Go Hard or Go Home - DWYL

One of the first big challenges to my belief system in which I was raised came at the age of 25 when the course of my nursing career took me to the ranges of a hi-max lockdown unit in a maximum security men's prison. Not one of the nice new ones with doors and walls, no no. There were only bars between the most dangerous, recalcitrant male inmates in the state - and me. Because of the violence level innate in this type of inmate, the shortage of the number of officers available vs the number of officers required to escort an inmate of this security level to the prison ER, I spent more time on their turf, in their cellblocks, than on the medical floor.


I had been brought up to believe that people were inherently good and that they could choose God, that only the worst heathens didn't live moral lives, and that there was no one beyond redemption if they'd just "give their hearts to Jesus". And here I was, day by day, suddenly surrounded by every possible evidence of the utter depravity of man on grand display. Their crimes, their imaginations, their defilements, their voices, their actions toward themselves, the staff (including me) and toward each other - I had walked into the bowels of hell on earth. I saw men who had become animals, men who were so numbed that they felt no physical nor emotional pain. Sociopaths. Psychopaths. Psychoses. The whole ball of wax. Later I worked in a youth detention center where I came into contact with a 13 year old boy who acted just like these same inmates - all the way down to screaming and beating and cursing through a holding room door and urinating under the door when he didn't get his way. The general spreading and distribution of their bodily wastes, fluids, and functions was a method of amusement and self-expression for many of them. Unadulterated anger spewed from behind the bars. Several were in specially constructed cells after physically disabling two officers. The officers in charge of them would arrive in the ER covered in boiling hot oil or sliced across the neck, injuries received as they passed out water and meals. Nurses would return from passing out medications with black eyes and ripped scrub tops or covered in urine or feces or - on some occasions - semen.

For a sheltered preacher's kid who had come from the small-town hospital and the nice Christian OB/GYN office, coming from sanitized American "Christianity," this was an outright systemic shock that my theological base could not handle.

And so it crumbled. Being based in a faulty concept of the nature of sin - still believing sin to be nothing more than a conscious choice that a "good person" makes and which then makes them "bad" ... instead of a root in and of itself that corrupts every man from his core - I was terminally curious and seeking for answers - what makes people choose this? What makes them become this? I began to dig into psychology and became fascinated with what made them "tick". I studied up on criminal profiling. I read books like, "Inside the Criminal Mind" that painted a near-hopeless picture of inborn sociopathy. I heard studies about how babies born to crack-addicted mothers are born without a conscience (I don't know about the veracity of those studies). All the information I gathered just made it sound like there were people who were "not like us" - born without a chance, without hope, and that couldn't correspond to what I had understood about the God and the Gospel that I thought I knew. I was faced with this hard cold reality, the studies of men used to explain away that hard cold reality, and a watered-down, sanitized American "gospel" that had no real room for these men...and that made me question the whole thing. It just seemed more and more hopeless. On the heels of a divorce and the beginning of a succession of betrayals, that shallow, faulty theological base was shattered. And so, as those who themselves have no real Light to shine will do in order to ensure their survival in the midst of such circumstances, I quickly embraced the darkness - with dark humor. And thus accelerated my own decline.

What I didn't know then was that Jesus didn't come to a nice, pretty world full of people who make bad choices in order to make it prettier and "churchy" and to teach us to make better choices; He came to a dark, violent, bloody, condemned world and gave Himself up for it so that in Him, through Him and for Him, a people might be redeemed so that they might also give themselves up so that the Lamb that was slain might receive the reward of His suffering. What I didn't know then was that sin is the root issue, not merely the fruit of something that made them somehow morally deficient as compared with "law abiding citizens". What I didn't know - until a year ago when the pages of Ezekiel 1 shone a light on my own heart - was that I was just as dead and depraved as they were. It may have expressed itself differently, but dead is dead - there aren't differing degrees of dead, there are just differing degrees of decay. Its accompanying smell may be just a whiff under the nose or it could be overpowering, but its source is the same. What I didn't know then was that God will have mercy on whom He has mercy and will harden whom He will harden; that while we were yet helpless Christ died for the ungodly, for His enemies so that through rebirth and re-creation, the resurrection of a dead, decayed soul, and progressive sanctification, that they might become godly, becoming brothers; that He who knew no sin became sin so that in Him dead, depraved, sinful man might become the righteousness of God. What I didn't know then was that if not for the common grace of God and certain systems in place that "prop us up" on our way to Hell, we all - including me - would fall to those depths - and deeper - on this earth, utterly deserving of the even worse hell that awaits on the other side. What I didn't know then was that I was no better than they, that my bones were just as dry, my spirit just as dead, my heart just as stony - as theirs. And that even now - because in my flesh there is NO good thing - I would fall to that depth if not for the keeping power and promise of Christ.

For that matter, at that point in time, if any of them knew that they were dead and broken and hopeless, then they were closer to the Kingdom than I was.

