural men without any spiritual life love these things. But to embrace Jesus as your supreme treasure requires a new nature. No one does this naturally. You must be born again (John 3:3). You must be a new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17; Galatians 6:15). You must be made spiritually alive (Ephesians 2:1-4). "No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' [and mean it!] except in the Holy Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:3).
True saving faith is a receiving of Christ for who He really is and what He really is, namely, more glorious, more wonderful, more satisfying, and, therefore, more valuable than anything in the universe. Saving faith says, "I receive you as my Savior, my Lord, my supreme Treasure; and "I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ" (Philippians 3:8).
There are profound and important reasons why Jesus said, "Therefore, any one who does not hate renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:33). Or "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me" (Matthew 10:37). And, "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field" (Matthew 13:44).
We need to see Jesus as compellingly beautiful so that we present Him as compellingly beautiful to others. We want others to receive Him in a way that He like the treasure in the field and has become so compellingly beautiful, valuable, and infinitely satisfying to them.
Jesus is infinitely valuable and infinitely satisfying. Saving faith receives this Christ.
"Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.My flesh and my heart may fail,but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever"(Psalm 73:25)
Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.(1 Peter 1:8)
Treasuring Christ above all things,
Pastor Bill
Recently I was discussing with a dear friend about the gospel and communicating it to others. So I asked my friend to share with me her understanding of the gospel. As she began sharing she threw out biblical terms such as glory, fellowship, sin, wrath, judgement, redemption,God's righteousness, holy, grace,believe, receive, and repent. When I pretended I was a non-Christian and asked her what these terms meant, she had a great difficulty defining those terms for me. Now this is a seasoned, on fire, and godly woman. it came to me, if she had such difficulty defining her terms, what about the rest of the Christian community?
When sharing the gospel or anything pertaining to our faith, it is imperative that we know what we are talking about. Ignorance is not bliss and having wrong ideas of what the bible teaches can lead ourselves and others to false conclusions and convictions.
I was especially thinking about the term we use of "receiving Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior". I have had so many tell me about so and so receiving Jesus into their heart or someone who was led to make a decision for Jesus Christ. Now the bible speaks of receiving Jesus, but what does that mean and what does it not mean? There are so many people who say they have received Christ and believed Christ who give little or no evidence that they are spiritually alive. We will often times say that because Fred once received Christ, even though his life demonstrates little or no evidence of change, that because he received Christ, he is in no matter what.
Last week I wrote about what it means to love God. The bible defines loving God in terms of treasuring Christ, savoring Christ, cherishing Christ, or supremely valuing Christ.
But what of those who are unresponsive to the spiritual beauty of Jesus? Who are unmoved by the glories of Christ. Who don't have the spirit of the apostle Paul when he said, "I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ" (Philippians 3:8)? This is not their spirit, yet they say they have received Christ. So to me it looks as though it is possible to "receive Christ" and yet to not " receive Him" for who and what He really is. Thus, we demean His worth and do not really "receive" Christ at all.
This is why I so strongly believe we need to add a new term in defining what it means for someone to become a Christian and receive Christ: Make Jesus Christ Your Supreme Treasure. I think it is much more helpful and forthright in clearly telling others what it means to love, follow, and receive Jesus. Treasuring God is the essence of loving God.
Let me describe why I think this is so important. One way to describe this problem is to say that when these people "receive Christ," they do not receive him as supremely valuable. They receive him simply as sin-forgiver (because they love being guilt-free), and as rescuer-from-hell (because they love being pain-free), and as healer (because they love being disease-free), and as protector (because they love being safe), and as prosperity-giver (because they love being wealthy). They don't receive him the way Paul did when he spoke of "the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." They don't receive him as he really is—more glorious, more beautiful, more wonderful, more satisfying, than everything else in this world, this life, and the whole universe. They don't prize him or treasure him or cherish him or delight in him.
Such a "receiving" of Christ is the kind of receiving that anyone can do. Any unregenerate, "natural" person can do this. This is very doable. This is a "receiving" of Christ that requires no change in human nature. You don't have to be born again to love being guilt-free and pain-free and disease-free and safe and wealthy. All natural men without any spiritual life love these things. But to embrace Jesus as your supreme treasure requires a new nature. No one does this naturally. You must be born again (John 3:3). You must be a new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17; Galatians 6:15). You must be made spiritually alive (Ephesians 2:1-4). "No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' [and mean it!] except in the Holy Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:3).
