The Proof of God’s Love (Part 2)

A sermon by G. H. Morrison in Glasgow, Scotland, 1920.

(edited for length)

"God commendeth His own love to us," so the text reads. What is the love, then, that is commended so?

Like life, love is of many kinds. There is a love that ennobles and casts a radiance upon life. There is a love that drags the lover down into the mouth of hell. There is a love that many waters cannot quench. There is a love that is disguised lust. What kind of love then is God's love proved to be from His commendation of it?

And first, splendidly visible is this, it is a love that thought no sacrifice too great. The surest test of love is sacrifice. We measure love, as we should measure her twin-brother life, "by loss and not by gain, not by the wine drunk but by the wine poured forth." Look at the mother with her child. She sacrifices ease and sleep, and she would sacrifice life too for her little one, and she thinks nothing of it all, she loves her baby so. Think of the patriot and his country. He counts it joy to drain his dearest veins, he loves his land so well. Recall the scholar at his books. Amusements and sleep, he almost spurns them. His love for learning is so deep he hardly counts them loss. Yes, in the willingness to sacrifice all that is dearest lies the measure of the noblest love.

Turn now to Calvary, turn to the Cross, and by the sight of the crucified Redeemer there, begin to learn the greatness of God's love. Come, who is this that hangs between two thieves with pierced hands and feet? And who is this whose back is wealed with scars, whose face is fouled with spittle? Yes, who is this the passers-by are mocking? See, He is sorrowful even unto death. Hark, He cries, "My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Matt. 27:46)

Wonder, O heavens, and be amazed, O earth; this is none other than God's only begotten Son. Did ever mother, did ever patriot, did ever human lover in the zeal of love make any sacrifice to be compared with that of God, when He gave His only begotten Son to shame and death that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish?

Ah! sir, measuring the love of God by such a test as this, we touch its height and depth and length and breadth, and then do we not cry out with Paul, "It passeth knowledge" (Eph. 3:19).

Again, I look at the love of God that our text speaks of, and now I see it is a love that never sprang from the sight of anything lovable in us. I suppose in this gathering to-day we have many loveless hearts. There are dead souls within this house of God to-day, all whose affections are slain. And yet I am sure of this, that in all this company there is not one heart but once has loved. Father or mother, son or daughter, husband or wife, once, if not now, you loved them. They were your heart's desire, to them your souls were knit.

Well, then, I want you now to recall that love again. I want you to try and trace it to its source. I want you to tell me whence it sprang. Was it the natural outflow of your heart, the welling-over of your nature regardless of the person loved? Or was it not rather some excellence, or worth, or beauty, some charm that made an indefinable appeal, that caught and held the tendrils of your heart? Yes, it was that. It was all you saw, and all you knew, and all you conjured, that drew your love out. You loved and you loved only, because you found those worthy to be loved.

And it is just here that, wide as the poles, God's love stands separated from all the love of men. "God commendeth His love, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." God longs to love me into something lovable. But not for anything lovable in me did He love me first. While I was yet a sinner He loved me. While I hated Him He loved me. While I was fighting against Him in the rebellious years He loved me. If we love Him, it is because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). Such causeless love is wonderful, passing the love of women.

Again I turn to the love of God our text speaks of, and now I see it is a love splendid in its righteousness. Some of the saddest tragedies in human life spring from the moral weakness of the deepest love. How many a mother who would have laid her life down for her son, she loved him so, has only helped him down the road to ruin by the immoral weakness of her love. How many a father, to spare his own heart the bitter agony of punishing his child, has let his child grow up unchastened. Such love as that is fatal. Sooner or later it tarnishes the thought of fatherhood in the child's eyes. For in his views of fatherhood the child can find no place now for earnest hatred of the wrong, and passionate devotion to the right; and so the image of fatherhood is robbed of all its powers.

Brethren, I do not hesitate to say, that if out of the page of history you wipe the atoning death on Calvary, you carry that tragedy of weakness into the very heavens. Blot out the Cross and I, a child of heaven, can never be uplifted and inspired by the thought of the Divine Fatherhood again. Yes, I have sinned, and know it. I deserve chastisement, and know it. And shall my Father never whisper a word of punishment? and never breathe His horror at my fall? And will He love me, and be kind to me right through it all without a word of warning? I tell you the moment I would believe that, the glory of the Divine Fatherhood is tarnished for me; God's perfect love of goodness and awful hatred of the wrong are dimmed; and all the impulse and enthusiasm these divine passions bring sink out of my life for ever.

But when I turn to Calvary, and to that awful death I see a love as righteous as it is wonderful. Sin must be punished, although the Well-beloved has to die. And the divine anger at iniquity must be revealed, though the curse fall upon the Son of God. The awful sight of that atoning death assures me of the perfect righteousness of God in the very moment that it assures me of His love. I see the divine hatred of iniquity; I see the divine need that sin be punished; I see the divine sanction of everlasting law in the very glance that commends to me the everlasting love.

And now with renewed trust I cast myself into the arms of that heavenly love. With heart and soul and strength and mind I accept it as it is commended to me upon the Cross. I live rejoicing in the Fatherhood of God. I go to every task and every trial assured of this, that neither height, nor depth, nor life nor death, nor any other creature can separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, my Lord. (Romans 8:39). Amen.

The Proof of God’s Love (Part 1)

The Proof of God's Love

A sermon by G.H. Morrison in Glasgow, Scotland, 1920

(edited for length)

"God commendeth His love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." - Romans 5:8.

What is it to “commend?” It is to exhibit, to demonstrate, to prove. This, then, must be our theme to-day, the Cross of Calvary viewed as the unanswerable proof of the love of God. 

There are some attributes of God that need no proof. Some features of the Divine character are so universally conspicuous as to be self-evidencing. Think, for example, of God's power. If we believe in God at all we need no argument to convince us of His power. The mighty forces that engirdle us all cry aloud of that. The chambers of the deep, the chariot of the sun, are stamped with it. The devastating march of winter's storm, and, none the less, the timely calling of all the summer's beauty out of the bare earth, these things, and a thousand other things like these, teach us the power of God. We would not need the Cross if all that had to be proved was the Divine omnipotence.

Or take the wisdom of God. Is any argument needed to assure us in general of that? None. "Day unto day uttereth speech of it, and night unto night showeth forth its glory" (Psa. 19:2). Our bodies, so fearfully and so wonderfully made; our senses, linking us so strangely to the world without; our thought, so swift, so incomprehensible; and all the constancy of Nature, and all the harmony of part with part, and all the obedience of the starry worlds, and all the perfections of the wayside weed; these things, and a multitude of things like these, speak to the thinking mind of the wisdom of God.  That wisdom needs no formal proof. We would not need the Cross if all that had to be proved was the wisdom of God.

The love of God is not self-evident. It is not stamped upon creation like His power. It is not written on the nightly heavens like His wisdom. Nay, on the contrary, if it be a fact, it is a fact against which a thousand other facts are fighting.

Let me mention one or two of these things that have made it hard for men to believe in the love of God. One is the tremendous struggle for existence that is ceaselessly waged among all living things. Man fights with man, and beast with beast. To the seeing eye the world is all a battlefield, and every living creature in it is in arms, and fighting for its life.

