LESSONS ON RELATING TO FLAWED PEOPLE FROM A KIND MAN

Recently with the controversy surrounding Mark Driscoll, I thought about our attitudes towards others fault, shortcomings, and sins. My mind was full of how merciless, judgmental, harsh, mean spirited I and some of my fellow Christians can be at times towards others.

Sometimes God uses biographies to awaken me and call me to a higher way of being and living. One of my favorite Christians is the great 18th century English pastor John Newton. He once said, "All I know is that I am a great sinner and Jesus is a great savior". Do you believe that? What does belief in my utter depravity and corruption and God's sovereign grace and mercy purchased by the blood of Jesus have upon my life and how I live? What affect does believing that I am a great sinner and Jesus is a great savior mean to have upon the way I relate to others?

Oh let us learn from John Newton! Born in 1725 and died in 1807, he is best know as the hymn writer of the great hymn Amazing Grace. He pastored two churches; Olney, for 16 years, and London, for 27 years. He was a contemporary and friend of John Wesley, George Whitefield, William Wilberforce, Henry Martyn, and Charles Simeon in the 18th century.

In my opinion he was one of the greatest pastors in the history of the church. I can honestly say, next to Jesus and Paul, he is the man I most desire to be like. The reason that I feel this is because of what John Piper calls his habitual tenderness of spirit. In scripture we are told to "not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and endurance inherit the promises" ( Hebrews 6:12). "Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their life and imitate their faith" (Hebrews 13:7). John Newton was a leader exceedingly worthy for us to study and to imitate. He was a was a man who truly testified to the mercy of God towards him. He was throughout his life a man truly amazed by grace.

At the end of his life his last will and testament reads: I commit my soul to my gracious God and Savior, who mercifully spared and preserved me, when I was an apostate, a blasphemer, and an infidel, and delivered me from the state of misery on the coast of Africa into which my obstinate wickedness had plunged me; and who has been pleased to admit me (though most unworthy) to preach his glorious gospel. " Have you, like Newton, gotten over the sheer wonder of Jesus Christ's amazing triumphant grace? Newton reminds us that a believer who has been shown such grace and mercy should be characterized by a life of habitual tenderness. In writing to a friend he describes the believer's life: "He believes and feels his own weakness and unworthiness, and lives upon the grace and pardoning love of his Lord. This gives him a habitual tenderness and gentleness of spirit. "

Sometimes in my own life and in other Christians I have been appalled at the lack of tenderness and grace extended towards others. Oh how easily we forget don't we? I call it spiritual amnesia! One of the reasons that we fail to love God and others as we ought is because of spiritual amnesia. That is to say, we forget who God is and we forget who we are. The effect of knowing God's love and grace should be lavish love, generous kindness, and unlimited mercy towards others. Newton says, "Humble under a sense of much forgiveness to himself; he finds it easy to forgive others." Do you?

Another time Newton wrote, “Whoever has tasted of the love Christ, and has known, by his own experience, the need and the worth of redemption, is enabled, yes, he is constrained, to love his fellow creatures. He loves them at first sight.” He puts it in a picture: "A company of travelers fall into a pit: one of them gets a passenger to draw him out. Now he should not be angry with the rest for falling in; nor because they are not yet out, as he is. He did not pull himself out: instead, therefore, of reproaching them, he should show them pity. . . . A man, truly illuminated, will no more despise others, then Bartimeus, after his own eyes were opened, would take a stick, and beat every blind man he met."

The default response of those who have been shown God's inimitable grace is to love and be merciful to all people. When Newton speaks to unbelievers he speaks like this: A well-wisher to your soul assures you, that whether you know these things or not, they are important realities. . . . Oh hear the warning voice! Flee from the wrath to come. Pray thee that the eyes of your mind may be opened, then you will see your danger, and gladly follow the shining light of the Word. "

Newton had a firm grip on doctrine but he also knew how important it was to live and feel and speak what he knew and believed. What we believe can be discredited by failing to live and speak in the spirit of what we believe. Therefore, he says, "The Scripture, which . . . teaches us what we are to say, is equally explicit as to the temper and Spirit in which we are to speak. Though I had knowledge of all mysteries, and the tongue of an angel to declare them, I could hope for little acceptance or usefulness, unless I was to speak 'in love."

John Newton had drunk deeply from the fountain of grace, the cross of Jesus Christ. Have you? He was filled with joy and overflowing for those who weren't. His own self description of how he lived is days says: "Two heaps of happiness and misery; now if I can take the smallest bit from one heap and add to the other, I carry a point. If, as I go home, a child has dropped a halfpenny, and if, by giving it another, I can wipe away its tears, I feel that I have done something. I should be glad to do greater things, but I will not neglect this" The cross of Jesus is the source of all love, mercy, and tenderness of spirit towards others. We all need to live our lives in very close proximity to the shadow of the blessed cross. For when we live beneath its shadow gratitude, amazement, and humility will be pervasive in our souls.

Listen to the amazement that Newton felt at the age of seventy-two: "such a wretch should not only be spared and pardoned, but reserved to the honor of preaching thy Gospel, which he had blasphemed and renounced . . . this is wonderful indeed! The more thou hast exalted me, the more I ought to abase myself."

He wrote his own epitaph:

JOHN NEWTON, Clerk, Once an Infidel and Libertine,  A Servant of Slaves in Africa, was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior JESUS CHRIST, Preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the Faith He had long labored to destroy, Near 16 years at Olney in Bucks; and [28] years in this church.

