Silence

The discipline of silence is the price we must pay to get to know God." AW Tozer

Sin

Whoever is truly humbled — will not be easily angry, nor harsh or critical of others. He will be compassionate and tender to the infirmities of his fellow-sinners, knowing that if there is a difference — it is grace alone which has made it! He knows that he has the seeds of every evil in his own heart. And under all trials and afflictions — he will look to the hand of the Lord, and lay his mouth in the dust, acknowledging that he suffers much less than his iniquities have deserved.

John Newton, from his letters, Indwelling Sin And The Believer

The World

As the world is weary of me so am I of it. John Knox

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world-the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions-is not from the Father but is from the world.
And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. 1 John 2:15-17

If I Could Counsel Myself...

If looking back on life I could give counsel to myself regarding a walk with Jesus, some things I would recomend:

• read atleast one chapter in the Bible everyday
• focus on worship, listening, and meditating on scripture in prayer
• spend alone time with God in prayer everyday
• in addition to reading the Bible each day, get involved in a same sex small group Bible study that meets regularly and remain involved
• be involved in Christian community year round
• preach the gospel to self daily
• be vulnerable with others and merciful to others
• be charitable regarding nonessential theological issues
• get to know pastor and treat him like a normal human being
• memorize as much scripture as possible
• do not get into debt as it could influence your ministry direction in the future
• remember God is protector of reputation, provider and giver of every good gift

The Wilderness

"You will never find Jesus so precious as when the world is one vast howling wilderness." Robert M McCheyne

Right now I am having a wilderness moment. I feel I have failed in many ways as a father, in my profession and in being a light for Christ. My band of brothers in Christ seem distant and disinterested in striving for the kingdom in the way that seems right to me. So I feel rejected in a way. Yet in another group of brothers and sisters, I have failed to be consistent in doing community. I am on the verge of a funk as I sit on my couch pondering things. Sad. But from the wilderness I have always.....always been rescued by my beloved savior Jesus Christ. So here I will sit and wait on him.

Causes Of Spiritual Declension

• Formality in holy duties, under the constant outward performance of them.
• Vehement engagements in the affairs of life.
• An over valuation of sinful enjoyments.
• Growth on carnal wisdom.
• Neglect of daily mortification of such sins as men are naturally disposed to, with a secret influence from the prevalent temptation of the days in which we live.

--John Owen, The Glory Of Christ

Psalm 23:6

Surely goodness and love will follow me

    all the days of my life

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord

    forever.  Psalm 23:6

Because of who the Lord is....goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Because God is

our father, we will dwell with him forever. David predicts the eternal life of the believer with the Almighty. 

What a great promise of God's goodness to us now and forevermore.

Wickedness

Failure is better than wickedness. The Lord hates evildoers and cannot dwell with evil (Psalm 5:4,5). Thank God for his grace that makes me righteous in his sight by Christ's work.

Love The Lord With All Your Strength

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all of your soul and with all of your strength. The greatest commandment according to Jesus. As I was lying in bed this morning, hitting my snooze button, I couldn't help be convicted that I was not loving God with all my strength. Am I using my strength to love God? Do I spend my self for him? Do I care enough about him to obey all of his commands? Is my energy focused on him? Is my life about service to him? This is very convicting to me. It got me out of bed this morning. Am I living for God or an extra half hour of sleep and a couple hours of watching tv at night?

Prayer

"No man is greater than his prayer life." Leonard Ravenhill

Believers in Jesus Christ have direct access to God in prayer at any time of day or night. God has limitless resources and has sovereign control over all things. The sun only rises at the order of the Almighty. In the word, the Lord says he hears our prayers, will grant us what we ask in his name for the right reasons and that we should pray without ceasing and about everything. If I want to be a man that is God obeying and honoring, can I really afford to pray for fifteen minutes a day?

Kindness

We are particularly required to be kind to the unthankful and to the evil; and therein to follow the example of our heavenly Father, who causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and unjust. We are obliged, not only to be kind to them that are so to us, but to them that hate, and that despitefully use us. Jonathon Edwards ^1

I have failed miserably.

1 Jonathon Edwards, Works, vol. 2 (reprint, Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1974), 171.

An Overflowing Cup

 You prepare a table before me 
   in the presence of my enemies. 
You anoint my head with oil; 
   my cup overflows.  Psalm 23:5


Imagine the Lord of the universe preparing a table for you in the presence of your enemies. The loving kindness of God to us is really incomprehensible. What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him (Psalm 8:4)? For those who are purchased by the blessed blood of Christ, there is no end to the good things God has in store for us (1 Corinthians 2:9;  Matthew 7:11b; 1 Peter 1:4). We have been given even more than we need. Every good and perfect gift is from above (James 1:17). Our cups indeed overflow. 

