John 14:27

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.

Is Reading the Bible a Chore or a Delight?

This post is from the CCEF website by Steve Midgley. If you are struggling with reading the Bible at times (like I do), this may help to move you forward. This post is a little longer than my usual ones, but hopefully you won't mind and will find it helpful.

A friend is currently reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace. He says it’s taken a good few hundred pages, but at last he is really into it. It’s like that with books sometimes. They take a while to grab your attention. Generally, the turning point happens when you finally start to care about the characters—when what happens to them matters to you.

Something similar can happen with The Book. A moment comes when reading the Bible stops being a chore and becomes a pleasure. When, in other words, it becomes what it claims to be—a delight, a treasure, the very words of life. (Jer 15:16; Prov 7:1; Phil 2:16)
That moment may mark the point a person first becomes a believer. You might hear it in a testimony: “It was as if the words came alive”; “I just couldn’t stop reading”; “It finally made sense to me and the effect was electric.”

But that kind of shift can happen in a believer’s life as well. It might be when a period of spiritual dryness comes to an end. Or a major life change is approaching. Or a particular spiritual challenge. Most of us experience ebbs and flows in our devotional life, but sometimes the tide turns so rapidly it really does feel as if we are reading a new book.

So, here’s a question worth answering: is there anything we can do to trigger that kind of moment? In a dry spell, is there something that will foster some new spiritual energy? When reading has become a chore what, if anything, can shift us away from duty and toward delight?

Well, much like my friend with War and Peace, a good place to start is to revisit our interest in the characters. Or perhaps I should say, character. For the Bible is really a book about one person: God. He is the hero on every page. How much do we really care about him? So much of the time we read the Bible as if it were all about us. How can I find some comfort? How can I get a little guidance? How can I be spiritually strong? We come to the Bible as if it were a self-help manual, as if its prime purpose were to help us fix our problems. But it isn’t.

The Bible’s prime purpose is to bring glory to God. It does that by declaring his excellence and establishing his kingdom and, finally and wonderfully, by bringing all things together under one Head, even Christ (Eph 1:10). As long as we insist on reading the Bible as if it were all about us, we will not only miss the point, we will find it dull because we won’t be interested in the character that it is describing—God himself.

We would also do well to bring some questions. Passive reading is never a great success; but to read actively; to be full of puzzles as we come to God’s Word, that helps a lot. Thrillers and whodunnits and mystery books are always good for night-time reading because they keep our interest even when we are tired. The Bible, too, is a kind of mystery thriller. Admittedly it is a mystery made known (Eph 3:3), but it is a mystery that we will go on exploring into eternity and still never really fathom (1 Tim 3:16). So be intrigued, be puzzled. Instead of reading God’s Word to confirm the stuff we believe already, we should go searching for the surprises. When we come to the bits that seem a little odd or that we are sure can’t mean what they seem to be saying, those are usually the points when God is about to show us something new; something we hadn’t previously understood. It will be dull if we treat the Bible as if it were nothing more than the same old, same old. But the fact is that God has uncovered mysteries into which even the angels in heaven long to gaze. (1 Pet 1:12)

How is the Bible to you at the moment? A page turner or a turn off-er?

Wisdom for My Son - Proverbs 23:26-28

O my son, give me your heart.
May your eyes take delight in following my ways.
A prostitute is a dangerous trap;
a promiscuous woman is as dangerous as falling into a narrow well.
She hides and waits like a robber,
eager to make more men unfaithful.

Wisdom for My Son - Proverbs 23:22-25

Listen to your father who gave you life,
and do not despise your mother when she is old.
Buy truth, and do not sell it;
buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding.
The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice;
he who fathers a wise son will be glad in him.
Let your father and mother be glad;
let her who bore you rejoice.

Wisdom for My Son - Proverbs 23:19-21

Hear, my son, and be wise,
and direct your heart in the way.
Be not among drunkards[a]
or among gluttonous eaters of meat,
for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty,
and slumber will clothe them with rags.

