Some Of God's Children Are Not Well, Because of God

"God deals strangely with the saints, contrary to all human wisdom and understanding, to the end that those who fear God are good Christians, may learn to depend on invisible things, and through mortification may be made alive again; for God's Word is a light that shines in a dark place, as all examples of faith show. Esau was accursed, yet it went well with him; he was lord in the land, and priest in the church; but Jacob had to fly, and dwell in poverty in another country. God deals with godly Christians much as with the ungodly, yea, and sometimes far worse. He deals with them even as a house-father with a son and a servant; he whips and beats the son much more and oftener than the servant, yet nevertheless, he gathers for the son a treasure to inherit, while a stubborn and a disobedient servant he beats not with the rod, but thrusts out of doors, and gives him nothing of the inheritance."  -  From Luther's Tabletalk, #77.

God Deals Strangely with the Saints

"God deals strangely with the saints, contrary to all human wisdom and understanding, to the end that those who fear God are good Christians, may learn to depend on invisible things, and through mortification may be made alive again; for God's Word is a light that shines in a dark place, as all examples of faith show. Esau was accursed, yet it went well with him; he was lord in the land, and priest in the church; but Jacob had to fly, and dwell in poverty in another country. God deals with godly Christians much as with the ungodly, yea, and sometimes far worse. He deals with them even as a house-father with a son and a servant; he whips and beats the son much more and oftener than the servant, yet nevertheless, he gathers for the son a treasure to inherit, while a stubborn and a disobedient servant he beats not with the rod, but thrusts out of doors, and gives him nothing of the inheritance."  -  From Luther's Tabletalk, #77.

Another Reason Why the Christian Life is So Hard

Because, "Those whom the Lord loves He disciplines. 

And He scourges every son whom He receives."

Proverbs 3:11-12, cited in Hebrews 12:6

Because Origin Matters

Recently I was participating in a church gathering where I was introduced to Sovereign Over Us, a song written by Bryan Brown, Jack Mooring, and Aaron Keyes. I am quite out of touch with most things in modern culture, Christian or otherwise. So I don't know how long the song has been out and I haven't bothered to look into it. Anyway, I appreciate the song which may be heard here.

Apparently the origins of the song come from the writers' understanding of God as revealed in Jeremiah 29, particularly verse 11. The chorus contains these lines: "Your plans are still to prosper, You have not forgotten us. You are with us in the fire and the flood." Wonderful. But I do wonder if the authors of this piece, along with the many who sing it, realize that the God of Jeremiah 29 is with us in the fires and floods that He sends. The losses and pains of our existence are not accidents, or merely the results of a fallen world, or some other less than sovereign reality. Read the chapter. God is the source of the very pain in which He promises His presence. But that truth wasn't included in the song. Too bad, because it saturates Jeremiah's thinking.

God Over All: Meditations on Job's Hope

"Is there anything I can do for You, is there anything I can do?

For all the things You've done for me, is there anything I can do?

Is there anywhere I can go for You, is there anywhere I can go?

For all the places You've been for me, is there anywhere I can go?

Is there anything I can be for You, is there anything I can be?

For all the things You've been for me, is there anything I can be?

I'm willing to be used dear Lord whatever the price may be. 

So if there's anything I can do for you just make it known to me."

I grew up singing to God the lines above, normally at youth group events. I meant the words. I believed I had something to offer; that there was spiritual work to be done, by me, for Jesus.

I was arrogant. I was foolish. I was neurotic, and largely spiritually blind. I made promises I couldn't keep and held expectations I couldn't match with performance. I was terrified of failure and too ignorant to succeed. I wanted to exert strength for a God who was calling me to embrace my weakness. But men don't naturally value weakness. We hate weakness, especially our own.

I read my Bible a lot. And being a son of Adam, I was unwittingly drawn to its commands and to its "heroes." At 15 I committed myself to pursue Christian ministry as a vocation. I led the religious clubs in my high school and was awarded the "most-Christlike" award by my youth group. Apparently its members were also blind. But I understand. I played the part well, in some measure because I was sincere, and I think I was actually a Christian, meaning I had faith in Christ to cover my sins and get me to His Father. But I regularly functioned like a Pharisee, guarding the Law I couldn't keep and imposing my version of it upon others. I was sinfully hard on people, and generally merciless. I hate that guy. But I can't seem to kill him. So in this life, repeatedly wounding him is my lot. After high school I gained a religious studies degree at university and then off to seminary for the MDiv. That's the normal course for a fellow like the me of then.