Sir, can you wonder that men who have known all that, and nothing more than that, have ceased to believe in the love of God? Can you marvel that he who has no other argument for God's love than what Nature gives him, rejects as mockery the thought of the Divine compassion?

Or think again. There are the problems of human pain and sorrow and bereavement. Is it not very hard to reconcile these darker shadows with the light of heavenly love?  Can God be love, and never move a finger to ease your little child when he is screaming day and night in fearful agony? Ah! sir, you have had such thoughts as that. Confess them. When from your arms your dearest joy is torn away; when those who would not harm a living creature are bowed for years under intolerable pain, and when the wicked or the coarse seem to get all they wish, who has not cried, "Can God be love if He permits all this? How can God say He loves me, and yet deal with me as I could never have the heart to deal with one I loved?"

Brethren, it is such facts as these that call for some unanswerable proof if we are to believe that God is love. And it is that proof which is afforded us in the Crucifixion of Christ Jesus. "God commendeth His love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8)

The story of Nature may seem to tell against this truth that every heart hungers to believe. And the experiences of life may often seem to fight against it too. But as we read the story of that atoning death, all doubts are overborne. Nothing but love, love wonderful, love matchless, will explain the Cross.

When we have gazed in faith upon the Cross of Christ, we never can seriously doubt the love of God again. I do not mean that difficulties vanish. I do not say that problems disappear. Much that was dark before remains dark still; but now we bow the head and say we know in part, and with patience wait to be satisfied in the morning. We can be ignorant and dark and even fretful still, but we can never doubt the love of God again.

Love must be proved by deeds and not by words. No mere profession of the lip will ever satisfy the heart that longs to know another's love. Love's argument is service. Love's commendation lies in sacrifice. If you or I by any act suspect that we are hated, it is not any word, however warm, will ever blot that suspicion out. It is only some deed of love, clear, unmistakable, that will have power to do that.

See, then, the wisdom of our God. It is the facts of nature and of life, of history and of experience, that make it so hard to believe His love. He knows it all, and so the proof He offers of His love is a fact too. Facts must be met by facts. And all the dark facts in the world's story, God overwhelms by the great fact of Calvary. Yes, God so loved the world…not that He said or thought, but that He gave. Thanks be to Him for that.

Here is no word. Here is no empty protestation. Here is a deed tremendous, matchless, irresistible, and every opposing argument is silenced.

One other word before I leave this aspect of the case. The Bible does not say, “God commended,” it does not say, “God has commended;” it uses the perpetual present and says, God commendeth. There are some proofs for the being and attributes of God that serve their purpose, and then pass away. There are arguments that appeal to us in childhood, but lose their power in our maturer years. And there are proofs that may convince one generation, and yet be of little value to the next. Not a few evidences, such as that from design, which were very helpful to you, believer of an older school, are well-nigh worthless to your thinking son, imbued with the teaching of the present day.

But there is one argument that stands unshaken through every age and every generation. It is the triumphant argument of the Cross of Christ. Knowledge may widen, thought may deepen, theories may come and go; yet in the very center, unshaken and unshakable, stands Calvary, the lasting commendation of the love of God. To all the sorrowing and to all the doubting, to all the bitter and to all the eager, to every youthful heart, noble and generous, to every weary heart, burdened and dark, to-day and here, as 1900 years ago to all like hearts in Rome, "God commendeth His love, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us."

Some Thoughts on The Cross

I don’t have “The Blessing of Hunger, Part 2” ready for you yet, but this is the week in which we especially remember Christ’s suffering and death on our behalf.  In honor of that, I wanted to share some of my favorite quotes about the Cross.

----------------------------------------------------------

You have not the making of your own cross, although unbelief is a master carpenter at cross-making; neither are you permitted to choose your own cross, although self-will would fain be lord and master; but your cross is prepared and appointed for you by divine love, and you are cheerfully to accept it.

 

Jesus was a cross-bearer; he leads the way in the path of sorrow.  Surely you could not desire a better guide!  And if he carried a cross, what nobler burden would you desire?

Beloved, the cross is not made of feathers, or lined with velvet, it is heavy and galling to disobedient shoulders; but it is not an iron cross, though your fears have painted it with iron colours, it is a wooden cross, and a man can carry it, for the Man of sorrows tried the load. Take up your cross, and by the power of the Spirit of God you will soon be so in love with it, that like Moses, you would not exchange the reproach of Christ for all the treasures of Egypt. Remember that Jesus carried it, and it will smell sweetly; remember that it will soon be followed by the crown, and the thought of the coming weight of glory will greatly lighten the present heaviness of trouble. The Lord help you to bow your spirit in submission to the divine will ere you fall asleep this night, that waking with to-morrow’s sun, you may go forth to the day’s cross with the holy and submissive spirit which becomes a follower of the Crucified.

Spurgeon

-----------------------------------------------------

It is not necessary for any man to make a cross; it is our part simply to take up that which God has laid down for us.  The cross is the constant refusal to gratify our self-life; the perpetual dying to pride and self-indulgence, in order to follow Christ.  When we live only to save ourselves, to build warm nests, to avoid every discomfort and annoyance, to make money entirely for our own use and enjoyment, to invent schemes for our own pleasure, we become the most discontented and miserable of mankind.  How many there are who have given themselves up to a life of selfishness and pleasure-seeking, only to find their capacity for joy has shriveled, and their lives have plunged into gloom and despair.  They have lost their souls!

F. B. Meyer

---------------------------------------------------------

You will never fathom the bravery of Christ unless you bear in mind that Christ was sinless. For sin is always coarsening and deadening—"it hardens all within and petrifies the feeling." And it is when we think that Jesus Christ was sinless, and being sinless was exquisitely sensitive, that we come to realize the matchless fortitude that carried Him without a falter to the cross.

G. H. Morrison

--------------------------------------------------------

The Blessing of Hunger (Part 1)

So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.
Deu 8:3

Such an interesting phrase:  “He allowed you to hunger!”  Not “He forced you to hunger,” but “He allowed you to hunger.”

Think about that.

Let me tell you what this word “allowed” can NOT imply.  It is NOT a limitation of the sovereignty of God.  Some people cannot bear the thought of God deliberately sending hardship into human lives.  They try to make excuses for Him by saying, “He didn’t make that happen, He allowed it.”  And there’s a sense in which Scripture allows that point of view…within limits.  The mystery of God’s sovereign will and man’s responsibility is deeper than I can fathom, much less explain here.

But God forbid that we should ever see Him as a weak, spineless pushover of a father, one who could never say “no” to a petulant child or administer strong discipline (in love) when needed (Heb. 12:7-11).  He may even introduce hardship into our lives when we aren’t particularly in need of discipline, in order to further refine and purify us (Isa. 48:10).  And Scripture prohibits us from adopting the simplistic view that says, “things which make me happy come from God, and things which make me sad come from the devil” (Lam. 3:37-38).

No, when God says He allowed His people to hunger, it wasn’t an act of passivity on His part.  It was something He actively did to them.  So why is it “allowing” instead of “forcing?”  Because even though we sheep are too ignorant to see it this way most of the time, it is a privilege to undergo discipline, chastening, or any other form of hardship which our Father deems good for us. 

