Category Archives: grace

Feb 6 2012

A Grace Suitable for Sinners Like Me

Certainty and confidence should never become permanent fixtures in our lives. Yes, there are times of ebullient fortitude when everything just clicks, and we seem to be pretty victorious believers. But I assure you, this is only a temporary state. It isn’t the normal Christian life. And yet, we strive to make this consistency our Christian life.

Gloomy thoughts will often prevail; our fears and doubts become complete seasons of time. There will be doubts and frustration.  I start to lose my passion for Christ, it just trickles away. And since nature abhors a vacuum, other desires and interests move in. I slide into something quite compromised, and what I previously condemned.

It is at these times we must absorb the truth.  It is not your hold on Christ that saves you, rather it is His hold on you that is significant. It’s not how tight we hold on to our Father’s hand, but His grasp on yours. He has soaked up all our sin, and become guilty of it all. He has drawn it all away. He blots it all up with His white heart.

The mercy of God will insist on Him holding you close. Because of His profound love for you He becomes overprotective of you. Let none question, you are His own. Anyone who touches you, touches “the apple of His eye.”

“I am graven on the palms of His hands. I am never out of His mind. All my knowledge of Him depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me. I know Him, because He first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, One who loves me; and there is no moment when His eye is off me, or His attention distracted for me, and no moment, therefore, when His care falters.”

J.I. Packer

Are you broken? Flawed, and stumbling? Do you think that you are a poor example of a believer? I tell you, His love is not contingent on your outward behavior. It is a Greek word, it is an “agape” love. Narrowly defined as a “unconditional love,” not related to what you deserve, earn, or warrant. It is a love given without an expectation of a corresponding love in return. This is love, and it travels with grace.

“The bridge of grace will bear your weight, brother. Thousands of big sinners have gone across that bridge, yea, tens of thousands have gone over it. Some have been the chief of sinners and some have come at the very last of their days but the arch has never yielded beneath their weight. I will go with them trusting to the same support. It will bear me over as it has for them.”   

Charles Spurgeon

Related articles
Feb 1 2012

A Chariot Ride Into Teachability

We live out our lives making decisions.  Many are like ‘forks’ in the road.  They are made and they shunt us in another direction.  Some are dramatic, we see very quickly that the road is going to take us in a radically different path.

Sometimes, if we’re honest, we will admit to backtracking, retracing our route back to the point we turned.  A lot of time it is too late, and the moment has past.

I think I have been learning to receive correction and rebuke from others.  I’m thinking of that Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:30-31,

“So when Philip ran toward the chariot, he heard the man reading from Isaiah the prophet. Philip asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

 31 He answered, “How can I understand unless someone explains it to me?” Then he invited Philip to climb in and sit with him.”

There is a humbleness, a teachableness that this eunuch possesses.  He is confident enough to acknowledge that he just doesn’t know.  He is so eager to be set on the right course that he invites Philip to a Bible study in the chariot.

We are responsible for our receptivity to truth.  It is our personal decision to either seek or not seek.  No one else can make this decision for us.  We come to a decision point and we go the way things seem to direct us.  And we learn; God and how we learn!

The book of Proverbs is saturated with ideas on being guided by our humility when it comes in contact with truth.  Furthermore, there are many warnings about receiving correction and reproof gracefully.  If we believe what we are reading, at that point all of a sudden our stubbornness and rejection become a very bad thing.

I have learned that scriptural truth is almost always negative when it is first encountered.  It will not sit well, and I will try to shake it off.  But truth can be remarkably persistent.  ‘Forgive your brother’, the Holy Spirit says.  And you say right away, ‘Not a chance!’  But give it time, and the Word will soften rock.  If you respond properly, humbly, you be able to make the right decision.

One more thing, Jesus told us in Matthew 18:3,

  ” I promise you this. If you don’t change and become like a child, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.”

There will need to be a complete alteration in our hearts if we are to accommodate this command.  Becoming a child is more difficult as adults as becoming an adult is for a child.  It takes a great amount of brokenness to make the transition.

God fully intends to work with you on this.  He doesn’t seem to ever give up.  He is wonderfully persistent, and for some reason, He loves you. LOL

Related articles
Jan 24 2012

Thinking About What Could Have Been

Regret is an ugly thing. Dictionary.com describes “regret” as, to feel remorse for, or to feel sorrow over. It is a difficult emotion for us, as there can be a dissatisfaction, or sorrow or remorse over, it can be a paralysis of sorts. It is the kind of personal sorrow about ones behavior in a certain situation, that can be overwhelming. There will always be a deep sense of loss for “what could have been.”

