22 February 2023
Conflict Creates Opportunity
07 February 2023
Obedience For Our Good
"We sometimes get a wrong perspective of sin and our actions. We think only of the effect that it is going to have. There are many men and women in our churches who will not take a stand on certain issues. Why? Well, the little crowd they run with may not accept them. They are with a little clique, and they don't dare stand for anything that the little clique wouldn't stand for. It is never a question of whether it is right or wrong; it's a question of whether it ingratiates them to the crowd. God have mercy on Christians who shape their lives by those who are around them and who are constantly looking for the effect their conduct is going to have on others. They do not look on whether this is the right thing or the Christian thing or whether as a child of God this is something they should or should not do...It is a wonderful thing to stand for the truth, and when you stand for it, then you don't have to compromise." (McGee, J. Vernon. Thru the Bible with J. Vernon McGee. T. Nelson, 1983. page 140)
How sin negatively impacts our own lives can be a deterrent to sin, but it is not enough of a reason to change us; as Christians it ought not be our primary reason. We miss the point if the main thing that restrains us from hitting a co-worker in a rage is because we want to avoid jail, or we cut down excessive alcohol drinking every night because we don't want to lose our job or have a spouse leave us. It is true sinful behaviour has negative consequences, and on the flip side God's commands are for our good. The child of God ought to obey God our Father in light of His goodness, righteousness, sovereignty, justice and wisdom rather than motivated by fear of personal, negative repercussions for our sinful violence or the embarrassment someone will find out we're an alcoholic. God goes beyond the surface evidence of words and actions and hones in on the condition of our hearts we ought to submit in faith by obedience to Him.
By God's grace we can go beyond justifying why God's commands are sensible and beneficial to childlike faith--even when we suffer for it and obedience is costly. In the fear and love of God we have the privilege to know Him and walk in His ways, to serve Him with our heart and all our being. As we obey the word of God we are kept in the right way, and all God's commands are for our good.
06 February 2023
The Inevitable Judgment of God
"And we as Christians today, what are we saying? We are saying that we want reformation and we want revival, but still we are not preaching into this generation, stating the negative things that are necessary. If there is to be a constructive revolution in the orthodox, evangelical church, then like Jeremiah we must speak of the judgment of individual men great and small, of the church, the state, and the culture, for many of them have known the truth of God and have turned away from Him and His propositional revelation. God exists, He is holy, and we must know that there will be judgment. And like Jeremiah, we must keep on so speaking regardless of the cost to ourselves." (Schaeffer, Francis A. Death in the City. CROSSWAY BOOKS, 2021. page 78)
It may be Schaeffer gives too much credit, for I do not know many people who are crying out for reformation and revival. The hope of many might be for a more comfortable life now and the avoidance eternal judgment in hell--if it indeed exists. It has become painfully obvious to me some Christians have no idea how to deal with the topic or word "hell" except to avoid it unless spoken as a mild expletive. A doctor understands the need to state the negative things to an ill patient so they might be helped to recover. The minds of people must be convinced by evidence to change a diet or lifestyle, and often it is the clearly stated inevitable bad outcomes that has turned the health and lives of many around. Pastors and Christians ought to learn this lesson as well, not to coerce or manipulate our hearers by fearful threats, but by warnings out of love that point to Jesus Christ as our Saviour we all desperately need.
Knowing we Christians will stand before the judgment seat of Christ prompts us to consider our ways and words today. If Jesus and the prophets did not shy away from the subject of God's judgment, should we? I urge caution upon those who speak presumptuously, ascribing God's judgment for reasons God has not expressly stated. When Pilate ordered the execution of Galileans or the tower of Siloam fell and tragically people died, perhaps some presumptuously claimed it was God's judgment for Jews breaking the Sabbath or neglecting to tithe of their firstfruits according to the Law of Moses. Jesus did not say anything about why God allowed such tragedies. He simply followed up by saying to children of Abraham: "Except you repent, you will likewise perish." The Bible reveals God judges nations, cities, families and people without exception. 1 Corinthians 11:31 makes the message of judgment individual and personal for Christians God chastens, not for our destruction but ultimate restoration: "For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged."
27 December 2022
Benefit of Family and Your Neighbour
"It is not fashionable to say much nowadays of the advantages of the small community. We are told that we must go in for large empires and large ideas. There is one advantage, however, in the small state, the city, or the village, which only the willfully blind can overlook. The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world. He knows much more of the fierce varieties and uncompromising divergences of men. The reason is obvious. In a large community we can choose our companions. In a small community our companions are chosen for us. Thus in all extensive and highly civilised societies groups come into existence founded upon what is called sympathy, and shut out the real world more sharply than the gates of a monastery. There is nothing really narrow about the clan; the thing which is really narrow is the clique. The men of the clan live together because they all wear the same tartan or all descended from the same sacred cow; but in their souls, by the divine luck of things, there will always be more colours than in any tartan. But the men of the clique live together because they have the same kind of soul, and their narrowness is a narrowness of spiritual coherence and contentment, like that which exists in hell. A big society exists in order to form cliques. A big society is a society for the promotion of narrowness. It is a machinery for the purpose of guarding the solitary and sensitive individual from all experience of the bitter and bracing human compromises. It is, in the most literal sense of the words, a society for the prevention of Christian knowledge...
