"Saul also went to his home at Gibeah, and with him went men of valor whose hearts God had touched." 1 Samuel 10:26
How did your 2010 go? For me, it was unequivocally the most difficult year of my life ending with me still battling a staph infection after 30 days. As I look ahead to the coming year I have been inspired by reading the words of 1 Samuel 10:26. I am asking for us all for a new, fresh, powerful, liberating, renewing touch in our hearts from the living God.
There is something so special about being touched. All of us as humans long to be touched. How precious is the gentle, inquisitive touch of a baby to a mothers face? Or when your dad touches your head and affectionately messes your hair? We are encouraged when a friend touches us with an arm around us or a pat on the back. How about the sensual, erotic touch of lovers expressing their love to one another? But the greatest touch of all is to be touched in the heart by God.
Oh how we need this touch in our heart and oh how willing is God to give us this touch as we approach 2011! The touch of God in the heart is an amazing and wonderful thing. Think of it; the very maker of the universe touching a heart. His touch is a deep touch because He touches us in our most vulnerable, intimate, and deep place, our heart. Our heart, the very core of our being, is the place that He touches.
"Saul also went to his home at Gibeah, and with him went men of valor whose hearts God had touched." Just think of what is being said here! God touched these men. As wonderful as all other touches are, it was God! Not a wife. Not a child. Not a parent. Not a friend. But God. The very One with the most perfect and loving and infinite power in the universe. The One with infinite authority and infinite wisdom and infinite love and infinite goodness and infinite purity and infinite justice. That One touched their heart and wants to touch our heart.
The touch of God is awesome because it is a real touch. Just as Jesus full of mercy and compassion touched lepers, cripples, and blind men; God wants to touch you in the greatest most needful place to be touched, your heart. The valiant men were not just spoken to. They were not just swayed by a divine influence. They were not just seen and known. God, with infinite condescension, touched their heart. God was that close.
What in your heart needs to be touched? A deeply broken heart like mine? A hardened heart? A lonely heart? A fearful heart? A humbled heart? A cold heart? A divided heart? A loveless heart? A sad heart? Whatever it might be, God wants to touch your heart as you enter 2011 with His touch.
Oh how I love the touch of God on my heart. There is no other touch quite like it is there? I can never get enough of His touch and as I come into this new year I desperately need it and desire it more and more. I want it for myself and for all of you readers. O for the touch of God!
Would you join me in asking God to touch our hearts anew and afresh for His glory and our delight. I pray that he would touch all of our hearts with His life, His healing, His grace, His renewal, His mercy, His love, His faith, His freedom, His joy, His power, His heat, His light, His softening, His tenderness, His desire, and His peace this week.
O Lord, come. Come that close. Come so close that you touch my heart. Come and touch me. AMEN!
Longing for His touch in my heart and yours,
Bill
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
THINKING DEEPER ABOUT THE TRINITY
I have been reading John Owen's profound and wonderful 17th century work titled Communion With the Triune God. It has caused me to think deeply about the doctrine of the Trinity. I believe unequivocally in the truth that there is one, and only one, true God, and that there are three divine persons in the one God: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit. I believe this because the Bible unshakably speaks of one true God, not three Gods, and yet reveals the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit all as God, and as distinct persons.
In his systematic theology Wayne Grudem summarizes the teaching of scripture in three statements:
1. God is three persons
2. Each person is fully God
3. There is one God
Justin Taylor wrote about trying to explain the Trinity to his daughter and put it this way:
One simple way to get at the difference between person and substance/essence/nature is to say that the Trinity is “three who’s” and “one what.” Who is God? Three persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. What are they? The One true God.
Any way you put it, the doctrine of the Trinity is highly perplexing and exceedingly difficult to understand. It is a mystery. John Piper writes:
If this perplexes you, keep in mind: We are in no position as creatures to dictate to our Creator what he may or should be like. God is absolute reality. He was there before anything else was, and he did not come into being, but always was. Therefore nobody made him the way he is, and there is no reason he is the way he is. He simply is. That is his name: "I Am Who I Am" (Exodus 3:14). Our role is not to say what can and can't be in God, but to learn who he is and who we are, and to shape our lives according to his reality – his will. We submit to the way he is. He doesn't submit to the way we are or the way we think he should be.
People have tried to use analogies to attempt to understand it, all of which are helpful in an elementary way, but invariably turn out inadequate and misleading:
1. God is like a three leaf clover, which has three parts, yet remains one clover.
2. God is like a tree with three parts: the roots, the trunk, and branches that all constitute one tree.
3. God is like water that comes in three forms:steam, ice, and water liquid, solid, and gas.
I have wrestled with understanding the Trinity for 36 years. Nothing I have ever read has ever really satisfied my deep desire to understand. that is, until I read what Jonathan Edwards had to say about it in his An Unpublished Essay on the Trinity. You can read it for yourself at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/trinity/files/trinity.html.
He does an amazing job in communicating the meaning of saying God is three in one. It is well worth the read if you would be willing to go deep and bask in such wisdom. John Piper is helpful in summarizing Edwards profound understanding.
"There is God the Father, the fountain of all being, who from all eternity has had a perfectly clear and distinct image and idea of Himself; and this image is the eternally begotten Son. Between this Son and Father flows a stream of infinitely vigorous love and perfectly holy communion; and this is God the Holy Spirit. God's image of God and God's love of God are so full of God that they are divine Persons, not less.
So Jesus Christ, God the Son, is the perfect image of God the Father. He is a complete and living duplicate of the Father’s perfections. This is a great mystery. How can an idea, or reflection, or image of the Father actually be a person in His own right? Remember that God is God, and have neither the ability nor the right to try to manage who He is. We rest and wonder in faith.
Listen to how Piper describes the Holy Spirit:
I find it helpful to observe that the mind of God, as reflected in our own, has two faculties: understanding and will. In other words, before creation God could relate to himself in two ways: God could know himself and God could love himself. In knowing himself he begot the Son, the perfect, full and complete personal image of himself. In loving himself the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son.
Piper goes on and says,
So the Son is the eternal image that the Father has of his own perfections, and the Holy Spirit is the eternal love that flows between the Father and the Son as they delight in each other.
How can this love be a person in his own right? Words fail. But can we not say that the love between the Father and the Son is so perfect, so constant, and carries so completely all that they are in themselves that this love stands forth itself as a person in its own right?
C.S. Lewis tries to get this into a conceivable analogy:
You know that among human beings, when they get together in a family, or a club or a trades union, people talk about the “spirit” of that family, club or trades union. They talk about its spirit because the individual members, when they’re together, do really develop particular ways of talking and behaving which they wouldn’t have if they were apart. It is as if a sort of communal personality came into existence. Of course it isn’t a real person: it is only rather like a person. But that’s just one of the differences between God and us. What grows out of the joint life of the Father and Son is a real Person, is in fact the Third of the three Persons who are God.
All these things are deep, deep, and profoundly difficult to comprehend. Jonathan Edwards concludes in his essay,
I don't pretend fully to explain how these things are and I am sensible a hundred other objections may be made and puzzling doubts and questions raised that I can't solve. I am far from pretending to explaining the Trinity so as to render it no longer a mystery. I think it to be the highest and deepest of all Divine mysteries still, notwithstanding anything that I have said or conceived about it. I don't intend to explain the Trinity. But Scripture with reason may lead to say something further of it than has been wont to be said, though there are still left many things pertaining to it incomprehensible.
I am glad that God has revealed Himself in the word as one God, who exists in three persons. It is helpful to me to read Edwards and Piper and find some deeper understand in my belief and affirmation that there is only one God, and that He exists in three Persons.