We don’t deserve His intervention in our lives.  He could passively allow us to go on amusing ourselves on the primrose path to destruction, and we would be getting exactly what we deserve.  But in His kindness, He allows us to experience His touches in our lives…both the pleasant touches and the unpleasant ones.  Both are intended for our good, and they will certainly accomplish the good for which He gave them.

And there can be little doubt that one of His greatest blessings is hunger.

Physical Hunger

Physical hunger is something that I know almost nothing about.  And if you’re reading this from a comfortable Western-style home, there’s a good chance you don’t know much about it, either.  We think we’ve felt hunger, and we use ridiculous phrases like, “I’m starving” when we’ve already eaten more that day than many people eat in three.

We are right to consider our full stomachs a blessing, and we ought to be sincere in our thanks to God.  But there’s a sense in which our full stomachs are a curse, and more hunger would be a blessing indeed.

Do you see the blessing in the verse quoted above?  The Bible says that God:

• Humbled them.  Scripture is chock full of warnings about the dangers of pride, and it advises us of the blessings which come to the humble (for example, Jas. 4:6, Hos. 13:6 NIV).  Therefore, it is a blessing to be humbled.  If hunger is God’s tool for humbling us, then hunger becomes a blessing.
• Fed them by miraculous means.  Can you imagine being personally fed by God every day, without any “middleman” in between?  God gave them this miracle in response to their hunger.  So hunger was a means of blessing.
• Taught them one of life’s most crucial lessons…that we depend utterly on God.  Trust in God is prerequisite to happiness (Ps. 146:5), so the hunger that taught the lesson is a blessing.

There are other ways that physical hunger can be a blessing.  And we have a responsibility here.  Because hunger on the part of one person is an opportunity for service, sacrifice, mercy and love on the part of another.  We should never look at a truly hungry person and say, “Oh isn’t that nice, God is blessing them with hunger.”  Heaven forbid! (Jas. 2:15-16).  Hunger is a blessing only when used as a tool by our loving Father, and it’s a tool that is supposed to bring the beauty of compassionate care into people’s lives.  We’re supposed to be giving that care.  Throughout the past two millennia, it has been Christians who have done the most to feed the hungry.  And what a difference it makes when we do!

Finally, there’s this word of wisdom from the Proverbs:

A satisfied soul loathes the honeycomb, but to a hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.
Pro 27:7

Hunger sharpens our appreciation of the food we receive.  Ever wonder why we rich Westerners are such discontented, psychologist-dependent, drug-addicted, easily bored people?  Partly it’s because we have ruined our own capacity for enjoyment.  We glut ourselves, never allowing ourselves to hunger, or to do without anything we want.  And because we are constantly satisfied, we constantly loathe the honeycomb.  After all, we had the honeycomb yesterday, too.  Don’t we need something new today?

Wouldn’t we be happier if we did without the extras, and learned to find even the bitter things to be sweet?  I’m not suggesting some sort of sick desire for suffering.  I am suggesting that our bloated lifestyles lead to their own kind of suffering…a chronic discontentment, an unhealthy forgetfulness of dependence, a pride that sickens our souls, and physical unhealthiness. 

It’s easy to say these words.  But here I sit, somewhat overweight, with food to spare in my fridge and my pantry and even on shelves in my garage.  Here I sit, a person who “gets the munchies” and eats whatever she wants, whenever she wants, even if her body doesn’t need it.  I’m preaching to myself, and I hope I’m listening.

The world’s economies are collapsing around us, and it may not be long before we learn what hunger truly is.  May we have the wisdom and humility to pray along with Agur:

Give me neither poverty nor riches— feed me with the food allotted to me; lest I be full and deny You, and say, "Who is the LORD?" Or lest I be poor and steal, and profane the name of my God.
Pro 30:8-9

Who knows with what miraculous provisions God will feed those who trust in Him in the 21st Century?  Who knows how He will bless us with the love and compassion of those around us?  Who knows how He will humble us?  How much more we’ll appreciate what little we have?

But there’s another kind of hunger that is an even greater blessing.  Next time, we’ll look at spiritual hunger.  I hope you’ll join us.

In the meantime, please leave your comments below.

Greatest in the Kingdom?

Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Matt 18:4

What do you think this verse means?  I have to admit, it gives me a little trouble.

First off, "the greatest" can't be exclusive to one person, because more than one person humbles himself in this way.  The word “Whoever” applies to anybody and everybody.  And the verse doesn’t say “whoever humbles himself the most will be the greatest.”  It’s just “whoever humbles himself.”  But how can more than one person be “the greatest?”

Also, Heaven isn’t going to be the kind of place where people compete against one another to be the greatest.  Nothing would be more prideful than "humbling oneself" in order to “out-humble” the next guy and be greater than he is in Heaven (see Mark 9:34-35). 

So what does this mean?  How can anyone be “greatest in the kingdom?”  And how can anyone pursue that by humility?

I don’t know, but I have an idea.  I think that being "the greatest" is not relative to other people, but relative to our standing individually with God.  It's where we fall on a continuum of what we could have been versus what we turned out to be.  True, others will be further along or further behind on their continuum than I will be, but my eyes will not be on them in prideful comparison.

Does that make sense?  What do you think?

(This photo was taken in an “Ames Room,” a specially-designed room that creates an optical illusion of great size differences between people of equal height.  I chose it because it reminds me of exaggerated pride or false humility…two different ways of falsely comparing ourselves with others.)

Moses, Joshua, and Jesus

Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Take the rod; you and your brother Aaron gather the congregation together. Speak to the rock before their eyes, and it will yield its water; thus you shall bring water for them out of the rock, and give drink to the congregation and their animals." So Moses took the rod from before the LORD as He commanded him. And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock; and he said to them, "Hear now, you rebels! Must we bring water for you out of this rock?" Then Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came out abundantly, and the congregation and their animals drank. Then the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not believe Me, to hallow Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them."
Num 20:7-12

I’ve always felt sorry for Moses when I read this account. After all, we all sin, and this seemed like such a small error. God said, “Speak to the rock,” but Moses struck it instead. Not a major incident in a life full of obedience, right?

Evidently God thought it was huge. Because of this one act, Moses would not be allowed to enter the Promised Land.

Why did God make such a big deal out of this? Why were the consequences so dire?

It would be easy to take this in any of several directions.

• We could talk about the fact that all sin is serious, and there’s no such thing as a small sin.
• We could discuss how damaging it is when leaders sin
• We could draw out inferences about how pride and anger lead to sin
• We could point out that all sin springs from disbelief, and results in failure to hallow God in the sight of others.

All of those things would be true and worthy of discussion, but there’s another aspect I want to address today. Because one of the amazing things about the Bible is how the Gospel is woven throughout, even many hundreds of years before the birth of Christ. And this story spells out part of the Gospel in vivid detail.

The Old Testament is a living allegory, spiritual truths written into the reality of flesh-and-blood lives. Don’t misunderstand…I’m not saying that the stories are mere allegories, as if the events never happened. What I’m saying is that the events, which actually happened, paint pictures of Spiritual realities far beyond the awareness of those who lived them. And in the meta-narrative of the Children of Israel, metaphors abound.

• Egypt represents the believer’s old life of sin before salvation.
• Moses represents the law.
• The Promised Land represents the believer’s ultimate destination…Heaven itself.

And the whole picture would have been marred beyond recognition if Moses had been allowed to lead the people into the Promised Land.