God, in His amazing grace, has brought out of such pits as those that currently lead men to fill up these prison cells, young men like Lecrae, Timothy Brindle, Shai Linne, who take seriously the word of the Lord that he who claims to know Jesus ought to walk just as He walked, who drink deeply of the Word, and they go to the streets from which they came and proclaim the word of the Lord to streets full of dry bones. They take their commission seriously. These guys have better theology than most "polite" CCM, which frankly is why I'd rather listen to them than to many other modern artists on "Christian" radio, where I hear a lot of celebration of self and angst rather than the crucifixion of it, thereby effectively embracing darkness instead of shining the Light on it (cf John 3:19-21, Matt. 7:21-23, 1 John 1:6-10). But these young men go straight to the cross. They proclaim the word of the Lord among men and women who have been given up on by the world and who have given up on themselves, yet who through the grace of God might actually hear a true gospel from somebody like them, who speak their language, where they wouldn't hear it from anyone else. There is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still. There is no bone so dry that it can't be quickened by the Holy Spirit. There is no soul so dead that God cannot resurrect it, re-create it. And He does that. Every day. These gentlemen - my brothers in Christ - they get that and they go out there - As Lecrae says in his video, "Go hard or go home". "Young people who are not only confessing Jesus Christ with their lips but are shouting it loud with their lives", who asks a strikingly important question in one song, "after the music stops, what's next? Will there be fellowship, disciples, will you open up your Bibles, will you know that Christ is King, or will you just like the words that I sing, after the music stops?"

They impress and inspire and challenge me with their God-given heart and sold-out lives:

Lecrae's Testimony:

Lecrae Story from Adamson.TV on Vimeo.


Todd Friel's classic take on the subject:

Repentance?

I must preface this by pointing out that the Scriptures have only been open and illuminated to me for a little over a year, most of which has been spent digging and mining through the New Testament, the Prophets, the Psalms, and marvelling at the whole New Covenant promises throughout, learning of who Christ is through the overt revelations of Himself in the NT as well as from the Messianic prophecies and allusions as well as what I can glean from His lineage. Backstories of the Psalms, so some digging and mining through 1 & 2 Samuel too, but I still have a ways to go in terms of reading and gleaning through most of the other books of history and the Torah - the original shadow of Christ - as well. There have been some things that have sat on me through the past year, things I ponder and pray about as a matter of course, things like there is surely something about the way Esther boldly approached the king's throne, and mulling over dogs and crumbs, and thinking that, in a bigger sense, the two stories are related (I still do, but this post isn't about that).

So in the past couple of months I've begun really digging through, beginning at Genesis, and moving forward. Tonight I hit Deuteronomy, and as is often the case when I read Scripture, it didn't take long to reach a point where something hit me.

Deuteronomy 1:34-46. Moses is in the midst of his first farewell address and he's reminding the people of their own rebellion and its price. God had told them to go up and fight the Amorites in order to take possession of the Promised Land, but it was too hard, the odds were against them (God's promise and previous miraculous demonstrations of His care and faithfulness notwithstanding), and so they rebelled by murmuring and complaining about being where they were, refusing to fight the Amorites. As a result of this, they were told that they would not see the promised land, but instead to just turn back where they came from, and go back through the wilderness toward the Red Sea. They would not be allowed in.

They sorrowed, admitted to having sinned against God, and decided then that they would obey and went off to fight the Amorites on their own. But God said no, too late, He wasn't with them, but they went on their own anyway and so of course they were defeated.

Besides the obvious lesson there, I've learned that the Bible as a whole is a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, and that most passages aren't isolated texts - they weave in and out of each other throughout its 4000 year history. And so, while perhaps it's because my pastor is preaching through Jonah on Sunday nights, my mind immediately went to Jonah, and it seemed that I should compare/contrast this with Jonah's situation.

The Israelites were told to go do something by God, and they rebelled and murmured.

Jonah was told to go do something by God, and he rebelled and ran.

The Israelites repented and decided to obey - but God wasn't with them, and told them not to - they had blown their chance.

Jonah repented and decided to obey - and God, who mercifully kept Jonah safe from the storm in the belly of a whale, sent him on his way and the mission was successful.

So...what's the difference? Why did God not accept the sorrow of the Israelites, but accepted Jonah's repentance?

Could it be that this is another Scriptural situation that cements the idea that it matters what our motivation for repentance is - whether it's out of a sense of a gain or loss of something for ourselves vs the a pure (godly?) sorrow for having offended our God?

Immediately, this from Paris Reidhead as he exposits another passage of Scripture, Judges 17-18, came to mind:

What about you? Why did you repent? I’d like to see some people repent on Biblical terms again. George Whitefield knew it. He stood on Boston Commons speaking to twenty thousand people and he said, "Listen sinners – you’re monsters – monsters of iniquity! You deserve Hell! And the worst of your crimes is that criminals though you’ve been, you haven’t had the good grace to see it!" He said, "If you will not weep for your sins and your crimes against a Holy God, George Whitefield will weep for you!" That man would put his head back and he would sob like a baby. Why? Because they were in danger of Hell? No! But because they were "monsters of iniquity", that didn’t even see their sin or care about their crimes.