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways! "For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been His counselor?" "Or who has given a gift to Him that He might be repaid?"For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen. Romans 11:33-35
Loving and communing with the Triune God,
Pastor Bill
In his systematic theology Wayne Grudem summarizes the teaching of scripture in three statements:
1. God is three persons
2. Each person is fully God
3. There is one God
Justin Taylor wrote about trying to explain the Trinity to his daughter and put it this way:
One simple way to get at the difference between person and substance/essence/nature is to say that the Trinity is “three who’s” and “one what.” Who is God? Three persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. What are they? The One true God.
Any way you put it, the doctrine of the Trinity is highly perplexing and exceedingly difficult to understand. It is a mystery. John Piper writes:
If this perplexes you, keep in mind: We are in no position as creatures to dictate to our Creator what he may or should be like. God is absolute reality. He was there before anything else was, and he did not come into being, but always was. Therefore nobody made him the way he is, and there is no reason he is the way he is. He simply is. That is his name: "I Am Who I Am" (Exodus 3:14). Our role is not to say what can and can't be in God, but to learn who he is and who we are, and to shape our lives according to his reality – his will. We submit to the way he is. He doesn't submit to the way we are or the way we think he should be.
People have tried to use analogies to attempt to understand it, all of which are helpful in an elementary way, but invariably turn out inadequate and misleading:
1. God is like a three leaf clover, which has three parts, yet remains one clover.
2. God is like a tree with three parts: the roots, the trunk, and branches that all constitute one tree.
3. God is like water that comes in three forms:steam, ice, and water liquid, solid, and gas.
I have wrestled with understanding the Trinity for 36 years. Nothing I have ever read has ever really satisfied my deep desire to understand. that is, until I read what Jonathan Edwards had to say about it in his An Unpublished Essay on the Trinity. You can read it for yourself at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/trinity/files/trinity.html.
He does an amazing job in communicating the meaning of saying God is three in one. It is well worth the read if you would be willing to go deep and bask in such wisdom. John Piper is helpful in summarizing Edwards profound understanding.
"There is God the Father, the fountain of all being, who from all eternity has had a perfectly clear and distinct image and idea of Himself; and this image is the eternally begotten Son. Between this Son and Father flows a stream of infinitely vigorous love and perfectly holy communion; and this is God the Holy Spirit. God's image of God and God's love of God are so full of God that they are divine Persons, not less.
So Jesus Christ, God the Son, is the perfect image of God the Father. He is a complete and living duplicate of the Father’s perfections. This is a great mystery. How can an idea, or reflection, or image of the Father actually be a person in His own right? Remember that God is God, and have neither the ability nor the right to try to manage who He is. We rest and wonder in faith.
Listen to how Piper describes the Holy Spirit:
I find it helpful to observe that the mind of God, as reflected in our own, has two faculties: understanding and will. In other words, before creation God could relate to himself in two ways: God could know himself and God could love himself. In knowing himself he begot the Son, the perfect, full and complete personal image of himself. In loving himself the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son.
Piper goes on and says,
So the Son is the eternal image that the Father has of his own perfections, and the Holy Spirit is the eternal love that flows between the Father and the Son as they delight in each other.
How can this love be a person in his own right? Words fail. But can we not say that the love between the Father and the Son is so perfect, so constant, and carries so completely all that they are in themselves that this love stands forth itself as a person in its own right?
C.S. Lewis tries to get this into a conceivable analogy:
You know that among human beings, when they get together in a family, or a club or a trades union, people talk about the “spirit” of that family, club or trades union. They talk about its spirit because the individual members, when they’re together, do really develop particular ways of talking and behaving which they wouldn’t have if they were apart. It is as if a sort of communal personality came into existence. Of course it isn’t a real person: it is only rather like a person. But that’s just one of the differences between God and us. What grows out of the joint life of the Father and Son is a real Person, is in fact the Third of the three Persons who are God.
All these things are deep, deep, and profoundly difficult to comprehend. Jonathan Edwards concludes in his essay,
I don't pretend fully to explain how these things are and I am sensible a hundred other objections may be made and puzzling doubts and questions raised that I can't solve. I am far from pretending to explaining the Trinity so as to render it no longer a mystery. I think it to be the highest and deepest of all Divine mysteries still, notwithstanding anything that I have said or conceived about it. I don't intend to explain the Trinity. But Scripture with reason may lead to say something further of it than has been wont to be said, though there are still left many things pertaining to it incomprehensible.
I am glad that God has revealed Himself in the word as one God, who exists in three persons. It is helpful to me to read Edwards and Piper and find some deeper understand in my belief and affirmation that there is only one God, and that He exists in three Persons.
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways! "For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been His counselor?" "Or who has given a gift to Him that He might be repaid?"For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen. Romans 11:33-35
Loving and communing with the Triune God,
Pastor Bill
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
A PASSION FOR YOUR PASSION
“Do not be slothful in zeal; be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.”
Romans 12:11
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”
Matthew 22:37
I believe that one of the most important qualities of authentic Christianity is passion. Passion is a strong feeling, an emotion that is packed with intensity. At times it carries a sense of urgency that something great is at stake. Passion is the driving force within us that motivates us to action and focuses our life's attentions in such a way that we have an impact on those around us.
The apostle Paul was aflame with the passion of God. He burned up the pages of the Bible with his burning heart for Christ. He said in Acts 20:24: "I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may accomplish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.” Or in Philippians 3:7-8: "But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ." His zeal and sense of purpose eminent qualified him to write these three commands in Roman 12:11, “Do not be slothful in zeal; be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” So here God commands us to have a passion for Him.
Another word for passion would be love. Jesus said in Matthew 22:37, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”
In my own experience, I have found it impossible to obey this commandment. First, because of the smallness of my own affections for someone of such worth and glory as Jesus. Secondly, because I have been unable to maintain any consistent intensity in my affections towards Him. Thirdly, because of the inconsistency and weakness of my own affections being directed towards other things instead of Him. Fourthly, because of my hypocritical love for His gifts rather than towards Him. Fifth, because I get caught up in acts of love rather than my heart feeling love towards Him. Sixthly, because I believe that human love is inadequate in loving a divine being because Jesus commands us to love God with divine love. How can I love God with divine love when I am human, fleshly, and sinful? In short, my best efforts to obey the great commandment fail!
So what does it mean to have a wholehearted love and passion for God? I have discovered in the scriptures and in my own life and experience that if it is going to happen, God Himself must take the steps to kindle afresh in our hearts the flame of fascination and love for Him. Only God can awaken in our souls the marvel and wonder that He is worthy. God must restore the mystery, the wonder, the excitement of all that He is for us in Jesus. This is the awakening of the heart into the fullness of what God has created us and redeemed us to experience. It’s an awakening to passion for God and unashamed, extravagant affection for Jesus. It is a move of God to empower you, motivate you, and enable you to love God with all of your heart soul, mind, and strength!
Dear reader, God created you, chose you, and redeemed you to be a lover of God. What does that mean? I think it means to enjoy Him, to delight in Him, to be astounded and absorbed with Him, to be astonished, amazed, and awed by Him, to be smitten and stunned by Him, to be obsessed and preoccupied with Him, to be fascinated, captivated, intoxicated, and exhilarated with Him, to be enthused and entranced with Him, to be excited and exhilarated with the revelation of Himself in Jesus.
I envision what our lives would be like if this were an accurate description of our relationship with God. I suspect it would be more difficult to sin, easier to love, forgive, and accept people, that reading the Bible would never be remotely boring, fellowship with other Christians would be a delight, that I would display uncommon boldness and courage in sharing Christ with the unsaved, that I would be less attached to money and things and would instead find generosity far more easily, that my worship would be filled with passion and extravagance, that my serving the Lord would be a great joy.
What are the odds of a typical unbeliever using the above list of words to describe Christians? Something has to change! And if you and I are going to change, God Himself must take the steps to kindle afresh in our hearts the flames of passionate love for Him. God created you for the first and greatest commandment, to be a lover of God. And that is what He is up to in your life! With a resolute determination that cannot be thwarted He is arousing and stirring and wooing and beckoning the hearts of this church into a passionate and intimate love affair with His Son, Jesus Christ. Let me show you how God is doing this.