We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbour. Hence he comes to us clad in all the careless terrors of nature; he is a strange as the stars, as reckless and indifferent as the rain. He is Man, the most terrible of the beasts. That is why the old religious and the old scriptural language showed so sharp a wisdom when they spoke, not of one's duty towards humanity, but one's duty towards one's neighbour. The duty towards humanity may often take the form of some choice which is personal or even pleasurable. That duty may be a hobby; it may even be a dissipation. We may work in the East End because we are peculiarly fitted to work in the East End, or because we think we are; we may fight for the cause of international peace because we are very fond of fighting. The most monstrous martyrdom, the most repulsive experience, may be the result of choice or a kind of taste. We may be so made as to be particularly fond of lunatics or specially interested in leprosy. We may love negroes because they are black or German Socialists because they are pedantic. But we have to love our neighbour because he is there--a much more alarming reasons for a much more serious operation. He is the sample of humanity which is actually given us. Precisely because he may be anybody he is everybody. He is a symbol because he is an accident...
But in order that life should be a story or romance to us, it is necessary that a great part of it, at any rate, should be settled for us without our permission. If we wish life to be a system, this may be a nuisance; but if we wish it to be a drama, it is an essential. It may often happen, no doubt, that a drama may be written by somebody else which we like very little. But we should like it still less if the author came before the curtain every hour or so, and forced on us the whole trouble of inventing the next act. A man has control over many things in his life; he has control over enough things to be the hero of a novel. But if he had control over everything, there would be so much hero that there would be no novel. And the reason why the lives of the rich are at bottom so tame and uneventful is simply that they can choose the events. They are dull because they are omnipotent. They fail to feel adventures because they can make the adventures. The things which keeps life romantic and fully of fiery possibilities is the existence of these great plain limitations which force all of us to meet the things we do not like or do not expect. It is vain for the supercilious moderns to talk of being in uncongenial surroundings. To be in a romance is to be in uncongenial surroundings. To be born into this earth is to be born into uncongenial surroundings, hence to be born into a romance. Of all these great limitations and frameworks which fashion and create the poetry and variety of life, the family is the most definite and important. Hence it is misunderstood by the moderns, who imagine that romance would exist most perfectly in a complete state of what they call liberty. They think that if a man makes a gesture it would be a startling and romantic matter that the sun should fall from the sky. But the startling and romantic thing about the sun is that is does not fall from the sky. They are seeking under every shape and form a world where there are no limitations--that is, a world where there are no outlines; that is, a world where there are no shapes. There is nothing baser that than infinity. They say they wish to be as strong as the universe, but they really wish the whole universe as weak as themselves." (Chesterton, G. K., et al. In Defense of Sanity: The Best Essays of G.K. Chesterton. Ignatius Press, 2011. pages 10-20)
01 December 2022
God's Purposes and Prayer
"It is a transforming experience when we realize that God wants to work through us to accomplish His work and goals, particularly through our prayers. God does not do anything apart from His people. Certainly, we have the storms and hurricanes and fire and all of that. But when God wants to accomplish His purpose and goal, He always does it through His people...Moses did not have what he thought he needed to do what God was calling him to do....
That is the problem with Christians today. They think God is interested in their education and skills in that the more they have of these, the more God can use them. However, God cannot accomplish His goals through our abilities alone. He can only accomplish His purposes through us when we yield ourselves completely to Him. It is only when I as a Christian surrender everything to God, and hold on to nothing bad, that He can accomplish His work through me...God send David against Goliath to show that He uses people regardless of the equipment they have. David's victory over Goliath wasn't David's victory; it was God's victory, without question. God's strength is not in our weapons....
Another mistake many Christians make is to believe God wants to use their past to get a present victory. God does not give us a reservoir of wisdom and power. If He did, it would soon be stagnant. God does not come to a man and pipe him full of wisdom and then say, "If you get in any trouble, come see me or call me up and pray, but in the meantime, you have the whole cistern full of power. You draw on that wisdom because it's yours." God never did it that way. Instead, God gives a man a word of wisdom and give to him power, but God is the power in that man. He is the word of wisdom in that man. It is God working in the man, not the man working. God becomes wisdom to us and becomes power to us....
