"...has God said...?"
Astounding the audacity of a seemingly-innocent question, including: the Sovereign's authority was challenged; the veracity of the Almighty was doubted; the character of the Creator was impugned; the promises of the Faithful One were suddenly suspect. In the very act of questioning, the most crucial ingredient of man's relationship to his Maker was destroyed: trust. It is here that the dichotomy between the world system and the Christian world view is vividly apparent: the world trusts only the seen, the tangible, the measurable, whereas the one who walks by faith trusts the unseen One Who has never failed to keep all His good Word. The world considers it clever and sophisticated to question everything, mock taking God seriously, and to live only for this life, whereas the one whose life has been changed by the Lord Jesus knows in his spirit that His Word is true, His promises sure, and this world but a prelude to eternity in glory. Has God said? Yes!
Friday, January 28, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Genesis 3:1
"...has God said...?"
This spirit of questioning was uttered from a heart of rejection and led to acts of rebellion. Long before he possessed the form of the serpent there in the garden, Satan had led a third of the angelic host in revolt against the Lord God in His heavenly rule. His inveterate hatred has never wavered, never lost intensity of purpose: steal God's worship, and hinder His worshippers' knowledge of Him.
How? Often through casting doubt on God's character and Word by a spirit of questioning, rather than acceptance by faith. Saturating the world's system is this spirit of discontent, fueled by refusal to submit to God's sovereign rule over all. Indeed, such submission is viewed as intellectual suicide, and disdained.
Yet for those who take God seriously, James 4:7,8a, are precious: "Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you."
This spirit of questioning was uttered from a heart of rejection and led to acts of rebellion. Long before he possessed the form of the serpent there in the garden, Satan had led a third of the angelic host in revolt against the Lord God in His heavenly rule. His inveterate hatred has never wavered, never lost intensity of purpose: steal God's worship, and hinder His worshippers' knowledge of Him.
How? Often through casting doubt on God's character and Word by a spirit of questioning, rather than acceptance by faith. Saturating the world's system is this spirit of discontent, fueled by refusal to submit to God's sovereign rule over all. Indeed, such submission is viewed as intellectual suicide, and disdained.
Yet for those who take God seriously, James 4:7,8a, are precious: "Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you."
Friday, January 14, 2011
Your Treasured Word
"Your word I have treasured in my heart, That I may not sin against You." (Psalm 119:11)
When first His love ravished my heart, I poured over the pages of His love letters hours at a time... couldn't get enough of the precious promises, newly-made just to me. The assurance of His love, the certainty of His salvation, the amazement at His grace, all enthralled my soul with ever-deepening desire to please and serve Him throughout my days.
O how I treasured His Word! How deeply the roots of His truth sank their nourishment deeply into the eager soil of my soul. Watered by the blessed Spirit's ministry of remembrance, matured by the blustry winds of life's testings, Your faithful Word has born the fruit of righteousness. When sickened by sin's deceitfulness, when overcome by the Accuser's skillful use of guilt, wondrous would be the way the blessed Holy Spirit would use the treasured Word to remind me of my Lord's loving acceptance, unfailing forgiveness, and unchanging nature.
Thank You for Your blessed Book, O gracious Father... for the times without number that You have led me to just the right promise, or to the exact precept I most deeply needed from Your treasury of truth. Such past faithfulness gives resolve to seek Your will and ways all the more diligently. Praise to Your Name for Your strengthening grace, using Your Word to encourage my heart, that I may not sin against You!
When first His love ravished my heart, I poured over the pages of His love letters hours at a time... couldn't get enough of the precious promises, newly-made just to me. The assurance of His love, the certainty of His salvation, the amazement at His grace, all enthralled my soul with ever-deepening desire to please and serve Him throughout my days.
O how I treasured His Word! How deeply the roots of His truth sank their nourishment deeply into the eager soil of my soul. Watered by the blessed Spirit's ministry of remembrance, matured by the blustry winds of life's testings, Your faithful Word has born the fruit of righteousness. When sickened by sin's deceitfulness, when overcome by the Accuser's skillful use of guilt, wondrous would be the way the blessed Holy Spirit would use the treasured Word to remind me of my Lord's loving acceptance, unfailing forgiveness, and unchanging nature.
Thank You for Your blessed Book, O gracious Father... for the times without number that You have led me to just the right promise, or to the exact precept I most deeply needed from Your treasury of truth. Such past faithfulness gives resolve to seek Your will and ways all the more diligently. Praise to Your Name for Your strengthening grace, using Your Word to encourage my heart, that I may not sin against You!