Wisdom for My Son - Proverbs 23:15-18

My son, if your heart is wise,
my heart too will be glad.
My inmost being will exult
when your lips speak what is right.
Let not your heart envy sinners,
but continue in the fear of the
Lord all the day.
Surely there is a future,
and your hope will not be cut off.

Christian Liberty

Douglas Bond in Hold Fast in a Broken World discuss self-control and freedom:

Why does Paul tell us to "be careful" in the exercise of our freedom (1 Cor. 8:9)? He knows something about men. Liberty easily devolves into a swaggering license to sin. And thus, we must be careful with liberty. Our practice of freedom must be regulated by inward self-control, guided by love for God and our neighbor - something that most men have far too little of.

While lead was flying at the Battle of Springfield, British parliamentarian Edmund Burke made an astute observation about men and freedom:

Men qualify for freedom in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains on their own appetites. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power is put somewhere on will and appetite, and the less of it there is within, the more of it there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their [chains].

God looks on the heart - within us where all freewheeling sin originates. Burke observed that free men are free because an internal "controlling power" has placed "moral chains" deep within a man. Thus, freedom, ironically, comes from submission to moral boundaries. Put simply, self-control brings freedom. Correspondingly, passion, or the absence of moral restraint on one's desires, enslaves a man.

Revelation 3:19-22

Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.

To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Freedom

In his book, Hold Fast in a Broken World, Douglas Bond writes on the notion of freedom.

Part of the problem lies in defining words. You [might think] that freedom means making your own decisions and doing whatever you would like to do....[but] robbers do whatever they want; axe murderers do whatever they want; sexual perverts do whatever they want. All of these got their start by thinking that freedom meant doing whatever they wanted. It's what [many] men naturally conclude....Wise [men] understand that the end result of acting on your desires is anything but freedom. A wise [man] thinks of freedom more the way the Bible commentator Matthew Henry expressed it: "A man is free not when he can do what he wishes to do but when he wishes to do, and can do, what he ought to do."

We were made in the image of God, made to love him, to know him, and to do his will. Why did Christ say that his yoke is easy and his burden light? Because following Christ means obeying and living life according to design. God designed you to find joy and satisfaction by conforming to his will. Thus, Matthew Henry got it right when he concluded that a man is free only after the Spirit of God changes his desires and gives him the ability to do what he ought to do, what he was designed to do.

Real freedom comes when you desire to do and are doing what you were made to do - to glory and enjoy God, now and forever.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.

On Self-Control

We'll continue with a few more posts from Douglas Bond from his book, Hold Fast in a Broken World. Today, we'll talk about self-control.

Self-controlled [men] take sin seriously. They don't see how close to the edge of the cliff they can cavort. They're aware that the devil and sin are nothing to flirt with. They avoid sin, it's occasions, and its companions because they know how devious the devil can be.

German writer Heinrich Heine explored this in a poem that begins, "I called the devil and he came." But he didn't have horns and a flame-red jumpsuit like cartoonist Gary Larsen's devil always has. "He was not hideous.../ But a genial man with charming ways." Wise [men] don't flirt with the devil and sin because they know that the devil will outwit them. He's called the deceiver for a reason. Therefore, wise [men] know they must be self-controlled, or they will be devil-controlled.

But it's not only the devil. It's a three-way conspiracy, with the world and your own flesh joining eagerly to secure your soul for hell. They conspire to normalize sin and earthly things so that you, at the last, lose all appetite for heaven. They want righteousness to seem odd and sin to seem normal to you.

Covenantal believers are not bound for hell, so the devil's influence in their lives will not doom them to hell, but the devil will seek to undermine your righteousness with temptation to sin. Bond is right: Don't play with sin or temptation. Run from it rather than think you can withstand it. Most likely, you won't be able to and you'll have to live with the consequences of your actions, even as a believer.

Some Heavy Theology

Just to lighten things up a bit...

Rick Astley was a very popular singer back in the late 80's. The song, Never Gonna Give You Up, was a giant hit. I linked the video for you younger people.

Two years ago, Rick released a new album which went to the top of the UK charts. I listened to a couple of songs, but this one, Dance, is quite interesting. Apparently, Rick has become a theologian spreading the gospel of dance. I didn't realize that salvation was just a few steps away. Enjoy.