But God is patient, and merciful. He has been content to take a lifetime to shatter the idols and images of self. His work continues. If 2015 hasn't been about that then I don't know what to make of it.  In an effort to keep this post on the brief side, I want to mention (with little explanation; maybe I can expand that in later posts) only two hard lessons from this past year of the divine scourge (Pr 3:11-12; Cf He 11-12).

1. God the Holy Spirit's work of sanctification might be more about teaching weakness than it is about instilling righteousness. By my best and most generous estimation, I am not a better man than I was 365 days ago, or twenty years ago. But I am more aware of my own profound weakness. And I am learning that any progress in holiness is necessarily gained through that weakness. And I am now sure of my all-engulfing need for God to act on my behalf. I cannot produce what He commands. I cannot, in the ways that matter most, change myself, improve myself, help myself, provide for myself, or sanctify myself. This fresh awareness has been shaping what I expect of myself, and others. From the first man Adam to the model of faith Abraham to King David to the Prophet Jeremiah to the Apostle Paul to us on this first day of 2016, the aim of God for His people continues to be our humiliation, not our glory (See Php 2, for example).

2. We are too weak to have recourse. This, like lesson 1, runs throughout the Scriptures and is written over every life. And it is a further comment on the one above about needing God to act on our behalf. Perhaps it is seen most clearly in Job's life. When the horrors of our existence are discussed by those given to philosophy, the old dilemma is often restated - that either God is good but not powerful, or powerful but not good - otherwise He would not permit said horrors. I have never heard of anyone suffering as Job did; yet, he doesn't seem to wrestle with his miseries in the usual way. He actually affirms God's sovereign power and God's comprehensive justice. He would say, I think, that God can do anything He wants, and that all He wants is right; and that's his struggle - the absence of recourse. What can a man do with God? How can a man move God? How might a man wrestle with God? Who can make a case against God? Job cannot. We cannot. And when we learn this in our distresses and pressures and losses and pains, perhaps we will behave as Job did when he prayed:

"I loathe my life; I would not live forever.

Leave me alone, for my days are a breath.

What is man, that you make so much of him, 

and that you set your heart on him,

visit him every morning and test him every moment?

How long will you not look away from me,

nor leave me alone till I swallow my spit?"

Job 7:16-19

When we take to heart that unless God acts, and in Job's case relents, we have no recourse, we might

request that He simply leave us be, and make the argument that we are not worth His emotional energies and divine activities toward us. Apparently Job didn't think much of himself, or even of humans in general. It appears he didn't consider himself worth God's attention in bringing good or evil upon him. And I think I hear the desperation in his plea - God please, please, "look away from me," and let me die and thereby gain relief. Why so much bother with me? Please, "leave me alone."

This reminds me of 1 Kings 19 where the prophet Elijah, in the distress God had brought upon him, prays It is enough O Lord, take my life. The divine beat-down is a soul-crushing, body-breaking,  overwhelming horror, designed that we might "learn not to rely on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead" (See 2 Co 1:8-10). God is impressed with His Son, not with me. And while I have longed to be impressive to Him, my gross failures have been good medicine. And they have caused me to become more impressed with Christ, who has Himself never failed and who has Himself been crushed by the full weight of the wrath of God for all of my sin. Isn't it astounding that He never tires of forgiving us. Clearly He is more committed to me than I am to Him.

I no longer make promises or pledges to God, in song or otherwise (which means I remain silent through many contemporary musical compositions). I quit that nonsense years ago. And I have given up on being spiritually impressive. Because when I look in a mirror, I do not see an able man, but a weak one. So the lyrics have changed, the song rewritten. Now it goes something like this:

Is there anything You will do for me; is there anything You will do? 

Since I have nothing to offer You, is there anything You will do? 

And is there anywhere You will go for me, is there anywhere You will go? 

Since I can go nowhere for You, is there anywhere You will go?

