August Francke on faith

George Müller, the famous 19th century saint who founded orphanages in Bristol, and who lived by faith, praying that God would give him everything he and his many orphans and their staff needed each day, mentions another man in his biography who had worked in the same way. This was August Hermann Francke (1663-1727). He wrote prolifically, and the following is an extract from his writing on faith. 

“But, while faith,” he says, “is the ground of our justification, it is also the means of happiness; for righteousness and peace cannot be separated from one another. But when we say that our happiness is secured, it must be remembered that something more is intended, than that we shall hereafter be admitted into heaven. 

This happiness begins from the moment of our justification. For we are then delivered from the wrath and curse of God, from the power of sin and death. We are brought out of darkness into light, from death unto life. God the Father brings us into the kingdom of his Son, and gives us the pledge of an inheritance, even the spirit of Jesus Christ; renews us in his image, day by day; awakens a holy fear, and love in our hearts, so that we run with alacrity in the way of his commandments, and think it our meat and drink to do his will. 

Thus does the believer’s happiness commence. He now knows that this heavenly Father loves him, and that he will help him to overcome every adversary to his peace. He is now united to Christ and knows that He is his riches, his glory, his all. He knows that his prayers will be heard through the merits of Christ; and that all needful things will be given him. He has the spirit of God dwelling in his heart, filling him with all knowledge, and enabling him to grow daily in faith and love. He finds happiness, too, in the service of God, is doing good to all men as he has opportunity and in the exercise of true benevolence and compassion. 

He is, by his union with the Redeemer, changed into the heavenly image, and although he dwells on earth, and mingles in the affairs of men, his conversation is in heaven; and he joins in spirit with its blessed inhabitants in prayer and praise to God. His heart is in heaven, for there he has laid up his treasure; and through the Spirit he holds perpetual intercourse with God. Oh! what blessedness is this thus to be united, in the closest ties, with the adorable Trinity; to have the Great God dwelling in our hearts, and holding his court there; to have angels for our ministers, and to know that as Christ overcame, and is seated on his throne, so shall we triumph over our foes, and sit down with him in the kingdom of Heaven. This blessedness is begun below; but it is completed in that other world, where sin and sorrow can never enter to mar his peace; and where the ransomed sinner shall be conformed to the image of his God, and see his face, and praise him for ever and ever.”

Praying and believing

Let us now take a few instances in order to see the practical working of this experimental fellowship, or partnership, with the Father and with the Son.

Suppose there are two believing parents who were not brought to the knowledge of the truth until some years after the Lord had given them several children. Their children were brought up in sinful, evil ways, whilst the parents did not know the Lord. Now the parents reap as they sowed. They suffer from having set an evil example before their children, for their children are unruly and behave most improperly. What is now to be done? Need such parents despair? No.

The first thing they have to do is, to make confession of their sins to God, with regard to neglecting their children whilst they were themselves living in sin, and then to remember that they are in partnership with God, and therefore to be of good courage, though they are in themselves still utterly insufficient for the task of managing their children. They have in themselves neither the wisdom, nor the patience, nor the long-suffering, nor the gentleness, nor the meekness, nor the love, nor the decision and firmness, nor anything else that may be needful in dealing with their children aright.

But their heavenly Father has all this. The Lord Jesus possesses all this. And they are in partnership with the Father, and with the Son, and therefore they can obtain by prayer and faith all they need out of the fullness of God. I say by prayer and faith, for we have to make known our need to God in prayer, ask his help, and then we have to believe he will give us what we need. Prayer alone is not enough. We may pray never so much, yet, if we do not believe that God will give us what we need, we have no reason to expect that we shall receive what we have asked for.

So then these parents would need to ask God to give them the needful wisdom, patience, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, love, decision; and firmness, and whatever else they may judge they need. They may in humble boldness remind their heavenly Father that his word assures them that they are in partnership with him, and, as they themselves are lacking in these particulars, ask him to be pleased to supply their need; and then they have to believe that God will do it, and they shall receive according to their need.

George Müller: The Autobiography of George Müller (p. 203).

