Sin Is The Reason For The Season.

For years the phrase, "Jesus is the reason for the season" has been popular to say among the religious.  My husband never really liked it and one day said, "You know, really, sin is the reason for the season."  He's right.  We have been living, as Tozer says, "in the shadow of the fall".  Sin is a blight on man from birth to death but praise God, Jesus stepped into time to reconcile man and God.

I've been studying Matthew Poole for several months now as I go through Leviticus and Hebrews simultaneously.  This morning's reading "wowed" me several times as he expressed his thoughts on reconciliation.  Today, I'd like to share some of what he said.  (What Poole writes here is from his commentary on Hebrews 9, specifically verses 9, 10, 12 and 14.)

"God's institution of all the ordinances that the Jews were to keep were right and good but could never reach any further than the flesh.  The gifts and sacrifices were impotent as to the restoring of a sinner to God's favor and they could not reconcile him to God, preserve communion or bring him happiness.  The ordinances could never take away the guilt of sin from the conscience.  It always only cried "guilty"!  They could not remove the power of sin for we were under bondage.   That pressure of bondage results in fear and terrors.  

The  pure, precious, unspotted blood of Jesus rended the veil, laid it open and He came with it to God's throne.  The throne of justice!  He made the everlasting atonement and turned the throne into a throne of grace!!  He fulfilled all righteousness at once forever!  That proper, precious, powerful blood of God incarnate took away inherent corruption and infused holiness into the believer.  

And because of the purifying Correspondent, souls are quickened, have boldness and confidence Godward in point of duty, to present themselves living sacrifices and aim at God through their whole life; that He delights to keep up communion with them, proportioned to Himself until He fit them for complete serving and enjoying of Him in the Holy of Holiest in heaven!"

Ok!  So I don't know about you but that is rich and exciting and hopeful and wonderful!  And there is nothing that can make me any more joyful than that!  Praise Him for His grace in grabbing me from the muck of darkness and grant me His light.  I love Christmas but I don't need Christmas to make me happy.  For there is no happiness that compares to deliverance from bondage, fear, terror and the turmoil caused by sin within and without!

"Change We Can Believe In"

"Stronger Together"and "Make America Great Again" are fair slogans, ideal goals.  One cannot argue with the meaning, except when being proclaimed by those whose lifestyles do not reflect the words. I'll not labor over the upcoming election as it is too weary an endeavor and there are too many opinions.  And what I'd like to settle in on today is what our current president proclaimed as he ran for office, "Change We Can Believe In".  Now that is a great slogan and I do not want to concentrate on how that promise has been met but I would like to give true hope as to a promise that is always safe.

In his short but deep and thought provoking book, Knowledge of the Holy, A. W. Tozer beautifully illuminates the exciting and hope-filled truth of the immutability of God in chapter nine.  And in this amazing description of just one awesome attribute, he shares what God proclaims about Himself in regard to change and about us.  "I am the Lord.  I change not."  But for us, God says, "are being transformed", "have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge". (2 Corinthians 3:18; Colossians 3:10) "In Him, men of faith find at last eternal permanence.  In the meanwhile change works for the children of the kingdom, not against them."

"Poets have found morbid pleasure in the law of impermanence and have sung in a minor key the song of perpetual change."  (Think Leonard Cohen, an extraordinarily gifted artist but dark and without hope.  Or so it seems.)  "This note of sweet sorrow expressed with gentle humor gives a radiant beauty to his quatrains but, however beautiful, the whole... is sick, sick unto death...the poet is fascinated by the enemy that is destroying him."

"For human beings the possibility of redemption lies in their ability to change.  To move across from one sort of person to another is the essence of repentance: the liar becomes truthful, the thief honest, the lewd pure, the proud humble.... So radical is this change that the apostle calls the man that used to be 'the old man' and the man that now is 'the new man.'  When God infuses eternal life into the spirit of man, the man becomes a member of a new and higher order of being....In the working out of His redemptive processes the unchanging God makes full use of change and through a succession of changes arrives at permanence at last."