It takes God to love God. Loving God requires a loving God. It takes the passion of God to have a passion for God. To love God as we were made to love Him requires God to take the initiative for only then will slumbering and self centered souls be aroused to seek Him with all of our hearts and relish the revelation of Himself in His Son Jesus Christ.
When God commands us to do-love Him, being on fire for Him, rejoice in Him, God also gives the love, the passion, and the joy that we need in order to obey Him! Remember Augustine who said, “Give me the grace [O Lord] to do as you command, and command me to do what you will! . . . O holy God . . . when your commands are obeyed, it is from you that we receive the power to obey them.”
Think about many of the impossible commands that deal with our emotions and the promises that go with them in the Bible:
Command: "Rejoice in the Lord always" (Psalm 37:4; Philippians 4:4) Promise: “Thou hast put gladness in my heart.” (Psalm 4:7).
Command: "Obey from the heart" (Deuteronomy 30:2) Promise: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts"(Jeremiah 31:33)
Command: "Fear the Lord" (Psalm 34:9) Promise: “I will put my fear in their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:40).
Command: "Be filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:16) Promise: “I will put a new spirit within you” (Ezekiel 11: 9; Ezekiel. 36:27).
Dear reader, can you see that God is in the “putting” business”?
The Holy Spirit pours out God's very affection into the human heart regardless of our sinful, weak, and passionless hearts. It is a supernatural activity that transcends the human condition. As Paul says, "Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us" (Romans 5:5). The Holy Spirit releases in us the capacity to love and know God far beyond our ability with His ability. That is one of the most dynamic dimensions of the grace of God for the redeemed: that our hearts burn with love and are fascinated with the knowledge of God. What God commands, God gives!
Next: How to receive this passion.
Prayer
"Father in heaven, I have heard your command to be boiling in my spirit for you. I agree with Your Son Jesus that it is required of me to love You with all of my heart, all of my soul, all of my mind, and all of my strength. Yet, I confess that my attempts to love You in the way that You require and the way that You deserve have utterly failed. I ask in faith and trust that You would grant to me an impartation of the Holy Spirit to love Jesus Christ, to rejoice in Him, and to burn with a flaming passion in my heart for Him. I ask this in Jesus Name, AMEN!
Romans 12:11
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”
Matthew 22:37
I believe that one of the most important qualities of authentic Christianity is passion. Passion is a strong feeling, an emotion that is packed with intensity. At times it carries a sense of urgency that something great is at stake. Passion is the driving force within us that motivates us to action and focuses our life's attentions in such a way that we have an impact on those around us.
The apostle Paul was aflame with the passion of God. He burned up the pages of the Bible with his burning heart for Christ. He said in Acts 20:24: "I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may accomplish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.” Or in Philippians 3:7-8: "But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ." His zeal and sense of purpose eminent qualified him to write these three commands in Roman 12:11, “Do not be slothful in zeal; be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” So here God commands us to have a passion for Him.
Another word for passion would be love. Jesus said in Matthew 22:37, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”
In my own experience, I have found it impossible to obey this commandment. First, because of the smallness of my own affections for someone of such worth and glory as Jesus. Secondly, because I have been unable to maintain any consistent intensity in my affections towards Him. Thirdly, because of the inconsistency and weakness of my own affections being directed towards other things instead of Him. Fourthly, because of my hypocritical love for His gifts rather than towards Him. Fifth, because I get caught up in acts of love rather than my heart feeling love towards Him. Sixthly, because I believe that human love is inadequate in loving a divine being because Jesus commands us to love God with divine love. How can I love God with divine love when I am human, fleshly, and sinful? In short, my best efforts to obey the great commandment fail!
So what does it mean to have a wholehearted love and passion for God? I have discovered in the scriptures and in my own life and experience that if it is going to happen, God Himself must take the steps to kindle afresh in our hearts the flame of fascination and love for Him. Only God can awaken in our souls the marvel and wonder that He is worthy. God must restore the mystery, the wonder, the excitement of all that He is for us in Jesus. This is the awakening of the heart into the fullness of what God has created us and redeemed us to experience. It’s an awakening to passion for God and unashamed, extravagant affection for Jesus. It is a move of God to empower you, motivate you, and enable you to love God with all of your heart soul, mind, and strength!
Dear reader, God created you, chose you, and redeemed you to be a lover of God. What does that mean? I think it means to enjoy Him, to delight in Him, to be astounded and absorbed with Him, to be astonished, amazed, and awed by Him, to be smitten and stunned by Him, to be obsessed and preoccupied with Him, to be fascinated, captivated, intoxicated, and exhilarated with Him, to be enthused and entranced with Him, to be excited and exhilarated with the revelation of Himself in Jesus.
I envision what our lives would be like if this were an accurate description of our relationship with God. I suspect it would be more difficult to sin, easier to love, forgive, and accept people, that reading the Bible would never be remotely boring, fellowship with other Christians would be a delight, that I would display uncommon boldness and courage in sharing Christ with the unsaved, that I would be less attached to money and things and would instead find generosity far more easily, that my worship would be filled with passion and extravagance, that my serving the Lord would be a great joy.
What are the odds of a typical unbeliever using the above list of words to describe Christians? Something has to change! And if you and I are going to change, God Himself must take the steps to kindle afresh in our hearts the flames of passionate love for Him. God created you for the first and greatest commandment, to be a lover of God. And that is what He is up to in your life! With a resolute determination that cannot be thwarted He is arousing and stirring and wooing and beckoning the hearts of this church into a passionate and intimate love affair with His Son, Jesus Christ. Let me show you how God is doing this.
It takes God to love God. Loving God requires a loving God. It takes the passion of God to have a passion for God. To love God as we were made to love Him requires God to take the initiative for only then will slumbering and self centered souls be aroused to seek Him with all of our hearts and relish the revelation of Himself in His Son Jesus Christ.
When God commands us to do-love Him, being on fire for Him, rejoice in Him, God also gives the love, the passion, and the joy that we need in order to obey Him! Remember Augustine who said, “Give me the grace [O Lord] to do as you command, and command me to do what you will! . . . O holy God . . . when your commands are obeyed, it is from you that we receive the power to obey them.”
Think about many of the impossible commands that deal with our emotions and the promises that go with them in the Bible:
Command: "Rejoice in the Lord always" (Psalm 37:4; Philippians 4:4) Promise: “Thou hast put gladness in my heart.” (Psalm 4:7).
Command: "Obey from the heart" (Deuteronomy 30:2) Promise: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts"(Jeremiah 31:33)
Command: "Fear the Lord" (Psalm 34:9) Promise: “I will put my fear in their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:40).
Command: "Be filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:16) Promise: “I will put a new spirit within you” (Ezekiel 11: 9; Ezekiel. 36:27).
Dear reader, can you see that God is in the “putting” business”?
The Holy Spirit pours out God's very affection into the human heart regardless of our sinful, weak, and passionless hearts. It is a supernatural activity that transcends the human condition. As Paul says, "Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us" (Romans 5:5). The Holy Spirit releases in us the capacity to love and know God far beyond our ability with His ability. That is one of the most dynamic dimensions of the grace of God for the redeemed: that our hearts burn with love and are fascinated with the knowledge of God. What God commands, God gives!
Next: How to receive this passion.
Prayer
"Father in heaven, I have heard your command to be boiling in my spirit for you. I agree with Your Son Jesus that it is required of me to love You with all of my heart, all of my soul, all of my mind, and all of my strength. Yet, I confess that my attempts to love You in the way that You require and the way that You deserve have utterly failed. I ask in faith and trust that You would grant to me an impartation of the Holy Spirit to love Jesus Christ, to rejoice in Him, and to burn with a flaming passion in my heart for Him. I ask this in Jesus Name, AMEN!