Ongoing patience

The Lord Jesus loves his people so much, that every day he is still doing for them much that is analogous to washing their soiled feet. Their poorest actions he accepts; their deepest sorrow he feels; their slenderest wish he hears, and their every transgression he forgives. He is still their servant as well as their Friend and Master. He not only performs majestic deeds for them, as wearing the mitre on his brow, and the precious jewels glittering on his breastplate, and standing up to plead for them, but humbly, patiently, he yet goes about among his people with the basin and the towel.

He does this when he puts away from us day by day our constant infirmities and sins. Last night, when you bowed the knee, you mournfully confessed that much of your conduct was not worthy of your profession; and even tonight, you must mourn afresh that you have fallen again into the selfsame folly and sin from which special grace delivered you long ago; and yet Jesus will have great patience with you; he will hear your confession of sin; he will say, "I will, be thou clean"; he will again apply the blood of sprinkling, and speak peace to your conscience, and remove every spot. It is a great act of eternal love when Christ once for all absolves the sinner, and puts him into the family of God; but what condescending patience there is when the Saviour with much long-suffering bears the oft recurring follies of his wayward disciple; day by day, and hour by hour, washing away the multiplied transgressions of his erring but yet beloved child!

To dry up a flood of rebellion is something marvellous, but to endure the constant dropping of repeated offences--to bear with a perpetual trying of patience, this is divine indeed! While we find comfort and peace in our Lord's daily cleansing, its legitimate influence upon us will be to increase our watchfulness, and quicken our desire for holiness. Is it so?

From Charles Spurgeon's Evening by Evening, the reading for October the 24th. 

Living in the present

Jesus said,] "But now tell me, where do you spend most of your time in your mind, in your imagination: in the present, in the past, or in the future?”

Mack thought for a moment before answering. “I suppose I would have to say that I spend very little time in the present. I spend a big piece in the past, but most of the rest of the time, I am trying to figure out the future.” 

“Not unlike most people. When I dwell with you, I do so in the present—I live in the present. Not the past, although much can be remembered and learned by looking back, but only for a visit, not an extended stay. And for sure, I do not dwell in the future you visualize or imagine. Mack, do you realize that your imagination of the future, which is almost always dictated by fear of some kind, rarely, if ever, pictures me there with you?” 

Again Mack stopped and thought. It was true. He spent a lot of time fretting and worrying about the future, and in his imagination it was usually pretty gloomy and depressing, if not outright horrible. And Jesus was also correct in saying that in Mack’s thoughts of the future, God was always absent. “Why do I do that?” asked Mack. 

“It is your desperate attempt to get some control over something you can’t. It is impossible for you to take power over the future because it isn’t even real, nor will it ever be real. You try to play God, imagining the evil that you fear becoming reality, and then you try to make plans and contingencies to avoid what you fear.”

From The Shack, by William P Young

Twice as fast as aspirin

To Joshua's "I and my house" [the Israelites] add their "we too." But then Joshua does something no decision-loving evangelist should ever do. To Israel's "we too" he opposes his "you cannot." If Israel gives herself to Yahweh it must be in a cautious commitment.

Joshua's is a shocking refusal. "You cannot serve Yahweh, for he is a holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not go on forgiving your rebellion and your sins." If you desert him, he will consume you. Don't lightly mouth your profession of faith, Joshua is saying. Don't you realise the sort of God you are dealing with? He is a holy, jealous God. You didn't dare come to him thinking, "though it makes him sad to see the way we live, he'll always say, 'I forgive.'" Yahweh is not a soft, cuddly Santa in the sky who drools over easy decisions during invitation hymns. Joshua seeks to put down that blathering self-confidence that makes emotional commitments rather than shutting its mouth and counting the cost.

"You cannot serve Yahweh." Neither Israel nor the church could hear a more beneficial word than that.

It was precisely when the Jesus bandwagon was going great guns (Luke 14:25) that Jesus emphasized who "cannot be my disciple." Rather, one must carefully "count the cost" before yielding allegiance to Jesus. The church should note this. Too frequently, the Jesus we present is some variety of prepackaged joy, peace and provision that works twice as fast as aspirin. He is our cellophane Christ. We should not sell Christ like that but warn people about him! Our task is not to bait people into saying, "I will lay down my life for you" (John 13:37), but to get them (and ourselves) to squirm under his searching, "Do you love me?" (John 21: 15-19). Too many of us perjure ourselves before a holy Judge as we sing, "I surrender all," or "My Jesus, I love thee." There are stanzas in some hymns that I dare not sing.

