"God and God Alone"

“Oh! What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”  These  famous words from Marmion by Walter Scott, came to my mind today as I mentally reviewed my sins of the week before I came to God in prayer.  While I do desire to honor God with my life, I find too often tucked away in the inner recesses of my mind, wretched thoughts that afflict me.  It grieves my heart to know there is still sin on the loose with which I still must search and destroy.  But even greater grief should I suffer if I think too highly of my  own spirituality. 

Yes, we must deal daily with these internal sins or we will grow accustomed to their presence and become comfortable with them.  I find, on reflection, that there is an intricate network of sin still lingering: manipulative thoughts (you know, how we get people to do things without coming right out and asking), two-facedness (we say one thing in response to comments made by a friend while thinking something entirely different), gossip (the kind where we sit and listen to things said about acquaintances without taking up for them or rebuking the negative talk), unbridled talk (that which we say to get a laugh or to promote our own wisdom when it casts slur on another).

This is deception of the worst kind.  And it calls for us to lay prostrate at the throne of the Most High God to rehearse the truth about our day, present to Him in grief and repentance and thank Him for His mercy and forgiveness to us.  And with His granted mercy and forgiveness, to have mercy on others for whom we pray.   We should never become so high-minded as to think we have any goodness that came from the inside.  No indeed!!  What we have in the way of goodness came to us through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.  And it is Him and Him alone who will keep us where we should be.

For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.  (Philippians 2:13)  Remember that!!  It’s as simple as it gets!  God and God Alone has the power to use us or we are useless!!  We are nothing apart from His power.  And our works are worthless unless they are worked in by Him.   In the verse 12 of the same passage, it says: “…work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”   Only God can work it in.  It’s there if you are a believer; you can only work out what He has worked in!!

God will free us from the deception of sin.  We must be on guard to its presence or we will become tangled and of no use.  Forgive us Father for our deceit and free us, that we will serve you with purity and power!  Amen and Amen!!   (And FYI listen to the song, “God and God Alone”, written by Steve Green)

Divinely Determined Details

At a Bible Study recently the teacher talked about people making much of the miracles of the Bible.  Nothing wrong with that but he went on to say that people don’t talk about what he believed to be a far greater miracle (if you were going to categorize them).  That would be the miracle of “all things working together” (Romans 8:28). 

Meditate on that a bit!  All the details of everyone, past, present and future “work together”.  “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD”  (Jeremiah 29:11).

“In Him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will.”  Ephesians 1:11

He is divinely in charge of all the details of life and is faithfully determined to fulfill every one of them to the praise of His glory!  Let this soak in that it may free us from the bondage of anxiety.  May it direct us to the joy of His rest.  He is in control.  We are not.  And that’s a good thing! 

Perfect Love

The following is adapted from The Knowledge of the Holy by A. W. Tozer.  A very special young lady has brought it to my attention this week and I include it to encourage and remind other Christians what love from God looks like.  And to challenge and warn unbelievers what it is not.

“Thou hast declared Thine unchanging love for us in Christ Jesus.  If nothing in us can win Thy love, nothing in the universe can prevent Thee from loving us.  Help us to believe the intensity, the eternity of the love that has found us.  Then love will cast out fear; and our troubled hearts will be at peace, trusting not in what we are but in what Thou hast declared Thyself to be.”

"Equating love with God (or saying that love defines God) is a major mistake which has produced much unsound religious philosophy and has brought forth a spate of vaporous poetry completely out of accord with the Holy Scriptures and altogether of another climate from that of historic Christianity.  Love is something true about God but it is not God.

God’s love has no beginning.  He is eternal; His love can have no end.  He is infinite; it has no limit.  He is holy so His love is the quintessence (look it up) of all spotless purity.  He is immense; His love is an incomprehensible vast, bottomless, shoreless sea before which we kneel in joyful silence and from which the loftiest eloquence retreats confused and abashed."

There is much more in this very short chapter but to just ruminate on that last paragraph alone just blows me away and helps me to remember why “perfect love casts out fear”.  And on the other side of the coin, the “spotless purity” of His love can NEVER wink at sin.  The blood of the perfect Lamb of God makes us pure, ushers us into the presence of this amazing, perfect love and keeps us eternally, without spot, in His presence.  Meditate and rest in “joyful silence” on a Love that secure!  And be warned, unbeliever, at the state of your soul before a Love that pure!  "Retreat!!  Be confused and abashed!"  But know there is hope in Christ!  Indeed!  He is our ONLY HOPE!!

Easy Assignment

Sixty-four percent of adults and eighty-three percent of teenagers believe in relativism.  In other words, there are no absolutes.  (Barna and Gallup Research Statistics)  By God's grace and grace alone, I believe in absolutes.  The Bible is the inerrant Word of the Creator God.  It is as Francis Schaeffer calls it, "true truth"!  And by the power of the Holy Spirit, there stirs in me a hunger for that truth.  And by the look of just this one statistic, our work as believers is definitely cut out for us.  For, as Craig Branch, director of Apologetics Research Center, made clear to us, evangelism is the weakest link for the Christian.  And the negative statistics will only rise if we don't wake up.

So, Dr. Branch gave us this assignment:  When you wake up each day, follow the directions of Colossians 4:2-6.  I'll not write out the passage here, read it for yourself, but it starts like this, "Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it..."