I regret many things, my mind works as a “way too active recorder.” Future life continues its relentless advance, and there is from the past a constant awareness of darkness, failure and sin. Life advancing is hard enough on its own. But it gets terribly complicated when the past becomes mixed up with the future. It is hard to think. And I behave in the present moment poorly.

There are some who have no idea what I’m talking about. I might as well be speaking Chinese. But there are others who will “spark” on what I have just stated.  Regret for many of us, is savage and bitter. Not a day goes by when the voice of darkness doesn’t speak to us. My thinking is that it may be more reasonable to take a baseball bat across your femurs, and dealing with broken legs, than handling regret gone viral.

We think “about what could have been.” We imagine life without regret, of things we might have done not having this dark burden. However, these possible choices are things we can never be sure of. They stay, as they should, undefined and unrealized.  But honestly, dear ones, we try to retain a sense of what might have been.

In my younger days I dreamed of attending college, and then going to seminary. I really thought that I wanted to be a pastor, in some small Lutheran church in the Midwest. But this would never happen. It was just an aspiration, a dream. And it wasn’t reality (even though I wish it had been).

This is a poor example, and to me is a bit contrived. I have to admit, but I assure you there are much nastier and blacker regrets, there are things of which I am profoundly ashamed. But my point is this, they exist, they do unsettle us, and the present moment is corrupted by my past behavior.

OK. How do we sort through this very present darkness? Perhaps we need just to acknowledge this as a weakness. It exists, and according to 1 Corinthians is that every temptation is common. You are not unique or alone. There are millions of sincere Christian believers who face what you are facing.

“The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.”

1 Cor. 10:13, NLT

I must tell you that there is a spiritual war. Satan or Lucifer is the enemy of our souls. He will bring to your mind fear and confusion. He has a spiritual “paint brush” which he tries to coat us with his darkness. In scripture, he is called “the accuser of the brethren.” He has a diabolical ministry is to bring you down. He is pure hatred, and he will never show you mercy. He is completely destructive.

We had better be developing a more scriptural method of wrapping up our minds in God’s Word. It stops and then alters the spiritual radiation from the enemy. I worked a couple of times in Radiology/Imaging in the army. Lead was the only thing that could protect, not “paper or plastic.” When your slinging atoms at people’s chests, it is very helpful if you and they are protected in the right way. I hate to tell you this, but the “x-ray waves” of our present darkness saturate everything on this planet.

I would love to keep on my present ramble, but I will sit with this and then see what is percolating. There is so very much in this, I guess it just opened up for me as I started to see it through.

Related articles
Jan 18 2012

Here I Am, Once Again…And Again

O Lord here I am again

Just plain old me, coming to you

As I’ve come a thousand times–

And this is what always happens:

Your response is immediate

You open your arms unhesitantly

You draw me to yourself

You clasp me to your father-heart

Then reaffirm my position:

 

I am a child of the King

And all that is yours is mine

When I begin my stammering account

            — of gross unworthiness

Your gentle smile hushes me.

With endless patience

You remind me once more

            –that my value never determines Your love.

Rather your love determines my value.

–Ruth Harms Calkins

” And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”                            

Philippians 1:6, NLT

Related articles
Jan 17 2012

Treasures that Can Only be Found in the Clay

“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing”

2 Corinthians 4:7-8 (NASB).

Paul speaks of treasure, or of something of tremendous worth. We seldom place value on things with the same intensity that God does. Its obvious that as a culture our values aren’t really biblical. Paul understands this overriding principle of the eternal over the temporary. God’s power–treasured. Our weakness– accepted.

The rationale for this “making room” for the power must be understood. Its only when we grasp this holy mechanism can we sparkle and shine as believers. It is of God, not of ourselves. Paul says that we are afflicted in everyway imaginable. From disease, to injury, to difficult relationships, to a simple toothache. Believers run the full gamut of affliction. It all is significant, it all means something!

As a former Army medic, some of the worst injuries were “crushing” ones. The human body experiences things that are so heavy that they simply collapse.  At times like these it seems the best you can do is make a pile.  To be crushed is a terrible thing.

God's Rubik's Cube

He says that we are “perplexed”. The word means, “to feel completely baffled by”. It’s when something is so complicated that we can’t figure it out. Have you ever been given a Rubik’s Cube? You twist and turn, trying to get the same colors on the same side. Every move affects the outcome. And you just can’t seem to get it right.  (I once peeled of all the colored stickers off and re-stuck them, but I was having “ego problems”).

