Carried in His Bosom

Yesterday the LORD gave me great comfort through a living illustration.  Whenever I put on shoes in the Tooke's home in the morning, Poncho (the family dog) whimpers and shakes with excited anticipation.  He has learned that when shoes go on the feet, it means he will be going on a walk.  I put on my shoes yesterday morning and it cracks me up how excited Poncho becomes at the prospect of a walk.  So not wanting to disappoint him, I picked up his lead (leash for the Americans in our audience) and walked out the door.

After about 10 minutes of jogging and a couple of potty breaks, Poncho began to resist the lead more and more.  As I carefully observed him, he was favoring his left foreleg.  For the past couple of weeks I have seen him more than once favor that leg.  "I'm sorry, Poncho," I told him.  "We'll take it easy, alright?"  Unfortunately for both of us, we happened to be at the lowest point of elevation in our run!  After a minute or two of hobbling around, Poncho would not walk at all.  I looked at him, he stared at me.  "Well, I suppose I'll have to carry you!" I said, and that is what I did.  For about 5 minutes or more I carried my wounded 22 kilo mate along the road.  Car after car passed and I mused:  I wonder what they think about me!

When we came to the steep part of the climb, I set Poncho down and he walked the rest of the way (much to the delight of my back!).  God showed me a wonderful truth from this illustration.  Sometimes when we start out walking with Jesus we run at a strong pace.  Whenever we walk in faith we start a new journey, trusting in God to guide and empower us.  But along the way sometimes we can be wounded.  We can tire and lose heart.  When the Holy Spirit prompts us to move we pull against the lead and refuse to walk anymore.  But instead of kicking us to the ground and dragging us along, He picks us up.  I'm reminded of the famous poem "Footprints" where the man looks back on his life with the LORD.  At times there was only one set of footprints.  He accused God of abandoning him in the tough times.  God instructed him that it was in those times it was God who carried him along!

We are so privileged to have a Good Shepherd who knows our weak frame and picks us up when we are wounded and weary!  He seeks to heal us, not destroy.  When we falter and fail we do not disillusion God, only the perception we have of ourselves.  Our pride becomes wounded when we fail to meet our meager expectations and tempts us to give up.  Shall we give up when God is in the process of carrying us through the trial?  Should we run from His healing hands?  Let us trust in the Good Shepherd and submit to Him.  He has created us, redeemed us, and does not hesitate to pick us up, muddy paws and all.  As it says in Isaiah 40:11:  "He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those who are with young."

Moving!

Moving can be a moving experience.  The nature of the process reveals to us what we really think is important.  It strips away the veneer of all we have taken for granted.  Perhaps for the first time we see our priorities aren't where we thought they were.  A baby doesn't care where he is as long as he can cuddle with his silk blanket.  Sometimes the presence of mom is enough to comfort.  Once we grow older we still do not outgrow this attachment to things.  It is natural to base our security in what we can hold in our hands.  In reality, this is security found in ourselves.

This process cannot be performed until we resign ourselves, our things, family, friends, and future to Jesus Christ.  Perhaps some foster a false "romantic" view that following Jesus comes at no cost of things, relationships, or comforts.  Will God provide for our needs?  Certainly.  Isn't it true that anyone who leaves family for the sake of the Gospel will receive reward.  Yes.  But the tears still flow.  There is no denying our family faces the stiff price of separation on both sides of the Pacific.  Is Jesus worth it?  No question!

All of our household goods were loaded into this little 20' container.  Last Friday it was loaded and driven to port, only 20lbs. under the maximum weight!  But I would trade the whole lot for the little boy sitting on the furniture.  God has seen fit to separate us for a little while.  Stuff carries no value when compared to people!  We would do well to remember this always!

This morning during my reading I came across this passage:  Psalm 27:13-14 reads, "I would have lost heart, unless I had believed That I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living. ¹⁴ Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!"  No matter what situation we find ourselves in, this remains true!  We can be apt to believe this some days over others.  We must wait on the LORD before He will supply us with strength.  This kind of waiting is not patiently enduring the passage of time, but the expectant looking to and trusting in our Savior, Jesus Christ.   David was not only looking towards heaven, but he cultivated an expectancy that God would supply his needs today!  I too desire to be of the same mind.  Though I cannot be with my wife and children at the present, God will supply both our needs just the same.  He is the one we really need.

Pious Pride

What self-deceptions we are willing to employ to justify refusal of submission to God!  How far we will wander from obedience because we are too proud to repent.  We say, "I will not commit because I know I cannot.  I am unable to perfectly keep my word."  So out of pride we fashion a pious cloak to cover our rebellion.  "God would not have me agree to something I cannot do."  But can a man do anything perfectly before God?  You cannot do anything for God!  We are powerless to do the first works, much less be fruitful, progress in sanctification, or even cease a single sin unless God helps us.  It begins with faith in Him and agreement with God.  Then we must commit to give no place to the devil, walk in obedience, and continually humble ourselves before Him.  No wonder pride in all its forms and disguises is abominable before God!

While struggling with a particular sin years ago, I remember in church when the hymn "I Surrender All" was played.  During the refrain which goes, "I surrender all, I surrender all, all to thee my precious Savior I surrender all" I did not sing the words.  I sang "I will ever love and trust Him, in His presence daily live" but not "I surrender all."  What blatant hypocrisy, what pride!  I could not enter into His presence because I would not surrender all.  I refused to mouth the words "I surrender all" not because I was incapable of surrender, but because I would not.  The pretense of keeping my "word" was more important to me than holiness, and therefore preferred wickedness instead.  There I was concerned about keeping my word while I remained in sin!