 

And will You be what I need today, will You be what I need?

Since I can't help myself today, will You be what I need?

I'd like to be used dear Lord, but I am frail and weak.

So if there's anything that You want from me, "Please grant it" is my plea.

"What a help You are to the weak!

How You have saved the arm without strength!"

Job 26:2   

Our Potipharian Prisons

It is clear in my mind that this post is for me, in the cathartic sense. That bag in the picture has been with me since 1987 when I was a junior in high school. Yesterday, twenty-eight years and several schools later, I carried it home at the end of my last week with the company for which I have been working for the past 670 days, give or take. I did shed a few tears, but not because I was leaving that work. I cried because I had been in it at all. 

I imagine it's like the tale of some who are freed from prison after serving their sentences. They may weep. But the tears are not born in the joy of their release. They are born in the misery of having been incarcerated, and the many losses that come with it.

That blue book bag carries many memories for me; the kind that cause me to consider burning it. I am a Christian. So I ought to run all experiences through the pages of Scripture, and I attempt to do so. I am also a man, and not a strong one. So I often find it difficult to see through the pain to the meanings that make it bearable. It's terribly trying for me to look back over twenty-eight years and make meaningful sense of much of it. Some say we write our own story. I say that's largely bullshit (See Pr 16, for example).

Frankly, the past three plus years have felt like my Israeli captivity (Ne 1:1-3); my Potipharian prison (Ge 39:20); my Jeremiahan cistern (Je 38:6); my Asian burden (2 Co 1:8-10). Of course life could be made more burdensome. And it very well may be.

Perhaps the comfort and hope is that God is more than a governor, He's also a redeemer. And if we traced out the stories, ultimately Israel and Joseph and Jeremiah and the Apostle Paul can be said to have benefited from their afflictions. But they were still real afflictions that had to really be endured.

Two of my recent co-workers pressed me yesterday about the reasons for my lack of excitement regarding my soon approaching move and new work (I imagine my disposition gave me away). They called me a pessimist.  I don't believe I'm a pessimist (Although I did tell them that excitement is for suckers). I think of myself more as a realist. And in reality, new things come with their own share of burdens. Moreover, they rarely deliver on the hype we might pour into them. Has anything ever positively been all that I thought it might be?

In addition, none of our earthly treasures are meant to be altogether or permanently satisfying. That's not their design. They are, after all, finite and fleeting. So for me to tie up in them an over-inflated (meaning idolatrous) hope, is foolish. I have a new work in a new place. Okay then. I hope to do some good. Time will tell.

God's Paper Presence

God the Holy Spirit wrote a book. God is for the written word. He is for learning. He is for the good change right knowledge may produce. He is anti-ignorance, especially ignorance of Him.

While I am not against digital books, I am for paper books, partly because of what I think is a superior presence. I think it's better to have a Bible, for example, lying on the living room table than to have a copy saved on your Kindle or phone where it is essentially invisible. Your children don't see it, or handle it, or flip through its pages or draw on the blank filler pages. And you are not reminded by seeing it to fear God, Who like His book, is in the room. But perhaps that's just me.

My friend Adam has an online publishing house. I am commending it to you for some of the accessible, affordable, and helpful resources you can find there; and because since Adam is my friend, I want to see his business flourish. So please consider a visit here.

Strive.

"Grace is not opposed to effort, but to earning." 

Dallas Willard 

Strive to enter through the narrow door; 
for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.
Lk 13:24 

The Flavor of Meats and the Sweetness of Odors

"We cannot even avoid those matters which serve our pleasures rather than our needs. But that we may use them with a pure conscience, we should observe moderation, whether we mean the one, or the other. . .The flavor of meats, and the sweetness of odors, makes some people so stupid that they have no longer any appetite for spiritual things. . .We should zealously beware that anything the Lord gave us to enrich life become a stumbling block. . .For while all such things are given to us by divine kindness, and are meant to be for our benefit, they are at the same time like deposits entrusted to our care, and of these we shall have to give an account some day." -- Excerpts from John Calvin's "Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life", Chapter 5.