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
THOUGHTS WHILE BATTLING SEVERE INFECTION
I have been battling a serious staph infection in my body for 8 days. I have spent countless hours just laying in bed and suffering with pus sores all over my face, severe pain, weakness, fevers, headaches, sleepless nights, loneliness, discouragement, helplessness, and brokenness. These are some things I have thought much about.
1. I am going to die someday sooner than later
On Thursday my doctor told me that if I did not get to the hospital that I could die that day. This was rather sobering to a guy who is a serious surfer, gym rat, and hiker. I have always known that my day was coming but hearing the doctor say that I could die today was a serious wake up call. The reality is that there will be one today that will be my last. It is this unexpectedness of death that has encouraged me to take a second look and to admit that, yes, death might visit me as early as today.
Jesus tells a story that illustrates this in Luke 12:15-21:“Then he said to them, ‘Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.’ And he told them this parable: ‘The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.' Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’ But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”
I have been reminding myself of Jonathan Edwards, who at the age of nineteen wrote 70 resolutions, several of which dealt with reminding himself of his future death.
#7 Resolved, never to do anything which I would be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.
#9 Resolved, To think much, on all occasions, of my own dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death.
#17 Resolved, that I will live so, as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.
#19 Resolved, Never to do anything which I would be afraid to do, if I expected it would not be above an hour before I should hear the last trump.
An entry in his diary reads: Monday, Feb 24, 1724. "Let everything have the value now which it will have on a sick bed; and frequently, in my pursuits, of whatever kind, let this question come into my mind, How shall I value this on my deathbed? “ Jonathan Edwards lived with an awareness of his death and so must I. Death's reality for now on will cause me to live passionately and purposefully each day.
2. Don't waste your life!
John Piper wrote a whole book challenging us to not waste our life. When I finally get well, I know this I WILL NOT WASTE WHAT IS LEFT OF MY LIFE however long or short it is. What does it mean to not waste your life? It simply means this:
To live your life by a single God exalting, soul-satisfying passion. Paul spells it out in Philippians 1:21, "it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death". To not waste your life focuses on who God is in your life, becoming what he wants you to be, so that you can do what he wants you to do in this precious life. It means to pray, to think, to dream and to work in order to live and die for Christ, and for the joy of others. To not waste your life is to no longer live for yourself but to live your life the way God created us and saved us for.
Life is so short and so precious. As the saying goes “only one life will soon pass; only what’s done for Christ will last.” It is possible to waste your life. Few things make me tremble more than the possibility of taking this onetime gift of life and wasting it. over my life will be written the words: Bill's life was not wasted. Bill's life gladly displayed the glory of Christ, both in life and in death.
3. God really is enough.
For years I have heard this spoken throughout the Christian community and I have always taught this, and I earnestly believe with everything in me that it is true. But seeing it personally and having to live in that conviction has been another story, like the difference between seeing a picture of Hanalei Bay on Kauai and actually being there seeing it firsthand. Under all of the fear, pain, weakness, fevers, uncertainty, brokeness, and headaches there has been in my soul a quiet confidence, a firm foundation, an unshakable promise, and I am thankful that I have it. My world has sunk allot in the past seven months but I am continually anchoring my life in two truths:
He is in control of all things
He loves me deeply
"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,"For your sake we are being killed all the day long;we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered."No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:28-39
4. The only thing that matters is I am His.
This year I have found myself stripped of everything that once defined who I am. Here’s the truth that has slammed into me these past 7 months and as I lay helpless in bed all alone and staring at the ceiling. All the things that have defined me here on earth are gone, and I am simply His. I’m still meditating on that. That’s all I really am: His. "I am my beloved's and He is mine" (Song of Solomon 6:4)
And this means everything to me!
5. If there is no cross of Jesus, then I am in a lot of trouble.
Hearing the doctor say I could die, going to the emergency room, and still feeling lousy days later, has caused much soul searching. I have looked at my 36 years of being a Christian and 33 years as a pastor and realize that they will not get me into heaven. I have thought much about sin, my sin. When all is said and done, there is enough sin in me to damn me forever. I truly deserve God's just wrath (Romans 1:18). As I lay in bed and thought about God's righteousness, my sin, and Hell, it caused me to shudder, to tremble and feel dread. I recoiled at the reality of Hell and eternal judgement. But I also thought about the cross and let my sense of sinfulness again cause me to flee from it into the arms of Jesus, who died to save me from it.
The prophet Isaiah encouraged me to "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else" (Isaiah 45:22)
Jesus says in John 3:14-15 that "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,that whoever believes in him may have eternal life."
And Hebrews 12:2 exhorts us to be"looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God."
So I lay here a hopeless and helpless sinner and look and cling to and trust in the gift and grace of Jesus. I preach to myself that on the cross by sheer, free, divine grace:
- Jesus is my ransom that repays the tremendous debt I owe to God for my sin.
- Jesus is my substitute who bears my sin and my curse in Himself so that I can be freed from guilt and punishment.
- Jesus, whose cross is a vindication of God's righteousness so that he can be both just and the one who justifies me who has faith in Jesus.
- Jesus is the one who justifies sinners like me who trust Him. He bears upon Himself my just deserved punishment and I receive His goodness so that I can stand before God.
I am a great sinner, Jesus is a wonderful savior, and on Him and His mercy and grace and kind arms I fall.
Pastor Bill
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
THOUGHTS ON LOVING JESUS
"I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them." John 17:26 ESV
On the night before Jesus was crucified, Jesus prayed for you and me. That's right dear reader, Jesus prayed for you! Not only that, but of all the things that He could have asked the Father, I am astounded that this is what He asked for us:
"... that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them." What does Jesus ask the Father in Heaven, our Maker? That the very love that the Father has for His only begotten, most precious, most beloved Son would be in us! This is amazing! This is stupendous!
Jesus is asking that we would love Him in a way that whereby Jesus is as precious, as valuable, to us as He is to the Father in Heaven. There is no greater love in the entire universe than the love flowing between the Father and the Son in the holy Trinity. No love is more perfect, more powerful, more intense, more continuous, more pure, and more full of delight in the beloved, than the love God the Father has for the Son. It is energy of joy that makes hydrogen bombs look like firecrackers.
Oh, how the Father delights in the Son! Oh, how precious the Son is to the Father!
"This is my beloved Son, with whom 1 am well pleased," God the Father said at Jesus' baptism (Matthew 3:17).
"This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him," God the Father said at the transfiguration (Matthew 17:5).
"Jesus is the living Stone-rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him” (1 Peter 2:4).
In the entire universe none is more precious to God the Father than His Son, Jesus Christ. He is loved with perfect, infinite, divine love. That is how precious He should be to us.
Oh how much does the Father love the Son! Is this not a most wonderful thing,—that God's own love to Jesus should dwell in our hearts? And yet it is so. The love wherewith we love Christ, mark you, is God's love to Christ: "That the love that You have loved Me may be in them.”
Frankly when I read this, I get both excited and discouraged at the same time. First, I get discouraged because there is such a disconnect between Jesus' prayer and my own daily experience. My love for Jesus on my best days is weak, fickle, failing, inconsistent, and limited to my own capacity to love, which is pretty small. I find myself loving His gifts much more than Him. I often treasure the trivial, the inconsequential, the fleeting pleasures of life, and the trite, and am dull to what is lovely and important. In short, I need serious help to do what Jesus prays for me to do.
But when I read and contemplate this prayer hope rises within me and I get excited because I have hope that the Father, who hears the prayer of His Son, will Himself answer this prayer and do something supeernatural, outside of me, to me, and put in me. He will give me a capacity to love His Son in a way that Jesus deserves to be loved.
My imagination soars as I think about the possibility to love and enjoy Jesus with the very love and delight that the Father has for Him forever! Wow!