Glad-hearted, grateful lowliness and brokenness as a saved "wretch" was probably the most prominent root of Newton's habitual tenderness with people. The hymn we know as Amazing Grace was written to accompany a New Year's sermon based on 1 Chronicles 17:16, "Then King David went in and sat before the Lord, and said, Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that thou hast brought me thus far?"

"Amazing grace! How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind but now I see." May amazement and habitual tenderness of spirit characterize your life as you see and savor the restoration and pardon that was blood bought and freely given to you by the undeserved grace of our great Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. May we be able to say like Newton

"I am not what I ought to be — ah, how imperfect and deficient! I am not what I wish to be — I abhor what is evil, and I would cleave to what is good! I am not what I hope to be — soon, soon shall I put off mortality, and with mortality all sin and imperfection. Yet, though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say, I am not what I once was; a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the apostle, and acknowledge, "By the grace of God I am what I am."

Awakened to love and mercy,
Pastor Bill

TWENTY THINGS I'D DO DIFFERENTLY IF I WAS STILL A PASTOR

Recently a read a blog post titled "10 Things I’d Do Differently if I Weren’t a Pastor Today"'written by Ron Edmondson. It inspired me to write this post today from an opposite perspective, as a former pastor now sitting in the pew..

I was privileged to be an assistant pastor for 11 years and a senior pastor for 26 years, planting two churches. So, I have spent most of my adult life in the pastoral ministry. I have been out of the pastoral ministry for the past year and a half working in a gym and as a security guard with a BA and Masters degree. It has been a strange, humbling, eye opening, and at times very sad and discouraging experience for me. I miss the pastoral and congregational life immensely. 

One thing my experience has done for me, especially since currently I am not involved in pastoral ministry, is to help me realize how much I didn’t understand about life for the average church attender who are is involved in pastoral ministry. I also have come to terms with the many mistakes I have made in those 36 years.

So, if I were ever on the other side again — and I was back “in the pulpit" — I’d change a few things about myself.

Here are 20 things I’d do differently if I were a pastor today:

1. I would remember that shepherding over precious people is a great honor and privilege, never to be taken for granted. It can easily be taken away as it was given. I would hold what I do very loosely and with reverence before God.

2. I would thank the Lord every day for the kindness of God allowing a sinner like me to lead people who are often more godly, loving, and God centered than I am.

3. I would let the congregation regularly know how grateful I am to be a pastor and their pastor. 

4. I would always let the congregation know that I love and appreciate them.  If I did not feel love for them I would ask the Lord to forgive me and restore that love so that could earnestly lead them.

5. I would let the leadership always know their value, worth, and my appreciation for them privately and publicly, especially all who volunteer their time. 

6. I would realize how hard people work, how busy they are, how tired they can be, and how many responsibilities and obligations that they have outside of the church that weigh upon them. This would give me great grace, mercy, and compassion in my expectations of them. Not everyone who misses a Sunday are carnal, backslidden, or uncommitted. Maybe they are just tired! 

7. I would never try to keep people busy but instead would teach them how to slow down, be quiet, enjoy nature, silence, and simplicity. 

8. I would not have revved up, loud, noisy, busy, distracting, and entertaining services but would long to create a centered, quiet, welcoming environment to meet, hear, and experience God in all His glory, power, and presence. 

9.  I would be just glad anyone shows up to hear someone like me preach and have a grateful heart rather than rising and falling emotionaly on attendance and giving.

10. I would never use the pulpit to take out my anger, frustrations, disappointments, or unfulfilled expectations on the church. I would never use the pulpit to elevate or exalt myself. I would never use the pulpit to manipulate, coerce, or fulfill my own personal agendas. The pulpit is meant to exalt Jesus Christ and His purposes, greatness, beauty, and glory. It's not about me!

11.  I would preach shorter sermons no longer than 40 minutes. I would strive for less verbiage, personal anecdotes, illustrations, and stay God and word centered. Too many pastors do not evaluate their speaking and what they afflict upon the congregations with their verbosity. Most pastors are not Piper, Spurgeon, or Whitefield and cannot get away with wordy, longwinded  sermons. People get tired and have only so long of attention spans.  I would get to the point. I would avoid long drawn out introductions before I even get to the text. I would be sensitive to my audience and their attention spans. I would remind myself that people need the Word and not my opinions. I would actually observe my hearers and find out if I'm reaching them or boring them and putting them to sleep.

12. I would truly remember that my marriage and family come first, live in that reality, and create impenetrable boundaries that communicate that to others. I would take two days off a week like everyone else and devote more time to the things that matter.

13. I would let my wife and kids know by my actions that they are more important to me than the ministry and church.

14.  I would spend more time with the Lord. Not just morning devotions hurriedly done because so much study, counseling, administrative, and sermon prep needs to be done. It only  benefits everyone around me. I would think about the person I bring to the table and I am blessing or afflicting others with. I would be more contemplative, quiet, and prayerful about my life and strive to bring peace and calm and quietness in the presence of others. This means I would practice the presence of God and people by listening more and speaking less. 

15. I would pray more with others, especially leadership and spend less time just praying alone. 

16. I would honestly, openly, and really make myself, my marriage, my ministry, my conduct, and my life accountable to others. I would not isolate myself and think I only need to be accountable to God. I would find godly men to counsel me, confess my sins and struggles to,  to speak over me and into my life, and be willing to listen and submit to their correction and wisdom. I would not isolate myself from others. 