One of the healthiest things a Christian can do is to doubt and question his easy expressions of commitment. One of the ordination vows my denomination asks of me is:

Do you engage to be faithful and diligent in the exercise of all your duties as a Christian and a minister of the Gospel, whether personal or relational, private or public, and to endeavour by the grace of God to adorn the profession of the Gospel in your manner of life, and to walk with exemplary piety before the flock of which God shall make you overseer?

I would not touch that with the proverbial ten-foot pole. It asks too much of a proud, angry, lustful, covetous man. I affirm it only because there is that clause, "by the grace of God," in it. Otherwise, I would have to turn away, for it would be too much to promise. Baptismal, membership and marriage vows should receive the same scrutiny.

Dale Ralph Davis in No Falling Words, expositions on the Book of Joshua, pages 201-2

Being blameless

From the commentary by James Burton Coffman, on Psalm 18:20-24:

We do not believe that David, in any sense whatever, was here claiming to be absolutely perfect and sinless in the sight of God, but that he had been forgiven of all sins he had committed and that, at the moment of his deliverance, he was "clean" in "God's eyesight" (Psalms 18:24). Of course, all forgiveness during the dispensation of the Mosaic Covenant was dependent, in the final analysis, upon the ultimate sacrifice of the Christ upon Calvary. However, in the practical sense, "God passed over the sins done aforetime" (Romans 3:25), and that was the practical equivalent of divine forgiveness.

The explanation we have offered here is the only way we are able to think of David as "clean," "perfect," "righteous," and the keeper of" all God's ordinances." Of course, if the words are understood as descriptive of the "Son of David," even the Christ, then there is no problem.
Addis, rejecting the Davidic authorship of this psalm, did so, partially, upon the grounds that David could not possibly have described himself as one "Who kept the ways of Jehovah," However, we believe that Addis misunderstood what that verse really means. Rawlinson has the following very enlightening comment on that passage: "I have kept the ways of the Lord." The parallel line here is, "And have not wickedly departed from my God." "Departed wickedly" implies willful and persistent wickedness, an entire alienation from God. Not even in the humblest of the penitential psalms, in which David bewails his offenses against God, does he use such terms as `departed wickedly' concerning himself.

This means that in all the protestations of David here to the effect that he is clean in the sight of God, there is not a claim of never having done anything sinful, but a claim, which was true, that he had never "wickedly departed from his God," nor renounced his allegiance to the Lord. This is a very important distinction.

In the lives of two of Jesus' apostles, we find the distinction exemplified. (1) Judas "wickedly departed" from Christ, being terminally alienated from Him. (2) Peter, who shamefully and profanely denied the Lord, nevertheless, did not forsake Him, did not "wickedly depart" from Him; and, consequently was permitted to continue, after his repentance, as a faithful apostle.

The great consolation for Christians in these observations is that "Not even gross sins can prevent their ultimate and final salvation," provided only that they do not "wickedly depart" from the Lord, but repent of their lapses and forsake him not.

"I was also perfect with him" (Psalms 18:23). Leupold called attention to the fact that this should have been translated, "And so I was blameless (or perfect), etc."Also, in the very next verse, the text should read, "And so the Lord requited me." This has the effect of indicating that, therefore, David was blameless; therefore, the Lord recompensed him as perfectly clean and righteous. In other words, it was because David had never in any sense whatever "wickedly departed from God," but had clung to him even in the face of shameful sins and mistakes, God requited him on the basis of his fundamental love of God, and not upon the basis of human sins and mistakes of which he was most certainly guilty.

"I kept myself from mine iniquity." "It appears here that David had an inclination to some particular form of sin, against which he was continually on guard. We have no way of determining just what that sin was."

A fact not often stressed is that any Christian still in fellowship with the Lord may say anything that the psalmist here has said of himself. How so? "That I may present every man PERFECT in Christ" (Colossians 1:28). How wonderful, how glorious, how absolutely precious above everything else is the privilege of being "perfect" in Christ Jesus, as David claimed in these passages! Perhaps we should be a little more eager in our stress of this magnificent truth. But, don't Christians make mistakes, and sin? Indeed yes; but, "If we walk in the Light as he is in the Light, then we have fellowship one with another; and the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). The present participle "cleanseth" is an indication that the cleansing is constant, continual, and never-failing, thus keeping the child of God in a state of holy perfection.

