Category: Devotional Thoughts

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Joy in being Exposed!

joy (Small) “For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.  And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him whom we must give account.”  Hebrews 4:12-13

I am studying the Book of Acts with a group of women this Fall.  When I read this verse this morning I immediately thought of how I am getting to see it realized and lived out before my eyes in that group. I can sense it being realized in my own life but am doubly blessed as I witness this word being made flesh in the lives of others.

As we journey with Peter and Paul and learn what it means to be a follower of Jesus our thoughts and the intentions of our hearts are being exposed!  Being exposed normally carries a major negative connotation — something to be avoided at all costs.  With this group of committed women we have grown in trust and feel safe enough to unmask ourselves– to unveil our thoughts and intentions in pursuit of seeing Christ more revealed!  That is the two-edged sword of the Word at work!  It is the Holy Spirit who is animating the written Word in our hearts.

The main character in Acts is the Holy Spirit–the third person of the Godhead.  We are becoming more familiar with how He works as an agent accomplishing God’s will on earth.  When I ran across this quote from A.W. Tozer this morning, I knew it was to help me marvel at His work in our lives.

An attribute to appreciate about the Holy Spirit is His penetrability.  He can penetrate hearts, minds–achieve complete penetration of and actual intermingling with the human spirit.  He invades the human heart and makes room for Himself without expelling anything essentially human.  The integrity of the human personality remains unimpaired–only moral evil is forced to withdraw when He penetrates.

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New Kind of Co-Dependence

ac-emera "Imagine flying in an airplane, look out one side of the plane and see the left wing–it reads "dependence".  On the right side is the wing of "discipline."  We need both to "fly" in the Christian life.  Discipline refers to those activities designed to train a person in a particular skill.  Dependence refers to the trust we have in God to work through us.  We mistakenly assert that the believer’s job is to trust, while God does the work."

 "God’s work does not make our efforts unnecessary but rather makes them effective." 

Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace.

While I agree with Jerry Bridge’s above conclusion, I wonder if he does not express more confidence in our "efforts" than we rightly deserve?  As I understand Scripture, both our "dependence" and our "discipline" are gifts from God ( Philippians 4:13. 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24)  I find believers need no more encouragement to strive or exert more effort.  In fact, we need all the help the Spirit is willing to give to trust in the God who boldly affirms, "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." 

I am strengthened by the truth that I can worry less about "my part" in the mystery of union with Christ and rest more in His work accomplished and being accomplished in me! 

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Accept with Joy

 Amy

 I find Amy Carmichael’s writing develops the flabby muscle of my faith.  Knowing that this committed missionary to India was confined to her bed for twenty years  and suffered constant pain makes what she wrote so credible and valuable to me. 

 This morning, she had me consider how my heart responds as I wait for prayers to be answered. 

“I once wrote that God always answers us in the deeps, not in the shallows of our prayers.  Hasn’t it been so with you? 

One of the hardest things in our secret prayer life is to accept with joy not with grief the answers to our deepest prayers. At least I have found it so.  It was a long time before I discovered that whatever came was the answer.  I had expected something so different that I did not recognize it when it came.

And He doesn’t explain.  He trusts us not to be offended; that’s all.”

And blessed (happy, fortunate, and to be envied) is he who takes no offense at Me and finds no cause for stumbling in or through Me and is not hindered from seeing the Truth. (Matthew 11:6, Amplified)

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Dangerous Confusion

J.I. Packer has lamented: “At no time, perhaps, since the Reformation have Christians as a  body been so unsure, tentative, and confused as to what they should believe and do. 

confusionCertainty about the great issues of Christian faith and conduct is lacking all along the line.  The outside observer sees us as staggering on from gimmick to gimmick and stunt to stunt like so many drunks in a fog, not knowing at all where we are or which way we should be going.   

 Preaching is hazy; heads are muddled; hearts fret; doubts strain our strength; uncertainty paralyzes action…We know in our bones that we were made for certainty, and we cannot be happy without it.  Yet unlike the first Christians who in three centuries won the Roman world…we lack certainty.”

We want to present the world with an upbeat message.  We want to create a positive image.  We want to emphasize the many and substantial benefits of the Christian life.  We want to put on a happy face.  A. W. Tozer decries this accommodated version of the Gospel as a “spiteful cruelty to the lost and languishing–a cruelty misguidedly offered in the name of comfort.”  This updated message of indifference does not slay the sinner; it redirects him.” 