The Church of God is going to bless, and the Christians whom God is going to bless will be those who have come to the end of their hoarded resources. Then they will experience the grace of God in their lives and ministries. God can only begin to work when we have come to the end of our resources and have nothing to fall back on. People cannot build the Church. It takes the Holy Spirit to work in a man who has surrendered everything and allowed God to do the work through the ministry of prayer. God is not building His Church simply to have a religious organization." (Tozer, A. W., and James L. Snyder. Going Higher with God in Prayer: Cultivating a Lifelong Dialogue. Bethany House Publishers, a Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2022. selections from pages 133-137)
20 November 2022
Our Hope In KING Jesus
15 November 2022
Keep Praying and Don't Lose Heart
"I believe that real faith can afford to wait. God's grace often operates through natural events. If you want an ear of corn, plant a grain of corn and wait. Cultivate it and watch it grow. "For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head" (Mark 4:28). That's the way God works. God does not work with slot machines.
I am on a lonely one-man crusade against slot-machine religion. Put a nickel in the slot and get anything you want. That's the way people work, but that is not the way God works.
If God's wants chickens, He makes the old hen sit patiently for twenty-one days until an egg hatches. I used to pity hens, having to wait all that time. With some birds, it's twenty-eight days, and with others it's even longer. If God wants an oak tree, it takes Him twenty years to grow it. If He wants wheat, it takes all winter and up to July of the next year. The God of nature is also the God of grace. Therefore, I think we ought not to rush heaven when we pray. We ought to pray in the will of God and then watch God work slowly.
I have asked God for things and almost gotten discouraged, and then finally saw them begin to happen. Americans have brass knockers, and they knock three times and want to go right in. The kingdom of heaven can wait, and you can wait, and I can wait. Let us trust God and be patient. Some people in the Old Testament--even in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, the Westminster Abbey of the Bible--died before their prayers were answered." (Tozer, A. W., and James L. Snyder. Going Higher with God in Prayer: Cultivating a Lifelong Dialogue. Bethany House Publishers, a Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2022. page 99)
04 November 2022
Our Moments Kept for God
"In things spiritual, the greater does not always include the less, but, paradoxically, the less more often includes the greater. So in this case, time is entrusted to us to be traded with for our Lord. But we cannot grasp it as a whole. We instinctively break it up ere we can deal with it for any purpose. So when a New Year comes round, we commit it with special earnestness to the Lord. But as we do so, are we not conscious of a feeling that even a year is too much for us to deal with? And does not this feeling, that we are dealing with a larger thing than we can grasp, take away from the sense of reality? Thus we are brought to a more manageable measure; and as the Sunday mornings or the Monday mornings come round, we thankfully commit the opening week to Him, and the sense of help and rest is renewed and strengthened. But not even the six or seven days are close enough to our hand; even tomorrow exceeds our tiny grasp, and even tomorrow's grace is therefore not given to us. So we find the need of considering our lives as a matter of day by day, and that any more general committal and consecration of our time does not meet the case so truly...
We do not realise the importance of moments. Only let us consider these two sayings of God about them, 'In a moment shall they die,' and, 'We shall all be changed in a moment,' and we shall think less lightly of them. Eternal issues may hang upon any one of them, but it has come and gone before we can even think about it. Nothing seems less within the possibility of our own keeping, yet nothing is more inclusive of all other keeping. Therefore let us ask Him to keep them for us.
Are they not the tiny joints in the harness through which the darts of temptation pierce us? Only give us time, we think, and we should not be overcome. Only give us time and we could pray and resist, and the devil would flee from us! But he comes all in a moment; and in a moment--an unguarded, unkept one--we utter the hasty or exaggerated word, or think the un-Christ-like thought, or feel the un-Christ-like impatience or resentment...
But the sanctified and Christ-loving heart cannot be satisfied with only negative keeping. We do not want only to be kept from displeasing Him, but to be kept always pleasing Him. Every 'kept from' should have its corresponding and still more blessed 'kept for.' We do not want our moments to be simply kept from Satan's use, but kept for His use; we want them to be not only kept from sin, but kept for His praise...
The same thing is going on every day. It is generally a moment--either an opening or a culminating one--that really does the work. It is not so often a whole sermon as a single short sentence in it that wings God's arrow to a heart. It is seldom a whole conversation that is the means of bringing about the desired result, but some sudden turn of thought or word, which comes with the electric touch of God's power. Sometimes it is less than that; only a look (and what is more momentary?) has been used by Him for the pulling down of strongholds. Again, in our own quiet waiting upon God, as moment after moment glides past in the silence at His feet, the eye resting upon a page of His Word, or only looking up to Him through the darkness, have we not found that He can so irradiate one passing moment with His light that its rays never die away, but shine on and on through days and years? Are not such moments proved to have been kept for Him? And if some, why not all?...