The way in which all of this is deployed upon the sacred page is a providential arrangement designed to constitute also a prophetic indication of the absolute and genuine perfection of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

****

From Dale Ralph Davis' book on 2 Samuel, Out of Every Adversity, page 238-240., focusing on the parallel verses in chapter 22:

David makes some readers nervous as he continues:

Yahweh requites me as I act justly,as my hands are pure so he repays me (v 21, Jerusalem Bible)

Is David in verses 21-25 dragging in a Santa Claus theology of works-righteousness? Does he claim too much for himself? Has he become blind to his sinfulness? Or do these words reflect a self-righteous attitude and a weakening of the sense of sin? These verses baffle thoughtful believers: how can David who had Uriah's blood on his hands and Uriah's wife in his bed even dream of saying anything like verses 21-25?

...In verse 22 David maintains, 'I have kept the ways of Yahweh, and I have not acted wickedly in departing from my God.' That can hardly be pressed as a claim to perfection. What he does claim, especially in the second half of the verse, is a general, overall fidelity to Yahweh. He has not, after all, committed apostasy, not turned his back on Yahweh. ('Though he had sometimes weakly departed from his duty, he had never wickedly departed from his God.' Matthew Henry...)

Verse 23 is another general statement: Yahweh's ordinances are 'before' David and he does not turn away from Yahweh's decrees. Then, it seems to me, in verse 24 David interprets all this. 'So I proved wholehearted towards him.' The Hebrew [word] does not claim perfection in life's particulars but wholeheartedness in life's commitment, Then note verse 24b: 'And I kept myself from iniquity.' He knows his nature, his tendencies. He has, however, guarded himself from giving way and giving in to the pull of his iniquity.

When David speaks of his righteousness and purity he does not point to sinless perfection but life direction; he is not sporting a pharisaical pride over errorless obedience but expressing a faithful loyalty via consistent obedience. All this is important, for it is such faithful, wholehearted (though afflicted) servants that Yahweh delights to rescue and who can then revel in the power and safety that Yahweh has provided.

The teaching of verses 21-31 is not some strange new wrinkle on your Bible page. It's been there all along. It is mainstream doctrine. Those who faithfully follow Yahweh and esteem his word by obeying it are those who can expect his blessing; those who don't can't. One can catch the flip side of 2 Samuel 22:21-31 in Judges 10: 6-14, Psalm 50: 16-23, or Jeremiah 2: 26-29. Why should those who reject Yahweh's lordship and despise his law (and therefore despise him) expect his rescue? Such folks have no ongoing commitment to Yahweh, only a temporary need for him. They no covenant relation with Yahweh; they only crave his prostituting himself for their immediate crisis. They do not seek God but a bomb shelter.

We need His help

I have heard some people complain that if Jesus was God as well as man, then His sufferings and death lose all value in their eyes, ‘because it must have been so easy for Him’. Others may (very rightly) rebuke the ingratitude and ungraciousness of this objection; what staggers me is the misunderstanding it betrays.

In one sense, of course, those who make it are right. They have even understated their own case. The perfect submission, the perfect suffering, the perfect death were not only easier to Jesus because He was God, but were possible only because He was God. But surely that is a very odd reason for not accepting them? The teacher is able to form the letters for the child because the teacher is grown-up and knows how to write. That, of course, makes it easier for the teacher; and only because it is easier for him can he help the child. If it rejected him because ‘it’s easy for grown-ups’ and waited to learn writing from another child who could not write itself (and so had no ‘unfair’ advantage), it would not get on very quickly.

If I am drowning in a rapid river, a man who still has one foot on the bank may give me a hand which saves my life. Ought I to shout back (between my gasps) ‘No, it’s not fair! You have an advantage! You’re keeping one foot on the bank’? That advantage—call it ‘unfair’ if you like—is the only reason why he can be of any use to me.

To what will you look for help if you will not look to that which is stronger than yourself?