17.I would take the time to have real friends both inside my local church and outside. Many times I have seen the closeness between people and their spending time together and realize how much precious time I missed investing in long term friendships because of my pastoral drive and ambition. I am a lonely man.

18. I would prepare my  people to face suffering, loss, disappointment, discouragement,tribulation, grief, and death. I would want to help them tether their lives in the love and absolute sovereignty and purposes of God so that they endure to the end.

19. I would repeatedly emphasize and demonstrate the love, kindness, forgiveness, mercy and grace of God in my teaching, words, relationships, and actions. 

20.  I would not waste my time, my life, my family, my church, my relationships, and ministry ever again! 

AMEN

SORROWFUL BUT ALWAYS REJOICING

Two days ago a precious girl I have known all her life died tragically and prematurely. I cannot even imagine the inconsolable grief that her family and friends must feel at this moment,

It caused me to think about how the very things in this life itself that make you happy, will eventually make you sad. The birth of this girl, the pleasure of her company, watching her grow into such a good and decent woman are among many things that brought such joy to her family and friends, and now her death has brought so much sorrow.  Oh how I have discovered this the past four years in my own life as I get older and have experienced my own loss of so many things that once made me so happy. Nothing that brings happiness on this earth can sustain itself.

Nevertheless Paul makes the astonishing statement in 2 Corinthians 6:10 that what marks his life and can mark ours as “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” Perhaps there are those of you reading this right now who resonate in your own experience what the apostle Paul was speaking of. Only a Christian can actually be happy and sad at the same time. I call it happy sadness or sad happiness. It seems so paradoxical, but oh what a precious experience for the believer! 

I do  not glibly claim that this experience is simple or that we can even put it into adequate words, what it means to be joyful in sorrow; but in our experience we know it can ring true. Much like the Macedonian Christians, who in loss of property, mopersecution, extreme hardship and poverty, "their abundance of joy...overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part"(2 Corinthians 8:9-10). 

I think we all who are believers understand and have experienced this. When I lost all that mattered to me and weeping with sobs of inconsolable grief with all the loss I can certainly tell you that did not look or feel any way like joy.  But, the joy that has manifest and endured through my sorrow is the foretaste of a future joy in God which I hope. We are promised that there will someday be an experience of joy in its complete fullness, John writes that it will be an experience that we will know where "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4). 

Jesus Himself, who suffered incomparable grief and loss, was sustained by “the joy that was set before him” (Hebrews 12:2). This does not mean that he felt in the garden or on the cross all that he would feel in the resurrection. But it does mean that He hoped in it and that this hope was an experienced foretaste of that joy. 

I have learned that true joy does not come in the experience of sorrow in itself . Is it no wonder why so many of us have a huge disconnect when some preacher or Christian glibly tells us to rejoice when we are so sad, hurt, broken, lonely, grief stricken, and depressed. They expect us to put on a happy face and find joy somehow in the sorrow itself. At least for me, it always has been unrealistic, shallow, it has never worked, nor is it helpful. But I have learned a secret; the only way that joy can come in my sorrow is  in the anticipation of future joy. 

When I am suffering I have many times looked to the Word of God, the promises of God, the person of Jesus with my future hope in Him and His promises and His grace to lift me with joy out of and above my present sorrows. Oh how often doing this in my tears and it has for brought joy to me. 

The best example I can give is when my father went to war twice in Vietnam when I was a little boy. He was gone for over a year each time. Whenever I would get sad, scared about him getting killed, or lonely about his absence, I would think about his future return, and the thought of his return would bring me present joy in my sorrow. So I was able to be sorrowful but rejoicing at the same time. 

The fact is that we groan here in this life and in this world, waiting for the redemption of our bodies and for the removal of all our sins (Romans 8:23). This groaning and grieving is godly if it is molded by our joy in hope of future glory (Romans 5:2-3). The delight is subdued by all the pain, but it is there in seed form. It will one day grow into a great vine that yields wine of undiluted delight. 

So let us learn to embrace whatever sorrow God appoints for us with joy. 

Let us not be ashamed of tears. After all, God says that He keeps our tears in a bottle "You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle.Are they not in your book? " (Psalm 56:8). 

Let us sow our seeds in tears and do our work in tears. 

"Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping,bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy,bringing his sheaves with him."(Psalm 16:6-8). 

Let the promise encourage you in your present sorrows that joy will come with the morning "Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning" (Psalm 30:5). 

Let us learn to be looking not only at our sorrows, but looking to Jesus and remembering his kind, merciful, and loving nature and promises in order to be, 

“sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” (2 Corinthians 6:10) 

Let us through our tears, the comfort, and joy God brings us, serve others in their sorrow by giving them comfort and joyful hope. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God."(2 Corinthians 1:3-4) 

May God help you to sustain and shape your grief with His joy, His power, and His goodness this day and every day in your present sorrows. 

Sorrowful but always rejoicing, 

Pastor Bill 

THE SEEMING SILENCE AND DARKNESS OF GOD

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you which shall be the darkness of God...I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
 T.S. Elliot
The speaking God can be maddeningly silent at times.  Often times when I have been the most desirous to hear Him, the silence has been deafening!  There have been times where His voice seems so loud and clear to me and His presence so real. Those moments I can say like the hymn writer that "He walks with me and talks with me". But, other times I have seen, felt, or heard nothing and I have cried to God in my confused anguish and He just seems silent and seems absent.