Three things in this life limit my ability to love and enjoy Jesus and help me to understand what I need from the Father:
1.Nothing in this world has a personal worth that is great enough to satisfy the deepest longings of our hearts.
2. We do not have the strength to love and savor Jesus to His maximum worth.
3. All of our joys here on this earth come to an end. Nothing lasts.
But, for you and me, if the Father answers the prayer of Jesus, all this will change!
If God answers this prayer from Jesus, then the Father's love for His Son will become your love. If God answers this prayer, then God's delight in His Son will become your delight, and the object of His love and pleasure, Jesus, will be inexhaustible in His worth and value to you. In short, a supernatural miracle will take place within your heart. You will love Jesus with the Father's love!
Jesus will never become boring to you. Nothing and no one will ever compete for your affections for Jesus. Nothing will ever be more valuable to you than Jesus. Your ability to love this inexhaustible, eternal, infinite Son of God will no longer be confined and limited by human weakness. We will freely love and freely delight in Jesus the Son with the very delight and joy of His omnipotent loving and delighting Father. God's love for His Son will be in us and it will be ours, and this will never end because neither the Father nor the Son ever end. Their love for each other will be our love for them, and therefore, our love will never, ever die.
All true love that the Father delights in and accepts from us, is nothing but His own love, which has come streaming down from His own heart into our renewed minds. Jesus' longing and goal is that we see His glory and then that we be able to love what we see with the same love that the Father has for the Son, and He doesn't mean that we merely imitate the love of the Father for the Son. He means the Father's very love becomes our love for the Son, that we love the Son with the love of the Father for the Son. This is what the Spirit bestows in our lives: Love for the Son by the Father through the Spirit.
It can begin right now in your own experience as you agree with Jesus and join Him asking the Father for this ultimate desire of His Son for your own life. When you pray this prayer watch the love of God to begin working to change you so that you enjoy loving Him deeper, wider, higher, and stronger with His own love working within and pouring out and up towards His Son forever and ever and ever. May you want this. May you desire to be loved by God so that you can love God.
AMEN!
Exuberant about the Father's love for Jesus being in me,
Pastor Bill
On the night before Jesus was crucified, Jesus prayed for you and me. That's right dear reader, Jesus prayed for you! Not only that, but of all the things that He could have asked the Father, I am astounded that this is what He asked for us:
"... that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them." What does Jesus ask the Father in Heaven, our Maker? That the very love that the Father has for His only begotten, most precious, most beloved Son would be in us! This is amazing! This is stupendous!
Jesus is asking that we would love Him in a way that whereby Jesus is as precious, as valuable, to us as He is to the Father in Heaven. There is no greater love in the entire universe than the love flowing between the Father and the Son in the holy Trinity. No love is more perfect, more powerful, more intense, more continuous, more pure, and more full of delight in the beloved, than the love God the Father has for the Son. It is energy of joy that makes hydrogen bombs look like firecrackers.
Oh, how the Father delights in the Son! Oh, how precious the Son is to the Father!
"This is my beloved Son, with whom 1 am well pleased," God the Father said at Jesus' baptism (Matthew 3:17).
"This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him," God the Father said at the transfiguration (Matthew 17:5).
"Jesus is the living Stone-rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him” (1 Peter 2:4).
In the entire universe none is more precious to God the Father than His Son, Jesus Christ. He is loved with perfect, infinite, divine love. That is how precious He should be to us.
Oh how much does the Father love the Son! Is this not a most wonderful thing,—that God's own love to Jesus should dwell in our hearts? And yet it is so. The love wherewith we love Christ, mark you, is God's love to Christ: "That the love that You have loved Me may be in them.”
Frankly when I read this, I get both excited and discouraged at the same time. First, I get discouraged because there is such a disconnect between Jesus' prayer and my own daily experience. My love for Jesus on my best days is weak, fickle, failing, inconsistent, and limited to my own capacity to love, which is pretty small. I find myself loving His gifts much more than Him. I often treasure the trivial, the inconsequential, the fleeting pleasures of life, and the trite, and am dull to what is lovely and important. In short, I need serious help to do what Jesus prays for me to do.
But when I read and contemplate this prayer hope rises within me and I get excited because I have hope that the Father, who hears the prayer of His Son, will Himself answer this prayer and do something supeernatural, outside of me, to me, and put in me. He will give me a capacity to love His Son in a way that Jesus deserves to be loved.
My imagination soars as I think about the possibility to love and enjoy Jesus with the very love and delight that the Father has for Him forever! Wow!
Three things in this life limit my ability to love and enjoy Jesus and help me to understand what I need from the Father:
1.Nothing in this world has a personal worth that is great enough to satisfy the deepest longings of our hearts.
2. We do not have the strength to love and savor Jesus to His maximum worth.
3. All of our joys here on this earth come to an end. Nothing lasts.
But, for you and me, if the Father answers the prayer of Jesus, all this will change!
If God answers this prayer from Jesus, then the Father's love for His Son will become your love. If God answers this prayer, then God's delight in His Son will become your delight, and the object of His love and pleasure, Jesus, will be inexhaustible in His worth and value to you. In short, a supernatural miracle will take place within your heart. You will love Jesus with the Father's love!
Jesus will never become boring to you. Nothing and no one will ever compete for your affections for Jesus. Nothing will ever be more valuable to you than Jesus. Your ability to love this inexhaustible, eternal, infinite Son of God will no longer be confined and limited by human weakness. We will freely love and freely delight in Jesus the Son with the very delight and joy of His omnipotent loving and delighting Father. God's love for His Son will be in us and it will be ours, and this will never end because neither the Father nor the Son ever end. Their love for each other will be our love for them, and therefore, our love will never, ever die.
All true love that the Father delights in and accepts from us, is nothing but His own love, which has come streaming down from His own heart into our renewed minds. Jesus' longing and goal is that we see His glory and then that we be able to love what we see with the same love that the Father has for the Son, and He doesn't mean that we merely imitate the love of the Father for the Son. He means the Father's very love becomes our love for the Son, that we love the Son with the love of the Father for the Son. This is what the Spirit bestows in our lives: Love for the Son by the Father through the Spirit.
It can begin right now in your own experience as you agree with Jesus and join Him asking the Father for this ultimate desire of His Son for your own life. When you pray this prayer watch the love of God to begin working to change you so that you enjoy loving Him deeper, wider, higher, and stronger with His own love working within and pouring out and up towards His Son forever and ever and ever. May you want this. May you desire to be loved by God so that you can love God.
AMEN!
Exuberant about the Father's love for Jesus being in me,
Pastor Bill
Monday, November 22, 2010
A PECULIAR GRATITUDE THIS THANKSGIVING
"Praise the LORD! Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,for his steadfast love endures forever!" Psalm 106:1 ESV
This week being Thanksgiving Week has caused me to reflect upon gratitude. I am beginning to understand gratitude in deeper, more precious ways.
There is one kind of gratitude that can be found both inside and outside of Christianity. A drug addict might be thankful that he found some money to pay for his next fix. A thief may be thankful she did not get caught when she took some merchandise from a store. A worker may be thankful for a bonus received at Christmas from a boss he despises. A child might be thankful for the gift given at Christmas by a little known distant relative or grandmother.Sadly, there are times that we feel gratitude towards those to whom at the same time we may have a habitual bad feeling against them or perhaps have an indifferent to them as a person.
This gratitude is a mere natural thing, common to everyone. This common gratitude is spoken of by Jesus in both Luke 6:32-34 and Matthew 5:45-48,
“But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back…For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? ”
Our Lord shows us that being human is sufficient to motivate gratitude in mankind, or to affect their hearts with thankfulness to others for kindnesses received. This gratitude is merely natural, and when persons are thankful towards God primarily for benefits received, their thankfulness is only the exercise of a natural gratitude. Natural gratitude has no virtue whatsoever in God’s world and view of things. This kind of gratitude is no more pleasing to God than all other emotions that the natural man has apart from Him.