True saving faith is a receiving of Christ for who He really is and what He really is, namely, more glorious, more wonderful, more satisfying, and, therefore, more valuable than anything in the universe. Saving faith says, "I receive you as my Savior, my Lord, my supreme Treasure; and "I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ" (Philippians 3:8).
There are profound and important reasons why Jesus said, "Therefore, any one who does not hate renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:33). Or "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me" (Matthew 10:37). And, "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field" (Matthew 13:44).
We need to see Jesus as compellingly beautiful so that we present Him as compellingly beautiful to others. We want others to receive Him in a way that He like the treasure in the field and has become so compellingly beautiful, valuable, and infinitely satisfying to them.
Jesus is infinitely valuable and infinitely satisfying. Saving faith receives this Christ.
"Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.My flesh and my heart may fail,but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever"(Psalm 73:25)
Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.(1 Peter 1:8)
Treasuring Christ above all things,
Pastor Bill
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
WHAT IT MEANS TO LOVE GOD
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:36–39).
If you really want to know the will of God for your life and find out what is of supreme importance to Him, the best way to do that is listen to what Jesus, the Son of God has to say. He tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God. And Jesus says to do this with all of our heart, soul, and mind. What does this mean to love God this way?
I am very excited to try to help you really learn and understand what this means. When Jesus says, “Love God will all your heart, soul, and mind,” He means that our thinking and feeling and desiring should be wholly engaged to do all they can to awaken and express the heartfelt fullness of treasuring God above all things.
There are two key things that will help us to understand this sweet demand from Jesus. First, “loving God” means more than anything else to treasure God. The other is that thinking (the mind), feeling (the heart), and inclining our desires (our souls) are the means to that end. In other words, loving God is an experience of cherishing, delighting, admiring, enjoying, and valuing Him. It’s not a thought, feeling, or desire about God or a work for God. It’s the sort of thing Paul meant when he said, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8). It’s about treasuring the supreme worth of God. So, love for God is an affair of the affections. Ideas, feelings, desires, thoughts and thinking are crucial but they are not what love is. Thinking, feeling, and desiring is for the sake of loving God but it is not in itself loving God. It’s a means to loving. It’s not what love is.
Now what this means is that love is not a mere decision any more than your enjoying the beauty of a sunset is a mere decision. Could you imagine looking at a sunset feeling nothing than telling yourself to decide to enjoy it even though you don't. That is why I have said that where feelings for God are dead, worship is dead. You don’t decide to find beauty compelling to you. It happens to you. Decision based love breeds performance and hypocrisy and a duty based way of looking at love. Loving God means that God is of supreme value and worth to you; your supreme treasure and pleasure. We prefer above everything else to know Him and see Him and be with Him and be like Him.
Perhaps for some of you, you have never thought of loving God in these terms. May I suggest that because many don't understand what loving God means they end up focusing on means and ends and not love itself. So much I have read and been taught over the years focuses on means and ends and not on the love itself. Some focus little on the means and wonder why they struggle loving God. Others focus on the ends and struggle with loving people and obedience to God. So what I mean is how we come to love Him and the beautiful things that come out of our lives from this love for Him.
Loving God in the Great Commandment means most essentially treasuring God—valuing him, cherishing him, admiring him, desiring him. Therefore, loving him with all our heart, soul, and mind means that our thinking, our feeling, and our desires are not what does the loving, but what fuels the loving. Loving God with the heart, desires, and mind do all they can to awaken and express our treasuring God above all things.
Paul says in 1 Timothy 1:7 that "the object and purpose of our instruction and charge is love".(Amplified bible). Jonathan Edwards has charged me as a pastor to "raise the affections of my hearers as much as i can" when I preach the word. I wish every pastor would make that their goal when they speak, otherwise they have failed.
If we equate loving God with thinking and feeling rightly about God, we jeopardize the very reality of love. Let me use the analogy of fire. in order to have fire you need wood and kindling. but you would never call the kindling fire. When the fire burns you are not thinking about the kindling anymore, you enjoy the fire. So God has given us His word and the Christ exalting illumination of the Holy Spirit to be kindling picked up and engaged by our mind, heart, and desires in order to light a fire of love. I have often times said that the most important thing in our lives is to see Jesus for all that He is(that is the kindling) and to savor Him for all He is worth (that's loving and treasuring Him).