All of God’s saints, if allowed to live long enough, are led into the lonely, disorienting, weary wilderness. It has been called the dark night of the soul. And while there, we deeply and mournfully lament. Job and David sang deep laments.

Job: “I cry to you for help and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me.” (Job 30:20)

King David: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.” (Psalm 22:1–2)

 

What we experience as God’s absence or distance or silence is phenomenological. It’s how we see and perceive it. It’s how at some point it looks and feels to us but it isn’t how it really is. If you never knew, you would look out at the horizon and determine that the world was flat, so likewise, we can deduce because of what we see, feel, or experience that God is not present or does not exist.  Just like we can experience the world as flat when in fact we are walking on a huge spinning ball, we can experience God as absent or distant when like Paul says, “in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

Yes, Job, King David, and I have felt God's absence, silence, or indifference; but in reality, God wasn’t absent or silent or indifferent at all toward Job,King David, or me, it’s just how it felt to them at the time. Yes, those feelings are deeply and painfully real. When we feel forsaken by God the fact is that we are not forsaken (Hebrews 13:5). We are simply called to trust what God promises more than our perceptions.

But why does God seem silent? Why the perceived silence? Why can it seem like God is just standing aloof there looking at us when we cry to him for help?

I don’t claim to understand all the mysteries of this experience. No doubt we underestimate the effects of remaining sin on us and our need for this discipline in order to share God’s holiness (Hebrews 12:10). But I believe there are clues for another purpose as well. I’ll phrase them as questions.

Why is it that “absence makes the heart grow fonder” but “familiarity breeds contempt”?

Why is water so much more refreshing when we’re really thirsty?

Why am I almost never satisfied with what I have, but always longing for more?

Why can the thought of being denied some dream create in us a desperation we previously didn’t have?

Why is the pursuit of earthly achievement often more enjoyable than the achievement itself?

Why do deprivation, adversity, scarcity, and suffering often produce the best character qualities in us while prosperity, ease, and abundance often produce the worst?

Do you see it? There is a pattern in the design of deprivation: Deprivation draws out desire. Absence heightens desire. And the more heightened the desire, the greater its satisfaction will be. It is the mourning that will know the joy of comfort (Matthew 5:4). It is the hungry and thirsty that will be satisfied (Matthew 5:6). Longing makes us ask, emptiness makes us seek, silence makes us knock (Luke 11:9).

Deprivation is in the design of this age. We live mainly in the age of anticipation, not gratification. We live in the dim mirror age, not the face-to-face age (1 Corinthians 13:12). We deeply groan with all creation for the consummation of the ages. (Romans 8:22-23). The paradox is that what satisfies us most in this age is not what we receive, but what we are promised. The chase is better than the catch in this age because the Catch we’re designed to be satisfied with is in the age to come.

And so Fredrick William Faber wrote in his poem, “The Desire of God”:

Yes, pine for thy God, fainting soul! ever pine;


 Oh languish mid all that life brings thee of mirth;

Famished, thirsty, and restless — let such life be thine—


 For what sight is to heaven, desire is to earth.

 

So you desire God and ask for more of Him and what do you get? Stuck in a desert feeling deserted. You feel disoriented and desperate. You feel blind and lost. Dear reader, don’t despair. The silence, the absence is phenomenological. It’s how it feels, it’s not how it really is. You are not alone. God is with you (Psalm 23:4). And He is speaking all the time in the priceless gift of His objective Word so you don’t need to rely on the subjective impressions of your fluctuating emotions. I personally, in times of silence and darkness do not know what I would have done without the Word to anchor and sustain my wandering, clueless, lost soul.

If desire is to earth what sight is to heaven, then God answers our prayer with more desire. It’s the desert that awakens and sustains desire. It’s the desert that dries up our infatuation with worldliness. And it’s the desert that draws us to the well of the world to come. C.S. Lewis said that our greatest "havings" are our "longings"

“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

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… " (Psalm 63:1; 42:1)

Pastor Bill (Much of this was taken from Jon Bloom "When God Seems Silent")

MORE, MORE, MORE,LORD!

Several times a year God brings me to a place where I am utterly dissatisfied with my life, my walk with Christ, and the levels of intimacy and experience of Christ in my life. Do you feel this way as well? Most of all, I find myself longing to experience and show more of the love of God in my life. That is where I am at this week in my life. There is this insatiable desire for love that causes me to cry out "MORE LOVE!" The apostle Paul prayed for more in his life both because of his need, but also because of God's offer (See Ephesians 1:15-22; 3:16,18).

This is especially important. The Bible tells us that God Himself actively pursues a love-relationship with you. He wants us to experience and feel His love, and that He has taken all the necessary steps to see that we do. I want to explore with you several texts of Scripture that affirm this truth.

Our first is perhaps the most important one of all. It is found in Romans 5:5. The N.I.V. translates it, “God has poured out his love into our hearts.” The New Living Bible translates it, “For we know how dearly God loves us, because He has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love.” 