From Mere Christianity by C S Lewis

The real Jesus

Letter to EDWARD LOFSTROM from C S Lewis...

16 January 1959

1. I am afraid I don’t know the answer to your question about books of Christian instruction for children. Most of those I have seen—but I haven’t seen many—seem to me namby-pamby and ‘sissie’ and calculated to nauseate any child worth his salt. Of course I have tried to do what I can for children—in a mythical and fantastic form by my seven ‘Narnian’ fairy tales. They work well with some children but not with others. Sorry this looks like salesmanship: but honestly if I knew anything else I’d mention it.

2. Of course. ‘Gentle Jesus’, my elbow! The most striking thing about Our Lord is the union of great ferocity with extreme tenderness. (Remember Pascal? ‘I do not admire the extreme of one virtue unless you show me at the same time the extreme of the opposite virtue. One shows one’s greatness not by being at an extremity but by being simultaneously at two extremities and filling all the space between.’)

Add to this that He is also a supreme ironist, dialectician, and (occasionally) humourist. So go on! You are on the right track now: getting to the real Man behind all the plaster dolls that have been substituted for Him. This is the appearance in Human form of the God who made the Tiger and the Lamb, the avalanche and the rose. He’ll frighten and puzzle you: but the real Christ can be loved and admired as the doll can’t.

3. ‘For him who is haunted by the smell of invisible roses the cure is work’ (MacDonald). If we feel we have talents that don’t find expression in our ordinary duties and recreations, I think we must just go on doing the ordinary things as well as we can. If God wants to use these suspected talents, He will: in His own time and way. At all costs one must keep clear of all the witchdoctors and their patent cures—as you say yourself.

From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III

Prayer and desire

...we can say that for Thomas a person succeeds in living the happy life when she gets to do, regularly and routinely, what she “really wants.”

But here the force of the word “really” is not, as before, that in which it contrasts with the false perceptions of desire that characterize the self-deceived . There is a very profound sense in which even the most perfectly honest person may not know what she wants: not, that is, the case where, of two things both of which she wants, she does not know which to choose, like whether to marry John or James. More problematic is the case where there is something that we want but we do not know what it is, except that it is somehow importantly connected with our happiness. Such is the case when we are morally befogged, because our deepest desires are hidden from us by veil upon obscuring veil, of upbringing, of socialization, of personal insecurities and fears, of relationships abusive and abused, of desire habitually unfulfilled and frustrated; and in this sense of “want” in which we want something but for all these reasons do not know what it is, we do not know our own “wills.” For what we will is happiness; and what we really will , whether or not we know it, is whatever it is that will make us happy, but we may not —and all too often do not— know what it is. It is for this reason that the moral life consists in the first place in those practices that enable the discovery of what it is that we really want, the happy life, and the power of insight that leads to that discovery is what Thomas calls prudentia, skill in seeing the moral point of human situations, what true desires are to be met within them. It is then, and only secondarily that the moral life consists in virtuous forms of living, the practices of desire that prudentia has interpretatively uncovered within the maelstrom of desires as actually experienced.

And it is here within his conception of moral practice as desire-discovery— or as he calls it, “practical wisdom”— that for Thomas a principal means of tracing the way back to what we really want, is prayer, oratio. And our only available starting point for that practice of self-discovery is our wants and desires as we actually experience them. Therefore, Thomas says, we ought to pray for what we think we want regardless. For prayer is “in a certain manner a hermeneutic of the human will,” so that by way of placing our desires as we experience them before God we are asking also that those desires be “unfolded,”“explicated,” thereby to release their real significance, the real want that is wrapped up in, “implicated” in all their opacity in their form as experienced. Therefore, says Thomas, we ought to pray, as Jesus did in the garden of Gethsemane, “in response to our animal desire” (secundum sensualitatem). For when we pray as Jesus did then, out of animal need and desire— for Jesus was scared of death, as naturally any animal is— we are placing that animal need and desire within the interpretative power of the divine will itself , wherein alone we will discover our own real will. Therefore, Thomas concludes, we ought always to pray for what we think we want; for Jesus prayed as he did in Gethsemane so as to teach us just that lesson, namely that it is “permitted for human beings naturally to desire even what [they know] is not God's will” and, as if in reinforcement of what for many is a startling thought, he cites the authority of Augustine to the same effect, commenting on the same prayer of Jesus: “It is as if [Jesus] were saying: ‘See yourself in me: for you [too] can wish something for yourself even though God wishes something else.’” Only thus, in the prayer of honest desire, is there any chance of our discovering what are our true desires, our real will.