Why?

Because Moses represents the Law, and the Law cannot save.

So who got to lead the people in? Someone named Joshua. In Hebrew, it’s Yehoshua or Yeshua. In New Testament languages, it is translated “Jesus.”

It means, “Jehovah saves.”

He does indeed.

For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son… (Rom 8:3)

Isn’t God awesome? The Gospel is right there. The Law (Moses) can’t bring us into the Promised Land. Jesus (Yeshua or Joshua) does.

Let’s look at some of the other symbolism here.

~~~

Joshua’s leadership ministry was inaugurated by the miraculous passage through the Jordan, which was done to prove that “God is among you”

(Jos 3:10,13).

Jesus’ ministry was inaugurated by the miraculous events surrounding His baptism (the descent of the Spirit, and the Father’s verbal affirmation) in that same Jordan river, which were done to prove that God was among us

(Matt. 3:13-17).

~~~

Immediately after this dramatic inauguration, Joshua was instructed to choose 12 men

(Jos 4:1-2).

After His dramatic inauguration, Jesus chose 12 men (Matt 10:2-4).

~~~

Joshua did not lead his people into unconquered territory. He led them into warfare (see most of the book of Joshua).

Jesus waged all-out war on the forces of evil (Luke 4:41, for example), and leads us in spiritual warfare all of our days, until we enter our rest in our Promised Land (Eph. 6:12)

~~~

There are probably more awesome parallels than these, but you get the picture. These things were written for us to learn from (1 Co. 10:11).

Moses certainly didn’t understand this. If he had, I’m sure it would have comforted him. But as it is, he carried the pain of his punishment until the day he died. In his human frailty, he even stooped to blaming the people for what happened to him that day (Deu 1:37). He had no idea that God had meant it for good, to draw a beautiful picture of salvation through the Heavenly “Joshua,” our Lord Jesus, and not through the Law.

The Scriptures have been written in full for us…at least while we’re here on earth. But there are still holy words being recorded in Heaven (Mal. 3:16), words which I’m sure we’ll see when we get up there. Words which describe the things that people do, and which will record for all of eternity how God painted our lives into a glorious mosaic.

Right now we are just as blind as Moses was to the metaphors built into our stories. We can’t imagine the ways that they will bless others. But I’m convinced that much of eternity will be spent examining the incredible pictures that God crafted from each of our lives. We’ll see how God made the ordinary places of our lives holy by His presence, even when we weren’t aware of it. We’ll see the shadow of Calvary and the glories of grace inked onto every one of our pages, and we’ll come away with an eternal case of holy goosebumps.

What part of God’s mosaic are you living today?

Be a worthy paintbrush for Him. Trust the artist to showcase Christ through whatever your circumstances may be, even if they’re painful. All of creation is looking forward to the day when the masterpiece will be unveiled. When that happens, it will all have been worth it.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.
(Rom 8:18-19)

Greased Lightbox

→←+-↻

Loading image

Click anywhere to cancel

Image unavailable

Penance versus Repentance

What is repentance, really?

Is it trying really, really hard to feel bad about something you did, in order to win God’s forgiveness?

Is God up in Heaven with a Misery Meter, waiting for you to push the level up to a certain notch of guilty torment before He’ll forgive you?

Is repentance the price you have to pay so you can keep sinning?  Is it sort of like the hangover after a night of drinking…you know it’s going to hurt afterwards, but the sin is worth it?

If you can work up a good enough repentance, does that make the sinning okay?

What do you have to repent of, anyway…the sin, or the enjoying of it, or both?

How do you know when you’ve repented enough, felt sorry enough, or done enough good deeds to make up for your sin?

What about those who walk for days on their knees, or hit themselves with heavy chains and whips, or cut themselves because of their sins?  Are they repenting?

Or does repenting mean promising God that you’ll never do that particular sin again; that you’ll straighten up your act from now on?

What is repentance?

It isn’t really possible to understand repentance without first understanding what sin is.  (That link will take you to all of the entries labeled “sin” in this blog.  They’re in reverse order, so you might want to scroll all the way to the bottom and read “up” to get them in order.)  God’s word lists many sins, but there is really only one Sin underlying them all.

Sin is turning away from God.  It is trusting/loving something or someone more than God.  It is believing that life, joy, peace, or any other good thing is better found outside of God than in Him.  It is dethroning Him and putting something or someone else in His place in your heart.

If that’s what sin is, then can any of our above examples truly represent repentance?

We hurt ourselves to get forgiveness.  We try to work up sorrowful emotions to placate God.  We play Him for a fool, tossing Him a few tokens of sorrow to pay Him off, so we can keep indulging in the sins we love.  We seek to earn.  We try to impress.  We do our best to get ourselves off of the hook.  We make promises.  We, we, we.  It’s all about us.

That’s not repentance.  It’s penance.

What’s the difference?

Penance focuses on sin and on self.

Repentance focuses on God.

If sin is turning away from God and looking to self or others for what we need, then guess what…

Penance, which looks to self to earn forgiveness, is sin!

And if sin is turning away from God and looking to self or others for what we need, then what is repentance?

Repentance is realizing how foolish we were to think we could find life, joy, peace, etc in anything outside of God.  And it’s turning back to God because we’ve come to our senses and realized again that He is all we need.  It is making a you-turn from worshiping sin and self to worshiping God.  From trusting sin and self to trusting God.  From insulting God to treasuring Him.  It is a change of focus, and a reorienting of faith.

Repentance wants Christ. 

Penance just wants to find a way to continue in sin, and to avoid eternal consequences by assigning itself temporary ones. 

Repentance worships Christ, loves Him, treasures Him. 

Penance worships, loves, and treasures sin, and will pay any price to be allowed to indulge in it.

Just look at Mardi Gras.  It’s nothing but a huge celebration of sin that negates any attempts at piety or penance that may surround it. 

We celebrate what we love.  And Mardi Gras is just one vivid reminder that unrepentant sinners love sin.

To love sin is to hate Christ (Pr. 14:2, Matt. 12:30), no matter what religious activities you may indulge in to convince  yourself otherwise.  God isn’t fooled.  There is no repentance without turning from sin to Christ.

But always remember, the Christian life is a journey of growth.  There is a sense in which we repent “once for all,” when we are first awakened to see Christ and desire Him as our Savior and Lord.  That is repentance unto salvation, and it’s a precious thing. 

But we don’t ever stop repenting...not for salvation, but for our continued walk with the Lord.  It makes sense, after all.  We do slip into sin, and whenever that happens, we’ve temporarily valued something above Christ.  Repentance gets our values straight again.

And we continue to need repentance for another reason, too, not just because we still sin sometimes.  We continue to need repentance because we continue to grow.  As we grow, we recognize more of Christ’s worth, and we recognize more of our own foolishness.  We find ourselves repenting of sin that we never repented of before because we didn’t recognize it before.  Those who are not growing in repentance are not growing at all.

Does this sound like a drag?  A life of continual sorrow and misery?

It’s anything but that!

Repentance is turning toward joy!  It is recognizing that we’ve been seeking life and joy in the wrong places, and it’s turning to find them in God again.  It is pulling our noses out of the sewers and putting them back in the bakery where the Bread of Life offers Himself freely (Isa. 55:2).

