Sunday Dinner

Sunday lunches were a big deal growing up in the South.  There were two particular meals that were my favorite and to this day, I cannot eat a meal that compares with them.  One was succulent roast with brown gravy, mashed potatoes, and some kind of green vegetable.  The other was almost the same but a change in meat: fried chicken!  I have not had fried chicken that good since!!  I absolutely cherish the memory of sitting down at the table with my parents and sister on Sundays after church. 

What if that were the only meal a person had all week?  Think about coming to the table starving.  You would not think about taste or the enjoyment of the meal and fellowship, but you would be ravaged by hunger.  There would not be the wonderful distinguishing factor of aroma and flavors, but only the need to fill a void crying out for health and relief from the distress of starvation.

I was thinking recently about the wonder and life-giving process afforded me by daily Bible study.  God blessed me, a non-reader, with a hunger for His word when He saved me.  And I continue to enjoy this jewel of truth even after forty years of being a believer.  I cannot imagine being a healthy or happy Christian without it.  And I also thought how like a banquet is the message God gives our pastor on Sunday mornings.  The Sunday message is a coming together of believers and seekers to a feast prepared by God.  How famished I would be had I not been daily nourished.  And what wonderful unity I find through God’s message when I’ve been in His word all week.  I can distinguish the aroma and flavor because He has been filling my void all week long with the nourishment of His word. 

Be nourished daily and come together weekly to feast at the banquet prepared by God.  And I look forward to the banquet Jesus has prepared for us in heaven.  That will be one rich and luxurious meal that will exceed my memory of juicy roast and crisp fried chicken.

Perfectly Helpless

"The cubs are born blind and helpless."  This is the sample sentence for "helpless" in the thesaurus.   Other words that can be used in place of "helpless" are incapable, powerless, impotent, and vulnerable. These words, as good a description as they are, still don't convey the completeness of this adjective.  Therefore, I also looked up "completely" in the thesaurus: totally, entirely, wholly, thoroughly, utterly, absolutely and perfectly.  I chose "perfectly" as you can't get any more complete than perfect.  But, as a person that sees more clearly using pictures, even those words as good, solid and simple as they are, cannot convey the magnitude of the point that I want to get across in this post.  I will, then, use an illustration to make it more imaginable.  For we do, indeed, need to get this.

The verse I want to illustrate is from Romans 5:6: "For while we were still helpless..."  Helpless!  Imagine a newly born infant lying on his back or stomach on a bed, the floor or whatever.  He is absolutely powerless to do even one thing to change his circumstances.  He can't turn over, get up, feed himself, take care of himself or survive at all.  He is "perfectly helpless"!  That is us apart from the power of God.  We are "perfectly helpless".  "For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly."

Those who read this post were or are like this helpless infant.  If you are in Christ, it is not a position you powered yourself into.  And if you are an unbeliever, you have no ability of your own to accept the claims of Jesus Christ without His divine power energizing your understanding.  We are, everyone, helpless.  The people are born blind and helpless.  And I will add, born with a sin nature that will need transforming.  That transformation has been gifted us by God and God alone.  "God demonstrates His own love for us in this that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."  (Romans 5:8)

Perfectly helpless though perfectly powered by the hand of God through Jesus Christ our Substitute and the Holy Spirit, our divine and daily Enabler!  Praise God for His unspeakable gift.

Heaven Bound Part II

Francis Schaeffer goes on to say in his book, True Spirituality, "Can't you imagine this man as he came back from heaven?  He had seen it as a propositional truth, as a brute fact.  He had been there, and looked at it, and then come back.  Would anything ever have looked the same to him again?  It is as though he had died.  It is as though he had been raised from the dead.  Just as the Mount of Transfiguration gives us a different perspective when we are in the perspective of the kingdom of God, how different this man's perspective would have been all his life.  The constant pressure to conform to the world about us, the social pressure and every other kind of pressure of our day--surely it would have been broken.  How could he conform to this, which is so marred, so broken, so caught up in revolution against God, so disgusting?  How could he, in comparison with what he had seen?  What would the praise of the world be worth when one had stood in the presence of God?  The wealth of the world, what would it look like beside the treasures of heaven?  Man longs for power.  But what is earthly power after one has seen the reality of heaven and the power of God?  All things would look different.  Sure all of this is involved in the statement that we are to live by faith now, as though we had already died, and already been raised from the dead."

So, what can be added to that??  Amen.  Let's do this!

Heaven Bound, Part I

In the disciple's prayer (Matthew 6:9-15), Jesus instructs them to pray, "thy kingdom come".  John MacArthur says in his commentary on Matthew that "our greatest desire should be to see the Lord reigning as King in His kingdom....His program and His plan should be the preoccupation of our lives and of our prayers."  He goes on to say that "sinful man could not be a part of a divine reign.  That is why we do not advance God's kingdom by trying to improve human society.  Many good and worthy causes deserve the support of Christians, but in supporting these causes we neither build the earthly kingdom of Jesus Christ or bring it closer.  Even the best of such things are but holding actions that help retard the corruption that will always and inevitably characterize human societies and human kingdoms,  until the Lord returns to establish His own perfect kingdom."

In thinking about God's perfect kingdom and our purpose in prayer to call for that kingdom to come, another great writer sheds light that correlates with this kingdom subject.  What if you died and became a part of God's perfect kingdom and came back to earth.  How would that change your thinking?  Dr. Schaeffer writes, in reference to Romans 6:10-11, "by faith we are to live now as though we have already died...live by faith now...as though we had been raised already from death...in our thoughts and lives now we are to live as though we had already died, been to heaven, and come back again as risen."