Believers have found the "cure for the great sickness".  This is the message of the gospel.  Christians aren't trying to get as many people into their club as possible as though this might be a greater entrance into heaven.  NO!  Christ alone is their hope and way to God.  Christians that have truly been changed want others to experience the freedom that God has bestowed on them and the hope He has given.  They are excited about the change.  It is truly a change that can be believed!

Tozer expresses in his book that some of you may think Christianity as being "something that might bring a certain satisfaction to persons of a particular type of mind but can have no real significance for practical men."  Yet I've heard such men speak of the good ole days with longing.  And it may be that their own change in attitude toward beauty and permanence is the very reason for this lacking.  What peace God offers to all through Jesus Christ to "know that our Heavenly Father never differs from Himself.  In coming to Him at any time we need not wonder whether we shall find Him in a receptive mood.  He is always receptive to misery and need, as well as to love and faith.  He does not keep office hours nor set aside periods when He will see no one.  Neither does He change His mind about anything.... He never changes moods or cools off in His affections or lose enthusiasm.  His attitude toward the sinner is the same as when He stretched forth His hands and cried, 'Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

Danger Signal

A man with a disease so far advanced that he has no strength or no power to throw off the effects of its spreading.  A helpless infant, newly born, deserted by its mother, unwashed, unclothed, unfed, forlorn, abandoned, hopeless.  These are two biblical illustrations of sin and the sinner.  Charles Spurgeon beautifully and powerfully explains the wonder of the gospel in his sermon, "For Whom Did Christ Die?" Read it in its entirety if you like; but for this post, here are a few nuggets from it.

For the most part, the people I know would do everything in their power to find a cure for their disease or take care of a helpless, abandoned baby.  But the sinner, suffering from the moral calamity of their sin "has no desire to throw it off.  He could not save himself if he would and would not if he could."  And "the worst feature in this plight --> you love the evil which is destroying you."  While in this condition, "Jesus interposes!" "When we were yet without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly."  (Romans 5:6)  "Ungodly: the Greek word is so expressive that it must take in your case, however wrongly you acted."

"If men were wise, they would ponder this night and day.  Jesus knew when He died that if the world was left to itself, it would grow worse and worse; that by its very wisdom, it would darken its own eyes and develop into a deeper damnation.  If you are unconverted, you are in grave danger, imminent peril, solemn danger.  The cross needs to be a danger signal for you.  Believe in Christ and you shall be saved from that ungodliness.  Jesus has not come to save men in their sins but from their sins and this is the best news for those who are diseased with sin."

"Mercy has my heart subdued, a bleeding Savior I have viewed and now I hate my sin."  "Christ died for the ungodly."   "Accept this truth and you are saved!  Not merely pardoned, not just that you will enter heaven, but you will have a new heart, you will be saved from a love of sin, saved from drunkenness, saved from blasphemy, saved from dishonesty.  Trust in the mercy of God through the death of Christ and a new era of your life's history will commence at once.  Do not reject this.  It is your life."  Let the cross be the warning that saves your life.

Zombies

Have we ceased to wonder?  Do we take time to look up at the sky, "that great, deep sea of azure that swims overhead; the winds sweeping through it; the black cloud fashioning itself together, now pouring out fire, now hail and rain; what is it?"  Such words were penned by Thomas Carlyle and referenced in A.W. Tozer's book, Knowledge of the Holy.  Tozer says that "we have grown use to it"-the world in all its beauty and splendor.  Carlyle goes on to write, "It's not by our superior insight...it is by our superior levity, our inattention."  And to this Tozer writes, "this world after all our science and sciences is still a miracle...to whosoever will think of it."