Remember how King David of old prayed when he repented of his sin with Bathsheba?

Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones You have broken may rejoice (Ps. 51:8)

Restore to me the joy of Your salvation  (Ps. 51:12)

True repentance cries out with David, “Forgive me for seeking life and joy elsewhere, and let me find them in You again!”

And Christ, who is our life (Col. 3:4) and our joy (John 15:11) is delighted to answer that prayer.  He is glad to give us Himself.

After all, He went all the way to Calvary to do just that.

--------------

This devotional owes a great deal of its thought to Pastor John Piper, my spiritual father whom I’ve never met.  If you want to know more about God-centered living, please check out his huge store of free, downloadable audio sermons and other resources at Desiring God Ministries.

Some of the inspiration for this devotional also came from Beth Moore’s Bible Study, “When Godly People Do Ungodly Things.”

For Kids and Grown-Ups (Part 2)

Chapter 2

(If it’s been a while since you read Part 1 to the  children, please go over the review questions at the end of that chapter before going on.)

God created people to enjoy Him forever. And the first people He created, Adam and Eve, enjoyed Him very, very much. They enjoyed the beautiful garden He made for them to live in. They enjoyed the delicious food He gave them to eat. They enjoyed the amazing animals that He made to share the earth with them. They enjoyed each other, because God had made them to be together. But more than anything, they enjoyed God Himself. Because of God, Adam and Eve had everything they could want or need. Life was perfect.

But God had an enemy. Hard to believe, but true. Satan, the devil, wasn’t content to worship God. He wanted to become God, and have everyone else worship him instead of God!¹ So Satan became evil, and couldn’t enjoy God any more. How terrible to lose that privilege!

Satan didn’t want people to enjoy God either. He wanted to become a god for them and turn them away from the one true God. So he whispered lies to Eve. He told her strange ideas about God, and told her that she couldn’t be truly happy with Him. He told her that the only way to be happy was to disobey God. Do you think that was true?

Eve believed Satan. And Adam decided to go along with her. They both turned against God together. They turned against the One who created them, the One that they could have enjoyed forever. They turned against the One who gave them everything they could ever want or need.

Everything fell apart. Adam and Eve became sinners.

Think about it carefully. What is sin? Is it just things like lying or stealing or hitting your brother? Or is it something deeper? What do you think?

Sin is not believing that God is the best. Sin is turning your back on God, just like Eve did, and trying to find your life and your joy somewhere else. It’s really crazy, if you think about it. It’s like looking at a bathtub and thinking you can fill it with a single teaspoon of water. It’s like bringing your starving stomach to the table and ignoring the banquet in front of you, preferring instead to choose a crumb off of the floor. The Bible says it’s like giving up glory in order to get a statue.² It’s crazy, but it’s what every human being does.³

Including you. Including me.

Look at your family members. Has anyone ever told you that you look alike?  Parents pass things along to their children…things like eye color, skin color, and hair color. Unfortunately, all human beings pass sinfulness along to their children too.⁴ That’s why we’re all born sinners, every one of us since Adam and Eve had their first children. We all have sinful hearts. Of course when I talk about our “hearts”, I don’t mean the part that goes “bump-bump” inside our chests.  I mean the part deep inside of us that is designed to enjoy God.

What is a sinful heart like?

A sinful heart is hopelessly foolish. That means it falls for Satan’s lies every time. It insists on trying to satisfy itself with unimportant things, with temporary pleasures and silly little toys. It can’t help it. Even though its foolishness will destroy it,⁵ it stays foolish just the same. It can’t believe the truth, can’t even sense it or understand it.⁶ You and I were born with foolish hearts.

A sinful heart is as good as dead.⁷ Think about a Christmas tree…the live kind, not the plastic kind. It looks beautiful when you set it up in the house. It is green and smells lovely, just like it would in the forest. But there’s an important difference between the tree in your living room and the trees in the forest. Both are alive, but the one in your living room is as good as dead. It has no way to stay alive. It cannot survive. It has already begun to die, and nothing can stop it. Why is that? Because it is disconnected from the source of its life. Even if you were to put it back in the ground, it would still die because it has no roots, no way to get the food and water out of the soil.  It may not look dead yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

In the same way, a sinful heart is dead. Think about it. Everything we need for life is all around us, because God is all around us. He is everything we need. The Bible says that Jesus is our life.⁸ But just as a tree with no roots can’t properly connect with the soil, a sinfully dead heart cannot connect with God, cannot draw His life into itself. It may not look dead yet, but it’s only a matter of time. And you and I were born with sin-deadened hearts.

A sinful heart is blind.⁹ What does that mean? Think back to our story. What was it like before man was created? God’s glory filled everything, remember? Everything glowed with the light of His wonderful, awesome, beautiful, eternal, holy perfection. Well guess what… God has not changed! His glory shines just as brightly now as it did then.¹⁰ But our sin-blinded hearts can’t see that glory any more.¹¹ Isn’t that sad? Don’t you wish you could see it now?

A blind heart looks at God’s handiwork … His wonderful sky, His towering mountains, His sturdy trees, His intricate snowflakes, His marvelous animals … and what does it see? It sees an accident. Mere chance.¹² It is blind to what every created thing boldly proclaims, which is the greatness of its creator.¹³

It would be really sad if the story ended here…but it doesn’t.  God has a plan to fix our hearts, and we’ll learn more about that next time.

Thought Questions:

-What is sin?

-What does it mean to have a foolish heart?

-What does it mean to have a “dead” heart (spirit)?

-What does it mean to have a “blind” heart?

-Who is born with a sinful heart?

-How bad is it to have a sinful heart?

Bible Verses:

1. Isa. 14:12-15

2. Ps. 106:20

3. Ps. 14:1-3

4. Rom. 5:12b

5. Pr. 1:32

6. Prov. 18:2

7. Eph. 2:1

8. Col. 3:4

9. 2 Cor. 4:4

10. Isa. 6:3

11. Rom. 1:21

12. 2 Pet. 3:5a

13. Ps. 19:1

14. Isa. 59:10a

For Kids…and Grown-Ups, Too

This is an unexpected entry for me to post.  After some recent housecleaning, I stumbled across something that I wrote a few years ago for my children. I had intended it to become a series, but somehow it got sidelined after only two installments. I figured I might as well share them here (Part 1 today, Part 2 tomorrow). They are written for children, complete with "Thought Questions" at the end. I hope those of you who have young children or know some will consider reading these to them.

(Like everything posted here, these are covered by an "Attribution License," which means you are free to reproduce and distribute them as long as you give proper credit to the author.)

If you don't have children in your life to share these with, I hope you'll read them anyway. The truths written here are important for grown-ups, too!

I originally titled this, "Kids' Book of God's Glory."

Chapter 1

Christmas Day: “Wow, this is awesome! This is the most exciting toy I’ve ever had! I just can’t get enough of it!”

Two days later: “Mom, I’m bored. There’s nothing to do.”

Why did the fun go out of the “most exciting toy?” What went wrong?

You might be surprised to know that nothing went wrong with the toy, or the book, or the special place that once charmed your soul. I say nothing went wrong, because it was wrong all along.

Now, don’t misunderstand me. Toys aren’t bad things. Neither are good books, or special places, or any of the things that God gave you to enjoy. It’s just that they can’t stay exciting forever, because they aren’t supposed to. God didn’t design them that way.