While we have been undervaluing these fractions of eternity, what has our gracious God been doing in them? How strangely touching are the words, 'What is man that Thou shouldest set Thine heart upon him, and that Thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment?' Terribly solemn and awful would be the thought that He has been trying us every moment, were it not for the yearning gentleness and love of the Father revealed in that wonderful expression of wonder, 'What is man, that Thou shouldest set Thine heart upon him?' Think of that ceaseless setting of His heart upon us, careless and forgetful children as we have been! And then think of those other words, note the less literally true because given under a figure, "I, the Lord, do keep it; I will water it every moment." (Havergal, Frances Ridley. Kept for the Master's Use. Nisbet & Co. LTD., 1908. Pages 30-36)
04 August 2022
Suffering and the Gospel
19 July 2022
God and Rights
"A right is an entitlement conferred on a person by another who has the authority to give such entitlement. In order for foundational and innate human rights to be legitimate, they must be conferred as part of our creation. Some have argued that God has indeed given universal basic rights simply as part of our human existence, but this cannot be supported by the Bible. Some have argued that such rights are a self-evident aspect of human development, which must be enforced by law, in order to bring justice to the world. However, the Bible says that it is only the resolution of man's sin that brings true justice, not the claiming of man's rights. Furthermore, Jesus expressly teaches us to forgive rather than to claim a right of retribution against those who have hurt us." (Cross, David. What's Wrong with Human Rights: Uncovering a False Religion. Sovereign World Ltd, 2018. page 35.)
If a right exists, it is conferred upon people by God or even by a government upon citizens upheld by law. From a biblical worldview all governments and those in power are placed there by God, and thus we honour them not only as public servants but as those responsible to serve God. This responsibility exists whether a politician believes or admits this, and in a secular society this would flatly be denied--even as the existence of the God who created all things is denied. But scornful denials do not make this untrue. The God who graciously gave us life will hold all people accountable and will judge us all according to His righteousness. All legitimate rights must come from someone greater before whom they submit, and thus a claim of rights acknowledges God.
A well-directed point Cross makes (among many) is the difference between ability to do something and a right to do it. God has given every person the freedom to make choices concerning our beliefs, what we choose to say or do. We have the choice between doing what is right and wrong, walking in faith and obedience to God or going our own way. The Beastie Boys song goes, "You gotta fight for your right to party," and people have taken up many fights for rights that are just as biblically illegitimate. When He came to earth Jesus voluntarily laid down His divine right to rule as the only begotten Son and took up residence in a human body that grew in Mary's womb of the Holy Spirit. He humbled Himself, made Himself of no reputation and was a servant of all though LORD of all. He carried His cross to Calvary to satisfy the justice of God and atone for the sins of the world through the Gospel.
God had given the nation of Israel that land occupied and ruled by the Romans, but Jesus did not espouse the right of Jews to fight to own their land. Luke 9:23 says, "Then He said to them all, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me." Jesus did not teach passivism, capitalism or socialism but the denial of self and submission to God in faith marked by obedience. All people alive today, regardless of their circumstances, have been given life by the grace of God. To those who answer the call of Christ to follow and enter into the covenant in His shed blood are given the right to become children of God--and with that other rights as citizens of His eternal kingdom are included. In our unregenerate, sinful condition we are stripped of these rights, yet we are so loved and valued by God He sent His own Son to redeem us, fill us with His presence and crown us with glory. We have no right to be saved but except for the grace and mercy of God.
I have observed a lot of anger and frustration in people when they feel their "rights" are being stripped away. The religion of humanism that looks to government, politicians, legislation, self and the "power of the people" cannot provide comfort for our souls at the best of times, for legislation passed today can be overturned tomorrow; when the majority rules they do not always walk in righteousness. Until people are willing to acknowledge God's sovereignty and resolve to confess our sin, repent and follow Jesus in faith, the crusade for human rights will charge on with soul-crushing impact. The claim and pursuit of human rights can be at its core a denial of God who is our only Hope and falsely claim humanity alone is capable to save the planet and ourselves. Instead of fighting for rights, let us choose to do what is right by seeking forgiveness from God for our own sin. Then we will be led in love towards others and walk in newness of life, and the future will never look more bright.
14 July 2022
Stand Fast in Grace
"During my senior year at the Christian high school I attended, Mr. Hollingsworth was my chemistry teacher. He did something a little unusual for our last final of the year. He had been reading an article by Charles Stanley on the grace of God and wanted to show us what grace looked like. He handed out a test to all of us that we knew would be difficult. We had been preparing for this test for several months. Before we began to take the test, he told us, "I want you to read through the entire test before you begin to take it." As we read through the test most of us realized we were in trouble. We should have studied more. But then I got to the end of the multiple-page test and read these words at the bottom: "You can try and get an A by taking this test or you can just put your name on it and automatically receive an A." This was not a difficult choice. I immediately signed my name, walked up to the desk, and headed out, thanking Charles Stanley for saving my chemistry grade. But there was a girl in our class who was the daughter of the biology teacher. She was quite intelligent and had studied hard. Apparently she got quite upset because she had spent so much time studying, and it wasn't fair that everyone else was getting an "A" for nothing. She stayed and took the test on principle. If she was going to get an "A" she was going to earn it. And a fan says, "I'm not taking any handouts--I can do this on my own." They spend their lives carrying around the heavy burden of religion and making sure others carry that weight as well." (Idleman, Kyle. Not a Fan: Becoming a Completely Committed Follower of Jesus. Zondervan, 2016. pages 80-81)
I had a similar experience with a final exam in university. I had been doing well in the course, and crammed for hours to ace the final test and secure top marks. While there were tests I did not look forward to because they were unexpected or challenging I approached with trepidation, I was ready for this one: bring it on! As the class commenced my professor started writing a list of names on the board and mine was included among them. He said, "If your name is on the board, you are free to go. You have top marks and there is no need to sit the exam." A bit surprised by this unexpected turn of events, I experienced conflicting feelings. Like the girl who wanted to take the chemistry exam on principle, I too had spent hours studying and I didn't want to feel like I had wasted my efforts. But then again I was receiving the grade I had worked for through the term and was free to leave, so I was glad about that. I even felt a little guilty I was being spared sitting the exam when a hundred others weren't.