Tozer says, "secularism, materialism and the intrusive presence of things have put out the light in our souls and turned us into a generation of zombies.  We cover our deep ignorance with words, but we are ashamed to wonder, we are afraid to whisper, 'mystery'."  This we do by neglecting the wonder of nature and on a greater scale, to think seriously about God, the Creator, the great "I Am, the Self-existent Self back of which no creature can think".  We prefer to think about the temporal problems like how to build a better this or that.  And Tozer goes on to say, "For this we are now paying a too heavy price in the secularization of our religion and the decay of our inner lives".

John MacArthur in his commentary on Hebrews writes, "One cannot help wonder how many thousands of people in hell were close to salvation, how many thousands were close to being safely moored and anchored only to drift away forever by their failure to receive what they heard.  Drifting is so quiet, so easy, but so damning.  All you have to do to go to hell is nothing."  Like zombies, this generation, who have chosen not to think about that which they cannot explain, wander around dead, moving, with only the appearance of life.  They have lost their wonder, their desire, and their purpose for living.

Look up.  Look at the sky in all its beauty and think.  Think of the Creator, the Creator of all that we see and still cannot fully explain.  And "know that He is God.  It is He that has made you and not you yourself."  Then get on your knees and ask Him for help and hope that He alone can supply.  "Call to Him and He will answer and show you great and mighty things you do not know."  "Our deep ignorance" will then be consumed by the "mystery" of the life of Christ.  "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God for those who believe."  [Psalm 100:3; Jeremiah 33:3; Romans 1:16]  The power of the life of Christ, alone, will bring life to the generation of zombies, the living dead, who have ceased to whisper "mystery".    

Eternal Pressure

God's Word is such a joy, such a delight to me.  And at the same time, there's a heavy weight that comes with it that causes me such horror.  The pressure is great and the burden is daily.  It's the weight of those unbelieving family members and friends who continue on the wrong path.  They run happily in the dark with no fear whatsoever that eternity lurks at every turn.  Even though their life continues to spiral, they are content to keep God out at all costs.  And the horror, the tragedy is their complete ignorance of how an eternity without God looks.

A. W. Tozer in his book, Knowledge of the Holy, expresses it best:
"What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us...
The man who comes to a right belief about God is relieved of ten thousand temporal problems, for he sees at once that these have to do with matters which at the most cannot concern him for very long; but even if the multiple burdens of time may be lifted from him, the one mighty single burden of eternity begins to press down upon him with a weight more crushing than all the woes of the world piled one upon another.  That mighty burden is his obligation to God.  It includes an instant and lifelong duty to love God with every power of mind and soul, to obey Him perfectly, and to worship him acceptably.  And when the man's laboring conscience tells him that he has done none of these things, but has from childhood been guilty of foul revolt against the Majesty in the heaven, the inner pressure of self-accusation may become too heavy to bear.  The gospel can lift this destroying burden from the mind, give beauty for ashes, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.  But unless the weight of the burden is felt, the gospel can mean nothing to the man; and until he sees a vision of God high and lifted up, there will be no woe and no burden.  Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them."

I cannot add a word to such a beautiful and helpful explanation.  But as Jesus came to be our supreme Guide and Helper in matters of the supernatural, the Christian, by His light, gives his life to be used to rescue those who drown in their own dark ignorance.

Under The Authority

Pride is a sneaky, slimy trait that worms its way into most all aspects of our character.  As I prayed this morning, I asked for the ability to follow Jesus' lead into the beauty of humility.  As rehearsed over and over in the Gospels, He was under the authority of God.  Do we get that?  For me, it's one of those mind-boggling truths that gives me a headache.  I'm just too finite to get it.  Jesus told the Jews that He was not there on His own authority.  He told the disciples that He did not speak on His own authority.  He told them that the Father was greater than Himself.  (John 7:28; 14:10;28)  While there are many more references, the point for my post today is that Jesus humbled Himself.  He was fully God and also fully Man.  And as Man, He was under the divine authority of God, the Father!

