Category: Devotional Thoughts

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Full of Leaks

22616740Under the conviction of your Spirit I learn that

the more I do, the worse I am,

the more I know, the less I know,

the more holiness I have, the more sinful I am,

the more I love, the more there is to love.

O wretched man that I am!

O Lord, I have a wild heart,

and I cannot stand before thee;

I am like a bird before a man.

How little I love thy truth and ways!

I neglect prayer, by thinking I have prayed enough and earnestly,

by knowing

that you have saved my soul.

 

Of all hypocrites, grant that I may not be an evangelical leakyBuckethypocrite,

who sins more safely because grace abounds,

who tells his lusts that Christ’s blood cleanses them,

who reasons that God cannot cast him into hell,

for he is saved,

who loves evangelical preaching, churches, Christians, but lives unholy.

My mind is a bucket without a bottom,

with no spiritual understanding,

no desire for the Lord’s Day,

ever learning but never reaching the truth,

always at the gospel-well but never holding water.

am_porteuse_d_eauMy conscience is without conviction or contrition, with nothing to repent of.

My will is without power of decision or resolution.

My heart is without affection, and full of leaks.

My memory has no retention,

so I forget easily the lessons learned,

and they truths seep away.

   Give me a broken heart that yet carries home the water of grace. ((Arthur Bennett, The Valley of Vision, A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions, Banner of Truth, p.128-9))

 

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Do you Sense His Love?

image154 This morning I was revisiting a favorite book by A.W. Tozer The Pursuit of Man.

He used a wonderful illustration to make the important distinction between knowing about Christ and His love andknowing it experientially.

Tozer asked, “What good would it do a starving child to know about bread when his stomach rolled and growled begging for food to be satisfied?”

A person can die of starvation knowing all about the nutritional value of fruits and vegetables but knowing about them will not save him from starving!

“Knowledge by acquaintance is always better than mere knowledge by description.”

With that illustration in mind, I wondered about the love of God.  It is not uncommon to hear people proclaim that God is love, that He is by nature a loving and caring being.

loveofImage10b (Small) Wouldn’t life be more viscerally satisfying if we knew those truths by acquaintance rather than description? 

Maurice Roberts wrote on the subject of sensing the love of God and he suggested:

“The way to get God’s felt blessing on our hearts begins with an act of faith.  That is to say we must believe that there is such a thing to be had in this life. If we do not expect or even believe in such experiences, the probability is that we shall know but little of them.

There is, as we have sought to show, a true and scriptural enjoyment of Christ which is no fanaticism but the subjective fruit of the gospel.

Then, having become convinced that there is a genuine experience of a ‘felt Christ’ to be had on earth, we must go to God in prayer for it.  We come to the throne of grace as suppliants to receive this choice favor of ‘tasting’, or being made subjectively conscious of the love God has to us in Christ.

We do harm to our souls and hinder our own progress in the knowledge of God (remember how that differs from knowing about God) if we treat prayer as an exercise of the mind only and do not expect to emerge from the presence of God with a fresh token of His love born in us. ((Maurice Roberts, The Thought of God, The Banner of Truth Trust, 1993, p.61))

What vitality would be breathed into our living if we stopped existing on the knowledge about God and sunk our teeth into subjective experience of tasting and seeing that God is good! Psalm 34:8

Let’s starve no more!

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New Year’s Resolutions

resolutions I attended Trinity Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Asheville, North Carolina last Sunday and was inspired by a challenging sermon from Associate Pastor Mark Whipple. 

He began the sermon by suggesting that for the most part, our resolutions are self-centered, self improvement desires and give evidence of misdirected thinking.

He contrasted our normal resolutions of losing weight, quitting a bad habit, getting more exercise with the resolutions of Jonathan Edwards. Here are a couple of his resolutions that make the contrast very clearly and highlight how trivial most of our Christian resolving has become:

The Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards (1722-1723)

Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ’s sake.

Remember to read over these Resolutions once a week.

1. Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriad’s of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many and how great soever.

5. Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.

6. Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.

7. Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.

8. Resolved, to act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God.

9. Resolved, to think much on all occasions of my own dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death.

24. Resolved, whenever I do any conspicuously evil action, to trace it back, till I come to the original cause; and then both carefully endeavor to do so no more, and to fight and pray with all my might against the original of it.