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Psalm 5:3
"In the morning, O LORD, You will hear my voice... in the morning, I will order my prayer to You, and eagerly watch."
Thank You for the morning, Father.. for the refreshing effect of sleep.. for the protection You provide through the night, when we are most vulnerable...
Praise to Your Name that You never sleep, nor slumber... that we are always before You...
Amazing that You would commit Yourself to such as us.... providing Your Book filled with promises, as trustworthy as Your Name and character..
providing Your very presence in the Person of the Holy Spirit... expressing Himself through producing fruit by grace...
through bringing to our remembrance the things the Lord Jesus said...
through bearing witness with our spirit that we are Yours..
through faithful, needed conviction of sin...
through promptings in our inner man that speak to our spirit for direction and leading...
through speaking peace to our hearts...
through confirming by conversation with others Your will from Your Word...
and all because of the Lord Jesus, and His sinless death and blood atonement for satisfying Your just and righteous anger against sinners!
Father, grant that this would be a day in which our eyes are fixed upon You... for when we focus on ourselves and our walk, it leads to either despair or pride.
Forgive for ways we compare ourselves with others... for there, again, we are given to either introspection or self-satisfaction.. neither of which is pleasing to You. Only as our thoughts are filled with contemplations of You, Your blessed Word, Your faithful character, ways, and will, will our perspective be pleasing and our lives usable.
Forgive, too, for the love of ease that fills our days... we see so little sacrifice, know so little of the heaviness of heart You have for this lost world...
No one better than You knows the prayerlessness of our hearts... our thoughts so easily taken from You, and placed on the seen, the incidental, the transitory, the temporal, the inconsequential, the worldly.
Do a work of restoration, Father, that can be explained in no other way than that You did it.
Be pleased to call us back to Yourself... to the days when our love for You was fresh, clean, joyous, enamoured with You, yearning to know You, to tell others how wonderful You truly are.
You know perfectly how desperately we need a personal awakening... and how deeply our decadent nation needs awakening... instill in our hearts afresh... grant the desire anew... to pay the price of godliness, to become usable again, and used for Your glory....
and please move us from fine-sounding words and phrases, to actual obedience.
In the Lord Jesus' Name,
Amen.
Thank You for the morning, Father.. for the refreshing effect of sleep.. for the protection You provide through the night, when we are most vulnerable...
Praise to Your Name that You never sleep, nor slumber... that we are always before You...
Amazing that You would commit Yourself to such as us.... providing Your Book filled with promises, as trustworthy as Your Name and character..
providing Your very presence in the Person of the Holy Spirit... expressing Himself through producing fruit by grace...
through bringing to our remembrance the things the Lord Jesus said...
through bearing witness with our spirit that we are Yours..
through faithful, needed conviction of sin...
through promptings in our inner man that speak to our spirit for direction and leading...
through speaking peace to our hearts...
through confirming by conversation with others Your will from Your Word...
and all because of the Lord Jesus, and His sinless death and blood atonement for satisfying Your just and righteous anger against sinners!
Father, grant that this would be a day in which our eyes are fixed upon You... for when we focus on ourselves and our walk, it leads to either despair or pride.
Forgive for ways we compare ourselves with others... for there, again, we are given to either introspection or self-satisfaction.. neither of which is pleasing to You. Only as our thoughts are filled with contemplations of You, Your blessed Word, Your faithful character, ways, and will, will our perspective be pleasing and our lives usable.
Forgive, too, for the love of ease that fills our days... we see so little sacrifice, know so little of the heaviness of heart You have for this lost world...
No one better than You knows the prayerlessness of our hearts... our thoughts so easily taken from You, and placed on the seen, the incidental, the transitory, the temporal, the inconsequential, the worldly.
Do a work of restoration, Father, that can be explained in no other way than that You did it.
Be pleased to call us back to Yourself... to the days when our love for You was fresh, clean, joyous, enamoured with You, yearning to know You, to tell others how wonderful You truly are.
You know perfectly how desperately we need a personal awakening... and how deeply our decadent nation needs awakening... instill in our hearts afresh... grant the desire anew... to pay the price of godliness, to become usable again, and used for Your glory....
and please move us from fine-sounding words and phrases, to actual obedience.
In the Lord Jesus' Name,
Amen.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Father,
When words are worthless, smothered by overwhelming grief, You are enough.