I cannot say my experience in university was a life-changing experience, but the grace shown made a lasting impact in my memory. There are plenty of final exams I do not remember taking at all that I spent hours pouring over them, yet I do remember the exam I never took! The comparison pastor Idleman made concerning the one who refuses to receive grace rings true in my estimation, for I have sat in that seat many times. I have identified with the older brother in the parable who was annoyed his father showed more favour to a wayward son than him; I have also seen myself in the vineyard workers who laboured in the heat of the day imagining I deserved more than those who only worked the last hour. Receiving God's grace changes us and transforms our perspective towards Him and others. The one who knows they need God's grace is more apt to freely offer it to others, and how great is our need. Without the grace of God we perish, and by grace through faith we have new life.
When God's wisdom and grace become the principle thing, it exposes how our sense of justice has been distorted by our self-righteousness. Our frustrations over unfairness reveals our lack of love and compassion towards others. Jews in the early church struggled with their tendency to justify loading Gentiles with the Law they nor their fathers had been able to bear. Gentiles received the Gospel by faith in Jesus and then were deluded to imagine the work God begun in the Spirit they could accomplish by efforts of their flesh. Romans 5:1-2 is good to recall often: "Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." Let us stand fast and continue in the grace of God (Acts 13:43) and rejoice in the hope of God's glory.
12 May 2022
The LORD Our Sanctuary
"A heathen could say, when a bird scared by a hawk flew into his bosom, I will not betray thee unto thy enemy, seeing thou comest for sanctuary unto me. How much less will God yield up a soul unto its enemy when it takes sanctuary in his name, saying, 'Lord, I am hunted with such a temptation, dogged with such a lust, either thou must pardon or I am damned; mortify it, or I shall be a slave to it; take me into the bosom of thy love, for Christ's sake; castle me in the arms of thy everlasting strength, it is in thy power to save me from, or give me up into, the hands of my enemy. I have no confidence in myself or any other; into thy hands I commit my cause, my life, and rely on thee.' This dependence of a soul undoubtedly will awaken the almighty power of God for such an one's defense." (Gurnall, William. The Christian in Complete Armour. Banner of Truth Trust, 1987. page 30)
05 May 2022
Carry on His Work
"A gem of an experience came after the evening service, a soldier came to see me under deep compunction of conscience, and after a talk we knelt in the deep and glorious moonlight at an old sun-bleached form in the compound and he transacted business with God on Luke 11:13, confirmed by 1 John 5:14-15, and his witness was undoubtedly John 14:27, 'My peace I give unto you.' One never gets used to the unspeakable wonder of a soul entering consciously into the Kingdom of our Lord. It was a great joy to experience it all again." (McCasland, David. Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God. Discovery House Publishers, 1993. page 255.
How awesome it is Jesus Christ has gone to the Father but has not left us alone, having provided the Holy Spirit who guides us into all truth and helps us be fruitful in our endeavours for the Gospel. God's workmen come and go, but the Holy Spirit abides in us and is ever with us. It is not "new blood" we need in the church: the blood of Jesus is sufficient to cleanse all sinners and cause them to be born again into God's kingdom, servants of the Most High! As much as we might want Oswald Chambers or other believers to carry on labouring forever in their posts on earth, the world does not need another Chambers or Spurgeon to spark revival: the world needs Jesus Christ and believers who may remain nameless, filled with the Holy Spirit, through whom Jesus will be made known.
27 April 2022
Walking the Walk (in love)
"With all his emphasis on truth, Oswald was never content to affect the mind alone. His goal was to stir the will to act on sound principles of Scripture, so that people might demonstrate the love of Christ. He looked intently at his eager, earnest students, ready to go out and battle for the truth, then read from Dr. Alexander Whyte's exposition of Job: "Oh, the unmitigated curse of controversy! Oh the detestable passions that corrections and contradictions kindle up to fury in the proud heart of man! Eschew controversy, my brethren, as you would eschew the entrance to hell itself! Let them have it their own way. Let them talk, let them write, let them correct you, let them traduce you. Let them judge and condemn you, let them slay you. Rather let the truth of God itself suffer than that love suffer. You have not enough of the Divine nature in you to be a controversialist." (McCasland, David. Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God ; the Life Story of the Author of My Utmost for His Highest. Discovery House Pub., 1993. page 107)
What a great example this is! Dr. Alexander Whyte wrote an exposition on Job and held forth observations applied practically to life by the divine truth revealed in holy writ. Oswald Chambers read words that resonated with the truth he knew, and he passed on the wisdom to his impressionable students who would benefit from restraint concerning wading into controversies. David McCasland chose to include this paragraph in the autobiography he wrote that I am reading, and now I have shared it with whoever reads this post. Many have talked a good game, but how good and profitable it is to consider and take to heart the wisdom of those who "walk the walk" with Christ in love.