25. Resolved, to examine carefully, and constantly, what that one thing in me is, which causes me in the least to doubt of the love of God; and to direct all my forces against it.

happy-new-year While thinking about more challenging resolutions for 2008, Desiring God Ministries posted "10 Resolutions for Mental Health."

This list was also very helpful in focusing my thoughts and hopefully deepening them  on the subject of resolutions here at the beginning of 2008.

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Facing Our Giants

TissSlng (Small) Out of my distress I called on the LORD;

the LORD answered me and set me in a broad place.

With the LORD on my side I do not fear.
What can mortals do to me?

The LORD is on my side to help me;
I shall look in triumph on those who hate me.

It is better to take refuge in the LORD
than to put confidence in mortals.
It is better to take refuge in the LORD
than to put confidence in princes.

Psalm 118

Continue reading “Facing Our Giants”

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Clinging Impact

22667275It has been great to study the Book of Acts this Fall. To focus on the the power of the Holy Spirit as He spread the gospel from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria and even to the ends of the earth has been thrilling.

“As we draw upon this new power, in radical dependence on the Holy Spirit’s presence, what will it mean for us?
Among other things, it will enable us to reflect His Son to others and to advance His kingdom purposes in this world.

Jesus foretold what His disciples would become through the Holy Spirit’s power, ‘You shall be witnesses to Me…to the end of the earth.’

He calls His followers to make converts and to present these converts ‘complete in Christ.’

Christ is calling you and me and every believer to a life that furthers the gospel’s worldwide penetration as well as an in-depth cultivation of that gospel in those who respond.

Does that seem impossible? It should. Mark this: God will never call you to something you can do. Period. If you can do what God called you to without the new power God alone provides…then you missed what God has called you to. God calls us only to that which requires Him.

Reliance on Christ was the secret behind Paul’s impact on the world of his day; it’s also the secret behind our impact on the world of our day.” ((Dwight Edwards, Revolution Within, A Fresh Look at Supernatural Living, Waterbrook Press, 2001, p. 137-138))

“My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.”

Psalm 63:8

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Its All About Me

me“If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.”Philippians 2:1-8

Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.” Luke 9:23

The verse is Philippians snatches the rug out from under my natural “Me-ology.”  Jesus was not like us Americans!  He did not think equality was the highest value in life!  For Him the highest good–the greatest joy was found in emptying Himself for the sake of others.  He did not demand that it be all about Him–even though in reality it is!

As Paul describes the self giving attitude of Christ, he invites us to consider a value that he says leads to complete joy…having the same mind and the same love as Christ.

“I am personally convinced that this submission, this dying to self, this crucifying of pride is crucial to our joy.  We think of denying self as somber, grim-faced business when it is in truth a prelude to dancing.

The reason our death [to self] increases the joy level all around is that it also increases the love level all around.

Only when we die to self can we fully love another.

Self is a devilish creature, demanding all of our energy, wanting our constant attention, reaching even into our pocketbooks for favors.

How can we ever hope to be attuned to another when self screams for our constant care?

When self is alive and well, it offers us an all-or-nothing proposition.

We either pacify self, or crucify it!”

Judson Edwards

Pathway to joy is the pathway that goes from “Me-ology” to “Thee-ology!”

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Are you a being or a doing?

“For in him we live and move and have our being.”  (Acts 17:28)

  imageThis verse in Acts 17 caught my eye again.  I linger over its implications and marvel at its truth.  It certainly makes the point that we live–whether we acknowledge it or not–before the face of God!  That “reality” is Him–not an idea but a personality.

Ravi Zacharias’ way of saying this is:

In every other religion the teachers point to their teaching to show a person the way.  It is instruction and a way of living that is commended.  It is not Buddha who delivers but his “Noble Truths” that instruct you.  It is not Mohammed who transforms you, it is the beauty of the Koran that woos you.

By contrast, Jesus is identical with His message.  “In Him” dwelt the fullness of the Godhead bodily. (Col. 1:19)  He did not just proclaim the truth.  He said, “I am the Truth.”  He did not just show a way.  He said, “I am the Way.”  He did not just open up passageways.  He said, “I am the Door.”

We are not called “human livings” or “human doings”— we are called “human beings.”  Teaching at best beckons us to morality,  Jesus held up a mirror to show us our dirty face but by His person He transforms our will to seek Him.  It is our being that Jesus wants to feed.