Denys Turner in Thomas Aquinas: a portrait, (p. 181). Yale University Press.

The godless and godforsaken

When God becomes man in Jesus of Nazareth, he not only enters into the finitude of man, but in his death on the cross also enters into the situation of man's godforsakenness. In Jesus he does not die the natural death of a finite being, but the violent death of the criminal on the cross, the death of complete abandonment by God. The suffering in the passion of Jesus is abandonment, rejection by God, his Father. God does not become a religion, so that man participates in him by corresponding religious thoughts and feelings. God does not become a law, so that man participates in him through obedience to a law. God does not become an ideal, so that man achieves community with him through constant striving. He humbles himself and takes upon himself the eternal death of the godless and the godforsaken, so that all the godless and the godforsaken can experience communion with him.

Jürgen Moltmann

The Crucified God

Trust in God

Speaking about the disciples confusing the leaven of the Pharisees with ordinary leaven in bread...Mark 8:21 ff

The ground of the Master's upbraiding is not that they did not understand him, but that they did not trust God; that, after all they had seen, they yet troubled themselves about bread. Because we easily imagine ourselves in want, we imagine God ready to forsake us. The miracles of Jesus were the ordinary works of his Father, wrought small and swift that we might take them in. The lesson of them was that help is always within God's reach when his children want it--their design, to show what God is--not that Jesus was God*, but that his Father was God--that is, was what he was, for no other kind of God could be, or be worth believing in, no other notion of God be worth having. The mission undertaken by the Son, was not to show himself as having all power in heaven and earth, but to reveal his Father, to show him to men such as he is, that men may know him, and knowing, trust him. It were a small boon indeed that God should forgive men, and not give himself. It would be but to give them back themselves; and less than God just as he is will not comfort men for the essential sorrow of their existence. Only God the gift can turn that sorrow into essential joy: Jesus came to give them God, who is eternal life.

....The answer then to the Lord's reproach, 'How is it that ye do not understand?' is plainly this: their minds were so full of care about the day's bread, that they could not think with simplicity about anything else; the mere mention of leaven threw them floundering afresh in the bog of their unbelief. When the Lord reminded them of what their eyes had seen, so of what he was and what God was, and of the foolishness of their care--the moment their fear was taught to look up, that moment they began to see what the former words of the Lord must have meant: their minds grew clear enough to receive and reflect in a measure their intent. The care of the disciples was care for the day, not for the morrow; the word morrow must stand for any and every point of the future. The next hour, the next moment, is as much beyond our grasp and as much in God's care, as that a hundred years away. Care for the next minute is just as foolish as care for the morrow, or for a day in the next thousand years--in neither can we do anything, in both God is doing everything. Those claims only of the morrow which have to be prepared to-day are of the duty of to-day; the moment which coincides with work to be done, is the moment to be minded; the next is nowhere till God has made it.

MacDonald, George in  Unspoken Sermons Series I., II., and II. 

*MacDonald's often odd sentence construction could make this seem as though he's saying Jesus wasn't God; I'm sure that's not his intention. 

The postmodern lie

When modernity announced that the modern age was built by their guys, the secularists, the Christians who believed them were way too easily duped. There should have been less gullibility around here and more checking. Secularism did not fill the houses with good things, did not dig the wells, and did not create great and goodly cities (Dt. 6:10-11). The law required us to give the glory to God for these good things. Instead we have now fallen for the pomo [postmodern] lie that they are not actually good things. The modernist says that “my power and the might of my hand has gotten me this wealth” (Dt. 8:17). The pomo says, “Yeah, well, to say that you can actually get water out of your wells is logocentric, imperialistic, self-serving, and totalizing.” And the consistent Christian just thanks Jesus for all the stuff.

