Everything that I am is by Grace alone. The longer I live and the more I see, the more obvious this fact becomes. There have been many times in the past (and, no doubt, there will be more occasions in the future) where I have looked upon “my” accomplishments with pride, thinking that “I” have done well. Such thinking is utter foolishness. I would be less than nothing but for the unmerited favour of God.
Dr. Richard Hipp, creator of SQL
The council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood has recently done an interview Andrew Case about his new book “Water of the Word”. It encourages men to pray for their future wife:
Perseverance on the narrow road is a miracle of grace. I don’t want “the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things” to enter in and choke the Word in my wife before or after I meet her (Mark 4:19). God must keep her in the love of Christ (Jude 1:1), and I am confident that He uses prayer as a means to that end. I am keenly aware of the propensity within my own heart that Robert Robinson described in song: “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it-prone to leave the God I love.” Why not pray for her, as I pray for myself, that He would bind her wandering heart to Himself?
I want to read this book :). It is a great reminder to have prayer in my life and not just prayers for myself, but also for my future wife.
Today I when I woke up, I lingered. I stared at the ceiling pondering how tired I was and how I could use another hour of sleep. I lingered. I instantly put on hold my daily morning duties of meeting God and doing my devotions. I lingered in my sin.
The previous morning I had read about Lot and his lingering to God’s urgent commands:
As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.” But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the LORD being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city.
Genesis 19:15,16
God is telling Lot to hurry or be dead. To wake up and run or be swept away by the wrath that God was going to unleash on the sinful city. But what did Lot do? He lingered. This is much how we linger in our sins. We linger around in things that distract us from God.
How did God respond? He rescued Lot from his lingering. The LORD had mercy on him. In the same way, the LORD has mercy on us, who are believers. He rescues us from our sin. He rescues us through his son Jesus Christ who is propitiation for our sins.
He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Colossians 1:13,14
Let us thank God for His everlasting mercy and praise HIm for rescuing us from the wrath we deserve.
Sleep is often talked about negatively in the church today. We examine sleep from the perspective of laziness. That too much sleep or rest is to take away or have hearts not focused on God, but more on yourself. While partially true (there is a limit to how much you should sleep — not 12 hours!), I would argue that sleep is not only a gift from God above, but it is also a way to show trust and faith in our great God.
Unless the LORD builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.
It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep.-Psalm 127:1,2
There are two things to notice here.
1. Sleep is a gift from God: “for he gives to his beloved sleep.”
Sleep is given to us! God has created sleep for our own good. Not only has God given us sleep as a gift, he gives it lovingly, as shown by the term of endearment “beloved”.
2. To stay awake in anxiousness is vain. “eating the bread of anxious toil”
Notice the build up to the phrase “for he gives to his beloved sleep.” Since our LORD is in full, complete, and sufficient control, why do we lay awake anxious? Do we really trust in our sovereign God? This psalm by Solomon makes it very clear that to stay up or wake early in anxiousness is a clear distrust in the control our father in heaven has over all things.
Proverbs 3:24 expands on this point:
When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet.
So, when we lay to slumber, do we think about God? Do we praise God for the ability to fall into slumber and not be anxious about work, school, family, friends, “enemies”, failures, successes? God has provided us with sleep as a gift, and if we trust in his goodness and sufficiency, our sleep can be sweet for the glory of His name.
(For more on biblical understanding of sleep, check out C.J. Mahaney’s message on sleep here).
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.-Psalm 43:5
Why am I ever downcast with any despair? Don’t I see the hope in God. Don’t I see the moments when i shall praise and worship Him fully in his presence. God has given me salvation, I should praise and hope in Him forevermore!
“That Christian who has free grace, who has free justification, who has the mediatorial righteousness of Christ, who has the satisfaction of Christ, who has the covenant of grace most constantly in his sight, and most frequently warm upon his heart—that Christian, of all Christians in the world, is most free from a world of fears, and doubts, and scruples which do sadden, sink, perplex, and press down a world of other Christians, who daily eye more what Christ is a-doing in them, and what they are a-doing for Christ, than they do eye either his active or passive obedience.
Christ has done great things for his people, and he has suffered great things for his people, and he has purchased great things for his people, and he has prepared great things for his people; yet many of his own dear people are so taken up with their own hearts, and with their own duties and graces, that Christ is little eyed by them or minded by them!
This is the great reason why so many Christians, who will certainly go to heaven—do walk in darkness, and lie down in sorrow.”
- Thomas Brooks, A Cabinet of Choice Jewels
God’s Steadfast Love and Compassion
Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity
and passing over transgression
for the remnant of his inheritance?
He does not retain his anger forever,
because he delights in steadfast love.
He will again have compassion on us;
he will tread our iniquities underfoot.
You will cast all our sins
into the depths of the sea.
You will show faithfulness to Jacob
and steadfast love to Abraham,
as you have sworn to our fathers
from the days of old.-Micah 7:18-20
Time and time again I can testify to how God has saved me from the depths of my sin, how God has showed me grace unending. I feel like I am Israel, constantly turning my face from God’s grace and finding pleasure in the mundane and meaningless. C.S. Lewis puts it best, we are far too easily pleased:
Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
However, I have much to be joyful for and much to be happy about, because time and again God extends grace. God keeps me. God sustains me. Praise God, for his steadfast love endureth forever.
Do you praise God enough for grace undeserved?
Pastor John MacArthur wrote a very interesting article about the epidemic of “seeker-friendly” services in Pulpit magazine today. He starts by explaining the dangers of having such services and the reason why they are dangerous. He explains that a non-functioning, non-participating member can be detrimental to a church.
Scripture teaches us that the church is to act as one body. 1 Corinthians 12 is very clear in teaching us of the unity and contribution each member has:
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body— Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
1 Corinthians 12:12-20
If you read through all of chapter 12, you will notice how Paul explains that the church is meant to act as one unit. Having some not function, with something just as minor as a toe can have a huge effect on the whole body. John MacArthur writes a wonderful analogy on this:
I can’t read that verse without thinking of Dizzy Dean. He was a Hall-of-Fame baseball pitcher, whose career peaked in the 1930s. His 1934 season has never been excelled by any pitcher in history. Dean won thirty games that year, a feat that hasn’t been repeated since (though Dizzy himself came close, winning 28 games the following year). But in the 1937 All-Star game, he took a hard line drive off his toe, and the toe was broken. It should not have been a career-ending injury, but Dean was rushed back into the lineup before the fracture was completely healed, and he pitched several games favoring the sore toe. That led to an unnatural delivery that seriously injured his pitching arm. The arm never fully recovered. Dizzy Dean’s major-league career was essentially over in four years.
Something similar happens in any church where there are non-functioning members. The active members of the body become overextended, and the effectiveness of the whole body suffers greatly. Even the most insignificant member, like a toe, is designed to play a vital role.
I really enjoyed reading this article and it has convicted me in my love for the church. Do I simply become a spectator during church services? What does it mean to worship God? Too often, churches today, are trying to entertain it’s congregation with music, with dynamic sermons, and hollywood-like drama programs. Where has God gone in the midst of this? Is God the center of our worship, or are we worshiping the tools of the service? And if God is the center of our worship, how can we not but be involved in our worship. Can I truely say I worship God if I just sit back and soak things in?
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
-James 1:22-25
I sincerely pray to God that I would be an active member in the church for the love of my Father’s glory and his great namesake. I also hope in Christ that my church would function as one body and one unit.
Heaven by Randy C. Alcorn
Why We’re Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be by Kevin DeYoung