You see the difference? The difference is, here is somebody trembling because he is going to be hurt in Hell. And he has no sense of the enormity of his guilt! And no sense of the enormity of his crime! And no sense of his insult against Deity! He’s only trembling because his skin is about to be singed. He’s afraid and I submit to you that whereas fear is good office work in preparing us for grace, it’s no place to stop. And the Holy Ghost doesn’t stop there. That’s the reason why no one can savingly receive Christ until they’ve repented. And no one can repent until they’ve been convicted. And conviction is the work of the Holy Ghost that helps a sinner to see that he is a criminal before God and deserves all of God’s wrath. And if God were to send him to the lowest corner of a devil’s Hell forever and ten eternities, that he deserved it all and a hundred fold more. Because he’s seen his crimes.

Why should a sinner repent? Because God deserves the obedience and love that he’s refused to give Him! Not so that he’ll go to heaven. If the only reason he repents is so that he’ll go to heaven, it’s nothing but trying to make a deal or a bargain with God.

Why should a sinner give up all his sins? Why should he be challenged to do it? Why should he make restitution when he’s coming to Christ? Because God deserves the obedience that He demands.

I have talked with people that have no assurance that sins are forgiven. They want to feel safe, before they’re willing to commit themselves to Christ. But I believe that the only ones whom God actually witnesses by His Spirit and are born of Him, are the people, whether they say it or not, that come to Jesus Christ and say something like this, "Lord Jesus, I’m going to obey you, and love you, and serve you, and do what you want me to do, as long as I live, even if I go to Hell at the end of the road, simply because you are worthy to be loved, and obeyed and served, and I’m not trying to make a deal with you!"

Do you see the difference? Do you see the difference? Between a Levite serving for ten shekels and a shirt or a Micah building a chapel because God will do you good, and someone that repents for the glory of God.

Why should a person come to the cross? Why should a person embrace death with Christ? Why should a person be willing to go, in identification, down to the cross and into the tomb and up again? I’ll tell you why – because it’s the only way that God can get glory out of human being! If you say it’s because he’ll get joy or peace or blessing or success or fame then it’s nothing but a Levite serving for ten shekels and a shirt. There is only one reason for you to go to the Cross, dear young person – and that’s because until you come to the place of union with Christ in death, you are defrauding the Son of God of the glory that He could get out of your life. For no flesh shall glory in His sight. And until you’ve understood the sanctifying work of God by the Holy Ghost taking you into union with Christ in death and burial and resurrection, you have to serve in what you have and all you have which is under the sentence of death: human personality, and human nature, and human strength, and human energy. And God will get no glory out of that! So the reason for you to go to the cross isn’t that you’re going to get victory – you will get victory. It isn’t that you’re going to have joy – you will have joy. But the reason for you to embrace the cross and press through until you know that you can testify with Paul, "I am crucified with Christ.." (Galatians 2:20) It isn’t what you’re going to get out of it, but what He’ll get out of it, for the glory of God. By the same token, why aren’t you pressed through to know the fullness of the Holy Spirit? Why aren’t you pressed through to know the fullness of Christ? I’ll tell you why – Because the only possible way that Jesus Christ will get glory out of a life that He’s redeemed with His precious blood, is when He can fill that life with His presence and live through it his own life.

Ten Shekels and a Shirt

I think that's the difference here, and that's why I think it was a worthy comparison to begin with, and one that follows through to today for just the very reasons the late Rev. Reidhead discussed here. There is a repentance that is unrighteous, born out of the rebellion of the flesh, and which continues in rebellion (as the Israelites did even after learning of the penalty for their disobedience), and a repentance that is born of God and honors Him. I spent most of my life filled with the first kind, and it wasn't until I was granted the gift of His Spirit that I came to the point - as Isaiah did, as Jonah did, as Job did, as Moses did, as even John did in the presence of the glorified Lamb, that I knew that I was (and am) absolutely unholy and deserving of Hell and must serve this Christ even if I myself were barred from the Kingdom at the end because He is worthy; even if it cost me everything in this life; because of who He is. And yet holding onto His promise of eternal life, deemed so valuable as to bring exhortations from the Apostles to make your calling and election sure, to strive to finish the race, to mortify the flesh so as not to be disqualified. All tasks that are entirely too hard, facing a formidable opponent not only in the demonic realm, but also just in the flesh (the Amorites?) but God has made promises about that, and so I go forward, trusting Him enough to obey Him.

One is flesh; the other is Spirit. One is law, the other is grace. One is death, the other is life.