Various and Severe Lessons of Misery

"In one word, the whole soul, wrapped up in carnal delights, seeks its happiness on this earth. To counteract this, the Lord by various and severe lessons of misery, teaches His children the vanity of the present life. . .But, if it is necessary for us to be taught by God, it certainly is also our duty to listen to Him when He speaks, and arouses us from our sluggishness, that we may turn our backs upon this world, and try to meditate with all our heart on the life to come. . .For the Lord ordained that those who are to be crowned in heaven, should first fight the good fight on earth, that they may not celebrate their triumph without actually having overcome the difficulties of warfare, and having gained the victory." -- Excerpts from John Calvin's "Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life", Chapter 4. 

Cross-Bearing is More Difficult than Self-Denial

"Cross-bearing is more difficult than self-denial. . .For all whom the Lord has chosen and received into the society of his saints, ought to prepare themselves for a life that is hard, difficult, laborious, and full of countless griefs. It is the will of their heavenly Father to try them in this manner that He may test them. . .For Saint Paul tells us that if we know the fellowship of His sufferings we shall also understand the power of His resurrection; and that while we are participating in His death, we are also being prepared for sharing His glorious resurrection. . .There are many reasons why we should live under a continual cross. First, whereas we are naturally prone to attribute everything to our human flesh, unless we have, as it were, object lessons of our stupidity, we easily form an exaggerated notion of our strength, and we take for granted that, whatever hardships may happen, we will remain invincible. . .This vanity He cannot better repress than by proving to us from experience not only our folly, but also our extreme frailty. Therefore He afflicts us with humiliation, or poverty, or loss of relatives, or disease, or other calamities. Then, because we are unable to bear them, we soon are buried under them. . .For it is no small profit to be robbed of our blind self-love so that we become fully aware of our weakness; to have such an understanding of our weakness that we distrust ourselves; to distrust ourselves to such an extent that we put all our trust in God; to depend with such boundless confidence on God that we rely entirely on His help so that we may victoriously persevere to the end; to continue in His grace that we may know that He is true and faithful in His promises; and to experience the certainty of His promises so that our hope may become firmer. . .If everything proceeded according to our wishes, we would not understand what it means to follow God." -- Excerpts from John Calvin's "Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life", Chapter 3.

Our Labor Is Not Lost

"Since God has revealed himself as a Father, we would be guilty of the basest ingratitude if we

did not behave as his children. . .But our religion will be unprofitable if it does not change our hearts, pervade our manners, and transform us into new creatures. . .The Lord first of all wants sincerity in his service, simplicity of heart without guile and falsehood. . .The one condition for spiritual progress is that we remain sincere and humble. . .Let us not cease to do our utmost, that we may incessantly go forward in the way of the Lord. . .Though we fall short, our labor is not lost if this day surpasses the preceding one." -- Excerpts from John Calvin's "Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life", Chapter 1

Get Wisdom - Post 30

Proverbs -- Chapter 30 


Some observations:

1. Know God, and know yourself, and know your place. It seems to me this is an umbrella theme over this chapter. And it should be said that knowing God well produces knowledge of one's self. We learn who and what we are not. Also, pay attention. Agur considered himself ignorant and foolish (v2-3), yet he writes with insight and wisdom on the realities and mysteries of life in this world.
2. As a sub-point to #1, submit to how God has made the world and to His ways in it. There is a divine origin and rhythm to it all, and we can learn something of God from observing this and walking with it, not against it.
3. Notice the many sins involving the tongue against which we are warned, and counseled to overcome (v8-9, 10, 11, 15, 32-33).
4. Wonder (v18-19. Cf v2-5).
5. Get wisdom (v24-28. Cf v3).

Weakness, in 2014

Let's learn this, from John Piper.