Do we get that?  Here is one more amazing example of perfection lived out before a watching world and written down for the benefit of all the people who were to come.  Jesus, God in the flesh, submitted Himself to the authority of God.  He is equal, but made Himself submissive for a purpose that was perfectly planned out.  I thought to myself, "why am I so dull of mind?"  I get upset over a few ungodly unbelievers and believers.  I want to cry "unfair"!  And here is God in the flesh submitting to the authority of God Who is in control and has planned and purposed all things rightly.  Who am I in all my stupid pride to fret over a few inconveniences and slandering?  God submitted to God because He knew that it was the only way that was true.

And it's the way of peace.  Under the authority of God!  As I continued in prayer, Philippians 2:6 came to my mind: "He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped".  That is where we have to come: submission!  I wanted to put my hands over my head and cry for forgiveness.  Pride stinks and I want it destroyed.  The Christian's walk is a process, always learning, always fighting sin, and always growing in amazed wonder at our Sovereign God.  Pride fills the way with potholes that will keep us anxious and fretting over things of no value whatsoever in the spiritual realm.

Let the instruction of Philippians 2:5-7 and the example of Christ's humility written down in the Gospels, direct us in a path that fulfills the true longings of the heart.  Only He can fill the void created by sin and give us true purpose for living. "Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men".  Under the authority of God is the only safe haven for all creatures.  And Jesus has lived out that example for us and blessed us with the privilege of having it written down for our eternal benefit.  Pride must not be allowed to hinder us or it will be a calamity far more heinous than anything this life could ever bring.

Garbage Day

I love my early morning walk!!  Except on Thursdays.  Thursday is Garbage Day.  Depending on my time, I am either passing garbage containers full of stinky trash or empty containers that reek of the extracted contents.  No matter what road I choose, it's going to be a stinky walk here and there.

This morning a quote from John Piper came to mind as I passed each container full of garbage.  He was answering a question about using transgender bathrooms at Target (or wherever).  The answer he gives is excellent, but the portion for my post is his last paragraph: "I think we should spend most of our creative energies on constructing in our minds and in our hearts and in our families great and beautiful and glorious alternative visions of reality than the ones we are being offered by the world.  If we give most of our time to bemoaning and criticizing the world for acting like the world, our vision of God and his glorious future for his people will become smaller and smaller, and that could be a greater tragedy than the one we are living in."

Garbage day is a reality.  It is what it is.  I don't embrace garbage or hang with it or advocate it but it's here for the duration.  I can boycott that day but I'm the looser because, well as I said, I love my walk.  So I pass a couple of stinky containers every block.  I still have the rest of the block and the blocks before me to walk, feel the vitality of exercise and look up at the blue sky rejoicing in all the blessings God has bestowed on me.

Pride and Punishment

"All mankind is stupid and devoid of knowledge..."  How's that for a commentary on humanity?  The books of Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes tells us consecutively: "the fear of the LORD, that is wisdom", "the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge...", "the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom...", "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments..."  Oh for grace to understand the beauty, simplicity, and profound truth of this starting point toward a right perspective on life!

Jeremiah, a book that many view as depressing, has given me such hope and encouragement as I bow down in amazement of our compassionate and sovereign Creator.  Over the years we grab a few profound verses from this book but in its entirety, it holds a picture that has energized me with renewed views of myself and my Father.  "Ah, Lord, GOD!  Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm!  Nothing is too difficult for You..." (32:17) How I need to bask in that verse daily as I begin each day on my knees for God's divine and power direction.

Since the fall, we are all born with a bent in the opposite direction of holiness.  And with each chapter of Jeremiah, we see ourselves but for God's grace in the wayward Israelites and all the pagan nations around them.  We must not point our finger, for in this book, we see the only Finger that has a right to point, and He will do what He purposes to do.  If we, in our wicked bent toward evil, want to kick against God in pseudo pride, then all that we have waiting for us is calamity.  And it's this that I want to address in this post: pride and punishment!