Poor In Spirit

"Blessed are the poor in spirit...." Matthew 5:3

It means a complete absence of pride, a complete absence of self-assurance and self-reliance. It means a consciousness that we are nothing in the presence of God. It is nothing, then, that we can produce; it is nothing we can do in ourselves. It is just this tremendous awareness of our utter nothingness as we come face to face with God. That is to be poor in spirit.

Martyn Lloyd Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount

The Shadow of Death

 Even though I walk 
       through the valley of the shadow of death, 
       I will fear no evil, 
       for you are with me; 
       your rod and your staff, 
       they comfort me. Psalm 23:4


We all will walk through the valley of the shadow of death. The place where death hovers over us, looming large and dark, quietly over our shoulders. I have been there. Nothing makes one consider life's ultimate import more than facing it's loss. Death comes to everyone. Death is the consequence for our sin (Genesis 3:3). It wasn't always set up to be that way. God will make all things new for those who love him (Revelation 21:5). But even so we as believers will all walk through the valley of the shadow of death (unless Christ comes early in our lives).  God has allowed physical death for a time for his children, but not forever.  He promises to never leave or forsake us, so evil can do nothing (Hebrews 13:5). Neither evil from demonic forces, nor evil from sinful man, nor evil from flawed creation can touch us as we walk with our Lord unless he allows it . And he promises to only allow it if it is in our best interest (Romans 8:28). His rod is present to dispense wrath towards the forces which would destroy us. His staff is there to shepherd us through difficult times and to comfort us with a reassurance that he is present and strong. What a wonderful thing to know that God loves me and that I am his son! Let me never forget all his benefits (Psalm 103:2).

Predestination Is Compatible With The Free Will Of Man

If God knows what I will choose in the future and allows me to make that choice, then my choice is free and it is predestined by God (because he does not intervene to change the outcome of that choice). This is true in regards to salvation. God at any point can intervene and cause his will to be done in regards to salvation over riding the free will of man. For example, Paul had revelation from God that was over powering, indisputable and salvation producing. This is not the norm but the exception. God's will is always done. God therefore can accomplish his purposes completely and sovereignly, controlling all things, without man doing anything accept believing based on his calling and revelation. As faith is not a work, salvation is completely accomplished by God by the work of Jesus Christ and the drawing of God the Father. In this way, God is sovereign and all powerful, controlling all things, and man is free to believe or refuse to believe (in most cases eg Paul's example above).

Diamond In The Rough

I have been thinking about diamonds today, specifically the fact that diamonds are mined out of the dust of the earth in unchiseled form. Their beauty evident but raw and only partially revealed. The jeweler takes the unfinished stone and cuts it into a symmetric glistening gem with great value. How similar to diamonds we are as God's children. We are buried and blinded from light released by God who comes searching for us. We are valuable to him (why I don't know). He begins to chip and cut at our rough form to shape the beauty underneath. He often uses the community of believers as his instruments in this chiseling, or the occurences of life. Either way he refines and polishes us until we eventually become the creation he desires. How often we try to clean ourselves up in our pride while we are in our uncut state, wanting to be the "controllers" of what we become. We believe our worth is dependent on our own endeavers at polishing the dirt away, and we cringe and writhe when God or others, as instruments in his hand, work at our flaws...not realizing that we cannot become diamonds except in the deliberate hands of the Almighty.

A Meditation

If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O LORD, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. Ps. 130:3,4

T: No one can stand before God based on their own righteousness (lack of sin). It is by God's mercy we are forgiven. Mercy is NOT giving to us what we deserve (punishment). We fear God because we recognize that it is only by his will that we are saved. We therefore honor, worship and submit to him. (Romans 3:10, Romans 3:23, Romans 5:8).

A: Lord I adore you for your mercy to me. My sin is an unliftable weight, crushing me to the ground. Yet you have considered me in your great love and kindness and placed the load on Jesus. Bearing the wrath for my sin. I am forgiven. I worship you for your love, for your kindness to me, for enduring the torture and punishment I deserve. Praise be to your glorious name. (Romans 3:25).