And - and here's where the first thought comes in - the part about boldly approaching the throne unsummoned, and the woman who was initially rebuffed by Christ but instead of going away, stayed and insisted that even dogs got the children's crumbs - and was praised by Christ for her faith, goes back to Hebrews 12: Without faith it is impossible to please God, for all who come to Him must believe that He Is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. Because none of us is worthy, and Jesus said the violent take the Kingdom by force, there is much talk of pressing into the kingdom. Faith is reckoned as righteousness. I believe that kind of repentance, the saving kind, can be sought for by those who know that they are unworthy but keep on anyway with earnest, fervent prayer, because they must have it - they know enough about God to know that Christ is all in all, and no matter what happens or how distasteful and painful things may be, no matter whether it seems the ceiling is covered with bronze or whether Christ's presence is palpable, regardless of the situation we say with Peter, "Where else would I go? You're the one with the words of eternal life!"and so keeps on even when things all seem to be lost, continuing to trust His word because His word is sure and His grace is sufficient, even when given a battle to fight that seems to be too hard. And I believe that faith knows that God is worthy of whatever the personal cost may be, and the Scripture promises that that faith will be rewarded - and that in the end, you will see the Promised Land.

That's what I think, actually what I'm convinced of. I'm open to Biblical correction. But as I read back over this, it "tickles me to no end" to see the hand of Providence in bringing me to this passage and pulling all these thoughts together into a single interwoven piece in light of the pain expressed in my entry from three days ago. It just goes to show how His hand works through His word, to bring understanding and renewal through it...and from that comes joy. He is so faithful and so good. He alone is worthy.

Souled Out

"I'd rather die like Christ than live unholy."

Wow.

Future Grace - John Piper

The whole thing is good, but especially session 7 right now.

No title.

It's a warm, beautiful, sunny Saturday - just the kind of day to get outside and wash the laundry by hand in the old steel washtubs, scrubbing them along an old washboard, getting some exercise and some sunlight in the peace of a summer day out in the country. It's also a good time to pray.

As I begin to pray, the weary tears arrive. I know full well that my job is getting to me, and more and more so. I have been praying through this for quite some time and each day is now worse than the last as we all wear down more and more. It is to the point now where I am overwhelmed to the brink of near-meltdowns, only to have what little skeleton crew we have now going out on vacation one-by-one, as my own vacation time dwindles down because due to our short staffing, our 10-hour days (3 per week) leave me too beaten down to tolerate going to another clinic on my off days to pick up some hours (tried that, it wasn't pretty), even as I am pending a cardiology workup and stress test because 20+ years of the demands of clinical nursing and its accompanying hours and lifestyle has taken its physical toll on me, not to mention just leaving me tired, beaten up, and alone....and struggling to know how to seek God's grace in the midst of those hours of utter chaos when I don't have time to even think or to get my bearings, but just to run like a chicken with its head cut off - dear Father I need You to be my bearings, it's too chaotic and it seems I can only fight the urge to walk away crying, to just quit altogether and walk off the job because it's too much, it's just too much, I can't do this, only You can do this, and I know you're there, and I am so grateful for having You to cast my cares upon, and I know from experience that if I couldn't come to You like I can now, I would be dead, I would just die, this would be death to me as it has been before, and I don't want to be like this, I hate this in my flesh, I know this life is not supposed to be a cakewalk, and I know we're supposed to do all things without grumbling and dissentions, and I have been falling into the sins of grumbling and dissenting and I hate that but it seems to get the better of me, I thought enabling grace was supposed to strengthen us so that we have your strength to not do that? Where am I going wrong? I know that the end will be for the good as it conforms us to the image of Your Son, and I thank you for showing me how much sinful flesh is still in there, I can't even see the end of the moment in the middle of those overwhelming moments, when everything is flying at me and everyone needs me right now, having to be in four places at one time, this shortchanges the patients and makes everyone cranky and even the patients can see how ragged we're all run, how much physical pain we're in in the midst of it, and we're run ragged day after day, week after week, month after month now, and there is no end nor relief in sight, the company flat out refuses to get us any help and considers us all "easily replaceable" - just when we begin to be hopeful for a good day, everything goes wrong (what I used to refer to as Murphy's Law) all over again....I need Your grace to do this, I hate my job, I love my patients but I am so desperate to get out of there, and I'm getting weaker and weaker and weaker in the midst of it with no relief in sight, I need Your grace, I don't want to be like this, I beg of you for that, though right now I don't even know what that's supposed to look like, dying to self is not painless, and Your way is best, but I don't know the difference between discipline and pruning and just normal everyday life - and we're supposed to bear our crosses....

...by this time the laundry has been abandoned, leaning against the post, finally breaking down before looking up to the sky and out toward the back yard but I can't see through my tears....

....but God, even Jesus was so beaten that He couldn't bear His cross either, somebody had to step in and carry it for Him for awhile...

***but He still had to die on it***

Ooof.