In the same light, fire produces two effects, light and heat. But we know that light and heat will not happen without the fire. When Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15), He emphatically did not say that keeping His commandments is what love is. He distinguished the two and made commandment-keeping the evidence of loving Him, not the definition of loving Him.
And when Jesus says the second commandment (keeping God’s commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves), He emphatically did not say that the second commandment was interchangeable with the first one. It is like it. It is not it. Loving God is not defined by loving neighbor. It is demonstrated by loving neighbor. “He who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20).
Or consider the way Jesus talks about the heart worshiping Him. “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me’” (Mark 7:6–7). In other words, external actions—even religious ones directed toward God—are not the essence of worship. They are not the essence of love. What happens in the heart is essential. The external behaviors will be pleasing to God when they flow from a heart that freely treasures God above all things.
In other words, just as a fire produces light and heat, love for God, will produce love in our lives. The fire of the Father's love will burn within our hearts producing love. Is it no wonder that John says, "This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome" (1 John 5:3). There is a kind of commandment keeping that is exceedingly burdensome (without love for God out of duty or self effort) and there is a kind of commandment keeping that is easy (produced and released out of love). there is such a joyful freedom when love produces your behavior. No more decision, no more duty, and no more performance just a natural/supernatural outflow of what is in your heart.
So we cannot truly love God without knowing God; and the way we know God is by the Spirit-enabled use of our minds and hearts. So to “love God with all your mind and heart and soul” means engaging all your powers to know God as fully as possible in order to treasure him for all He is worth.
May you be free to know Him and enjoy Him forever. "Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy" (2 Peter 1:8)
THIS IS LOVE!
Pastor Bill
If you really want to know the will of God for your life and find out what is of supreme importance to Him, the best way to do that is listen to what Jesus, the Son of God has to say. He tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God. And Jesus says to do this with all of our heart, soul, and mind. What does this mean to love God this way?
I am very excited to try to help you really learn and understand what this means. When Jesus says, “Love God will all your heart, soul, and mind,” He means that our thinking and feeling and desiring should be wholly engaged to do all they can to awaken and express the heartfelt fullness of treasuring God above all things.
There are two key things that will help us to understand this sweet demand from Jesus. First, “loving God” means more than anything else to treasure God. The other is that thinking (the mind), feeling (the heart), and inclining our desires (our souls) are the means to that end. In other words, loving God is an experience of cherishing, delighting, admiring, enjoying, and valuing Him. It’s not a thought, feeling, or desire about God or a work for God. It’s the sort of thing Paul meant when he said, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8). It’s about treasuring the supreme worth of God. So, love for God is an affair of the affections. Ideas, feelings, desires, thoughts and thinking are crucial but they are not what love is. Thinking, feeling, and desiring is for the sake of loving God but it is not in itself loving God. It’s a means to loving. It’s not what love is.
Now what this means is that love is not a mere decision any more than your enjoying the beauty of a sunset is a mere decision. Could you imagine looking at a sunset feeling nothing than telling yourself to decide to enjoy it even though you don't. That is why I have said that where feelings for God are dead, worship is dead. You don’t decide to find beauty compelling to you. It happens to you. Decision based love breeds performance and hypocrisy and a duty based way of looking at love. Loving God means that God is of supreme value and worth to you; your supreme treasure and pleasure. We prefer above everything else to know Him and see Him and be with Him and be like Him.
Perhaps for some of you, you have never thought of loving God in these terms. May I suggest that because many don't understand what loving God means they end up focusing on means and ends and not love itself. So much I have read and been taught over the years focuses on means and ends and not on the love itself. Some focus little on the means and wonder why they struggle loving God. Others focus on the ends and struggle with loving people and obedience to God. So what I mean is how we come to love Him and the beautiful things that come out of our lives from this love for Him.
Loving God in the Great Commandment means most essentially treasuring God—valuing him, cherishing him, admiring him, desiring him. Therefore, loving him with all our heart, soul, and mind means that our thinking, our feeling, and our desires are not what does the loving, but what fuels the loving. Loving God with the heart, desires, and mind do all they can to awaken and express our treasuring God above all things.
Paul says in 1 Timothy 1:7 that "the object and purpose of our instruction and charge is love".(Amplified bible). Jonathan Edwards has charged me as a pastor to "raise the affections of my hearers as much as i can" when I preach the word. I wish every pastor would make that their goal when they speak, otherwise they have failed.