Furthermore:  “It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect.  To the self-assertive it says, “Come and assert yourself for Christ.” To the egoist if says, “Come and do your boasting in the Lord.”  To the thrill-seeker it says, “Come and enjoy the thrill of the Christian life.  The idea behind this kind of thing may be sincere, but its sincerity does not save it from being false.” ((George Grant, “By a Slender Thread,” Tabletalk, May 2002, 16.)) 

Righteousness from God

comes through faith in Jesus Christ

to all who believe (trust) in Christ.

(Romans 3:22)

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We Have One Precious Life

remote_tv (Small) It’s the “new” TV season.  Since for me, Fall no longer means an excitement about returning to school–new pencils, new notebooks and book bags, I find myself anticipating and being excited by the promise of new Television shows!  I watch the promos and try to figure if House is going to conflict with anything else I want to view.  I plan what will be taped for later and what I will watch now.  Then I begin to wonder:

What will happen with Meredith and McDreamy?

What will fill the void left by Gilmore Girls?

Will Kitty and the Senator get together?

How will I be able to enjoy Survivor China and attend Choir Practice and ESL too?

What’s up with this Gossip Girls?

Into the scheduling excitement of the new season and of planning my living around what is airing on the tube — I read this Piper devotion.  Well, for sure it made me turn ET right off last night!

“If all other variables are equal, your capacity to know God deeply will probably diminish in direct proportion to how much television you watch.  There are several reasons for this.  One is that television reflects American culture at its most trivial.  And a steady diet of triviality shrinks the soul. 

You get used to it.  It starts to seem normal…If you watch fifty TV ads each night, you may forget there is such a thing as wisdom.  TV seldom inspires great thoughts or great feelings with glimpses of great Truth.  God is the great, absolute, all shaping Reality.  If He gets any air time, He is treated as an opinion. 

There is no reverence.  No trembling.God and all He thinks about the world is missing.  Cut loose from God, everything goes down.  It isn’t just what TV does to us with its rivers of emptiness; it is what TV keeps us from doing.  Do you ever ask, “What could I accomplish that is truly worthwhile if I did not watch TV?” ((John Piper, Pierced By the Word, Multnomah Publishers 2003, 77-78.))

Do I really want to spend this one precious life passive in front of a screen rather than actively before the face of God? 

 “Your eye is a lamp, lighting up your whole body.  If you live wide-eyed in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light.  Keep your eyes open, your lamp burning, so you don’t get musty and murky.  Keep your life as well-lighted as your best-lighted room.”  (Luke 11:33-36, The Message)

Lord, may this be a new season of love and devotion toward you!

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A Call to Persevere

Several months ago I posted a blog entitled “A Polished Arrow” highlighting the encouraging life of Helen Roseveare who was a medical missionary to the Congo.  This weekend she spoke at the Desiring God National Conference in Minneapolis.

You will be strengthened and blessed if you will take time to give a listen to this 80+ year old saint!

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Thirst Quencher

“The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)  Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink,” you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.?  The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?  Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”  

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,  but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.  The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”  The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”  (John 4:9-15)

Sitting at a real well with real water present, Jesus engages the woman at the well in a conversation concerning “spiritual water.”  He calls what He has to offer a “gift of God” and describes its effect as the ultimate thirst quencher–an unending spring of life.  These verses came to mind yesterday as I sat in church and heard the Pastor, Harriss Ricks, describe the work of Christ’s Spirit in a similar way.

pond His vivid illustration began by having us consider ourselves when we were apart from Christ as being like a pond.  A pond is self-enclosed–individualistic. A pond is still, quiet and doesn’t really impact it’s surroundings much.  In fact, the nature of the pond is that it responds to the changes in the environment around it.  If it is dry and the sun shines too long and hard, the water level in the pond recedes and algae begins to grow.  The pond is left with stagnant, murky water.   The woman at the well had lived like a pond for years.  She was influenced by her environment–and the day she met Jesus — He knew she was stagnant and murky–He knew she was thirsty for something refreshing and reviving.  He offered her the deepest refreshment–Himself.stream

Rather than face life like a stagnant pond, Jesus casts a vision of a life that is more like a living stream.  A life that would indeed quench her deepest thirst.  A stream is constantly replenished with water–it receives and releases fresh water every moment so that it becomes a vivid demonstration of what it means to be alive.  Something that is moving, cascading, reviving, impacting everything that it touches.

Thinking about this word picture and the story in John, I remembered that this woman did indeed receive the Living Water and the first thing she did was to run to the people of her town to release the life giving water that she had received– the news that there was an ultimate thirst quencher–His name is Jesus.