Time Travel . . . If Only

The Kingdom Notes NOVEMBER 19, 2013

Ask RC: If you could go back in time, what would you tell 18 year old you? We all have regrets. We look back at forks in the road behind us and wonder where we might be now had we chosen more wisely back then. Every misstep, however, is an opportunity to learn, to follow more faithfully in Jesus’ footsteps. How gracious that our Lord not only covers our folly, but is able to grow wisdom out of it? Below are ten things now me would seek to impress into the stubborn mind of then me. 10. Cultivate gratitude, put to death grumbling. I am persuaded the path to future blessing follows on the trail of giving thanks for past blessings. We, like our fathers before us, are given to forgetting, to taking grace for granted, to believing we are due more than we have been given. Like our fathers before us we are wrong. Gratitude is its own reward, as no one has ever been truly grateful and truly unhappy. 9. Worry about your sanctification rather than your standing. This, I suspect, is central to what it means to seek first the kingdom and His righteousness. Just as Jesus warned, we tend to worry about what we will eat or wear. In a context as richly blessed as ours we don’t lose the worry, but inflate it. That is, we don’t worry about having enough to eat. We worry instead about how well we are doing, how much we are respected or envied. 8. Master your temper. Not many of my emotions can get the best of me. Anger, however, often seems to have my number. 7. Encourage yourself and your circle of influence to find your and their satisfaction in Jesus. I am now a professional persuader. This is what I wish I had been laboring to persuade people of from my youth. 6. Learn to like vegetables and be leery of carbs. Bad eating habits, like any other habit, are tough to get past, especially in middle age. 5. Relax, wind down, recreate by doing rather than watching. Reading is better than television. Talking is better than reading. Learning to play music is better than listening to music. Making is better than buying. Those who can rest while still exercising dominion are not only more productive, but more rested. 4. Seek out and read those rare books that both tell you something important and do so beautifully. Read fewer theological controversies, more Lewis, Chesterton; fewer spy novels, more Jon Krakaur, Paul Johnson, Ian Murray. Read people whose insights flow less out of what they have studied, more out of what they have lived. 3. Never stop playing baseball. 2. Listen to and honor your parents. This, according to the Word of God, is how you have a good life. Plus, they were telling you all this stuff I’m now trying to tell you. They were right, and you, 18 year old RC, were wrong. 1. Hold Denise’s hand every chance you get. Tell her you love her every time she enters the room. Let the tears well up every time you think of her, and never stop thinking of her. Make sure that her last thought on this earth will be, My Lord loves me forever, and my lord loves me forever.  For more from RC Sproul Jr, go here.

Martin Luther, on Reformation Day, for those that Suffer the "Whippings and Beatings" of their Heavenly Father

October 31 is Reformation Day. It is also, in a sense, Luther's Day. Below is something Luther once said over dinner.

    "God deals strangely with the saints, contrary to all human wisdom and understanding, to the end that those who fear God are good Christians, may learn to depend on invisible things, and through mortification may be made alive again; for God's Word is a light that shines in a dark place, as all examples of faith show. Esau was accursed, yet it went well with him; he was lord in the land, and priest in the church; but Jacob had to fly, and dwell in poverty in another country.
    God deals with godly Christians much as with the ungodly, yea, and sometimes far worse. He deals with them even as a house-father with a son and a servant; he whips and beats the son much more and oftener than the servant, yet nevertheless, he gathers for the son a treasure to inherit, while a stubborn and a disobedient servant he beats not with the rod, but thrusts out of doors, and gives him nothing of the inheritance."  -  From Luther's Tabletalk, #77.

God the Wise: Meditations on Job's Hope

Having now finished reading the book of Job, and then re-reading several of the ending chapters, I offer a few observations that I hope will help in getting to the bottom of the book's message(s).

1. Currently standing at the forefront of my mind is the notion that all of the torture from God, via Satan, that Job interpreted as God's hostility, was actually evidence of God's love. This is not expressly stated within the book, so I'm a bit slow to begin with it. However, I have also been studying Hebrews 12. As I look at the two texts side by side, this is what I see. In other words, the reasons Christians use to justify our unbelief in God's love as He has declared and demonstrated it are the very things that prove it. This is easily illustrated by the human parent-child relationship in which a loving parent goes to great lengths to protect his child from ruinous thought and behavior and deliver her unto blessing. God has made this lesson necessarily plain in the world because it is so abominably hard on us to learn abstractly.