Romans 5:5 says that there is an experience of God's love for us that is  something poured out. It is something felt in the heart. Known in the way the heart knows. God takes great initiative in His relationship with us. Paul tells us that God "poured out" His love "Into our hearts." The verb poured out is used elsewhere of the spilling of wine (Luke 5:37), the shedding of Christ's blood (Matthew 26:28), and of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 10:45). More graphic still is its use in Acts 1:18 of the fate of Judas: "With the reward he got for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out" (emphasis added).

Paul is emphasizing the unstinting lavishness with which God has flooded our hearts with a sense of His love for us. Like an overflowing stream in a thirsty land, so is the rich flood of divine love poured out and shed abroad in the heart.

This is an exuberant communication of God's love. The love of God, writes Charles Hodge, "does not descend upon us as dew drops, but as a stream which spreads itself abroad through the whole soul, filling it with the consciousness of His presence and favor."' The Holy Spirit works to evoke and stimulate in your heart the overwhelming conviction that God loves you. The splendor and immensity of God's devotion is not abstract and generic, but concrete and personal; not for everyone in general but for you in particular. GOD WANTS YOU TO EXPERIENCE MORE OF HIS LOVE!

Now this experience varies from time to time and person to person and can be (and should be) pursued in ever-fuller measures. Why do I say this? Because the tenses of the verbs are different in verse 5 between the outpouring of God's love and the giving of the Holy Spirit. Notice: "The love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us." The difference here is that the first tense "has been poured out"  (perfect indicative) implies in the original Greek that there was a past act for all believers but there is also and ongoing effect or an ongoing act as well right at this moment!. But the tense of "was given to us"(aorist participle) implies a completed and once for all action. In other words, “the love of God that was poured into your hearts by the Holy Spirit in the past is being presently poured into your hearts as well at this very moment.

The thought is that knowledge of the love of God, having flooded our hearts, jilts them now, just as a valley once flooded remains full of water and enjoys its present refreshment. Paul assumes that all his readers, like himself, will be living in the enjoyment of a strong and abiding sense of God's love for them. In other words, God's love doesn't leak! Unlike the waters of Noah that receded after a time, God's love remains perpetually at flood stage in our souls!

Do we always feel it now? No. Yes, we were given the Holy Spirit in the past, but the outpouring seems to have ongoing and varied expressions in the present. So, how are we to seek the fullness of this experience? There are several verses in the New testament that help us..

I.  2 Thessalonians 3:5

"May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ."

Here we have Paul praying that God would do something right now for the Thessalonians and for you and I. What does he want God to do now? He wants God to "direct their hearts." This is a remarkable phrase! The heart has directions. It moves toward one thing or another. It moves toward what it regards as attractive and satisfying and valuable.

"The soul is measured by its heights, some high and others low; but the heart is measured by its delights and its pleasures never lie."

Paul is praying that God would give the heart a sight of the love of God as more attractive and satisfying and valuable than ordinary earthly things. "May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God." What would this be other than an experience of God's love? And it must be that, even though we are Christians, this movement from where we are into the love of God is needed. Otherwise Paul would not pray it. Therefore, the experience of the love of God is different from time to time and from person to person. Here we are as Christians. We have all tasted of God's love for us and have been drawn into trusting all that God is for us in Christ. But our hearts are not always steadfast. They drift and they waver. As the Puritans used to say, "There is much insensibility to divine things among Christians." This is why we need to be renewed and directed back to what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13:13, to the greatest thing there is: LOVE!  Oh we need love to master us in order to minister through us both to God and others. "We love, because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19).The more of his love in our life, the more we will love. Revival is first the answer to Paul's prayer in 2 Thessalonians 3:5, "May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God." Oh may the Lord take hold of your heart and direct it into the love of God. May you experience the outpouring of the love of God through the Holy Spirit. 

II. 2 Corinthians 13:14

"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all"

Paul is closing his epistle to the Corinthians. He ends with a benediction. Here he calls on God, in the presence of the people, to make his love manifestly present and real to them. "The love of God be with you!". Make it manifestly present to you!

What do I mean by "manifestly" present? For Christians, isn't the love of God always present with us? Romans 8:35 and 39 tell us that nothing can separate us from the love of God. So if nothing can separate us from the love of God, why does Paul pray, "The love of God be with you"? The reason is because, even though the love of God is always present with believers, we do not always experience the love of God as present. Many of us at times feel the opposite, that we are not loved by God. Therefore, we want God to make his love more manifestly known. More obviously. More experientially. We sing that song, “More love, more power, more of you in my life.” This is why. Paul is calling for in 2 Corinthians 13:14 the love of God to be poured out more fully and more consciously in our hearts.

III. Jude 21

"keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life."

Jude exhorts, do what you must, to avail yourself of the unparalleled joy of receiving the love of God. That this experience is ultimately a work of God the Father, through the Holy Spirit, is confirmed by Paul's prayer in 2 Thessalonians 3:5

In the final analysis, if we are to "feel" loved of the Father it is the Father Himself who must (and will) act to remove every obstacle and clear away every encumbrance to that inexpressible experience. I can’t do it. Hearing teaching on the Father's love can’t alone do it. Reading these scriptures can't do it. God must do it.

The obstacles to this are very real indeed for us all. that is why Paul prays and we can pray that God would Himself act to obliterate such obstacles to the enjoyment of being loved and manifest, pour out, direct, our hearts into an ongoing full, deep, personal, and intimate experience into His love.

Surely, then, we must begin to pray for ourselves and for one another even as Paul prayed for the Thessalonians. Experiencing the love of God, not just thinking about it, is something we should desire with all our hearts.