Those who hold to the truth can doubtless fall into the trap of believing it is more important to correct others who err than to prioritise walking in God's wisdom and truth ourselves. The Pharisees embraced this role with relish, all the while condemned by Jesus for hypocrisy. They were quick to criticise those who ignored their traditions of men they taught as commands of God: they wiped the outside of the cup while the inside was filled with filth and uncleanness. I love what Jesus said when He was told the Pharisees were offended by His remarks in Matthew 15:14: "Let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch." It is not that Jesus did not care about the religious rulers, for the Good Shepherd is pleased to pull wandering sheep from a ditch; He is able to open the eyes of those born blind--and He does when such cry out to Him in faith.
30 March 2022
Our Strength is in God
"The strength of the general in other hosts lies in his troops. He flies, as a great commanded once said to his soldiers, upon their wings; if their feather be clipped, their power broken, he is lost; but in the army of saints, the strength of every saint, yea, of the whole host of saints, lies in the Lord of hosts. God can overcome his enemies without their hands, but they cannot so much as defend themselves without his arm. It is one of God's names, 'the Strength of Israel' (1 Sam. 15:29). He was the strength of David's heart; without him this valiant worthy (that could, when held up in his arms, defy him that defied a whole army) behaves himself strangely for fear, at a word or two that dropped from the Philistine's mouth. He was the strength of his hands, 'He taught his fingers to fight,' and so He is the strength of all his saints in their war against sin and Satan...The Christian, when fullest of divine communications, is but a glass without a foot, he cannot stand, or hold what he hath received, any longer than God holds him in his strong hand." (Gurnall, William. The Christian in Complete Armour. Banner of Truth, 2002, pp. 18–19.)
The imagery of stemware without a foot is insightful, for unless the vessel is held in an upright position by a hand it is completely useless. So it is for followers of Jesus Christ, for He said in John 15:5: "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing." A wine glass cannot hold wine without a foot, and a branch cannot bear fruit unless it is connected to the vitality of the vine. Jesus identified Himself as the vine and those who have been born again are the branches joined to Him by faith. Like the seemingly endless waves of pride that rise up within us, we must continually remind ourselves we are incapable of obeying God or being fruitful at all without active reliance and a personal connection to Him. Our strength and fruitfulness is not due to us, but is all by grace through Him.
"Brethren, be strong in the LORD and in the power of His might," Paul exhorted believers in Ephesians 6:10. All our strength and power comes from the LORD, and what is impossible for man is possible with God. On his own mighty Samson was weaker than his adversaries who bound him. God often uses our failures to correct our proud and self-confident perspectives, for though Samson was blinded he looked to God for strength who helped him become stronger than ever before. We remain untroubled when we discover our strength is in God, and praise God He makes us very fruitful by His grace.
24 March 2022
Not of This World
"The simplest truth about man is that he is a very strange being; almost in the sense of being a stranger on the earth. In all sobriety, he has much more of the external appearance of one bringing alien habits from another land than of a mere growth of this one. He has an unfair advantage and an unfair disadvantage. He cannot sleep in his own skin; he cannot trust his own instincts. He is at once a creator moving miraculous hands and fingers and a kind of cripple. He is wrapped in artificial bandages called clothes; he is propped on artificial crutches called furniture. His mind has the same doubtful liberties and the same wild limitations. Alone among the animals, he is shaken with the beautiful madness called laughter; as if he had caught sight of some secret in the very shape of the universe hidden from the universe itself. Alone among the animals he feels the need of averting his thought from the root realities of his own bodily being; of hiding them as in the presence of some higher possibility which creates the mystery of shame. Whether we praise these things as natural to man or abuse them as artificial in nature, they remain in the same sense unique. This is realised by the whole popular instinct called religion...It is not natural to see man as a natural product. It is not common sense to call man a common object of the country or the seashore. It is not seeing straight to see him as an animal. It is not sane. It is a sin against the light; against the broad daylight of proportion which is the principle of all reality. It is reached by stretching a point, by making a case, by artificially selecting a certain light and shade, by bringing into prominence the lesser or lower things which may happen to be similar. The solid thing standing in the sunlight, the thing we can walk round and see from all sides, is quite different. It is also quite extraordinary; and the more sides we see of it the more extraordinary it seems. It is emphatically not a thing that follows or flows naturally from anything else." (Chesterton, G. K. (2008). The everlasting man. Ignatius Press. pages 36-37)
Man is not an accident, product of nature or a social construct: people male and female have been created in the image of the almighty God, people who are more than bodies but possess an eternal soul. There is a sense of morality and duty borne from a conscience, an individual will we submit to God as Master or shall master us. Man alone has senses animals cannot understand or express: indignation based upon morality, judgment according to wisdom, desire for intimacy and honesty, modes of communication and expression, to appreciate kind words and gratitude, the horror of sin and the delight of forgiveness. I was once told by a pastor, "People are weird and life isn't fair." This is true for we are indeed strange, unique beings all created and sustained by the grace of God. Compared to animals in nature man is unique, and compared to all other people Jesus is even more unique--truly not of this world.