For my 200th post, I do something I've never done: Part I.   I will continue another time to think a bit more of the subject of dying, being raised to heaven and coming back to earth.  This is strictly hyperbole but I believe it is very important pondering in order to evaluate our present Christian thought, words and work.  We must be wise and efficient for there will be a time, a day when all opportunity will be over.

Run With God

My husband is a runner.  He has run consistently for all our 34 years of marriage.  His first 10k was when we first started dating.  He continued with 10ks, half-marathons, whole marathons, then went on to do many 50ks.  He doesn't get to run daily because of work but he tries to run at least 2-3 times a week.  Therefore, many would call him a weekend warrior, however, even on weekends, he only does Saturdays.  But even though he doesn't get the training time that many serious runners do, he is consistent and he does continue to do advertised runs with consistency.  He has the ability to persevere over his discomfort because his desire to finish, competing only with himself, is foremost in his drive.

He is like that in his spiritual life also, although he does "train" daily, but his perseverance is amazing.  His dependence on God and God's power in him has brought him to great heights of being patient and waiting on God's timing.  God has also blessed him with a determined, patient and loving attitude toward my "glass half-empty" self.  Which brings me to the reason of this post.

I always seem to react with "knee jerk" quickness and that has often led me to regret decisions I make.  My husband may drag out a reaction and be oh so very slow to me, but at least he does think out his responses.  As I prayed one day this week, I said, "God, I feel like I've fallen behind.  Is that because I ran ahead of You?"  As I prayed this, I thought and asked Him, "Will I ever learn to slow down?"  How many times does scripture pound me with, "Be still and know that I am God."  NASB says, "Cease striving and know..."

God has blessed me richly with a wonderful man to lead me.  I am thankful!!  I must learn to calculate with God's guidance my work and my running.   I must not run ahead of God, lest I fall behind His perfect plan and path for my life.  He has all the time in the world and holy patience with me but do I really want to continue learning the same lesson over and over?  I must be about my Father's business and that won't happen unless I'm listening to His guidance for that work.  Let us "run with perseverance the race marked out for us." Hebrews 12:1

Prayer Requests

I've blogged lines of prayer from the great prayers of puritans from a book called Valley of Vision.  Once again, I would like to share some lines from these great prayers in hopes that it will benefit someone somewhere as to a new pattern of prayer.  That's what these great prayers do for me.  It amazes me at how far short and how shallow my prayers are in comparison.  And yet, even they, were weak, fallen saints like me.  It is a good reminder of the work that still needs to be done in us and our great need of the day is to pray like never before.

"Incline my heart to thy ways; mould me wholly into the image of Jesus, as a potter forms clay; may my lips be a well-tuned harp to sound thy praise; let those around see me living by thy Spirit, trampling the world under foot, unconformed to lying vanities, transformed by a renewed mind, clad in the entire armour of God, shining as a never-dimmed light, showing holiness in all my doings."

"O Master, who didst wash the disciples' feet, be very patient with me, be very condescending to my faults, go on with me till thy great work in me is completed.  I desire to conquer self in every respect, to overcome the body with its affections and lusts, to keep under my flesh, to guard my manhood from all grosser sins, to check the refined power of my natural mind, to live entirely to thy glory, to be deaf to unmerited censure and the praise of men.  Nothing can hurt my new-born inner man, it cannot be smitten or die; nothing can mar the dominion of thy Spirit within me; it is enough to have thy approbation and that of my conscience.  Keep me humble, dependent, supremely joyful, as calm and quiet as a sucking child, yet earnest and active.  I wish not so much to do as to be, and I long to be like Jesus."

AMEN!!

Bashed!

Christians, many times, come to the place where the life has been knocked out of them.  Every thought, every step, and every word becomes a heavy effort of will.  Psalms speak of this over and over, which is why many believers find such comfort from them, during such times.  "Your arrows have sunk deep into me, Your hand has pressed down on me, I am bent over and greatly bowed down, I go mourning all day long, there is no soundness in my flesh, I am benumbed and badly crushed, I groan because of the agitation of my heart."  That is just from ONE Psalm and really describes well the pain that can come upon a believer at any given time.  We may not even understand why...EVER.  But even though, we are bashed for whatever reason, we cannot give in to hopelessness.  We cannot!!

God, Alone, does what He pleases with us for His purpose and whether we ever know the why, we either believe Him or we don't.  There is no middle ground.  The Psalmist knew that but that did not keep him from pain.  He says, "LORD, make me to know my end and what is the extent of my days; let me know how transient I am...my lifetime as nothing in Your sight...every man at his best is a mere breath."

"God gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist." Romans 4:17b  Abraham was to be the father of many nations, yet he was as good as dead in an old body with a wife passed the age of childbearing.  HOW in the world can he hope to be a father of one, much less of many nations.  And yet, Romans reminds us of this Old Testament patriarch who simply believed.  And that is where we must come no matter how long it has been or how much we know already.  God may need to bring us back to the beginning to remind us of how we got there in the first place.

He is the Author of Life both physical and spiritually.  We have NOTHING of which to boast!  "Abraham believed GOD, and it was credited to him as righteousness...In hope against hope he believed so that he might become a father of many nations according to that which had been spoken." (by God) "Without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb; YET, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform."

"And now, Lord, for what do I wait?  My hope is in You."  If you as a believer find yourself bashed, all hope seems gone, you must know that God is still the same God as when you were walking in encouragement.  The next Psalm says, "I waited patiently for the LORD; and He inclined to me and heard my cry.  He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm."  Be of great courage, hope against hope, wait on the LORD.  He has not moved.  He does not forget His promise to us.