If we equate loving God with thinking and feeling rightly about God, we jeopardize the very reality of love. Let me use the analogy of fire. in order to have fire you need wood and kindling. but you would never call the kindling fire. When the fire burns you are not thinking about the kindling anymore, you enjoy the fire. So God has given us His word and the Christ exalting illumination of the Holy Spirit to be kindling picked up and engaged by our mind, heart, and desires in order to light a fire of love. I have often times said that the most important thing in our lives is to see Jesus for all that He is(that is the kindling) and to savor Him for all He is worth (that's loving and treasuring Him).
In the same light, fire produces two effects, light and heat. But we know that light and heat will not happen without the fire. When Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15), He emphatically did not say that keeping His commandments is what love is. He distinguished the two and made commandment-keeping the evidence of loving Him, not the definition of loving Him.
And when Jesus says the second commandment (keeping God’s commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves), He emphatically did not say that the second commandment was interchangeable with the first one. It is like it. It is not it. Loving God is not defined by loving neighbor. It is demonstrated by loving neighbor. “He who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20).
Or consider the way Jesus talks about the heart worshiping Him. “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me’” (Mark 7:6–7). In other words, external actions—even religious ones directed toward God—are not the essence of worship. They are not the essence of love. What happens in the heart is essential. The external behaviors will be pleasing to God when they flow from a heart that freely treasures God above all things.
In other words, just as a fire produces light and heat, love for God, will produce love in our lives. The fire of the Father's love will burn within our hearts producing love. Is it no wonder that John says, "This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome" (1 John 5:3). There is a kind of commandment keeping that is exceedingly burdensome (without love for God out of duty or self effort) and there is a kind of commandment keeping that is easy (produced and released out of love). there is such a joyful freedom when love produces your behavior. No more decision, no more duty, and no more performance just a natural/supernatural outflow of what is in your heart.
So we cannot truly love God without knowing God; and the way we know God is by the Spirit-enabled use of our minds and hearts. So to “love God with all your mind and heart and soul” means engaging all your powers to know God as fully as possible in order to treasure him for all He is worth.
May you be free to know Him and enjoy Him forever. "Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy" (2 Peter 1:8)
THIS IS LOVE!
Pastor Bill
Monday, October 11, 2010
HOW GOD HAS BEEN CHANGING MY LIFE
Five months ago my life changed. After Pastoring for thirty three years, and twenty three years at my beloved church, I stepped down and have taken a pause in my life. I can truly say that it has saved my life. I had worked six days a week for all of this time and worked often even on my day off. I felt overloaded, overwhelmed, overworked. I was regularly depressed, grumpy, and lonely. Deep inside I felt that God did not love me, I was worried all the time, frequently discouraged, most of the time I felt like a complete failure, I was utterly disappointed with my self and my life, I was completely out of touch with my inner life and emotions, had constant feelings of impending doom, felt like I needed to perform in order to be loved by God and others, feared rejection, had developed a way of relating to Christ that was devoted, structured, disciplined, but not close and intimate with Him. I needed a "pause" in my own life in order to get on with the rest of my life and know the satisfaction, the sweetness, and the freedom of living in a deeply centered and reflective way before the presence of God. I needed to rediscover the Father's love in order to be freed to live a life of love and in love.
Now after five months I am happy to say that my old life is over, dead, and gone. There is no turning back. I am feeling closer to God than I have ever been. I am happier, calmer, and experiencing freedom from the tyranny of performance and others expectations. I will never live that way again or be that person again. I want to live in love, peace, freedom, and joy for now on. I want to live to magnify the Lord in my body whether i live or die (Philippians 1:21). I want to truly love God and others. I want to be free to BE who God made me to be as Bill Robison. I want to live a quiet, reflective, centered life. I want to do what the Father is doing and not my own agenda or for my own self enhancement.
That is why I wrote awhile back about taking "pauses' in your daily life in order to commune and fellowship with God. This is what has helped to change my life and to save my life. To "pause is to stop or cease from some activity in order to "start' spending some time with the Lord.
I was not calling all of you to quite your jobs and hang out in the forest all day or become monks; but I was challenging us all to take serious inventory in our lives. I was calling you to be courageous and honest enough to determine how much time we spend being busy and how much time we spend in communion with the Lord. I wanted to create in you like God did in me a "holy dissatisfaction" with anything less than a deep, rich, growing relationship with Jesus Christ. What does your life look like? Is Christ truly the treasure, joy, and satisfaction of your life? Does Jesus move you or are you bored with Him? Do you find yourself growing deeper and deeper in your love for Him and others? Do you have an insatiable hunger and thirst for god and the things of God? Do you love to read and pray the Bible? Do you care for others? Do you hate sin and love holiness? Does pleasing God matter to you?