When there is no strength to move, You say simply, "Look to Me." And Your Spirit graciously brings You before my heart's vision, bringing peace beyond comprehension, and You are enough.
Forgive, Father, for ways I seek sufficiency in places, people, and things. Some may afford happiness for a season, but none satisfies, only You do that. Grant repentance to this covetous heart, weaning it from wanting the world's mirages. Grant discernment to see through the veneer of promised provision, the smiling sneer of the enemy who hates my soul. Grant contentment, Father, complete satisfaction with You, simply You.
In Your Son's Name I plea,
Amen.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Timing Is Everything
"Then Jesus cried out in the temple, teaching and saying, 'You both know Me and know where I am from; and I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know. I know Him, because I am from Him, and He sent Me.' So they were seeking to seize Him; and no man laid his hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come." John 7:28--30
In the First Century.
From Josephus it appears that in the first century before the destruction of the Temple a number of Messiahs arose promising relief from the Roman yoke, and finding ready followers. Josephus speaks of them thus: "Another body of wicked men also sprung up, cleaner in their hands, but more wicked in their intentions, who destroyedthe peace of the city no less than did these murderers [the Sicarii]. For they were deceivers and deluders of the people, and, under pretense of divine illumination, were for innovations and changes, and prevailed on the multitude to act like madmen, and went before them in the wilderness, pretending that God would there show them signs of liberty" (Josephus, "B. J." ii. 13, §; 4; idem, "Ant." xx. 8, §; 6). Matt. xxiv. 24, warning against "false Christs and false prophets," gives testimony to the same effect. Thus about 44, Josephus reports, a certain impostor, Theudas, who claimed to be a prophet, appeared and urged the people to follow him with their belongings to the Jordan, which he would divide for them. According to Acts v. 36 (which seems to refer to a different date), he secured about 400 followers. Cuspius Fadus sent a troop of horsemen after him and his band, slew many of them, and took captive others, together with their leader, beheading the latter ("Ant." xx. 5, § 1).
Another, an Egyptian, is said to have gathered together 30,000 adherents, whom he summoned to the Mount of Olives, opposite Jerusalem, promising that at his command the walls of Jerusalem would fall down, and that he and his followers would enter and possess themselves of the city. But Felix, the procurator (c. 55-60), met the throng with his soldiery. The prophet escaped, but those with him were killed or taken, and the multitude dispersed (ib. xx. 8, § 6; "B. J." ii. 13, § 5; see also Acts xxi. 38). Another, whom Josephus styles an impostor, promised the people "deliverance and freedom from their miseries" if they would follow him to the wilderness. Both leader and followers were killed by the troops of Festus, the procurator (60-62; "Ant." xx. 8, § 10). Even when Jerusalem was already in process of destruction by the Romans, a prophet, according to Josephus suborned by the defenders to keep the people from deserting announced that God commanded them to come to the Temple, there to receive miraculous signs of their deliverance. Those who came met death in the flames ("B. J." vi. 5, § 3). (taken from http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com)
One of Satan's most adroit strategies for disguising his working (and thereby deceiving folk from recognizing the truth) is duplication. Unable to silence the declarations of the Lord Jesus, he sought to trivialize them by having numerous "messiahs" making similar claims. Bereft of spiritual discernment, the gullible multitudes drifted from one to another, confused, desperate for relief from Roman domination.
Amid this morass of disillusionment, the Lord Jesus proclaimed repeatedly that He had been sent from the Father. A study of how often He made this statement reveals how important it was to Him that the people understand and embrace it. For, however some interpreters have tried to lesssen its impact by saying He was only claiming the role of a great Prophet, those who sought to take His life understood very clearly what He meant: "I am the Messiah, God in human form!"
But note! Although they had access (He was within their grasp), opportunity (no Roman soldiers on the scene) and means (plenty of stones as well as men), there was no execution. Try as they might (and you know they did!), He remained unharmed.
Of the many explanations possible, John tells us it was a matter of timing (!) For, walking in the absolute center of the Father's will, as He always did, the Lord Jesus not only did what the Father willed, and where at all times, but when, as well. And in the providential sovereignty of the Father's plan, He would not be killed prematurely, or in any other way than crucifixion. Why? In order that the Scripture be fulfilled (John 19:24, 25, 28, 36, 37). His every word, work, attitude, and impulse was supremely submitted to the authority of Scripture.
Praise to His Name, such a Savior!
In the First Century.