C: Lord you know my sin. It has driven me to my bed in despair this week. I cannot even pray without sinning. I confess I am a miserable wretch, incapable of any good except by the working of the Spirit in my life. I repent. Forgive me.

T: Thank you Lord Jesus for saving me! Thank you for bearing my sin and crediting to me your righteousness! (2 Corinthians 5:21)

S: Lord, restore unto me the joy of my salvation. Let me please, honor and serve you well today by your power. (Psalm 51:12).

Amen.

Jesus Wept

Jesus wept. John 11:35

Lazarus, a friend of Jesus and brother to Mary and Martha, had died. Jesus came after he had been dead for four days and raised him back to life. But before this, Jesus wept. The creator and sustainer of the universe wept. God Almighty wept. Two questions come to me as I consider this fact. Why? And, what does this mean? First of all, Jesus would not have been weeping simply due to Lazarus death. He knew he could and planned to raise him back to life. So, I can see two possibilities for the "why" of Christ's sorrow. First, Jesus could have been saddened by the effect of sin on mankind and creation. The groaning of creation is never seen more clearly than when someone dies. It was not meant to be. Sin, sickness and death could have been the impetus for Jesus sadness. The second possibility, and the most likely option in my opinion, is that Jesus was responding to the sorrow of those he loved, especially Mary and Martha. Two verses preceding 11:35 the text says:  "When Jesus saw her (Mary) weeping and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled."  Jesus was moved to weeping after seeing Mary weeping.

What does this mean?
1) God experiences sorrow.
2) God loves those who are his so much that he is "deeply moved" and "greatly troubled" when we suffer.
3) Suffering is necessary for God's purposes for a time, even though God dislikes it. (John 16:33)

Satan And The Mind

How much control if any does Satan have over a believer's thoughts? Does he have any influence at all?
How does Satan tempt the Christian? Certainly, we are tempted by our own flesh and our own sinful desires. But Satan can have an influence. How does this happen? The Bible says that Satan has the ability to blind the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4).  It also speaks of unbelievers following Satan (Ephesians 2:2) via some influence presumably to the person's intellect. Does he have the same access to believers? If he is able to tempt it must be through some mental influence within the subject being tempted. What other mechanism is there to our temptation from outside ourselves? So it seems Satan can bring thoughts into our minds from outside of ourselves that are unwanted or uninvited. All of us have experienced ideas and images popping into our heads unwanted. Not that these all are from the "prince of the power of the air." Our flesh also I believe can bring this about. So the scripture says we are to "take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5)." Why? Because thoughts which arise, either spontaneously or through Satan's influence, can be disobedient to Christ. We do not have control over every thought that pops into our heads, but we have control over what we dwell on mentally. And temptation is not sin....although Satan would like us at times to believe otherwise.

Some thoughts I found from other believers on the subject:

These thoughts, if you hate them, are none of yours, but are injections of the Devil, for which he is responsible, and not you. If you strive against them, they are no more yours than are the cursings and falsehoods of rioters in the street.  C. H. Spurgeon

Amongst all the devices that Satan makes use of, there is none by which he grieves the children of God worse, than his troubling you with blasphemous, profane, unbelieving thoughts; and sometimes to such a degree, that they are as tormenting as it is to be physically tortured. G. Whitefield

Let me just see if I can clarify it now. We believe that Satan is not omniscient. He does not know everything. I believe he is subject to the revelation of God, and he is subject to objective observation within whatever objective means within his sphere. He can perceive what is going on, but I don't think there is anything in the Bible to indicate he is omniscient. He is infinitely intelligent, tremendously intelligent. But, intelligence is a capacity that is fed by revealed information. Do you know what I mean by that? God is omniscient in the sense that He intrinsically knows everything, and it does not have to be any information. But, Satan knows what he knows because God has revealed that to him within the framework of his intelligence. So, I don't think there is anything to indicate that Satan can read your mind. But, Satan can influence your mind. But, I think, primarily, it is by external things that may trigger thought patterns. But, it is also true that demons can come in and Satan can come in. And if they can come into a believer, there is a sense in which they must be able directly to affect the thinking process somehow, but that is for one who is given over to Satan to some extent.  John MacArthur

From The Gospel Coaltion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqzj_TKosG8

Fearless

The Lord challenged us to suffer persecutions and to confess him. He wants those who belong to him to be brave and fearless. He himself shows how weakness of the flesh is overcome by courage of the Spirit. This is the testimony of the apostles and in particular of the representative, administrating Spirit. A Christian is fearless.
--Tertullian