My experience as a pastor has been that most Christians spend little time alone, little time in silence, little time in the Word of God, and as a result, little time with God. In short, we spend a disproportionate amount of time in the things of little or no value instead of the things of eternal value, the nurture and care of our souls. Think about this, that is the person we afflict upon our work, our spouses, our children, our church, and others around us!
The fruit of over busy lives is sin, stress, fear, anxiety, little inner peace and tranquility, distance from God, anger, bitterness, relational conflict, loneliness, emptiness, shallowness, selfishness, depression, sorrow, reacting instead of being proactive, lack of intentionality in what we do, thoughtlessness, foolishness, compulsiveness, wasted time and wasted lives.
The whole goal of taking a pause in your life is that you would love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and that you would love your neighbor as yourself. As my friend Ed Piorick says, "the end game is love." For love to come out of your life, the Father's love has to come into your life. Love has to master you inside in order to minister through you outside. The only way love is going to come into your life is when you drink from the well, the river, the source of love and get around the fire of love that produces heat and light.
So I challenged you to bring some balance into your lives and balance activity by embracing and integrating into your life silence, solitude, and contemplation or meditation. We are a doing people but I have learned that "being" is what produces "doing". We are called human beings not human doings. Doing does not produce being; instead, being produces doing.
I mentioned that the Muslims have five "pauses' in their day in order to worship and remember their God. Allah. The Jews regularly set aside times of the day in order to worship Jehovah. Jesus would take "pauses" from His busy and demanding life in order to be with the Father. After His resurrection, Jesus disciples continued to pray at certain hours of the day. The Roman Catholic Benedictine monastic tradition has many "pauses' in their day(Eight) called "the Daily Office". So, taking pauses in the day has been a regular practice throughout history. Pauses like silence, solitude, and meditation are means of grace that we can use in order to draw close to God and become lovers whether for five minutes or five hours.
So, for the next three weeks I would like to share how you can practically integrate silence, solitude, and meditation into your life. I pray that it would become a welcome "pause" in your day and that like me, it would begin changing and transforming you into a more loving person than ever before. Would you join me on this wonderful journey?
Enjoying the new journey,
Pastor Bill
Now after five months I am happy to say that my old life is over, dead, and gone. There is no turning back. I am feeling closer to God than I have ever been. I am happier, calmer, and experiencing freedom from the tyranny of performance and others expectations. I will never live that way again or be that person again. I want to live in love, peace, freedom, and joy for now on. I want to live to magnify the Lord in my body whether i live or die (Philippians 1:21). I want to truly love God and others. I want to be free to BE who God made me to be as Bill Robison. I want to live a quiet, reflective, centered life. I want to do what the Father is doing and not my own agenda or for my own self enhancement.
That is why I wrote awhile back about taking "pauses' in your daily life in order to commune and fellowship with God. This is what has helped to change my life and to save my life. To "pause is to stop or cease from some activity in order to "start' spending some time with the Lord.
I was not calling all of you to quite your jobs and hang out in the forest all day or become monks; but I was challenging us all to take serious inventory in our lives. I was calling you to be courageous and honest enough to determine how much time we spend being busy and how much time we spend in communion with the Lord. I wanted to create in you like God did in me a "holy dissatisfaction" with anything less than a deep, rich, growing relationship with Jesus Christ. What does your life look like? Is Christ truly the treasure, joy, and satisfaction of your life? Does Jesus move you or are you bored with Him? Do you find yourself growing deeper and deeper in your love for Him and others? Do you have an insatiable hunger and thirst for god and the things of God? Do you love to read and pray the Bible? Do you care for others? Do you hate sin and love holiness? Does pleasing God matter to you?
My experience as a pastor has been that most Christians spend little time alone, little time in silence, little time in the Word of God, and as a result, little time with God. In short, we spend a disproportionate amount of time in the things of little or no value instead of the things of eternal value, the nurture and care of our souls. Think about this, that is the person we afflict upon our work, our spouses, our children, our church, and others around us!