2. God's hard dealings with Job began in a conversation between God and Satan. I do not pretend to understand the connection here, nor have I given it much time. But it is certainly worth mentioning and should be considered in the light of the many New Testament texts that connect humans and their activity with the mighty unseen creatures before whom we live. (i.e. Lk 22:31; Ro 8:38; 1 Co 5:5, 11:10; 2 Co 12:7; 1 Ti 5:21; He 1:6)

3. The Heavenly Father, like His Son, does not always give a humanly sensible answer to the question He is asked. When God finally spoke to Job (Job 38-42), He did not answer Job's particular questions; and didn't even mention Job's suffering. He talked a lot about Himself. God, being wise, speaks the words needed, not requested.

4. God's timing is His own. Job has poured out his heart to God over and over and over again with no reply. We read this for 37 chapters. Then, without explanation, we read, "Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind. . ." (38:1). I don't know.

5. I have heard folks try to pinpoint Job's sin. In a way it's quite incredible that one might read Job's story and then insist on finding the wrong for which Job was punished. That he was being punished at all seems to run counter to the book's message. And yet Job "repents" (42:6); but of what in particular? Some use 16:12 and 42:10 to argue that Job was selfish, and therefore punished. But this appears to me far from the truth. And God never indicts Job for such a crime. The wrong activity Job will eventually confess (42:3) is speaking of God and God's ways without adequate understanding. I tend to think this was also the sin of those of Isaiah's day (Is 6:5), but not in exactly the same way. But this sin occurred during his weakness while suffering. It was not the reason for the suffering. The reason for the suffering is not altogether clear to me. But it occurs to me that God does bring hardship upon His people for training purposes, not only in response to unrepentant sinning (i.e. 2 Co 1). Our pain is planned, not arbitrary. And it's aim is maturity and perseverance and holiness and greater usefulness (2 Co 1; 2 Ti 2; He 12; Ja 1)

6. If you want the New Testament commentary on the point of Job's story, there is one verse on the subject, James 5:11. It reads, "We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful." I'm wondering, concerning those of you who have read Job, is this what you took away, that God "is full of compassion and is merciful." I confess that was not my first impression. We should consider this further in a future post.

7. Job's friends were wrong about him, and worse, about God (42:7-8). It's good to see Job vindicated. Such justice on earth is not altogether common to God's people. It is easy for us to look at a life and/or a situation and think that had the hurting person done this or that or the other, that he or she would not be in such hardship. We don't know that. We don't know very much at all, about each other or about God. And that's my final word here. Job knew God. Job was a righteous man (1:1,8). And at the end of his ordeal his confession is that he doesn't understand God's ways terribly well. This should give us pause in evaluating our own hardships, and before making judgments, or even speculations, when we consider others who suffer. It would be better to seek to comfort and relieve them first, and save our advice for much later, or for never. Job's friends appear to do him the most good when they are simply sitting with him, and mourning with him, in silence (2:11-13; Cf 2 Co 1 & Ro 12:15).

A Little Help on the Road

I have not written for a while. And before that I was writing sporadically. And today I have little to say. There are reasons for this that I share not. Let's move on. I have been on the road a lot lately and during this past week found myself reading from the famous devotional book "My Utmost for His Highest" by Oswald Chambers. I used to read Chambers in high school and college. Then I stopped. But, while staying in my parent's house for the week of Thanksgiving I picked it up again, since a copy of the book was on the bedside table. Here are a few highlights for your edification, amusement, and progress in the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

Commenting on John 17:4: "The death of Jesus Christ is the performance in history of the very Mind of God. There is no room for looking on Jesus Christ as a martyr; His death was not something that happened to Him which might have been prevented. His death was the very reason why He came."

Commenting on 1 Corinthians 10:31: "Our safeguard is the shallow things. We have to live the surface common-sense life in a common-sense way; when the deeper things come, God gives them to us apart from the shallow concerns. Never show the deeps to anyone but God. We are so abominably serious, so desperately interested in our own characters, that we refuse to behave like Christians in the shallow concerns of life."

Commenting on Psalm 123:3 (This one, for me, was worth the trip and the week; if only I could do it):  "The thing of which we have to beware is not so much damage to our belief in God as damage to our Christian temper. 'Therefore take heed to thy spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.' The temper of mind is tremendous in its effects, it is the enemy that penetrates right into the soul and distracts the mind from God. There are certain tempers of mind in which we never dare indulge; if we do, we find they have distracted us from faith in God, and until we get back to the quiet mood before God, our faith in Him is nil, and our confidence in the flesh and in human ingenuity is the thing that rules.