But there is a gratitude that is peculiar. It differs from and is higher than all gratitude that natural men both experience and express. It is a “peculiar gratitude”. A peculiar gratitude is not primarily, an enjoyment in the gifts and benefits God gives; which are secondary.”. A peculiar gratitude is not primarily, an enjoyment in the gifts and benefits God gives; which are secondary. It is a gratitude rooted in something else that comes before it, namely as John Piper suggests, “a delight in the beauty and excellence of God’s character.”
We see a great example of this in Psalm 106:1, "Praise the LORD! Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,for his steadfast love endures forever!" . Notice that gratitude here is ultimately linked in who and what God is, not in what He gives. It does not say, "Give thanks to the Lord, for He gives good things." Now, there is a sense in which this is very true.Psalm 103:2 tells us to "Bless the Lord.. and forget not His benefits" and James tells us that "every good and perfect gift comes from above"(James 1:17). All good gifts are occasions for the gladness of gratitude. but they are NOT the ultimate focus of our gratitude and joy. Gratitude ascends up the ladder of God's generous gifts until it stops in the goodness of God Himself.
It is easy to be thankful for the gifts and the many benefits we receive from them, but never take God, Himself into the picture.What I am saying is that it is easy for us to be thankful for the pleasure we take in the gifts and graces, but never even take God into the picture at all. When that happens, the pleasure, the joy, and the gratitude is not pleasure, joy, and gratitude in Him and it is dishonoring to Him. When people have affections towards God only or primarily for benefits received, their affection is only the exercise of a natural gratitude.
Suppose you were given a gift for your birthday. You open it and love the gift. Then you go around showing everyone the gift and telling everyone about what it means to you, but never once even look at or speak of the one who gave it. You are totally enthralled with the gift. But what would we say about you? We’d call you an ingrate! That’s because your joy and affection over the gift has no reference toward the goodwill or person of the giver. Jonathan Edwards calls it the gratitude of hypocrites. Their affections towards God are raised from time to time, primarily on this foundation of self-love or a conceit of God's love to them. You cannot show a person is precious to you by simply being happy with his gifts. Ingratitude proves that the giver of gifts is not loved but gratitude for gifts does not prove that the one who bestowed a gift is precious to you.
We are exhorted by Paul to do all things including thanks to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). Is God glorified if the essence of our gratitude is rooted in the worth of gift and not the excellency of the giver? Gratitude not rooted in the beauty and worth of God is nothing but brilliantly disguised idolatry.
Thew proper use use of God's gifts and pleasures is that they send our hearts upwards, or better yet, Godward, towards God with the joy of gratitude that finds its highest and firmest ground in the goodness of God Himself, not His gifts. This means that if these gifts are ever taken away, the deepest joy that we had through the gifts will not be taken away because God is still God and He is exceedingly good!
No wonder the Apostle Paul can make statements like this: “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:7-9).
Peculiar gratitude rises in cherishing the preciousness of Christ above every gift from God including life itself. It is very difficult to communicate with people a love for God when it is mixed with a lifestyle characterized by love for self and demonstrated with normal gratitude rooted in our own self-interest. “Peculiar” gratitude is not rooted in the perspective that God loves us (though He does) , and then we see that He is lovely, but instead we first see that God is lovely, and that Christ is excellent and glorious, and thus our hearts are first captivated with this view and we are peculiarly thankful.
Jonathan Edwards says, “The saint's affections begin with God; and the love and affection that arises out of God’s love for them and the graces and gifts that He bestows are consequentially, and secondarily only, to the higher love that is grounded in God himself.” Self-love is not excluded from a gracious gratitude; the saints love God for His kindness to them: Psalm. 116:1, "I love the Lord, because he hath heard the voice of my supplication." We thank Him for every gift that comes from above (1 Timothy 4:3). We forget not his benefits (Psalm 103:2). In everything we give thanks (1 Thessalonians 5:18). But there is something deeper, something more precious, something infinitely more valuable, that lays the foundation for these grateful affections.
Jonathan Edwards says, “The gracious stirrings of grateful affection to God, for kindness received, always are from a stock of love already in the heart, established in the first place on other grounds, viz., God's own excellence; and hence the affections are disposed to flow out on occasions of God's kindness. The saint, having seen the glory of God, and his heart being overcome by it, and captivated with love to Him on that account, his heart hereby becomes tender and easily affected with kindnesses received.”
In a “peculiar” gratitude men are affected with the attribute of God's goodness and free grace not only as they are concerned in it, or as it affects their interest, but as a part of the glory and beauty of God's nature. That wonderful and unparalleled grace of God, which is manifested in the work of redemption, and shines forth in the face of Jesus Christ, is infinitely glorious in itself, and appears so to the angels; it is a great part of the moral perfection and beauty and wonder and majesty of God's nature. This would be glorious, whether it was exercised towards us or no; and the saint who exercises a gracious thankfulness for it, sees it to be so, and delights in it.
No wonder why Paul can exhort us to “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18-19)
John Piper says, “God is most glorified when we are most satisfied with him.” This is why a “peculiar” gratitude is not a duty, it is a delight. Gratitude to God without delight in Him dishonors God. That is why in God’s world, a peculiar gratitude is all that matters. May God give us a heart that delights in Him for who He is. May the gratitude we have this Thanksgiving Week for the gifts He gives us merely be an echo of our delight and happiness in the greatness and excellence of our wonderful, benevolent, and beautiful Giver.
Thanking God for God!
Pastor Bill
This week being Thanksgiving Week has caused me to reflect upon gratitude. I am beginning to understand gratitude in deeper, more precious ways.
There is one kind of gratitude that can be found both inside and outside of Christianity. A drug addict might be thankful that he found some money to pay for his next fix. A thief may be thankful she did not get caught when she took some merchandise from a store. A worker may be thankful for a bonus received at Christmas from a boss he despises. A child might be thankful for the gift given at Christmas by a little known distant relative or grandmother.Sadly, there are times that we feel gratitude towards those to whom at the same time we may have a habitual bad feeling against them or perhaps have an indifferent to them as a person.
This gratitude is a mere natural thing, common to everyone. This common gratitude is spoken of by Jesus in both Luke 6:32-34 and Matthew 5:45-48,
“But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back…For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? ”
Our Lord shows us that being human is sufficient to motivate gratitude in mankind, or to affect their hearts with thankfulness to others for kindnesses received. This gratitude is merely natural, and when persons are thankful towards God primarily for benefits received, their thankfulness is only the exercise of a natural gratitude. Natural gratitude has no virtue whatsoever in God’s world and view of things. This kind of gratitude is no more pleasing to God than all other emotions that the natural man has apart from Him.
But there is a gratitude that is peculiar. It differs from and is higher than all gratitude that natural men both experience and express. It is a “peculiar gratitude”. A peculiar gratitude is not primarily, an enjoyment in the gifts and benefits God gives; which are secondary.”. A peculiar gratitude is not primarily, an enjoyment in the gifts and benefits God gives; which are secondary. It is a gratitude rooted in something else that comes before it, namely as John Piper suggests, “a delight in the beauty and excellence of God’s character.”
We see a great example of this in Psalm 106:1, "Praise the LORD! Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,for his steadfast love endures forever!" . Notice that gratitude here is ultimately linked in who and what God is, not in what He gives. It does not say, "Give thanks to the Lord, for He gives good things." Now, there is a sense in which this is very true.Psalm 103:2 tells us to "Bless the Lord.. and forget not His benefits" and James tells us that "every good and perfect gift comes from above"(James 1:17). All good gifts are occasions for the gladness of gratitude. but they are NOT the ultimate focus of our gratitude and joy. Gratitude ascends up the ladder of God's generous gifts until it stops in the goodness of God Himself.