Praise God for His power to create, redeem and save! On our own we would have all remained like beasts before God clawing for scraps in the dark, but glory to God as Zecharias prophesied of Jesus Christ who brings knowledge of salvation and forgiveness of sins in Luke 1:78-78: "...Through the tender mercy of our God, with which the Dayspring from on high has visited us; 79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." The God who said, "Let there be light" and there was light is the God who has revealed Himself to us in the person of Jesus, the One who alone gives rest for our souls. Without God revealing this to us, we wouldn't have known we had souls or that rest is needed or possible! What riches of knowledge, grace, forgiveness and love are freely provided for all who are born again through the Gospel: in the world but not of the world, now eternal citizens of heaven by grace.
21 February 2022
The Honest Truth
"Touching the morality of the public schools, I will take one point only, which is enough to prove the case. People have got into their heads an extraordinary idea that English public-school boys and English youth generally are taught to tell the truth. They are taught absolutely nothing of the kind. At no English public school is it even suggested, except by accident, that it is a man's duty to tell the truth. What is suggested is something entirely different: that it is a man's duty not to tell lies. So completely does this mistake soak through all civilisation that we hardly ever think even of the difference between the two things. When we say to a child, "You must tell the truth," we do merely mean that he must refrain from verbal inaccuracies. But the thing we never teach at all is the general duty of telling the truth, of giving a complete and fair picture of anything we are talking about, of not misrepresenting, not evading, not suppressing, not using plausible arguments that we know to be unfair, not selecting unscrupulously to prove an ex parte case (a proceeding conducted for the benefit of only one party), not telling all the nice stories about the Scotch, and all the nasty stories about the Irish, not pretending to be disinterested when you are really angry, not pretending to be angry when you are really only avaricious. The one thing that is never taught by any chance in the atmosphere of public schools is exactly that--that there is a whole truth of things, and that in knowing it and speaking it we are happy." (Chesterton, G. K. All Things Considered. CreateSpace, 2018. page 78)
In secular societies like Australia and the United States, talk of duty is almost wholly rejected unless speaking of your duty to yourself to do and say as you please. Duty is a dirty word because it strongly implies a subservient position of a person with an obligation to others. When it comes to speaking the truth it is a duty before God who created mankind, gave us minds to think, consciences to consider, and mouths to speak. There is an enormous difference between avoiding telling lies and honestly telling the truth. Fear, insecurities, the desire to be accepted and pleasing can stand as insurmountable obstacles to the naked truth. It is entirely possible to avoid lying and never come close to actually speaking truth. Jesus claimed to be Truth personified, and thus His followers ought to love, speak and walk in the truth.
Jesus provided us an example of what speaking the truth in love looks like, for His bold statements and probing questions were with the glory of God and the good of others in mind. Since Jesus knew the hearts and thoughts of men, He could have used this to His advantage to humiliate adversaries and seek favour by catering to man's skewed opinions. Too many times I (and probably everyone else) have been careful to avoid telling lies rather than speaking the honest truth. I have cared more about a potential adverse reaction someone might have to it rather than being motivated to speak honest truth because with this God is well pleased. There is a necessary place for the considerations of the thoughts and feelings of others and tact, but this does not justify cloaking truth with convenient half-truths which could rightly be called lies. Since we are of the Truth, we ought to walk in truth, love in truth and speak the truth rather than avoiding telling lies.
01 February 2022
Developing Commitment to Others
"I have bumped around the evangelical church almost all of my life, and I am ready to go on record with this observation: most of the difficulties we have in church, if you do a postmortem on them, arise from the fact that people have not developed a real commitment to one another. Our commitment to each other is so shallow! We are much more committed to our own interests. As a result, we're ready to go to war over the most trivial things. We're ready to die for green carpet or padded pews or the type of music that gets played during communion.
Yes, you and I may disagree about certain things. But don't we love the same LORD? Aren't we both committed to the power of the Spirit in our lives? Don't we have the same goal to reach the world for Christ? We can disagree about some of the peripheral things, but we had better stay focused on the things that bind us together. We can't have a submissive attitude if we don't do that." (Jeremiah, David. God in You. Walk Thru the Bible Ministries, 1998. page 183.)