Then comes the gentle rebuke and the glorious reminder and promise contained in this morning's Spurgeon morning reading. In early days, in the midst of questions of assurance, haunted by the parable of the sower/soils, I had - more than once - prayed for deep, solid, strong roots. And I knew that would not be painless, but that because our God is a good Father, He would not only lead us to pray for the things of Himself, but will provide what is necessary to bear through it - though in our finite, earthly minds we may seem to stumble and falter. I often pray through Romans 8:28-30, noting that our good is not what feels good to our flesh, but to be conformed to the image of Christ, to be justified and one day glorified that we may spend eternity with Him. It is to my shame that that does not always comfort me fully, but it is a comfort and it is the single promise that I hold onto more often than anything else. And so it seems no mere coincidence that the morning's reading comes on the heels of the morning's wrenching prayer:

"After that ye have suffered awhile, make you perfect,
stablish, strengthen, settle you."
-- 1 Peter 5:10

You have seen the arch of heaven as it spans the plain: glorious are
its colours, and rare its hues. It is beautiful, but, alas, it passes
away, and lo, it is not. The fair colours give way to the fleecy
clouds, and the sky is no longer brilliant with the tints of heaven. It
is not established. How can it be? A glorious show made up of
transitory sun-beams and passing rain-drops, how can it abide? The
graces of the Christian character must not resemble the rainbow in its
transitory beauty, but, on the contrary, must be stablished, settled,
abiding. Seek, O believer, that every good thing you have may be an
abiding thing. May your character not be a writing upon the sand, but
an inscription upon the rock! May your faith be no "baseless fabric of
a vision," but may it be builded of material able to endure that awful
fire which shall consume the wood, hay, and stubble of the hypocrite.
May you be rooted and grounded in love. May your convictions be deep,
your love real, your desires earnest. May your whole life be so settled
and established, that all the blasts of hell, and all the storms of
earth shall never be able to remove you. But notice how this blessing
of being "stablished in the faith" is gained. The apostle's words point
us to suffering as the means employed-"After that ye have suffered
awhile." It is of no use to hope that we shall be well rooted if no
rough winds pass over us. Those old gnarlings on the root of the oak
tree, and those strange twistings of the branches, all tell of the many
storms that have swept over it, and they are also indicators of the
depth into which the roots have forced their way. So the Christian is
made strong, and firmly rooted by all the trials and storms of life.
Shrink not then from the tempestuous winds of trial, but take comfort,
believing that by their rough discipline God is fulfilling this
benediction to you.

Truth.

To quote a well-known Roman governor in his discourse with a certain about-to-be-condemned God-man who stood before him, "What is truth?" (John 18:38)

Jesus had just told him: "For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice." (John 8:37, em. added). The Holy Spirit through Paul said, "Let God be true, though every man be found a liar," (Rom. 3:4).

"But as for you, Daniel, conceal these words and seal up the book until the end of time; many will go back and forth, and knowledge will increase." (Daniel 12:4)

"...always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth..." (2 Tim. 3:7)

Since by God's great grace my eyes and ears have been opened, I have long been wearied of what passes as "news" and I think I'm just about to give up on it altogether. I think I sometimes exasperate people because I no longer have any interest in nor patience for fables, idle speculations, or debates, but only in truth.

Why should I waste the time God has graciously granted me to serve Him, by instead filling my head with those same idle speculations and foolish vanities that Scripture tells us serves only to darken the foolish heart that has been given up to such things (Rom. 1:21)? Is it really just out of some morbid curiosity that I read the news and watch Romans 1:28-32 (and potentially Rev. 6)marching on display across the headlines? Am I in some degree culpable on a Rom. 1:32 level when I can't tear myself away?

Searching through it all for a grain of truth is like digging through the proverbial haystack - except that haystack was no doubt pulled from the floor of a well-populated stable. You can dig and dig and dig, and you might find a grain or two but you're going to come out covered in dung when you do. The rarity of truth in reporting has been bewailed and bemoaned - and rightly so - for a number of years now. "Just the facts, ma'am", and "Check, double-check, and triple-check" before reporting are long gone. Even in media that claims not to have any bias, bias remains. Has to - they could lose their advertisers.

Truth in reporting has been sacrificed on the altar of advertising, just as (and for the same reason as) The Truth Himself was sacrificed on that cross - because in our sin, man loves his darkness and would rather wallow in it, work for it, pay good money for it, and find comfort in its coolness, than to come into the light. And according to John 3 in my Bible, the fact that we love the darkness rather than the light isn't a cause for judgment as commonly preached by many circles, it is the judgment. And its end is eternal death under the wrath of God as we all most certainly deserve.

Everyone else - from the Christian blogosphere, the Muslim blogosphere, to Geraldo Rivera - has commented on the extreme fair-weather idolatry that has poured out and been fed by the media in the wake of the death of a faded pop-music icon. And they've done a better job of it than I ever could. Still, one would think that after two weeks of being on front and center of every major online news outlet, and two days after his memorial, they would finally move on to something else. But CNN continues to barrage us with sordid tales of "associates" who "tried to warn" him about his drug use.