It is easy to be thankful for the gifts and the many benefits we receive from them, but never take God, Himself into the picture.What I am saying is that it is easy for us to be thankful for the pleasure we take in the gifts and graces, but never even take God into the picture at all. When that happens, the pleasure, the joy, and the gratitude is not pleasure, joy, and gratitude in Him and it is dishonoring to Him. When people have affections towards God only or primarily for benefits received, their affection is only the exercise of a natural gratitude.
Suppose you were given a gift for your birthday. You open it and love the gift. Then you go around showing everyone the gift and telling everyone about what it means to you, but never once even look at or speak of the one who gave it. You are totally enthralled with the gift. But what would we say about you? We’d call you an ingrate! That’s because your joy and affection over the gift has no reference toward the goodwill or person of the giver. Jonathan Edwards calls it the gratitude of hypocrites. Their affections towards God are raised from time to time, primarily on this foundation of self-love or a conceit of God's love to them. You cannot show a person is precious to you by simply being happy with his gifts. Ingratitude proves that the giver of gifts is not loved but gratitude for gifts does not prove that the one who bestowed a gift is precious to you.
We are exhorted by Paul to do all things including thanks to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). Is God glorified if the essence of our gratitude is rooted in the worth of gift and not the excellency of the giver? Gratitude not rooted in the beauty and worth of God is nothing but brilliantly disguised idolatry.
Thew proper use use of God's gifts and pleasures is that they send our hearts upwards, or better yet, Godward, towards God with the joy of gratitude that finds its highest and firmest ground in the goodness of God Himself, not His gifts. This means that if these gifts are ever taken away, the deepest joy that we had through the gifts will not be taken away because God is still God and He is exceedingly good!
No wonder the Apostle Paul can make statements like this: “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:7-9).
Peculiar gratitude rises in cherishing the preciousness of Christ above every gift from God including life itself. It is very difficult to communicate with people a love for God when it is mixed with a lifestyle characterized by love for self and demonstrated with normal gratitude rooted in our own self-interest. “Peculiar” gratitude is not rooted in the perspective that God loves us (though He does) , and then we see that He is lovely, but instead we first see that God is lovely, and that Christ is excellent and glorious, and thus our hearts are first captivated with this view and we are peculiarly thankful.
Jonathan Edwards says, “The saint's affections begin with God; and the love and affection that arises out of God’s love for them and the graces and gifts that He bestows are consequentially, and secondarily only, to the higher love that is grounded in God himself.” Self-love is not excluded from a gracious gratitude; the saints love God for His kindness to them: Psalm. 116:1, "I love the Lord, because he hath heard the voice of my supplication." We thank Him for every gift that comes from above (1 Timothy 4:3). We forget not his benefits (Psalm 103:2). In everything we give thanks (1 Thessalonians 5:18). But there is something deeper, something more precious, something infinitely more valuable, that lays the foundation for these grateful affections.
Jonathan Edwards says, “The gracious stirrings of grateful affection to God, for kindness received, always are from a stock of love already in the heart, established in the first place on other grounds, viz., God's own excellence; and hence the affections are disposed to flow out on occasions of God's kindness. The saint, having seen the glory of God, and his heart being overcome by it, and captivated with love to Him on that account, his heart hereby becomes tender and easily affected with kindnesses received.”
In a “peculiar” gratitude men are affected with the attribute of God's goodness and free grace not only as they are concerned in it, or as it affects their interest, but as a part of the glory and beauty of God's nature. That wonderful and unparalleled grace of God, which is manifested in the work of redemption, and shines forth in the face of Jesus Christ, is infinitely glorious in itself, and appears so to the angels; it is a great part of the moral perfection and beauty and wonder and majesty of God's nature. This would be glorious, whether it was exercised towards us or no; and the saint who exercises a gracious thankfulness for it, sees it to be so, and delights in it.
No wonder why Paul can exhort us to “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18-19)
John Piper says, “God is most glorified when we are most satisfied with him.” This is why a “peculiar” gratitude is not a duty, it is a delight. Gratitude to God without delight in Him dishonors God. That is why in God’s world, a peculiar gratitude is all that matters. May God give us a heart that delights in Him for who He is. May the gratitude we have this Thanksgiving Week for the gifts He gives us merely be an echo of our delight and happiness in the greatness and excellence of our wonderful, benevolent, and beautiful Giver.
Thanking God for God!
Pastor Bill
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
THOUGHTS ON BEING COMPLETELY SATISFIED YET INSATIABLY HUNGRY
“In the path of your judgments,O LORD, we wait for you; your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul.My soul yearns for you in the night;my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.For when your judgments are in the earth,the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.” Isaiah 26:8-9
"Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.”
Luke 6:21
“Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”
Psalm 90:14
"My soul longs and even yearns for the courts of the LORD; My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God."
Psalm 84:2
I remember as a little kid being invited to a friend’s house to eat. My friend’s mother made a banquet type meal complete with Chicken Parmesan, spaghetti, salad, garlic bread, and spumoni ice cream. (At least it is my idea of a banquet!) But before I went I didn’t know what I was going to be having for supper. I was afraid that it might be a meal like my mother’s favorite meal. I called this “the meal from hell”. It consisted of a combination of pork chops, liver, or spam, along with broccoli, hominy (which I called agony), and Swanson’s T.V. Corn Bread (whose constitution was much like eating sawdust!) So dreading the possibilities I loaded up beforehand upon good old peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (also known as PB and J). As a result, when I got to my friend’s house, to my surprise my dream feast was being served, but to my disappointment I had absolutely no appetite and therefore ended up passing on the meal. I missed out on the feast because I settled for a sandwich.
I am afraid that many of us are in danger of becoming peanut butter and jelly Christians stuffed with other food that has robbed us of an appetite for God. Every day of your life a war goes on in regards to our appetites. Every one of us have been born with appetites and desires. They dictate what directs us and what satisfies us; whether it is the cravings of our physical hunger, the desire for the things that this world offers, or the deep longings of our souls for God.
Augustine said, “Oh Lord thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts can find no rest except we find it in Thee.” The heart of man is full of restlessness and longing. We are both afflicted and blessed with a chronic restlessness, an insatiable soul-thirst for this reason: that we might keep looking until we find Christ, and that having found him we might be turned back to Him again and again when we leave His spring to taste of other springs and find them lacking.
Is it no wonder that Jesus said in John 6:35: "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. Or in John 4:14, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."
Salvation is the awakening of our appetites for God. It is an appetite from God that gives the palette of our souls for Him. “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good”, says the Psalmist (Psalm 34:8). Once you have tasted the Lord, nothing less will ever satisfy your longings. It is no wonder, for when we taste of God’s ultimate goodness, anything else would be like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches compared to Filet Mignon!
When we are converted God awakens in us we a new appetite for Him and a new delight in God. Saint Augustine describes this in his description of his own conversion when he writes:
“How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys that I once feared to lose was now a joy to part with.You drove them from me, you who are the true sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood, you who outshine all light, yet are hidden deeper than any secret in our hearts, you who surpass all honor, though not in the eyes of men who see honor in themselves…Oh Lord my God, my light, my wealth, and my salvation!”
One might think that those who are satisfied most with God are the least hungry. When we eat a full meal of steak and our favorite pie until we are full, we say that we want no more because our physical appetite has been satisfied. But not so with the hungry, thirsty, feasting Christians. They turn often from the innocent pleasures of the world to linger more directly in the presence of God through the reading of the revelation of His Word. And there they eat the Bread of Heaven and drink the Living Water by prayer, meditation, and faith. But, paradoxically, it is not so that they are the least hungry saints. The opposite is the case. The strongest, most mature Christians I have ever met are the hungriest for God. They feast upon Him and are satisfied, yet the taste for God continues and ever increases. Their cry to God is an insatiable "More, More, More!" The desire creates the delight and the delight creates a deeper desire which leads to deeper delight and so on and on throughout this earthly journey until glory. Why? Because God is an inexhaustible fountain, an infinite feast, and a glorious Lord.