IV. Ephesians 3:14-19.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

No passage in the Bible can fill you with longings in prayer for an experience of God's love like this one. Consider what Paul is asking for as we read the prayer backward. In verse 19, he is asking that we be filled with all the fullness of God. That is an experience. We don't always have that. We want it. We pursue it. How does it come? In comes through an experiential knowing of the incomprehensible love of Christ - "to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge." And how does that experiential knowing of the love of Christ come? In verse 17, Paul asks that they be "rooted and grounded in love" so that they "may be able to comprehend" this incomprehensible love. Well, how does that rooting and grounding in love happen? Paul prays for it to happen (in verses 16-17) by the strengthening of the Spirit in the inner man so that Christ dwells (manifestly) in the heart by faith.

So here we are at the work of the Holy Spirit again. And is not all this astonishing experience in Ephesians 3:14-19 simply an unfolding of the simple sentence in Romans 5:5 that the love of God be poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us?

Oh dear reader, I pray that you and I would seek a deeper experience of the love of God. First, that you would be reflective and thoughtful on these verses I have shared and with the truth of Christ's love and and the demonstration of his love for us when he came and lived and died and rose. Second, pray for it. Really pray for it! Pray these four verses daily! Third, that you would receive it right now in Jesus Name.

Praying to see, experience, savor, and show the love of God in my life,

Pastor Bill

THINKING ABOUT THE ONE GOD IN THREE PERSONS

In a time of distraction by entertainment, technology, and the media the church needs deep thinking and deep feeling Christians. Growing and maturing Christians are always reading, exploring, and learning; especially in regards to the scripture. I have an ongoing frustration with weak, shallow, glib, overly simplistic, and lazy approaches to God and His word. I often hear pronouncements about the nature of God that if they were paid attention to, would raise more questions than answers. Not only that, would have profound practical, pastoral, and personal implications in our lives if thought out and many that are not good. I know, I have seen at times during my journey in my own immature teaching, the effects on the lives of those I have taught and counseled.

I have been studying the Bible for 39 years. Yet the more I read the scripture, the more I realize how little is my understanding of God and His ways. I am not so quick to make simplistic and glib pronouncements about God these days as I once was. Sometimes I listen to myself when I make shallow pronouncements and remind myself that a preacher can sometimes say things that he does not understand and make it seem like it's your fault. Reading God's word raises many questions for me that demand prayerful reflection and thought, careful analysis, humility, teachability, and openness to what God really says and means even if I do not agree with Him, like it, or understand. I often times use the analogy of a man who has a yard full of leaves and a buried treasure in the same yard. He can either quickly rake leaves and have a nice yard or he can work hard and dig for the gold and acquire that buried treasure! I am after the treasure not the nice yard.

The Bible is both simple, yet complex; light, yet weighty; easy to understand, yet extremely difficult. Did not the apostle Peter himself say that there are some things in Paul’s writings that are hard to understand (2 Peter 3:16). Yet, we are also told that if we think, ponder, and reflect upon God’s word, that God will give us understanding (2 Timothy 2:7). Add to that, we have been given the gift of the holy Spirit to teach us, illuminate us, and guide us into all truth. When we pray like David in Psalm 119:18, "Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law." The Spirit of God does His eye opening illuminating work.

This is the great challenge and joy for a lifetime of studying the scriptures (2 Timothy 2:15) which are profitable for teaching and training ( 2 Timothy 3:16). I am thoroughly committed to allowing the scriptures to set my beliefs, ideas, and understanding about God and His ways excited that God has revealed Himself to us (Deuteronomy 29:29). I Agree with David that the truths of God's word are wondrous things! But they are deep and demand effort in order to glean understanding. After all, they are from the infinite, eternal God!

Recently my dear wife brought up the subject of the trinity.and her difficulty in understanding it. As I listened to myself explaining it to her, I realized how difficult it can be to explain it as well. This is perhaps one of the most difficult  truth, if not the most difficult truths, in the Bible to understand. For 2000 years the church has wrestled with trying to understand the nature and relationship of the godhead. Yet, is there any more incredible revelation about God and His relational nature, than this truth?. The Bible unequivocally teaches 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. This is both exceedingly difficult to understand and a mystery, yet consistently taught in the scripture. There is much at stake in our understanding of the nature of the Godhead.

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 39 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.

So let us stand in awe and wonder at this amazing, unique, deep, profound, awesome, Triune 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 11:33-35

Loving and communing with the Triune God,
Pastor Bill

FROM FAILING TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT TO WANTING TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT

Soren Kierkegaard once told a parable about a community of ducks who every Sunday would waddle off to duck church to hear the duck preacher. The duck preacher spoke eloquently of how God had given the ducks wings with which to fly. With these wings there was nowhere the ducks could not go, there was no God-given task the ducks could not accomplish. With those wings they could soar into the presence of God himself. Shouts of "Amen" were quacked throughout the duck congregation. At the conclusion of the service, the ducks left, commenting on what a wonderful message they had heard, and waddled back home.