Ten Theses on Postmodernism - Douglas Wilson 

Desire...Fear

Deliver me, O Jesus:

From the desire of being esteemed

From the desire of being loved

From the desire of being honoured

From the desire of being praised

From the desire of being preferred to others

From the desire of being consulted

From the desire of being approved

From the desire of being popular.

Deliver me, O Jesus:

From the fear of being humiliated

From the fear of being despised

From the fear of being rebuked

From the fear of being slandered

From the fear of being forgotten

From the fear of being wronged

From the fear of being treated unfairly

From the fear of being suspected

And, Jesus, grant me the grace

To desire that others might be more loved than I

That others might be more esteemed than I

That in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I decrease

That others may be chosen and I set aside

That others may be preferred to me in everything.

- Mother Theresa, 1910-1997

Endless praise

Heaven will be full of the ceaseless praises of Jesus. Eternity! thine unnumbered years shall speed their everlasting course, but forever and for ever, "to him be glory." Is he not a "Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek"? "To him be glory." Is he not king for ever?- King of kings and Lord of lords, the everlasting Father? "To him be glory for ever." Never shall his praises cease. That which was bought with blood deserves to last while immortality endures. The glory of the cross must never be eclipsed; the lustre of the grave and of the resurrection must never be dimmed. 
O Jesus! thou shalt be praised for ever. Long as immortal spirits live-long as the Father's throne endures-for ever, for ever, unto thee shall be glory. Believer, you are anticipating the time when you shall join the saints above in ascribing all glory to Jesus; but are you glorifying him now? The apostle's words are, "To him be glory both now and for ever." 
Will you not this day make it your prayer? "Lord, help me to glorify thee; I am poor, help me to glorify thee by contentment; I am sick, help me to give thee honour by patience; I have talents, help me to extol thee by spending them for thee; I have time, Lord, help me to redeem it, that I may serve thee; I have a heart to feel, Lord, let that heart feel no love but thine, and glow with no flame but affection for thee; I have a head to think, Lord, help me to think of thee and for thee; thou hast put me in this world for something, Lord, show me what that is, and help me to work out my life-purpose: I cannot do much, but as the widow put in her two mites, which were all her living, so, Lord, I cast my time and eternity too into thy treasury; I am all thine; take me, and enable me to glorify thee now, in all that I say, in all that I do, and with all that I have."

From Charles Spurgeon's Morning and Evening, entry for Feb 15th. 

Running towards the destruction to help out

You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running towards the destruction to help out.... This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it, but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness. But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago. So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will."

Patton Oswalt
Facebook post responding to Boston bombing

I intended to post this some time back but it got slotted into the drafts and then went out of my mind. Oswalt is right up to a point: there are always great people who will run 'towards the destruction to help out'. And that does show that the heart of God is at work in humanity. However I'm not so sure that he's entirely right about humanity not being inherently evil. Certainly the theology of the church, and of the Jewish people before that, was that the world and its people were awry and that we needed a Saviour to put it right again. Christians believe this was Jesus and that he has saved the world. However the working out of this salvation is still having to be done day by day, bit by bit, and the history of the 20th century alone shows that evil rears its ugly head at the drop of a hat. 

Prayers and answers

What multitudes of prayers we have put up from the first moment when we learned to pray. Our first prayer was a prayer for ourselves; we asked that God would have mercy upon us, and blot out our sin. He heard us. But when he had blotted out our sins like a cloud, then we had more prayers for ourselves. We have had to pray for sanctifying grace, for constraining and restraining grace; we have been led to crave for a fresh assurance of faith, for the comfortable application of the promise, for deliverance in the hour of temptation, for help in the time of duty, and for succour in the day of trial.

We have been compelled to go to God for our souls, as constant beggars asking for everything. Bear witness, children of God, you have never been able to get anything for your souls elsewhere. All the bread your soul has eaten has come down from heaven, and all the water of which it has drank has flowed from the living rock - Christ Jesus the Lord. Your soul has never grown rich in itself; it has always been a pensioner upon the daily bounty of God; and hence your prayers have ascended to heaven for a range of spiritual mercies all but infinite. Your wants were innumerable, and therefore the supplies have been infinitely great, and your prayers have been as varied as the mercies have been countless.