While all the book of Jeremiah has valuable lessons, pride is a major part of our sin nature which can and does wreck havoc in the life of unbelievers and believers alike.  And in chapter forty-eight, we see clear characteristics of this pride.  Contemplate the following list and apply with holy desire of divine correction to your own lives: lofty, praised (desire for praise), trust in own achievements and treasures, at ease since youth, undisturbed warriors, valiant, glory and strongholds in yourself, arrogant toward God, idle boasts, abundance, and riotous revelers.

The punishment of unconfessed and foolish pride is sure.  Whether the lesson is dealt with in this life or the next, pain is sure.  But the pain here, I pray, is corrective pain that leads to salvation.  Because the pain in hell will never be over.  Consider the following punishment characterized in this same chapter, for the Creator God that Jeremiah tells us to "behold" in the verse above does not miss His mark: destroyed, put to shame, captured, shattered, no more praise, calamity, cut off from being a nation, silenced, sword (death), great destruction, broken, little ones crying, continual weeping, anguished cry, exiled, priests and princes (high positions and status of no consequence), ruined lands, slaughtered, disaster, laughing stock, futile fury, and no shouts of joy.

Due to length of post, I left many in the punishment list off.  But hopefully, we get the picture of the end of pride.  Let us seek God on our knees in humble adoration of His ability to heal us while we still breathe the breath of life on earth.  Let us give up to Him all our concerns, questions, and idols, that we may live a life that brings Him honor, glory, and praise.  And that our life will be fulfilled with joy and peace as only He can give.  May Jesus Christ be praised for His unspeakable gift of salvation.  Holy is His name!

Perhaps

God used Jeremiah to warn Israel, as He had done with other prophets.  Time and again, Jeremiah delivers God's message of warning to deaf ears.  However, as Israel is prone to do, when the going gets rough, then run to God for help.

Jeremiah has been talking to Israel for twenty chapters.  He has been beaten and put in stocks for his effort, bemoaning his own birth in the process.  Now, in chapter twenty-one, the king sends his men to Jeremiah with an inquiry, because the enemy is coming.  "Please inquire to the LORD on our behalf...perhaps the LORD will deal with us according to all His wonderful acts, so that the enemy will withdraw from us."  

Perhaps?  That word alone shows that God's people really don't know Him at all.  God is not a haphazard God.  He speaks.  We say, "Amen", so be it!  That's part of the wonder, beauty, and power of God.  That's part of the security of trusting Him.  He is sovereign, sure, and what He says is sound!

Perhaps?  Have they not been listening?  He has told them over and over what is.  Their inquiry is too late.  

Oh, the sorrow and devastation of being too late.  We are the unruly and haphazard ones.  We are the ones who tend toward chance and luck.  God would, a couple of chapters later, use that same word in reference to His people: "stand...and speak...all the words that I have commanded you to speak to them.  Do not omit a word!  Perhaps they will listen and everyone will turn from his evil way, that I may repent of the calamity which I am planning to do to them because of the evil of their deeds."

Perhaps!  Our thoughts of God are too much like our thoughts of ourselves.  We ought to be ashamed that we know so little of the character of our God.  "Study to show yourselves approved to God, a workman that needs not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." (2 Timothy 2:15)

Contrast

"...a woman came to Him with an alabaster vial of very costly perfume, and she poured it on His head as He reclined at the table...truly I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her."

"Now when evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the twelve disciples.  As they were eating, He said, 'Truly I say to you that one of you will betray Me...The Son of Man will go, just as it is written of Him; but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed!  It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.'"

As He reclined: A woman/A man.  Costly perfume/Blood money.  Love poured out/Love sold out.    

Honorable deed/Traitor's woe.  Beautiful memory/Despicable birth.  The woman: nameless/The man: Judas.  

According to Matthew and Mark, once "the woman" displayed her love, "then Judas went" and betrayed Jesus love.  Oh, how wonderful and oh, how tragic!!  Let us meditate with great seriousness our walk in this life.  It is our witness; it is the display of our true heart's devotion.