Too often, we waddle away from church and bible reading just as we waddled in-unchanged. We read our Bibles and we hear our preachers calling us to obedience and telling us that we can do it. So we leave the word and church inspired and hopeful and ready to obey and then find ourselves failing miserably. I have been a Christian for 40 years this year and left to myself, I must admit that I am not a very good at being good and doing obedience. At times I am grieved that after all of these years I am still selfish, egotistical, insensitive, prideful, ambitious, cold, cynical, and impatient. The harder I have tried to live the Christian life, the worse it often times gets. For every good intention, there is often a bad action. For every good action, there is often a bad intention. For every right thing I do, there are two wrongs. I am very skilled at snatching defeat right out of the jaws of victory. Oh how many tears have I cried over my sinfulness.

The apostle Paul describes this experience of himself in Romans 7:14-25, "“For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord”!

Left to ourselves, our hearts are spiritually and morally flawed. We do not desire what we ought to desire. We do not want what we ought to want. Yet God holds us responsible for our obedience. We may be corrupt but we are culpable for what we ought to do. So how do we obey when we don't want to obey? How do we do what we ought to when we don’t want to? To get to the root, how do our "want to’s” change.

Three of the most liberating truths in my life was when I understood why I don't do what I ought to do and why I do what I do. The truths are simply this:

1. WHEN I DON'T DO WHAT I OUGHT TO DO, THE REASON THAT I DON'T DO WHAT I OUGHT TO DO IS BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO DO WHAT I OUGHT TO DO!
2. I ALWAYS DO WHAT I WANT TO DO.
3. WHEN I DO WHAT I OUGHT TO DO IT IS BECAUSE I WANT TO DO WHAT I OUGHT TO DO.

The whole issue of obedience and disobedience is about my desires. Our hearts are spiritually and morally flawed. We do not desire what we ought to desire. The root of obedience has to be a change in my desires, inclinations, and affections. Otherwise our "want to’s" will never be what we ought to want. We won’t desire what we ought to desire and our hearts will go after fleshly desires. Therefore we will do what we ought not to do. Our behavior always follows are hearts!

The longer you walk with God, The more you understand who He is, what sin is, and who you are in Him and apart from Him, the better you become, the more you are ashamed for being bad, not just doing bad. As N.P. Williams said, “The ordinary man may feel ashamed of doing wrong, but the saint refined with moral sensibility, and keener powers of introspection, is ashamed of being the kind of man who is liable to do wrong.” 

 God holds us responsible for our obedience. We may be corrupt but we are culpable for what we ought to do. So how do we obey when we cannot obey? How do we do what we ought to when we don’t want to? To get to the root, how do our "want to’s” change?

True obedience begins in the heart where God graces the heart to give it a “want to” so that when the time for obedience comes to do what you “ought to” do you will “want to” do what you ought to do; therefore, you will do what you ought to do, a peculiar obedience!
The New Covenant promise is that beneath every act of obedience is the enabling grace of God. Behind every “ought to” done in obedience, God graces our hearts with a “want to”. Augustine put it this way:

"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.”
God’s sovereign work in our heart is the key to obedience. True obedience is where God gives you a new desire so that you will want what you ought to want in order to do what you ought to do. That is to say, when temptation comes you will desire God and pleasing Him more than the temptation and its fleeting pleasures.

“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” (1 Corinthians 15:10)
“Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 4:11)"Now the God of peace . . . equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen." (Hebrews 13:20-21)

We must pray for the desire in our heart to “want to” do what we “ought to” do and God will do give it to you. We can pray Psalm 119:36, “Incline my heart to your testimonies…” Psalm 90:14, "Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days". Hebrews 4;16 says, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help (us to want what we ought to want so that we would do what we ought to do) in time of need.”

May God put in your heart a “want to” like He did in Augustine, who wrote,

“How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose! . . . You drove them from me, you who are the true, the sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure."
Seeking to want what I ought to want so that I will do what I ought to do for God's glory and my soul's satisfaction,
Pastor Bill


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JONATHAN EDWARDS ON THE SIGNS OF AUTHENTIC AFFECTIONS FOR JESUS

Have you ever wondered: What is the essence of true Christianity? What constitutes the essence of a life that is pleasing to God? Are there criteria by which we can distinguish between true Christians and those who only seem to be? Have you ever known someone who seemed so godly, but later abandoned everything they once held dear? Have you ever had the fearful thought that such a thing could happen to a loved one (or even you)? Have you ever struggled with assurance of salvation, or are you dealing with a friend who is? What makes for a true Christian? I am not talking about a professing Christian. I do not merely mean a church going Christian, a cultural Christian, a highly enthused Christian, a doctrine loving Christian, a social action Christian, a contemplative Christian, and on and on. I mean a born again, spirit filled, follower of Jesus Christ. Are there any tell tale signs that identify the real from the false?

Jonathan Edward's was  the great 18th century pastor from North Hampton Massachusetts who was a huge player in the great awakening during the mid eighteenth century. He witnessed many signs, supernatural phenomenon, great enthusiasm, and massive conversions. But were they all legitimate? He wrote four books about his observations experiences, and analysis of these moves of God, and his finest,  The Religious Affections is considered one of the great classics of evangelical literature. (You can access the entire critical edition from Yale University Press online for free.)