More importantly, God didn’t design you that way.

That’s important, so let me say it again. God didn’t design anything in this world to satisfy you forever. More importantly, He didn’t design you to be satisfied with any thing forever.

Was He being mean about that?

Let me tell you a story.

Back in eternity past, before God invented time, people did not yet exist (except as an idea in God’s mind). God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit existed forever, one God in three Persons.¹ Do you wonder what it was like back then? God hasn’t told us much about that yet, though I imagine He will someday when we’re in Heaven. But we can be sure of one thing.

God’s glory filled everything. ²

What is glory? It is the wonderful, awesome, beautiful, eternal, holy, perfection of God showing itself to others. Sometimes we describe it as “light,” but of course it’s much more than that. We don’t even have words that can describe what God’s glory is. But we can try to imagine something about it.

Imagine something better than anything you’ve ever experienced. Now make it even better. Imagine something more wonderful than you have ever dreamed of before. Something more wonderful than you’re even imagining right now. Now take it up a notch. God says that no human is even able to imagine the wonderful things he wants to give us. ³ No matter how awesome a thing can feel in your imagination, God’s glory is even better.

Now, back to the story. Before man was created, God’s glory filled everything. Angels stood in the glow of that glory, and they were so awestruck and amazed that they couldn’t stop praising God, and they wanted nothing more than to enjoy His glory forever.

God wanted more and more creatures (created things) to be able to enjoy His glory. So He created humans. He gave us the most wonderful privilege any creature can have: the privilege of enjoying Him forever. ⁴

Imagine that! Imagine if Mom or Dad could give you something and guarantee that you could enjoy it forever. What would that thing be like?

-It would last forever and could never be broken

-It would never become boring, so you could never get tired of it

-It could never get lost

-It could never be stolen

-Its beauty and joy and wonder would belong to you forever!

Why can’t Mom and Dad give you something like that? Because there is nothing like that…nothing except God Himself.

God created us to enjoy Him, and that was the greatest gift He could have given us. He lasts forever, and can never be broken. He never becomes boring, so you could never get tired of Him. He can never get lost or be stolen. His beauty and joy and wonder can belong to you forever!

Let me ask you a silly question. Can a bathtub be filled up by just a teaspoon of water? Can a hungry person be filled with just a single crumb of food?

Of course not. Bathtubs were created to hold gallons of water. Stomachs were created to hold enough food to fuel our bodies for hours.

Can your hungry soul be filled by toys, or books, or special places, or computer games, or things of any kind?

Of course not. Your soul was created to be satisfied by the wonderful, awesome, beautiful, eternal, holy, perfection of God.⁵ You weren’t designed to settle for less.

We’ll continue with the story tomorrow.

Thought Questions:

-What is the greatest gift God could ever give me?

-Why won’t I always be happy with my toys or with anything else I own?

-What was I created to do?

Bible Verses:

1. John 17:5

2. Jer. 23:24 b

3. 1Cor. 2:9

4. Ps. 16:11

5. Ps. 32:11

Total Depravity and Hope

“Total Depravity” is not a phrase you’ll find in the Bible, but it describes a very biblical concept.  In part, it’s the teaching that sin permeates everything we do, even at our best.  There’s more to it than that, but that’s the aspect I need to touch on today.

Why?  Because a wonderful fellow-blogger named Tami asked a very pertinent question in a comment on my last entry.  She wrote:

One thing I find confusing is your statement that if we sin at all we are putting confidence in the flesh. Don't we all sin every day? How can humans ever say they are trusting God if sinning in any way means we live by flesh?

Excellent comment, Tami, and a wonderful point.  I hope more people will follow Tami’s example and write down such thoughts and questions in their comments.  I love to hear about what I need to clarify (especially if I’m scrambling for ideas for a new entry)!  I won’t always know the answers, but I do want to know what the questions are so I can start thinking about them and researching them.

The Christian life is one of hope.  In fact, Christians are supposed to be such hopeful people that it makes unbelievers actually approach us and ask us why we’re so hopeful (1 Pet. 3:15)!

Whew, I’ve got a long way to go with that.  I grew up cynically convinced that Hope was a cruel trickster who only lifted people up so it could enjoy crushing them again.  “You sucker,” Hope would sneer as it ground the shards of my shattered dreams into my face.  “How could you be such an idiot?”

Of course, since God is our hope, I was accusing Him of being this monster!  Such is my depravity.  And even this week, my Father has been gently pointing out to me that I distrust Hope, and that I mistake the brittleness of cynicism for strength.

And it’s true.  I have done, and still often do these terrible things in my heart.

Yet I write this without discouragement.  How?

Because there is a world of difference between battling the flesh and walking in it.

Yes, I am totally depraved…in my flesh.  Before I had the Holy Spirit, the flesh was all I had, so Total Depravity pervaded all that I was.  But now that I have the Spirit, even though Total Depravity still pollutes all of my flesh, there is a newness of the Spirit (Rom. 7:6) which is God-given and genuine.  That’s why my stumbling can’t steal my hope.

I can’t separate flesh from spirit clearly in my mind.  They have a mysterious bond that is beyond mortal understanding.  But the Word of God is sharp enough to divide even the soul and spirit (Heb. 4:12), so I have no doubt that the Word can also divide flesh from spirit.  And when Jesus lived among us, He showed us His discernment when looking into sinners’ hearts.  He said to his disciples as He pointed out their failings,

The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.  (Mat 26:41) 

And while all of those disciples forsook Him and fled shortly afterwards, there was only one whom He referred to as His “betrayer.”  That was Judas, of course.  The rest He forgave and restored because they were His.  They were marked out as His before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4), and would soon be sealed as His own by the Spirit of Promise.

That same Spirit of Promise indwells true believers today (Eph. 1:13).  Because He is in us, our sinful flesh no longer defines us.  We can walk in the Spirit even though we still have that clingy Gollum of the flesh putting its putrid fingerprints on the very best that we do.  The flesh is no longer the sum total of who we are.

God in his gracious mercy is very patient with the sins which we do in weakness and ignorance.  These sins must be confessed and repented of when we become aware of them (Lev. 5:18, Acts 17:30, 1 Pet. 1:14).  But God can see the difference between our toes and our heels…between feet that are stumbling towards Him and feet that are running away. 

Just as He did with the disciples, God looks past our weakness to our spirit which He has brought to life.  More importantly, He looks at His Spirit indwelling us.  His own goodness shines through the slime of our flesh, and because He has graciously identified us with Himself, He attributes that goodness to us.  No wonder we will stand in astonishment in Heaven, joyfully declaring our unworthiness to be there, and casting our crowns at His feet!

So in answer to your question, Tami, every time we willfully sin, we are putting confidence in the flesh, but we can’t say we are “living by the flesh” unless the flesh guides the general direction of our lives.  As long as we are in this mortal body we will sometimes stumble,  but we will repent, and we will get back up and continue our Spirit-led walk toward the One we desire. 

He honors our desire for Him, because He gave us that desire in the first place (Deut. 30:6, Rom. 5:5, 2 Co. 4:6).  And He always honors the work of His own hands.  Therein lies our hope. 