Why? What good does this so-called "news" bring to anyone? To his family? To the public at large? It seems that as I read most headlines and articles, I get more and more a picture of the same people who populate those daytime TV court shows that blare into my ears from the patient televisions at work, where a so-called "judge" is egging people on to spill their dirtiest laundry, and then adding their commentary to it. More and more articles prove to be merely "filler": purely there to report on what he said she said, entertainment celebrity is equated with royalty, and when it comes to international, scientific, and political news (with few exceptions) the articles boil down only to speculation about what might happen and what might have happened.

It's all gossip. Very little of it is actual fact, and even most of what is fact is still really just gossip, there to feed people's curiosity about the lives of other people instead of on the things that matter. I get convicted of that every time I click on a headline out of curiosity anymore, and I can't finish the article because once more what stands out to me is the fact that what passes for news is, by and large, nothing more than sanctioned voyeurism, seemingly almost designed in some way to keep us looking laterally, at each other, comparing ourselves to fallen man, making commentary based on information provided by fallen man, so that we do not look vertically, at the One True God, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, (John 14:6), to compare ourselves to Scripture, seeing the light that exposes the darkness around us, and dare to step into that light ourselves so that the darkness within us is exposed - so that it can then be crucified, buried, and washed away so that we may rise anew, reborn, cleansed - the world can become dim, every man proven a liar, so that we can abandon it and thereby come to a glorious, intimate knowledge of the Truth Himself as His Spirit indwells us and gives us the things of Christ.


So what comes to mind as I hear read and hear Romans 1 on parade through the media on whatever day and in the midst of whatever is going on in the world, as every man and media outlet is found a liar, God is true. Jesus is the Truth. And they do not change. His written word tells us what has happened, what is going to happen, and through it and its reality the Holy Spirit sanctifies us (John 17:17), transforming the children of God from image to image and from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18), into the image of the incarnate Word until one day we will be glorified with Him (Rom. 8:28-30). For He is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. And when that sinks into the soul, it can be one's greatest comfort or deepest dread, depending on whether or not he has been dipped in that fountain and now stands before God covered in the only thing that makes us acceptable in that most Holy place, before His throne - the blood of His Son.

I praise God that for me, what once was my greatest dread, is now my deepest comfort. That once I was blind, but now I see.

Jesus loves me, this I know
For the Bible tells me so.

On Christ the Solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand.

The dying theif rejoiced to see
That fountain in his day
And there may I, though vile as he,
Wash all my sins away.

No condemnation now I dread
Jesus and all in Him is mine -
Alive in Him, my living Head
And clothed in righteousness Divine.
Bold I approach the Eternal Throne
And claim the crown through Christ, my own.

Live.

Spurgeon's Morning & Evening, Evening reading, July 7:


"When I passed by thee, I said unto thee, Live."
-- Ezekiel 16:6

Saved one, consider gratefully this mandate of mercy. Note that this fiat of God is majestic. In our text, we perceive a sinner with nothing in him but sin, expecting nothing but wrath; but the eternal Lord passes by in his glory; he looks, he pauses, and he pronounces the solitary but royal word, "Live."

There speaks a God.

Who but he could venture thus to deal with life and dispense it with a single syllable? Again, this fiat is manifold. When he saith "Live," it includes many
things. Here is judicial life. The sinner is ready to be condemned, but the mighty One saith, "Live," and he rises pardoned and absolved. It is spiritual life. We knew not Jesus-our eyes could not see Christ, our ears could not hear his voice-Jehovah said "Live," and we were quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. Moreover, it includes glory-life, which is the perfection of spiritual life. "I said unto thee, Live:" and that word rolls on through all the years of time till death comes, and in the midst of the shadows of death, the Lord's voice is still heard, "Live!" In the morning of the resurrection it is that self-same voice which is echoed by the arch-angel, "Live," and as holy spirits rise to heaven to be blest for ever in the glory of their God, it is in the power of this same word, "Live." Note again, that it is an irresistible mandate. Saul of Tarsus is on the road to Damascus to arrest the saints of the living God. A voice is heard from heaven and a light is seen above the brightness of the sun, and Saul is crying out, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?"

This mandate is a mandate of free grace. When sinners are saved, it is only and solely because God will do it to magnify his free, unpurchased, unsought grace. Christians, see your position, debtors to grace; show your gratitude by earnest, Christlike lives, and as God has bidden you live, see to it that you live in earnest.

Scars

One thing leads to another....

In tonight's bible study/prayer meeting, the question of the resurrection of the body arose and was followed by a question as to the presence or absence of the scars on our Savior - wouldn't He be scar-less and perfect? Or will those nail-scarred hands show themselves throughout eternity?