Edwards’s conclusion to what he witnessed in all that he saw is that ”True religion (Or we might say True Christianity or true conversion)  in great part, consists in holy affections”. He believed the soul has two faculties: (1) the understanding (by which the soul perceives, speculates, discerns, views,and judges things); and (2) the inclination or will (by which the soul is inclined or disinclined, pleased or displeased, approves or rejects). The affections have to do with the second faculty. Affections, according to Edwards, are “the more vigorous and sensible exercises of the inclination and will of the soul” 

Edwards sought to show that the Bible makes true affections an essential part of godliness and being a true follower of Jesus. But not all affections are created equal. Some are to be rejected and put to death while others are to be approved and cultivated: “The right way, is not to reject all affections, nor to approve all; but to distinguish between affections, approving some, and rejecting others; separating between the wheat and the chaff, the gold and the dross, the previous and the vile.". His book is an attempt to help us do precisely that.

So Edwards works through twelve “signs” that are uncertain. In other words, he explains twelve things that may look like indicators of truly gracious affections for God, but which do not prove things one way or the other. Edwards writes, “…as we ought not to reject and condemn all affections as though true religion did not at all consist in affection; so, on the other hand, we ought not to approve of all, as though every one that was religiously affected had true grace, and was therein the subject of the saving influences of the Spirit of God. The right way is to distinguish among religious affections, between one sort and another.”

Here are Edwards signs that by themselves indicates nothing with my own editorial comments with each one.

No Sign 1. The religious affections are very great, or raised very high. 1) intense affection or emotion
No Sign 2. They have great effects on the body. 2) a physical reaction to affection. 
No Sign 3. They cause those who have them, to be fluent, fervent and abundant, in talking of the things of religion. 3) talking with fluency and eagerness
No Sign 4. Persons did make ‘em themselves, or excite ‘em of their own contrivance, and by their own strength.  4) affection or emotions not excited by self-effort
No Sign 5. They come with texts of Scripture, remarkably brought to the mind. 5)affection or emotions accompanied by bible verses
No Sign 6. There is an appearance of love in them. 6) affection or emotions with the appearance of a fullness of love; which actually can be counterfeited
No Sign 7. Persons having religious affections of many kinds, accompanying one another, is not sufficient to determine whether they have any gracious affections or no. 7) experiencing many different kinds of affection or emotion, any of which can be counterfeited, especially when Satan inspires someone of great self-importance
No Sign 8. Comforts and joys seem to follow awakenings and convictions of conscience, in a certain order.8) the joy and comfort of a religious experience, which can occur without the Holy Spirit
No Sign 9. They dispose persons to spend much time in religion, and to be zealously engaged in the external duties of worship. 9) time and effort spent on religion — hypocrites have great energy
No Sign 10. They much dispose persons with their mouths to praise and glorify God. 10) verbal expressions of praise — words alone do not prove the condition of the heart
No Sign 11. They make persons that have them, exceedingly confident that what they experience is divine, and that they are in a good estate.11) self-confidence — people who have a high opinion of themselves usually are self-confident
No Sign 12. The outward manifestations of them, and the relation persons give of them, are very affecting and pleasing to the truly godly, and such as greatly gain their charity, and win their hearts.12) being able to please and inspire others through the demonstration of religious feeling

Then in the third part, Edwards sets forth twelve true signs—those things which distinguish the truly gracious and holy affections as being part of true religion again with my own editorial comments.:

True Sign 1. Arise from those influences and operations on the heart, which are spiritual, supernatural, and divine. 1) True religious affection has a divine source.
True Sign 2. Objectively grounded in the transcendentally excellent and amiable nature of divine things, as they are in themselves (and not in any conceived relation they bear to self or self-interest. 2) Religious affection is caused by the nature of God alone, not what a personal understanding of a relation to divine things means to self-interest or a sense of self-worth
True Sign 3. Primarily founded on the loveliness of the moral excellency of divine thing; a love to divine things for the beauty and sweetness of their moral excellency is the first beginning and spring of all holy affections. 3) Religious affection based on holiness focuses on the beauty of God’s righteousness
True Sign 4 Arise from the mind’s being enlightened, rightly and spiritually to understand or apprehend divine things. Spiritually gifted affection is based on a proper intellectual understanding of what is godly
True Sign 5. Attended with a reasonable and spiritual conviction of the judgment, of the reality and certainty of divine things. 4) Religious affections have a reasonable basis for a belief in the reality of what is divine
True Sign 6. Attended with evangelical humiliation (= a sense that a Christian has or his own utter insufficiency, despicableness, and odiousness, with an answerable frame of heart). 5) Spiritually gifted affection is not proud but humble
True Sign 7. Attended with a change of nature. 6) Spiritually gifted affection changes our inner-being
True Sign 8. Tend to, and are attended with, the lamb like, dove like spirit and temper of Jesus Christ; they naturally beget and promote such a spirit of love, meekness, quietness, forgiveness, and mercy, as appeared in Christ. 7) Spiritually gifted affection differs from false and delusional affections, in that they express the gentle temperament of Jesus Christ).                                                                                                                             True Sign 9. Soften the heart and are attended to and followed with a Christian tenderness of  spirit. 8) Spirit gifted affection causes us to be tender.                                                                                                                                 True Sign 10. Have beautiful symmetry and proportion. 10) Spirit gifted affections are expressed with a balanced harmony.                                                                                 True Sign 11. The higher gracious affections are raised, the more is a spiritual appetite and longing of soul after spiritual attainments increased. 11) Spirit gifted affection moves a person to become more godly, as distinguished from being satisfied with an emotional experience itself.                                                                                                             True Sign 12. Have their exercise and fruit in Christian practice. 12) Spirit gifted and holy emotions cause a person to be Christ-like in character and action.

Challenged and prayerful,
Pastor Bill