When you begin to drink at the River of Life and eat the Bread of Heaven, and know that you have found the end of all your longings, you only get hungrier for God. The very satisfaction creates an even greater longing. “We taste Thee, O Thou Living Bread, And long to feast upon Thee still; We drink of Thee, the Fountainhead And thirst our souls from Thee to fill,” said Bernard of Clairveux.
The more satisfaction you experience from God, while still in this world, the greater your desire for the next. C.S. Lewis describes this wonderfully supernatural, peculiar appetite: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world…It was when I was happiest that I longed the most…The sweetest thing in all of my life has been the longing…to find the place where beauty came from.” How wonderful it is for God to awaken in the soul of a person the longing for God above all of His gifts. For, as C. S. Lewis said, "Our best havings are our wantings." In the truest sense, the greatest gift from God is the gift He gives us of stirring an appetite for Him above His gifts!
John Piper gives a great description of a person who feasts upon the Lord Jesus.
“The more deeply you walk with Christ, the hungrier you get for Christ … the more homesick you get for heaven ... the more you want "all the fullness of God" . . . the more you want to be done with sin ... the more you want the Bridegroom to come again ... the more you want the Church revived and purified with the beauty of Jesus ... the more you want a great awakening to God's reality in the cities ... the more you want to see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ penetrate the darkness of all the unreached peoples of the world ... the more you want to see false worldviews yield to the force of Truth ... the more you want to see pain relieved and tears wiped away and death destroyed ... the more you long for every wrong to be made right and the justice and grace of God to fill the earth like the waters cover the sea.”
Oh reader, beloved one of God, if you don't feel strong desires for God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are not satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world that your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great thing. God did not create you for this. He has created you to have an appetite for God and it can be awakened.
My prayer for us all is that God might awaken us to a new hunger for Himself. That He might remove the callouses from the taste buds of our heart, and cause us to drink deeply, and savor the magnificence of Jesus and we will become so satisfied with Him that we will glorify Him like David saying from our hearts and our preferences:
O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water…as the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God… Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." (Psalm 63:1; 42:1; 73:25)
Satisfied yet insatiably hungry,
Pastor Bill
"Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.”
Luke 6:21
“Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”
Psalm 90:14
"My soul longs and even yearns for the courts of the LORD; My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God."
Psalm 84:2
I remember as a little kid being invited to a friend’s house to eat. My friend’s mother made a banquet type meal complete with Chicken Parmesan, spaghetti, salad, garlic bread, and spumoni ice cream. (At least it is my idea of a banquet!) But before I went I didn’t know what I was going to be having for supper. I was afraid that it might be a meal like my mother’s favorite meal. I called this “the meal from hell”. It consisted of a combination of pork chops, liver, or spam, along with broccoli, hominy (which I called agony), and Swanson’s T.V. Corn Bread (whose constitution was much like eating sawdust!) So dreading the possibilities I loaded up beforehand upon good old peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (also known as PB and J). As a result, when I got to my friend’s house, to my surprise my dream feast was being served, but to my disappointment I had absolutely no appetite and therefore ended up passing on the meal. I missed out on the feast because I settled for a sandwich.
I am afraid that many of us are in danger of becoming peanut butter and jelly Christians stuffed with other food that has robbed us of an appetite for God. Every day of your life a war goes on in regards to our appetites. Every one of us have been born with appetites and desires. They dictate what directs us and what satisfies us; whether it is the cravings of our physical hunger, the desire for the things that this world offers, or the deep longings of our souls for God.
Augustine said, “Oh Lord thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts can find no rest except we find it in Thee.” The heart of man is full of restlessness and longing. We are both afflicted and blessed with a chronic restlessness, an insatiable soul-thirst for this reason: that we might keep looking until we find Christ, and that having found him we might be turned back to Him again and again when we leave His spring to taste of other springs and find them lacking.
Is it no wonder that Jesus said in John 6:35: "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. Or in John 4:14, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."
Salvation is the awakening of our appetites for God. It is an appetite from God that gives the palette of our souls for Him. “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good”, says the Psalmist (Psalm 34:8). Once you have tasted the Lord, nothing less will ever satisfy your longings. It is no wonder, for when we taste of God’s ultimate goodness, anything else would be like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches compared to Filet Mignon!
When we are converted God awakens in us we a new appetite for Him and a new delight in God. Saint Augustine describes this in his description of his own conversion when he writes:
“How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys that I once feared to lose was now a joy to part with.You drove them from me, you who are the true sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood, you who outshine all light, yet are hidden deeper than any secret in our hearts, you who surpass all honor, though not in the eyes of men who see honor in themselves…Oh Lord my God, my light, my wealth, and my salvation!”
One might think that those who are satisfied most with God are the least hungry. When we eat a full meal of steak and our favorite pie until we are full, we say that we want no more because our physical appetite has been satisfied. But not so with the hungry, thirsty, feasting Christians. They turn often from the innocent pleasures of the world to linger more directly in the presence of God through the reading of the revelation of His Word. And there they eat the Bread of Heaven and drink the Living Water by prayer, meditation, and faith. But, paradoxically, it is not so that they are the least hungry saints. The opposite is the case. The strongest, most mature Christians I have ever met are the hungriest for God. They feast upon Him and are satisfied, yet the taste for God continues and ever increases. Their cry to God is an insatiable "More, More, More!" The desire creates the delight and the delight creates a deeper desire which leads to deeper delight and so on and on throughout this earthly journey until glory. Why? Because God is an inexhaustible fountain, an infinite feast, and a glorious Lord.
When you begin to drink at the River of Life and eat the Bread of Heaven, and know that you have found the end of all your longings, you only get hungrier for God. The very satisfaction creates an even greater longing. “We taste Thee, O Thou Living Bread, And long to feast upon Thee still; We drink of Thee, the Fountainhead And thirst our souls from Thee to fill,” said Bernard of Clairveux.
The more satisfaction you experience from God, while still in this world, the greater your desire for the next. C.S. Lewis describes this wonderfully supernatural, peculiar appetite: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world…It was when I was happiest that I longed the most…The sweetest thing in all of my life has been the longing…to find the place where beauty came from.” How wonderful it is for God to awaken in the soul of a person the longing for God above all of His gifts. For, as C. S. Lewis said, "Our best havings are our wantings." In the truest sense, the greatest gift from God is the gift He gives us of stirring an appetite for Him above His gifts!
John Piper gives a great description of a person who feasts upon the Lord Jesus.
“The more deeply you walk with Christ, the hungrier you get for Christ … the more homesick you get for heaven ... the more you want "all the fullness of God" . . . the more you want to be done with sin ... the more you want the Bridegroom to come again ... the more you want the Church revived and purified with the beauty of Jesus ... the more you want a great awakening to God's reality in the cities ... the more you want to see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ penetrate the darkness of all the unreached peoples of the world ... the more you want to see false worldviews yield to the force of Truth ... the more you want to see pain relieved and tears wiped away and death destroyed ... the more you long for every wrong to be made right and the justice and grace of God to fill the earth like the waters cover the sea.”
Oh reader, beloved one of God, if you don't feel strong desires for God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are not satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world that your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great thing. God did not create you for this. He has created you to have an appetite for God and it can be awakened.
My prayer for us all is that God might awaken us to a new hunger for Himself. That He might remove the callouses from the taste buds of our heart, and cause us to drink deeply, and savor the magnificence of Jesus and we will become so satisfied with Him that we will glorify Him like David saying from our hearts and our preferences:
O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water…as the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God… Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." (Psalm 63:1; 42:1; 73:25)
Satisfied yet insatiably hungry,
Pastor Bill
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