Too Crowded to Notice

At a recent Bible study, someone made the point of Jesus sitting weaving the whip He was about to use in the temple to drive out the money changers.  I never thought about that.  I've pictured Him doing the deed but never weaving the whip.  "And He made a scourge of cords..."

Think about it, there He was in the middle of all those thousands of people.  Did anyone notice Him sitting there making a whip?  Did they stop to think why?  Or was it too crowded to care what one Person was doing?

It's just a thought, but are we too crowded with the many worthless pursuits of life to care that life is not always going to go on like it does.  There are going to be changes.  Are we prepared?  Spurgeon said in a recent devotion that we need to view everything in our life as temporal, that change will not come on us unexpectedly.  That's not to say we should not enjoy life, but to view it in terms of eternity.  And also, for those who do not know Christ, to view every breath they take as one more compassionate gift of God to direct them to Himself.  Let it not become too crowded to notice that He compassionately warns us of the coming changes and eternity's certainty.  He IS weaving the whip, but He has granted us "everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him."  Seek Him, listen, obey!  It is the only answer to life's uncertainty!

"My Precious"

Gollum's "precious" consumed him to the point that he was unrecognizable as what he had been: a hobbit.  Of course, you may say, "that's fiction."  Yes, it is but what is fiction but what man takes out of the life he knows and writes it down?  Therefore, I'm sure Tolkien had seen the deterioration of humans consumed with stuff.

God, of course, knows it well.  He has watched it continually since man's beginning.  As He had done so many times before, God discusses with His prophet Jeremiah what to say to disobedient Israel.  However, Jeremiah has faltered and become frustrated with his job.  It's not an easy job to tell people they are to turn or burn.  But the fact is that this is truly a compassionate work on God's part.  He doesn't have warn them.  And now His prophet is fumbling around in self-pity.  So God must deal with Jeremiah before He continues His warning to His people, Israel.

Jeremiah's "precious" must be unmixed with what the world deems precious!  And he must rouse himself to the amazing position he holds as God's spokesman to the His people.  God, the mighty Maker of all things, is speaking to Jeremiah.  So, in his faltering, God deals with him a moment so that he can get back to the business at hand.  "If you return, then I will restore you--before Me you will stand; and if you extract the precious from the worthless, you will become My spokesman.  They for their part may turn to you, but as for you, you must not turn to them."  Jeremiah 15:19

Let us turn to what is truly "Precious", for there is our only hope, security, and peace.  Is Jesus precious to you?  If yes, then be consumed with Him and not with that worthless pursuit that will one day come to nothing.  That is NOT fiction, but is life changing and life saving.  May we, too, become "unrecognizable" as to our former way of life as we submit to this transformation God wants to make in us.

Locked Out

For some weeks now, I have been locked out of my blogspot.  I've been blogging now for over five years.  I've written down personal thoughts that are a peek into the person God is making out of me.  I haven't told many people about my blog, as I viewed it not as a blog to gain a following, but to just throw out thoughts to cyber space and hope God uses some of them for His glory.

When I have some thoughts that come out of my personal Bible study, I write them here.  After one such morning, I came to post some thoughts, and I could not access my blog in order to write, edit or really do much of anything.  I won't belabor all the details of what followed, but let it suffice to say that I tried many things to get back in and could not.  I felt violated and then hopeless.  It was like coming home and your house is no longer yours.  Or like going to get into your car and it's stolen.  I know it's just a blogspot, but it was part of me.

Today I found a way back in and here I am.  However, it occurred to me through this trivial blip of my personal life crisis, that there is a much greater hopelessness that has devastatingly eternal consequences.  For if a person rejects God or tries to access God through his own works, that person will be "locked out" of eternal life.  They will be going along, thinking things are fine because everything goes on as usual, but they would not heed the signs along the way or stop to think or consider.  And then it will be too late.  And they will not "find a way back in".

"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father, Who is in heaven will enter.  Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?'  And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you'; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.'  Locked Out!!  (Matthew 7:21-23)