The fruit of over busy lives is sin, stress, fear, anxiety, little inner peace and tranquility, distance from God, anger, bitterness, relational conflict, loneliness, emptiness, shallowness, selfishness, depression, sorrow, reacting instead of being proactive, lack of intentionality in what we do, thoughtlessness, foolishness, compulsiveness, wasted time and wasted lives.
The whole goal of taking a pause in your life is that you would love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and that you would love your neighbor as yourself. As my friend Ed Piorick says, "the end game is love." For love to come out of your life, the Father's love has to come into your life. Love has to master you inside in order to minister through you outside. The only way love is going to come into your life is when you drink from the well, the river, the source of love and get around the fire of love that produces heat and light.
So I challenged you to bring some balance into your lives and balance activity by embracing and integrating into your life silence, solitude, and contemplation or meditation. We are a doing people but I have learned that "being" is what produces "doing". We are called human beings not human doings. Doing does not produce being; instead, being produces doing.
I mentioned that the Muslims have five "pauses' in their day in order to worship and remember their God. Allah. The Jews regularly set aside times of the day in order to worship Jehovah. Jesus would take "pauses" from His busy and demanding life in order to be with the Father. After His resurrection, Jesus disciples continued to pray at certain hours of the day. The Roman Catholic Benedictine monastic tradition has many "pauses' in their day(Eight) called "the Daily Office". So, taking pauses in the day has been a regular practice throughout history. Pauses like silence, solitude, and meditation are means of grace that we can use in order to draw close to God and become lovers whether for five minutes or five hours.
So, for the next three weeks I would like to share how you can practically integrate silence, solitude, and meditation into your life. I pray that it would become a welcome "pause" in your day and that like me, it would begin changing and transforming you into a more loving person than ever before. Would you join me on this wonderful journey?
Enjoying the new journey,
Pastor Bill
Monday, October 4, 2010
WHAT NAOMI DID NOT SEE Part 2
One of the scriptures that I tether my life to, especially when I do not understand what is going on in my life, is Deuteronomy 29:29, "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever". God has been kind enough to reveal to us many things in regards to His will, purposes, and doings but He has also chosen to conceal millions of micro reasons for the why and what He is doing. This is where most of us have great difficulty when we are in the midst of prolonged suffering or when we face sudden, devastating catastrophe. Naomi sure did.
Naomi suffered relentless and devastating loss. First a severe famine, then a move to pagan Moab, then the death of her husband, next the marriage of her sons to foreign wives, then ten years of apparent childlessness for both of her daughters-in-law, and finally the death of her sons. Only those who have suffered severe loss in their own lives can begin to relate to She says in response to all of this pain, "Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?" (Ruth 1:20–21)
What Naomi does not see is that God is working even the most bitter providences for His good and glory (Romans 8:28; Genesis 50:20). She needed to open her eyes—the eyes of her heart—to the signs of his merciful purposes. Oh that when we see only bitter providence's in our lives like Naomi, that we would ask God to give us sight, light that would rise us to see beyond the darkness a wonderful, loving, kind, merciful, purposeful, sovereign God who works 24/7 (Psalm 121).
God’s providence is sometimes very very hard. You lose your job; your spouse or child dies; you are diagnosed with cancer; a friend betrays you; your spouse leaves you; a promise has been broken; a child leaves the faith that you raised him with. Most of us have experienced loss and all of us eventually will. It’s true, God had dealt bitterly with Naomi—at least in the short run, it could only feel like bitterness. It could only seem like utter darkness.
Perhaps someone will say, “It was all owing to the sin of going to Moab and marrying foreign wives.” Maybe so. But not necessarily, the text does not say so.
Psalm 34:19 says, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” Neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament promises that believers will escape affliction in this life. “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). "For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him"( Philippians 1:29)“Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator” (1 Peter 4:19). The one who suffered most deserved it least: Jesus Christ. There is no sure connection between our suffering and our behavior. Never forget that dear reader. It is not at all certain, therefore, that Naomi’s affliction was owing to God’s displeasure with her.
But for the sake of argument and practical application, let us suppose that Naomi’s calamity was owing to her disobedience. There certainly are times where we reap what we sow (Galatians 6:7-8) and whom the Lord loves He chastens (Hebrews 12:7-11). Then this makes the story of Naomi doubly encouraging because it shows that God is willing and able even to turn His judgments into mercies and to turn our sorrows into joys. If Ruth was brought into the family by sin, it is doubly astonishing that she is made the grandmother of David and ancestor of Jesus Christ. Don’t ever think that the sin of your past means there is no hope for your future.
