"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
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