Finding the reference in Revelation 5, I read aloud the passage that suggests that He might indeed bear His scars, as John is being introduced to the Lion of Judah and then beholds - a Lamb. A Lamb standing, but as slain. The commentary in my study Bible notes, "The scars from the Lamb's slaughter are still clearly visible, but it is standing - it is alive." (MacArthur study Bible, NASB)

The subject was quickly dismissed - no need to go too deeply down rabbit trails, and the fact remains that we won't know till we get there. The one bringing it up suggested that once we get there, that part won't really matter anyway.

But thinking more on this, and reading farther into the chapter with a fresh look at it, I'm not so sure about that. As I continued through Revelation 5, the praises sung by the choruses continued. As some of the older ladies approached me after the meeting, I shared the praise chorus from heaven:

"Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth."

Awesome. Beautiful. And it also makes me wonder if the scars - far from being imperfections - might just be a part of His glory.

As I drove home, I thought more of that when the image washed over me in a flood and nearly melted me behind the wheel - no words can do justice to the way this just floods me, I cannot articulate it with any semblance of the immenseness of this, but just imagining - once this life is said and done, coming before Christ as the Lamb that was slain...

...seeing firsthand those nail scarred hands and feet and the pierced side, which He bore personally to bear the wrath of God for my sin, so that I wouldn't have to - the scars as a permanent evidence of what He endured so that I could have the privilege of being there with Him...

... showing what He bore for me...

...addressing me just as gently and tenderly as He addressed Thomas when He invited him to explore the nail prints in His wrists, the pierced place in His side ---

What other response could we have, but to fall broken at His feet as Thomas did, exclaiming from deep within - "My Lord and my God!"

Whether they'll be visible or not...I praise God for the scars.

Grieve the Spirit?

In the earliest, most infantile days of my walk with Christ I happened upon a passage of Scripture that confused me somewhat: Ephesians 4:30. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit. What could this possibly mean?

I think I'm getting a taste.

It wasn't long before I picked up a book by a reputable author, A.W. Tozer, who explained this to me somewhat in what has to be one of the most startling, eye-opening, heart-rending things I had ever read outside of Scripture:

The Holy Spirit is not a personification of anything, but the Holy Spirit is a person just the same as you are a person. He has all the qualities of a person. The Holy Spirit has substance but not material substance. He has individuality. He is one being and not another. He has will and He has intelligence and He has feeling and He has knowledge, sympathy, and the ability to love and see and think and hear and speak and desire and grieve and rejoice. And Jesus said about the Holy Spirit, "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall tesify of Me" (John 15:26 KJV).

I have said the Holy Spirit is spirit and not matter. He is personality, He is individuality. He has intelligence, love, memory, and can communicate with you. He can love you and therefore be grieved when you grieve Him. He can be quenched, as any friend can be if you turn on Him, of course He will be hushed into hurt silence, because you have wounded Him. Therefore, we can wound the Holy Spirit.

This is the same Holy Spirit that breathed the words of Scripture and who indwells, rebukes, convicts, teaches, and comforts the saints, blasphemy against whom is the unpardonable sin, and yet who can be grieved by us.

And I think He's busy with me at the moment, here, and I'll explain why....


In his contribution to John Piper's book, Stand: A Call for the Endurance of the Saints, Jerry Bridges wrote:

In 1988 my first wife was dying of cancer after a long illness. One
morning as I was struggling with the reality of her approaching death,
there came to my mind, “Psalm 116:15, ‘Precious in the sight of the
Lord is the death of his saints.’” With that came the realization that
God himself had an interest in what was happening to my wife. For
me I would be losing my sweetheart, but for God, it would be the
homecoming of one of his children.

I thought of the time when our fifteen-year-old son went on an eleven-week summer missions program and how we eagerly anticipated his coming home. I realized that as incredible as it seems, God eagerly awaits the homecoming of his children.

Eagerly awaiting the homecoming of His children. Don't we parents know something of that? Not only of the joys with them, but also of the grief that comes with parenthood too?


I think God uses my daughter to keep me humble and broken, convicting me of the idolatry of those years when I worshipped my children instead of Him. She's a very sweet girl, but she now is grown and quite busy with her life, to the point that when I talk with her it seems that perhaps I should stop asking her if she's coming to visit soon. It's just too painful. The answer is almost always "no" and it feels like I die a little inside with every "no" that I hear - especially when the "maybes" are accompanied with, "I don't think I have anything else to do that day". Even when she is with me, she's not really with me, carrying on other conversations via text while we try to talk or watch a movie or anything else, apparently oblivious to the message that she's sending to the person in the same room with her. As much as I love her, she's just at that age - almost 19 - where she is feeling her wings, eyes turned a bit by the glitz of the world, busy with school and work and the other side of a divorced family, overextending herself and unable to say "no" to anyone else....as I pray each day that she doesn't fall victim to the lust of the eyes and the pride of life at least, even if that means that I'm taken away from them completely if that's what it takes for her to walk by faith rather than by sight. Because I see it. I see her starting to make her decisions based on sight, losing sleep rather than resting in the sovereignty and goodness of God. I walked like that for 40 years. It's the normal way of the world, but that's just it - it's death and the decay is not slow. And from what little I can see, I see her starting in on that road. I don't know if that's the whole story, but that's all she shows me. And so I don't know how not to caution her, not to exhort her, not to encourage her in the right direction, how not to fill her with that which would edify her spirit and turn her away from the things that she can't see will hurt her - but which I can see clearly are put in her path as stumbling blocks. And she's stumbling on them. And when our time together is so sorely limited, there is very little I can say to her, very little I can do for her, except to trust her to the hands of God and pray fervently for her.