I don't know if there has been an age that has glorified the right of the individual against what God says more than today. We must be willing to develop commitment to one another--not an agenda or church brand--and this means laying aside differences to embrace people. It is easier to divide over disagreements rather than submitting to one another because this requires us to humble ourselves and extend grace to others. God's word stands supreme and says what wisely walking in the power of the Holy Spirit looks like: redeeming the time, speaking with praise to God, making melody in our hearts to the LORD, giving thanks always for all things to God, and submitting to one another. People are encouraged to know they are loved, accepted and forgiven even when mistakes are made, and forgiving one another as we have been forgiven by the LORD is a huge part of daily living out our personal decision to follow Christ. This commitment to our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ is all of grace, and may we learn to humbly extend and receive forgiveness we need to walk in agreement with God.
12 November 2021
Sound In Love
As I was studying this week during sermon preparation, I came across this quote by D. L. Moody in the Enduring Word Commentary by pastor David Guzik: “The church has become very jealous about men being unsound in the faith. If a man becomes unsound in the faith, they draw their ecclesiastical swords and cut at him. But he may be ever so unsound in love, and they don’t say anything.” In this context jealousy means to be suspicious with fearful unease. Now I do not know if this is an accurate portrayal of the church as much as people with whom D. L. Moody was aware. I myself am exceedingly hesitant to suggest the behaviour of some is indicative of all. But it is a sobering consideration, that anyone in the church would dismiss the need to love one another in an effort to uphold the truth.
In Paul's parting words to the elders of the church of Ephesus he said in Acts 20:28-32, "Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. 29 For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.30 Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. 31 Therefore watch, and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears. 32 So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified." Paul realised the church could be undermined from within as well as attacked from outside. There were two groups identified: men like savage wolves who would come in among them and also from the group he addressed would men rise up, speak perverse things and attempt to draw disciples away from Christ and to themselves.
It is fitting therefore for elders, pastors and congregants within the church to be aware of the potential they themselves could be one who makes a series of choices to depart from faithfully following Jesus Christ and the word of His grace. It is love of God and others that is to motivate Christians to address divisive behaviour and heretical doctrine in the church while choosing to walk in wisdom, love and grace towards all. The one "unsound in the faith" is not beyond hope or help, for the God who saves souls can also restore them. Jesus told Peter to put his sword back in his sheath when he lopped off the ear of Malchus, and we ought to wield the sword of the Spirit with gentleness with an aim to restore. Galatians 6:1 says, "Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted."
Being unsound in the faith has devastating consequences, and being unsound in love even more so. If we cease to walk in love, we turn aside from walking as a disciple of Jesus should. Jesus said in John 13:34-35, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." By the grace of God may we be sound in love and faith as we watchfully shepherd the church of God purchased with His own blood. In obedience to the Father Jesus shed His blood to purchase us unto Himself, and a church bought out of love can be guarded lovingly too.
27 April 2021
Grief and God's Grace
"Suicides usually leave conversations unfinished, with many loose ends. But ultimate closure is an unrealistic expectation. We can close on a house, but we can't close on a person's life. To put the past behind us and lock it up into a little box dishonors the memory of our loved one; it says that we are trying to pretend that this didn't happen. No, instead we acknowledge what happened, and that it was tragic; we acknowledge that it has changed our lives forever. We live on as changed people who look at life and death differently now.
Eventually we come to the point of realizing that though we may always grieve, we no longer do so continually or consciously. In some ways grief will go on forever. In other ways it does come to some end points. After his wife's death, C. S. Lewis wrote A Grief Observed in a series of four notebooks. He decided that he would not buy any new notebooks after the fourth one. He said, "I thought I could describe a state, make a map of sorrow. Sorrow, however, turns out to be not a state but a process. It needs not a map but a history, and if I don't stop writing that history at some quite arbitrary point, there's no reason why I should ever stop. There is something new to be chronicled every day..."
Healing doesn't mean that we are ever completely "recovered." We are never fully "healed." The human body is never in a state of perfect health; it is constantly in flux, with some cells dying while others are growing. Every day we experience minuscule injuries and abrasions, and if our bodies are healthy, they are always in the process of healing. It is better to speak of experiencing healing as an ongoing process than to pretend we have been healed and have arrived at a final destination...We are never completely healed. After all, we still carry the scars. But grief that has done its work in us will help us experience God's grace more fully." (Hsu, Albert. Grieving a Suicide: a Loved Ones Search for Comfort, Answers and Hope. Inter-Varsity Press, 2017. pages 157-159.)
To all who have experienced grief and painful loss, may you also experience the comfort and hope found only in Jesus Christ who will never leave or forsake us. God knows what it is like to lose what is most precious when He gave His only begotten Son for us on Calvary. God has suffered for us in the person of Jesus Christ so we could receive comfort, and by faith we can cast our cares upon Him because He cares for us today and always.