Not only does God reign in all the affairs of men, and not only is His providence sometimes hard, but in all His works His purposes are for the good and the greater happiness of His people. Who would have imagined that in the worst of all times—God was quietly moving in the tragedies of a single family to prepare the way for the greatest king of Israel?
But not only that, He was working to fill Naomi and Ruth and Boaz and their friends with great joy. If anything painful has fallen on you to make your future look hopeless, learn from Ruth that God is at work for you right now to give you a future and a hope. Trust him. Wait patiently. The ominous clouds are big with mercy and will break with blessing on your head.
When you believe in the sovereignty of God and that He loves to work mightily for those who trust Him, it gives a freedom, boldness, joy, and courage that isn’t abandoned and cannot be shaken in hard times. Hope for the future gives us an amazing power in the present. Lose hope and you lose life; gain hope and even if you are surrounded by death, life and power comes to take you through whatever you are going through triumphantly.
“As a Christian is never out of the reach of God’s hand, so he is never out of the view of God’s eye.” Thomas Watson
Pastor Bill
Naomi suffered relentless and devastating loss. First a severe famine, then a move to pagan Moab, then the death of her husband, next the marriage of her sons to foreign wives, then ten years of apparent childlessness for both of her daughters-in-law, and finally the death of her sons. Only those who have suffered severe loss in their own lives can begin to relate to She says in response to all of this pain, "Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?" (Ruth 1:20–21)
What Naomi does not see is that God is working even the most bitter providences for His good and glory (Romans 8:28; Genesis 50:20). She needed to open her eyes—the eyes of her heart—to the signs of his merciful purposes. Oh that when we see only bitter providence's in our lives like Naomi, that we would ask God to give us sight, light that would rise us to see beyond the darkness a wonderful, loving, kind, merciful, purposeful, sovereign God who works 24/7 (Psalm 121).
God’s providence is sometimes very very hard. You lose your job; your spouse or child dies; you are diagnosed with cancer; a friend betrays you; your spouse leaves you; a promise has been broken; a child leaves the faith that you raised him with. Most of us have experienced loss and all of us eventually will. It’s true, God had dealt bitterly with Naomi—at least in the short run, it could only feel like bitterness. It could only seem like utter darkness.
Perhaps someone will say, “It was all owing to the sin of going to Moab and marrying foreign wives.” Maybe so. But not necessarily, the text does not say so.
Psalm 34:19 says, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” Neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament promises that believers will escape affliction in this life. “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). "For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him"( Philippians 1:29)“Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator” (1 Peter 4:19). The one who suffered most deserved it least: Jesus Christ. There is no sure connection between our suffering and our behavior. Never forget that dear reader. It is not at all certain, therefore, that Naomi’s affliction was owing to God’s displeasure with her.
But for the sake of argument and practical application, let us suppose that Naomi’s calamity was owing to her disobedience. There certainly are times where we reap what we sow (Galatians 6:7-8) and whom the Lord loves He chastens (Hebrews 12:7-11). Then this makes the story of Naomi doubly encouraging because it shows that God is willing and able even to turn His judgments into mercies and to turn our sorrows into joys. If Ruth was brought into the family by sin, it is doubly astonishing that she is made the grandmother of David and ancestor of Jesus Christ. Don’t ever think that the sin of your past means there is no hope for your future.
Not only does God reign in all the affairs of men, and not only is His providence sometimes hard, but in all His works His purposes are for the good and the greater happiness of His people. Who would have imagined that in the worst of all times—God was quietly moving in the tragedies of a single family to prepare the way for the greatest king of Israel?
But not only that, He was working to fill Naomi and Ruth and Boaz and their friends with great joy. If anything painful has fallen on you to make your future look hopeless, learn from Ruth that God is at work for you right now to give you a future and a hope. Trust him. Wait patiently. The ominous clouds are big with mercy and will break with blessing on your head.
When you believe in the sovereignty of God and that He loves to work mightily for those who trust Him, it gives a freedom, boldness, joy, and courage that isn’t abandoned and cannot be shaken in hard times. Hope for the future gives us an amazing power in the present. Lose hope and you lose life; gain hope and even if you are surrounded by death, life and power comes to take you through whatever you are going through triumphantly.
“As a Christian is never out of the reach of God’s hand, so he is never out of the view of God’s eye.” Thomas Watson
Pastor Bill
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)