Beware of  'the cares of this world,' because they are the things that produce a wrong temper of soul. It is extraordinary what an enormous power there is in simple things to distract our attention from God. Refuse to be swamped with the cares of this life.

Another thing that distracts us is the lust of vindication. St. Augustine prayed--'O Lord, deliver me from this lust of always vindicating myself.' That temper of mind destroys the soul's faith in God. 'I must explain myself; I must get people to understand.' Our Lord never explained anything; He left mistakes to correct themselves.

When we discern that people are not going on spiritually and allow the discernment to turn to criticism, we block our way to God. God never gives us discernment in order that we may criticize, but that we may intercede."

Commenting on Galatians 6:14: "If you want to know the energy of God (i.e., the resurrection life of Jesus) in your mortal flesh, you must brood on the tragedy of God. Cut yourself off from prying personal interest in your own spiritual symptoms and consider bare-spirited the tragedy of God, and instantly the energy of God will be in you. 'Look unto Me,' pay attention to the objective Source and subjective energy will be there. We lose power if we do not concentrate  on the right thing. The effect of the Cross is salvation, sanctification, healing, etc., but we are not to preach any of these, we are to preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The proclaiming of Jesus will do its own work."
  

Treating the World the Way the World Treats Jesus

"But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." -- The Apostle Paul, Ga 6:14

Sinclair Ferguson comments: "What is to be done to the world in the Christian life? It is to be crucified. It is to receive the same treatment at the hands of the Christian as Jesus received at the hands of worldly men! . . We must deal a mortal wound to its influence in our hearts and lives. Just as the Lord Jesus was an object of revulsion and rejection to the world, so it must be to us." -- From "Grow in Grace", page 60.

Get Wisdom - Post 28

Proverbs - Chapter 28

There are multiple themes that run through this chapter. They include wickedness in contrast with righteousness (v1, 4-5,12, 15, 28), the evil rich in contrast with the honorable poor (v6, 8, 11, 19, 22, 27), and the law-hater in contrast with the law-keeper (v4, 7, 9). Other topics are wisdom (v26), understanding (v2, 7, 11, 16), integrity (v6), repentance (v13), work (v19), contentment/generosity (v8, 24-25, 27) and the fear of the LORD (v14). The text also speaks of what we produce, that is, our fruitfulness for good or evil. Another way to say this is to talk of consequences. All of us are producing something in this moment. What is that something? So God warns, "Whoever trusts in His own mind is a fool"; And promises, "but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered". In other words, our own minds are not naturally wise minds. They are in contrast quite foolish, unable to please the Lord, because they do not operate from faith (See He 6:1-6; Ro 3:11-20, etc), and "that which is not of faith is sin" (Ro 14:23).

The Scriptures repeatedly tell us that our minds are naturally hostile to the law of God and twisted beyond any human ability to straighten. Consequently, we are easily deceived. So the sanctification of the mind is a must if we are to get wisdom, that is, live to please God. This sanctification happens by digestion of God's Word (Jn 17:17) which washes our minds clean (Ep 5:26). So let us do the joyous work of learning to love God with our minds by cultivating the thinking of Christ (Mt 22:37; 1 Co 2:15-16) -- the perfectly sane, never deceived, and altogether wise One.

To do this, I suggest a weekly participation in the hearing of sound preaching/teaching. This is a chief means God has given. So gather with God's people for it. God has designed the church so that His people mature by being taught by those built for the work. In addition, consider a listening plan -- an audio Bible, and/or a reading plan -- something like "Read the Bible for Life" by George Guthrie. You can give it a look here.

The Scriptures make extraordinary claims about themselves and about their eternally good effects upon the the one who learns, believes, and does them. We believe these claims or we do not. Our affection level for the Bible and our practices with it reveal our confidence in it, and it's Author.

"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God"

Jesus, Mt 4:4

"Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth. May my teaching drop as the rain, and my speech distill as the dew, like gentle rain upon the grass, and like showers upon the herb. . .take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of the law. For it is no empty word for you, but your very life. . ."

Moses, Dt 32:1-2, 46-47