It’s true that, “In my flesh dwells no good thing,” but we who have the Spirit and are growing in Him will find too much encouragement in who He is to be discouraged by who we are.

But this entry is getting too long to dive further into the “hope” part of it.  That will have to wait until next time.  In the meantime, please leave your questions and comments below.  I love hearing them, and other readers benefit as well.

No Good Thing

In me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing.  (Rom. 7:18 KJV)

Oh how often I get stark reminders of this reality!  I know better than to trust in my own resources, but I do it anyway.  And every time I do it, I end up in the same spiritual swamp…complete with noxious fumes and disgusting slime.  Not to mention predators lurking to take a bite out of me at any moment.

Yes, I’m a believer (and yes, I believe that Romans 7 refers to a pre-conversion experience), but I am convinced that this statement is still true of believers as well. 

In my flesh dwells no good thing.

Do you know the feeling?  That sinking in your gut when you realize you’ve “gone and done it again?”  Do you know that whenever you try to walk in the flesh, the result is inevitably disastrous?

Or do you still have confidence in the flesh?  Do you still think you only need Christ to bail you out in emergencies, because you believe you’re doing fine on your own the rest of the time?

“For we are the circumcision” (i.e. we are those who are truly set apart for Christ), “who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh” (Php 3:3).

So how is it that I keep putting confidence in the flesh again? 

Oh, and by the way, notice the word “the” in Php 3:3.  It doesn’t say, “My flesh,” it says, “The flesh.”  Not only am I not to rest my hope on my own resources, but I’m not to rest it on any other human sources either. 

Why?  Partly because people will let me down, true.  But that’s not the deepest reason.  The stark reality is this:  we either trust in flesh or in God.  To the extent that we do one, we will not do the other.

Thus says the LORD: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the LORD.”
Jer 17:5

So how do we know when we’re putting confidence in the flesh?

1.  When the failures of the flesh steal our hope, our peace, or our joy.

Do your own failures make you feel hopeless?  Do you lose your peace and joy when other people fail you?  Do you get angry at yourself or others for not straightening up, not making the flesh better?  I know I do, all the time.  And that’s a sure sign that my hope was in the flesh. 

Picture it this way.  Suppose you were planning a pool party, and you invite lots of friends over for a fun day of swimming.  The day of the party ends up being overcast and rainy, but that doesn’t dampen your plans one bit.  Why?  Because it’s an indoor pool.  Since your hope didn’t depend on the weather, the weather couldn’t spoil anything for you.

By the same token, our hope, peace, and joy can’t be stolen when man’s abilities, efforts, or resources fail us…if our confidence was in God and not the flesh.  People and circumstances can disappoint, grieve, and hurt us, but they can’t take away our God-given spiritual blessings in the process. 

If the world didn’t give it to us, then the world can’t take it away.

2.  We know we are putting confidence in the flesh when we focus on reforming the flesh rather than crucifying it.

The Bible does not teach us to reform our flesh, to improve it, to make it shape up and get right.  No, what God tells us to do is crucify the flesh (Gal. 5:24), put it to death (Col. 3:5), consider it dead (Rom. 6:11), and refuse to “walk in it” (Gal. 5:16).

This doesn’t refer to destroying or abusing our bodies, as some ascetics and legalists do.  The “flesh” referred to here is our sinful nature which pervades every part of our being. 

Geese have a goosy nature that pervades their goosy flesh.  It makes their bodies honk, swim, and fly south in the winter. 

Dogs have a doggy nature that makes their doggy flesh bark, their doggy tails wag, and their doggy noses intrude in strange places.

Sinners have a sinful nature that makes their sinful flesh…well…sin.  We aren’t defined as sinners because we commit sins.  We commit sins because we have sinful natures.  It’s who we are.  It’s what we do.

Attempts at reformation are based on confidence.  If you keep trying to reform an addict, it’s because you believe there’s some glimmer of hope.  If you give up on them, it’s because all hope is gone (as far as you’re concerned.)  In the same way, if we’re busy trying to reform our flesh, that means we’re still putting confidence in it.  We ought to be putting nails in it (figuratively speaking, of course)!

I confess that, for most of my life, that sort of talk sounded like nonsense to me.  Because I did not truly have the Spirit of God dwelling within me, I could make no sense of the notion of choosing to walk in Him rather than in the flesh.  The flesh was all I had!  To choose not to walk in it left me with a vacuum.  You might as well tell me to walk in nothing at all.  It just didn’t work.

But praise God, His Spirit now lives in me, and I have a choice I did not have before.  My flesh has nothing good in it, and whenever I choose to walk in the flesh, I am instantly as miserable a sinner as I ever was.  But I don’t have to walk in the flesh any more! 

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
(2Co 3:17)

What a wonderful freedom!  Why do I ever turn my back on it?

One of the hallmarks of a true believer is that they will not continue in sin (Rom. 6:2).  They will sometimes fall, but they will miss their Beloved too much to stay in the muck.  And their return to Him does not come as a result of self-reformation.  It happens because of the genuine presence of the Holy Spirit of Christ who indwells them, and in Whom they can find their way (John 14:6).

3.  We know we are putting confidence in the flesh when we feel prideful about anything.

Pride is giving the flesh more credit than it’s due.  ‘Nuff said.

4.  We know we are putting confidence in the flesh when we put people on pedestals.

Hero worship.  Idolizing people.  Believing that the perfect mate would make our lives perfect bliss.  Believing that there’s someone on this planet we just can’t live without.  Even idolizing the ideal “self” that we hope to become someday.  It’s all confidence in the flesh.

Ever see someone so “in love” that they actually worship the other person?  Ever been there yourself? 

While it’s great to appreciate the good in others, it’s wrong to put our hope, our peace, our joy in their flesh.  If there’s good in anyone, appreciate it and bless their Maker for it.  Keep your hope, peace, and joy in Him, and they’ll be safe even when mere mortals let us down.

5.  We know we are putting confidence in the flesh whenever we sin in any way.

The Spirit says, “Come to Christ to find the abundant life.”  The flesh says, “Forget Christ.  Pamper me with sin to find the abundant life.” 

We’ll follow the one we have confidence in.  Period.

In my flesh, and in yours, dwells no good thing.

But the Bible doesn’t always use the phrase “no good thing” in a negative way.  Let’s close with the following promise:

For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.
(Ps. 84:11)

There's no need to be discouraged about the "no good thing" of Rom. 7:18, when we have the “no good thing” of Ps. 84:11!

May we rest our confidence fully upon the One who is our sun, our shield, our grace, and our glory!

21st-Century Tech and 19th-Century Preachers

Image by almoko via Flickr

At various points throughout the life of this blog, readers have asked questions about how I study the Bible and where I find all of Morrison’s wonderful writings.  The answers to those two questions are intertwined, so I’m combining them today.

My main study Bible is the eSword electronic version.  It is a free download in its basic form with non-copyrighted Bible versions, but you can also download additional materials such as other translations of the Bible, devotionals, commentaries, Bible dictionaries, maps, and other valuable resources.  Some are free, others are not.  The daily devotionals have been a very rich resource for me, particularly the Morrison and Spurgeon ones.  Yes, that’s right, it’s through eSword that I discovered Morrison.  Since it’s not easy to find Morrison’s writings online, it’s worth the download just to get those devotionals.