God gives His children a spiritual Rubik’s Cube. It maybe a family crisis, or a medical issue. You could be trying to figure out your spouse. But the problem is that it totally baffles you. There is no rhyme or reason that you can see. Everyday you try again and again.

There are some things that so confuse and mystify that we begin to doubt everything we have been taught. But, we are not to despair. Despair is not for the believer. We may not understand, we are baffled by the present circumstances. We may come close, but we can not despair. God has promised that he will use this time of affliction, and its outcome will be glorious.

In Romans 8:38, the phrase used is “nor things present”. What is your present predicament? It cannot separate you from the love of God. He cares for you, even if the moment is hard and miserable. God often tests His real friends more severely then the lukewarm ones. At the end, God will not look you over for medals, or diplomas, He will look you over for scars.

Related articles
Jan 11 2012

Waiting On God Who is Waiting on Us

by Andrew Murray 

And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will He be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him. Isaiah 30:18

We must not only think of our waiting upon God, but also of what is more wonderful still, of God’s waiting upon us. The vision of Him waiting on us will give new impulse and inspiration to our waiting upon Him. It will give us an unspeakable confidence that our waiting cannot be in vain. If He waits for us, then we may be sure that we are more than welcome; that He rejoices to find those He has been seeking for. Let us seek even now, at this moment, in the spirit of lowly waiting on God, to find out, something of what it means. ”Therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you.” We will accept and echo back the message, ”Blessed are all they that wait for him.”

Look up and see the great God upon His throne. His love an unceasing and inexpressible desire to communicate His own goodness and blessedness to all His creatures. He longs and delights to bless. He has inconceivably glorious purposes concerning every one of His children, by the power of His Holy Spirit, to reveal in them His love and power. He waits with all the longings of a father’s heart. He waits that He may be gracious unto you. And, each time you come to wait upon Him, or seek to maintain in daily life the holy habit of waiting, you may look up and see Him ready to meet you. He will be waiting so that He may be gracious unto you. Yes, connect every exercise, every breath of the life of waiting, with faith’s vision of your God waiting for you.

And if you ask: How is it, if He waits to be gracious, that even after I come and wait upon Him, He does not give the help I seek, but waits on longer and longer? There is a double answer. The one is this. God is a wise husbandman, who ”waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it” (James 5:7). He cannot gather the fruit until it is ripe. He knows when we are spiritually ready to receive the blessing to our profit and His glory. Waiting in the sunshine of His love is what will ripen the soul for His blessing. Waiting under the cloud of trial, that breaks in showers of blessing, is as necessary. Be assured that if God waits longer than you could wish, it is only to make the blessing doubly precious. God waited four thousand years, until the fullness of time, before He sent His Son. Our times are in His hands. He will avenge His elect speedily. He will make haste for our help and not delay one hour too long.

The other answer points to what has been said before. The giver is more than the gift; God is more than the blessing. And our being kept waiting on Him is the only way for our learning to find our life and joy in Himself. Oh, if God’s children only knew what a glorious God they have, and what a privilege it is to be linked in fellowship with Him, then they would rejoice in Him! Even when He keeps them waiting, they will learn to understand better than ever. ”Therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you.” His waiting will be the highest proof of His graciousness.

”Blessed are all they that wait for him.” A queen has her ladies in waiting. The position is one of subordination and service, and yet it is considered one of the highest dignity and privilege, because a wise and gracious sovereign makes them companions and friends. What a dignity and blessedness to be attendants in waiting on the everlasting God, ever on the watch for every indication of His will or favor, ever conscious of His nearness, His goodness, and His grace!

”The LORD is good unto them that wait for him” (Lam. 3:25). ”Blessed are all they that wait for him.” Yes, it is blessed when a waiting soul and a waiting God meet each other. God cannot do His work without His and our waiting His time. Let waiting be our work, as it is His. And, if His waiting is nothing but goodness and graciousness, let ours be nothing but a rejoicing in that goodness, and a confident expectancy of that grace. And, let every thought of waiting become to us the simple expression of unmingled and unutterable blessedness, because it brings us to a God who waits that He may make Himself known to us perfectly as the gracious One.

My soul, wait thou only upon God!

 

Andrew Murray (1828-1917), was born in Cape Town, South Africa and became a revered missionary leader in the late 1800s and early 1900s, promoting and establishing missions in South Africa. His devotional writings are considered classics of the Christian faith.

Related articles