From Josephus it appears that in the first century before the destruction of the Temple a number of Messiahs arose promising relief from the Roman yoke, and finding ready followers. Josephus speaks of them thus: "Another body of wicked men also sprung up, cleaner in their hands, but more wicked in their intentions, who destroyedthe peace of the city no less than did these murderers [the Sicarii]. For they were deceivers and deluders of the people, and, under pretense of divine illumination, were for innovations and changes, and prevailed on the multitude to act like madmen, and went before them in the wilderness, pretending that God would there show them signs of liberty" (Josephus, "B. J." ii. 13, §; 4; idem, "Ant." xx. 8, §; 6). Matt. xxiv. 24, warning against "false Christs and false prophets," gives testimony to the same effect. Thus about 44, Josephus reports, a certain impostor, Theudas, who claimed to be a prophet, appeared and urged the people to follow him with their belongings to the Jordan, which he would divide for them. According to Acts v. 36 (which seems to refer to a different date), he secured about 400 followers. Cuspius Fadus sent a troop of horsemen after him and his band, slew many of them, and took captive others, together with their leader, beheading the latter ("Ant." xx. 5, § 1).
Another, an Egyptian, is said to have gathered together 30,000 adherents, whom he summoned to the Mount of Olives, opposite Jerusalem, promising that at his command the walls of Jerusalem would fall down, and that he and his followers would enter and possess themselves of the city. But Felix, the procurator (c. 55-60), met the throng with his soldiery. The prophet escaped, but those with him were killed or taken, and the multitude dispersed (ib. xx. 8, § 6; "B. J." ii. 13, § 5; see also Acts xxi. 38). Another, whom Josephus styles an impostor, promised the people "deliverance and freedom from their miseries" if they would follow him to the wilderness. Both leader and followers were killed by the troops of Festus, the procurator (60-62; "Ant." xx. 8, § 10). Even when Jerusalem was already in process of destruction by the Romans, a prophet, according to Josephus suborned by the defenders to keep the people from deserting announced that God commanded them to come to the Temple, there to receive miraculous signs of their deliverance. Those who came met death in the flames ("B. J." vi. 5, § 3). (taken from http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com)
One of Satan's most adroit strategies for disguising his working (and thereby deceiving folk from recognizing the truth) is duplication. Unable to silence the declarations of the Lord Jesus, he sought to trivialize them by having numerous "messiahs" making similar claims. Bereft of spiritual discernment, the gullible multitudes drifted from one to another, confused, desperate for relief from Roman domination.
Amid this morass of disillusionment, the Lord Jesus proclaimed repeatedly that He had been sent from the Father. A study of how often He made this statement reveals how important it was to Him that the people understand and embrace it. For, however some interpreters have tried to lesssen its impact by saying He was only claiming the role of a great Prophet, those who sought to take His life understood very clearly what He meant: "I am the Messiah, God in human form!"
But note! Although they had access (He was within their grasp), opportunity (no Roman soldiers on the scene) and means (plenty of stones as well as men), there was no execution. Try as they might (and you know they did!), He remained unharmed.
Of the many explanations possible, John tells us it was a matter of timing (!) For, walking in the absolute center of the Father's will, as He always did, the Lord Jesus not only did what the Father willed, and where at all times, but when, as well. And in the providential sovereignty of the Father's plan, He would not be killed prematurely, or in any other way than crucifixion. Why? In order that the Scripture be fulfilled (John 19:24, 25, 28, 36, 37). His every word, work, attitude, and impulse was supremely submitted to the authority of Scripture.
Praise to His Name, such a Savior!
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Isaiah 55:8, 9
" 'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,' declares the LORD. 'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.' "
"A needed reminder, Father, for the times of frustration when our schedules clash and my patience runs thin because I sense such urgency, while You seem only vaguely involved. Or when I have become spiritually lethargic and insensitive, and suddenly find You dramatically intervening, showing Yourself strong on my behalf. In such moments I am awed afresh at Your aseity, keenly conscious of being a creature in the presence of my uncreated Creator. Worship wells up in my grateful heart, all the while covering my mouth like Job, stunned by the holiness of Your presence. Yearning soars! O to worship You as You are truly worthy.... to declare Your greatness as You deserve... wouldn't that be something! Won't that be something! To join the numberless chorus of the elect in the heavenlies, endlessly praising You for Your transcendent thoughts and fathomless ways! Yes, O Righteous Judge of all the earth, You do right!"
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