Then have you not cause to say, "I love the Lord, because he hath heard the voice of my supplication"? For as your prayers have been many, so also have been God's answers to them. He has heard you in the day of trouble, has strengthened you, and helped you, even when you dishonoured him by trembling and doubting at the mercy-seat. Remember this, and let it fill your heart with gratitude to God, who has thus graciously heard your poor weak prayers. "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits."

Charles Spurgeon preaching on Ephesians 6:18 from Devotional Classics for February the 6th. 

Jesus intercedes for us

How encouraging is the thought of the Redeemer's never-ceasing intercession for us. When we pray, he pleads for us; and when we are not praying, he is advocating our cause, and by his supplications shielding us from unseen dangers.

Notice the word of comfort addressed to Peter - "Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat; but" - what? "But go and pray for yourself." That would be good advice, but it is not so written. Neither does he say, "But I will keep you watchful, and so you shall be preserved." That were a great blessing. No, it is, "But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not."

We little know what we owe to our Saviour's prayers. When we reach the hill-tops of heaven, and look back upon all the way whereby the Lord our God hath led us, how we shall praise him who, before the eternal throne, undid the mischief which Satan was doing upon earth. How shall we thank him because he never held his peace, but day and night pointed to the wounds upon his hands, and carried our names upon his breastplate!

Even before Satan had begun to tempt, Jesus had forestalled him and entered a plea in heaven. Mercy outruns malice. Mark, he does not say, "Satan hath desired to have you." He checks Satan even in his very desire, and nips it in the bud. He does not say, "But I have desired to pray for you." No, but "I have prayed for you: I have done it already; I have gone to court and entered a counterplea even before an accusation is made." O Jesus, what a comfort it is that thou hast pleaded our cause against our unseen enemies; countermined their mines, and unmasked their ambushes. Here is a matter for joy, gratitude, hope, and confidence.

Charles Spurgeon...Devotional Classics of C H Spurgeon: Reading for evening, January 11th. 

Resurrection

In the earliest days of Christianity an ‘apostle’ was first and foremost a man who claimed to be an eyewitness of the Resurrection. Only a few days after the Crucifixion when two candidates were nominated for the vacancy created by the treachery of Judas, their qualification was that they had known Jesus personally both before and after His death and could offer first-hand evidence of the Resurrection in addressing the outer world (Acts1:22). A few days later St Peter, preaching the first Christian sermon, makes the same claim—‘God raised Jesus, of which we all (we Christians) are witnesses’ (Acts 2:32). In the first Letter to the Corinthians, St Paul bases his claim to apostleship on the same ground—‘Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen the Lord Jesus?’ (1:9).

As this qualification suggests, to preach Christianity meant primarily to preach the Resurrection. . . . . The Resurrection is the central theme in every Christian sermon reported in the Acts. The Resurrection, and its consequences, were the ‘gospel’ or good news which the Christians brought: what we call the ‘gospels’, the narratives of Our Lord’s life and death, were composed later for the benefit of those who had already accepted the gospel. They were in no sense the basis of Christianity: they were written for those already converted. The miracle of the Resurrection, and the theology of that miracle, comes first: the biography comes later as a comment on it. . . . . The first fact in the history of Christendom is a number of people who say they have seen the Resurrection. If they had died without making anyone else believe this ‘gospel’ no gospels would ever have been written.

From Miracles by C S Lewis

Miracles without love

One of our biggest problems as Christians is that we want the miracle without the love. We want to see the kind of healing Jesus brought, but we don't want to learn Jesus' way of loving broken people. Jesus performed signs and wonders here on earth, but he was also clear that the sign of the church ought to be love: "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:35). Love is supposed to be the abiding sign of the church. I don't think we can have beloved communities until we learn to love like Jesus loves and make that our main plan for sharing the gospel.

John PerkinsWelcoming Justice

The common good

Our life together can be better. Ours is a shallow and selfish age, and we are in need of conversion -- from looking out just for ourselves to also looking out for one another. It's time to hear and heed a call to a different way of life, to reclaim a very old idea called the common good. Jesus issued that call and announced the kingdom of God -- a new order of living in sharp contrast to all the political and religious kingdoms of the world. That better way of life was meant to benefit not only his followers buy everybody else too. And that is the point of it.

Jim Wallis

The (Un)Common Good