It wounds a man's pride to admit he cannot do something.  Conversely, his pride is bolstered the more he refuses to yield.  As I stood that day with the outward appearance of piety, mouth closed with "intellectual" objections, praise of sin and pride was substituted for worship and obedience to God.  What a horrible, detestable thing pride is!  Pride is death posing as an angel of light!  Should we refuse to commit ourselves to Christ because we cannot follow Him perfectly when we are not perfect ourselves?  Ridiculous!

Let us seek God's favor to weed-out pride in us wherever we find it creeping through our hearts.  Pride is the secret identity of sin.  It is a slippery monster that sounds so convincing, has huge crushing teeth, and convinces us it cannot hurt us to be friends with it.  It is time to sever the relationship, once and for all!  Let us call Pride sin, and ask God to purify us of all the numbing poisons it has injected into our minds and hearts with its fangs.  It makes a man self-righteous, arrogant, spiritually drowsy and dull, unaffected by the Spirit, caustic, selfish, and judgmental.  Like a leech it fastens onto our souls and we cannot know it except the LORD reveal it.  It seems to always fog our spiritual vision.

Have you ever hesitated to sing, "Search me O God, and know my heart, see if there be anything at all that might keep me from hearing you, keep me from knowing you, keep you from loving you, dear LORD?"  I have.  Pride keeps us from opening our hearts to the LORD's searching gaze.  "You are not that bad, you have already repented," the soothing voice says.  "You have victory!  No need to worry!"  When we entertain pride, there is always cause for concern!  Are you willing to be examined by God today?  Do you fear He might find something?  Brothers and sisters, there is always something!  But He has the power to heal, cleanse, and restore.  Pride will only drag us to hell.  God leaves the choice to us!

Doctrine of Doing

"First, all preaching should be practical.  The proper end of all doctrine is practice.  Anything brought forward as doctrine, which cannot be made use of as practical, is not preaching the Gospel.  There is none of that sort of preaching in the Bible.  That is all practical.  "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:  that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Tim. 3:16-17).  A vast deal of preaching in the present day, as well as in past ages, is called doctrinal as opposed to practical preaching.  The very idea of making this distinction is a device of the devil.  And a more abominable device Satan himself never devised.  You sometimes hear certain men talk a wonderful deal about the necessity of "indoctrinating the people."  By which they mean something different from practical preaching; teaching them certain doctrines, as abstract truths, without any particular reference to practice.  And I have known a minister in the midst of a revival, while surrounded with anxious sinners, leave off labouring to convert souls, for the purpose of "indoctrinating" the young converts, for fear somebody else should indoctrinate them before him.  And there the revival stops!  Either his doctrine was not true, or it was not preached in the right way.  To preach doctrines in an abstract way, and not in reference to practice, is absurd.  God always brings in doctrine to regulate practice.  To bring forward doctrinal views for any other object is not only nonsense; it is wicked."  Charles G Finney (quoted from Revival Lectures, pg. 222, emphasis mine)

Jesus never preached to satisfy the curiosity or men, to excite their senses, or simply for the sake of sharing information.  He aimed to move the hearts, minds, and man's complete being to repentance and righteousness.  Jesus did not seek to only engage the mind but move the soul.  Finney wrote these words quoted above almost two hundred years ago, yet we still see this practice continually in the church.  "Feeding the sheep" today often constitutes the sharing of information rather than motivation to action.  Quite often I find that abstract doctrines, or teaching in an abstract manner does little more than please the minister.  People politely sit through message after message, sift through the material, and though there is an abundance of information there is no direction concerning how to live in light of it.  Therefore the material exists to quiet a man's conscience:  he has done his duty in listening to a sermon rather than the sermon being an impetus used by the Holy Spirit to cause a man to draw nearer to God in faith.  He has had a healthy meal at the LORD's table and returns hungrily back to the slop served up in the world's trough.

The result of this kind of preaching is overfed and overweight sheep due to lack of exercise - actual exercise of the Christian walk with Christ.  Like cows we chew and chew, digest, and stand around talking about what we're eating.  We have the scripture on our breath but it doesn't have practical impact.  Take for instance the doctrine of the pre-tribulational rapture of the church.  People happily take a position, but for what?  Unless this doctrine moves you to action, it is like standing in the batter's box to hit without a bat.  Your stance may be textbook, your uniform spotless, and you may have memorized word-for-word the rules of baseball.  But without a bat you cannot perform your purpose in the box:  to hit the ball!  The doctrine of the rapture can and should move us to action:  the necessity for personal repentance and evangelism; the knowledge that our time is short causes us to labor with earnest, urgent diligence; to desire and labor so our conversation will glorify God more and more as we see the Day approaching; we will be sober, watchful, and godly and on.

It has never been good enough in God's eyes for a man to know something.  Knowledge brings a man under greater condemnation!  It is the application of this knowledge that constitutes wisdom.  The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.  A preacher does Christ disservice when he does not specifically apply the Biblical truths of doctrine to practical life.  Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies!  When we think of any doctrine in scripture, how does it move us to greater love?  How does doctrine stir up our hearts to glorify God with our lives?  These are questions which I must address not only with my mouth through preaching or discourse, but also through my thoughts, words, and actions.  The most essential doctrines can be degraded to information regurgitation rather than life transformation.  How we need the Spirit to teach us and guide us in our daily lives!  Let us not only be good students but servants of the Most High God.  May our lives be display of true doctrine, an outflow of the life of Christ which speaks volumes of wisdom no one can deny.