One of the things I like to do with my eSword is to take copious notes.  You can write long notes for any verse and have them available right beside the text.  I often copy entire devotional entries into the corresponding verses’ note pages, giving rich insights every time I visit those verses. 

There are many other features of this Bible that are quite useful and helpful, but I will stop with simply recommending that you visit the eSword site and investigate it for yourself.

Another very nice downloadable Bible program is simply called “The Word,” and it’s worth checking out as well.

Whenever I’m away from home, I always have a Bible handy, thanks to MyBible 4 from Laridian Publishing.  If you use a handheld Palm, Windows, IPod or Blackberry device, you’ll want to check this program out.  I wrote earlier about how I use the Scripture Memory program that you can also download from this site, so I won’t go into that again.  Laridian also offers devotionals, dictionaries, and commentaries, as well as free and paid translations of the Bible, all for your handheld.  I highly recommend this resource.

Another excellent resource is the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.  The CCEL is for online use, but it has features you’d often expect only from a downloadable program (such as the ability to highlight text.  Your highlights will be remembered whenever you sign in).  CCEL offers a wide variety of classic Christian literature, going all the way back to the 1st Century, and moving up to extensive libraries of the greats like Jonathan Edwards, John Owen, John Bunyan, Charles Spurgeon, and more!  Definitely an invaluable resource for those of us who could never dream of amassing our own vast printed libraries.

Now it’s your turn.  Have you found any “Helpful Tech” that you’d like to share?  Or do you have any further comments on the ones discussed above?  Please leave your thoughts for us to enjoy.

The Wonder of Our Daily Bread

In these uncertain times, in which matters great and small fill our hearts and minds with very real concerns, I find comfort in the simply profound truths written below.  They help us appreciate the greatness of God’s “simple gifts,” and also give us hope that our own small lives matter more than we may realize.  I hope these words are a help to you as well.

 

Every Harvest Is Prophecy

G.H. Morrison on Matt. 6:11 (Edited for length)

The Tiniest Petitions

“When you read it unimaginatively, ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ seems an almost trifling petition. It almost looks like an intruder here. On the one side of it (Matt. 6:10) there is the will of God, reaching out into the height of heaven. On the other side of it (Matt. 6:12) there are our sins, reaching down into unfathomed depths. And then, between these two infinities, spanning the distance from cherubim to Satan, there is ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’ Our sin runs back to an uncharted past, but in this petition there is no thought of yesterday. The will of God shall be for evermore, but in this petition there is no tomorrow.  As if some hill that a child could climb should be set down between two mighty Alps, so seems this prayer for our daily bread between the will of the eternal God, and the cry for pardon for our sins whose roots go down into the depths of hell.

But now suppose you take this prayer and set it in the light of harvest. Give us this day our daily bread—can you tell me what is involved when it is answered? Why, if you but realized it, and caught the infinite range of its relationships, never again would it be insignificant. For all the ministry of spring is in it, and all the warmth and glory of the summer. And night and day, and heat and cold, and frost, and all the falling of the rain. And light that has come from distances unthinkable, and breezes that have blown from far away, and powers of nourishment that for years have been preparing in the mother earth.  Is it a little thing to get a piece of bread? Is it so little that it is out of place here where we are moving in the heights and depths? Not if you set it in the light of harvest.

I think then there is a lesson here about the greatness of the things we pray for. Our tiniest petitions might seem large, if we only knew what the answer would involve. There are things which you ask for which seem little things. Yet could you follow out that prayer of yours, you might find it calling for the power of heaven as mightily as the conversion of the nations.  You are lonely, and you pray to God that He would send a friend into your life. And then some day to you there comes that friend, perhaps in the most casual of meetings. Yet who shall tell the countless prearrangements, before there was that footfall on the threshold which has made all the difference in the world to you?

Give us this day our daily bread, and the sunshine and the storm are in the answer. Give us a friend, and perhaps there was no answer saving for omniscience and omnipotence. Now we know in part and see in part, but when we know even as we are known we shall discover all that was involved in the answer to our humblest prayers.

The Toil It Cost

In the second place, in the light of harvest think of the toil that lies behind the gift.

Now and then a gift is given us which touches us in a peculiar way, because we recognize the toil it cost. It may be given us by a child perhaps, or it may be given us by some poor woman. And it is not beautiful, nor is it costly, nor would it fetch a shilling in the market. And yet to us who know the story of it, and how the hands were busied in the making, it may be beautiful as any diadem. 

I want you then to take that thought and to apply it to your daily bread. It is a gift, and yet behind that gift do you remember all the toil there is?  Daily bread is more divine than manna for, like manna, it is the gift of heaven, and yet we get it not till arms are weary and sweat has broken on the human brow. I think of the ploughman with his steaming horses driving his furrow in the heavy field. I think of the sower going forth to sow. I think of the stir and movement of the harvest. I think of the clanking of the threshing mill, and of the dusty grinding of the corn, and of all those who in our bakeries are toiling in the night when we are sleeping.

And is it not generally in such ways that our most precious gifts are given us? Every good and perfect gift is from above, yet is there something of heart-blood on them all. A noble painting is a precious gift. It is a thing of beauty and a joy forever.  So is it with every noble poem; so with our civil and religious liberty. They are all gifts to us; they come from God; they are ours to cherish and enjoy. Yet every one of them is wet with tears, and charactered with human toil and pain, and oftentimes, like the Messiah's garment, dipped in the final ministry of blood. Into that fellowship of lofty gifts I want you, then, to put your daily bread. It is not little, nor is it insignificant when you remember all that lies behind it.

By Lowly Hands

Lastly, in the light of harvest think of the hands through which the gift is given. ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ we pray, and then through certain hands it is bestowed. Whose hands? Are they the hands of the illustrious, or of those whose names are famous in the world? All of you know as well as I do that it is not thus our bread is ministered; it reaches us by the hands of lowly men. Out of his cottage does the reaper come, and back to his cottage does he go at evening. And we halt a moment, and we watch him toiling under the autumn sunshine in the field. But what his name is, or where he had his birth, or what are his hopes and what his tragedies, of that we know absolutely nothing. So was it with the sower in the spring, and the harvester in autumn. They have no chronicle, nor any luster, nor any greatness in the eyes of man. And what I want you to realize is this, that when God answers this universal prayer, it is such hands as these that he employs.  Are there not tens of thousands who are nameless, toiling, sorrowing, rejoicing, dying, and never raising a ripple on the sea? Give us this day our daily bread—it is by such hands that the prayer is answered. It is by these that the Almighty Father shows that He is hearkening to His children. It is His recognition of obscurity.

Perhaps we shall never know how life is beautified and raised and glorified by those who toil in undistinguished fashion. Such men may never write great poems, but it is they who make great poems possible. Such may never do heroic things, but they are the soil in which the seed is sown. Such men will not redeem the world. It takes the incarnate Son of God for that. But they—the peasants and the fishermen—will carry forth the music to humanity. Give us this day our daily bread. Are there not multitudes who are praying so?

And you, you have no genius, no gifts? You are an obscure and ordinary person ? But if there is any meaning in our text, set in the light of sowing and of harvest, it is that the answer to that daily prayer will be vouchsafed through lowly folk like you.”

G.H. Morrison (1866-1928)