I can count on one hand the number of days I've seen her this calendar year, and while I'm grateful for those days, it still hurts. A shock to my system, I suppose. There are no arguments, no strife between us, but it seems we just drift until there's very little that we can talk about. She's just too busy for Mama. My son, close to the same. I think many times that I deserve that, and the words (sort of) from Harry Chapin's microphone come through each time I hang up the phone with her:

As I hung up the phone it occurred to me
She'd grown up just like me, yeah -
My girl was just like me.

The Cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon,
Little Boy Blue and the Man in the Moon
When you coming home, hun,
I don't know when -
But we'll get together then, Mom.
You know we'll have a good time then.


But "then" rarely comes. So the pain is particularly acute every time I hang up the phone with my daughter. I love her. I would pour myself out for her if she would allow it, but she means well even as she refuses most offers; she has very little time for me, she has other priorities, and she's busy making a life for herself. Promises broken. "I love you, Mama", and I have no doubt that on some level she does; but other things always crop up in the way, and they take priority. And while the apron strings have long been cut, the heart of a mother still breaks at this frequent rejection by her daughter.

We do this too, don't we?

Isn't this what it means to "grieve the Holy Spirit"? When we're too busy with what Jim Elliot called "that dreaded asbestos of 'other things'," being turned away, following the flesh of constantly checking up on the news instead of putting it away to delve deeply into Scripture, when prayer becomes a duty and you're too tired to have words to even start out with, and you blame it on everything else and you know you should put it down but it's almost as if you're striving against something stronger than you and you're too tired and weak to break through but you know that the Spirit is stronger than these things, and you promise yourself that you'll get into it more tomorrow when you've had more sleep....but when tomorrow comes you are quickly turned by other things that pop up in life instead of turning all that off and turning to our precious Father and His Word...

... is this in some degree even just a feeble shadow of the kind and degree of pain we cause Him?

When Jesus wept over Jerusalem...was it also partly because their rejection of the triune God in turning to other things, other idols, deep within themselves....we like to look at them as tears of compassion, but I wonder...were they not also tears of intense grief?

As the tears flow down my cheeks, it hits me - is the deep sorrow I feel when spurned by my children even just a human version of the shadow of the pain our Father, our Savior, our Comforter feels when spurned by us for the things, the philosophies, the temporal existence of this world?

Rhetorical question. I think I already know the answer. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. I prayed for poverty of spirit, so that I might hunger and thirst for righteousness. I prayed to have these lead chains broken and to be renewed in vigor for His word and His life. I prayed to be broken so that I might once again see the beauty of Christ. And in the midst of the tears of a broken-hearted mother, He reminds me of the incredible tenderness the Sovereign, thrice-Holy, awesome God has for His own children.

It's no wonder the father dropped everything, including all semblance of nobility and ran out to meet his prodigal son. If it's your child, your heart, your body and blood, whom you have grieved over and missed terribly....wouldn't you?

Longings After God

From Valley of Vision:

My Dear Lord,

I can but tell thee that thou knowest
I long for nothing but thyself,
nothing but holiness,
nothing but union with thy will.

Thou hast given me these desires,
and thou alone canst give me the thing desired.

My soul longs for communion with thee,
for mortification of indwelling corruption,
especially spiritual pride.

How precious it is
to have a tender sense and clear apprehension
of the mystery of godliness,
of true holiness!

What a blessedness to be like thee
as much as it is possible for a creature to be like its Creator!

Lord, give me more of thy likeness;
Enlarge my soul to contain fullness of holiness;
Engage me to live more for thee.
Help me to be less pleased with my spiritual experiences,
and when I feel at ease after sweet communings,
teach me it is far too little I know and do.

Blessed Lord,
let me climb up near to thee,
and love, and long, and plead, and wrestle with thee,
and pant for deliverance from the body of sin,
for my heart is wandering and lifeless,
and my soul mourns to think it should ever
lose sight of its Beloved.

Wrap my life in divine love,
and keep me ever desiring thee,
always humble and resigned to thy will,
more fixed on thyself,
that I may be more fitted for doing
and suffering.