How Will Others Know That We Are Christians?

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” - John 13:34-35

Non-believers will know that we are Christians by the way we love other Christians. If Christian brothers and sisters are tearing each other down, then the world will see that we are no different than them. The ability to truly love one another can only come from the Lord.

Idol-Making Factories

The following is an excerpt from Douglas Bond's book, Hold Fast in a Broken World:

Men are "idol-making factories," John Calvin termed us, and one of the greatest idols that men create for themselves in the modern world is money. "Money! Nothing worse in our lives, so current, so rampant, so corrupting." Come to think of it, maybe it's not just modern man's problem. Sophocles, the paragon of Greek tragedy, penned these words twenty-five hundred years ago: " Money - you demolish cities, root men from their homes; you train and twist good minds and set them on to the most atrocious schemes. No limit, you make them adept at every kind of outrage, every godless crime - money!"

Christian [men] must beware of the love of money, of worshipping at the shrine of wealth, of pitching their hopes on material prosperity - and so forfeiting their souls. Sell your soul for thirty pieces of silver or thirty million pieces, it makes no difference in hell.

There are other kinds of idols, ones of the heart and imagination. Lustful thoughts after the body of an attractive young woman become a form - a highly destructive form - of idolatry. You live in a pornographic world, a world that wears itself out making sin look appealing. The devil "will paint, and mask, and dress up sin," wrote J. C. Ryle, "in order to make you fall in love with it. He will exalt the pleasure of wickedness, but he will keep out of sight the sting." Men slain by sexual sin are a vast and miserable host.

But you may be operating under the delusion that you can keep sexual sins secret, just between you and your imagination. It's a lie....Others may never know your secret sins, but before God's eye every thought, every desire is laid bare.

To identify an idol in your life, consider this: Who or what do you desire so much that you are willing to sin to get it?

Hold Fast in a Broken World

When my son was young, we read several chapters from a book, Stand Fast in the Way of Truth, by Douglas Bond. It's comprised of a series of stories, narratives, and discussions on various topics that fathers and sons should talk about. A second book came out but I don't think we ever started it. The second book is Hold Fast in a Broken World. While the book is for younger sons and fathers to share, I think the lessons have broader application to young men and even some old ones. Over the next few months, every once in awhile, I'll be pulling material from this book and sharing it in this space.

In general, the book is dedicated to the pursuit of truth and explaining how challenging that pursuit can be and identifying the obstacles that get in the way. Bond shares a short story from author Stephen Crane to convey this struggle and set the tone for the book:

War correspondent Stephen Crane wrote a perceptive verse about life that begins, "The wayfarer, perceiving the pathway to truth." Though he perceives the pathway, he immediately faces an obstacle. The path to truth was "thickly grown with weeds"; few travelers were going to the trouble to take that road. Little wonder. It's a pathway that looks painful, one that is sure to be hard on the feet. At the last, Crane's persona concludes, "Doubtless there are other roads."

More tomorrow.

Where is God? - Part II

Continuing with Ed Welch's thoughts on loneliness, he starts the second part of the essay with a passage from Deuteronomy:

Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. (Deuteronomy 8:2-3)

There it is. Our senses say that we are destitute; God reveals that we have spiritual food that is profoundly satisfying. Our goal is to hear the word of the Lord in such a way that it drowns out our less-informed emotions.

Moses stands in this tradition too. Though he wanted to experience God’s glory, what he really needed, and what he valued most, were the words of God that guaranteed God’s compassion, mercy and forgiveness (Exodus 34:6). This revelation is what wowed Moses and led him in worship.

Feed on the revealed promises of God rather than rely on an experience. Otherwise, life becomes one continual leap from one experiential lily pad to another.

This feature of the kingdom of God is announced most clearly at the end of Jesus’ earthly stay. What better time to map out the way of the kingdom. His disciples were just moments away from never seeing Jesus as a tangible presence in their earthly lives.

Then he [Jesus] said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:27-29)

Jesus was saying nothing new. He was reminding his disciples, and us, that the way of his kingdom has always been this: when there is a competition between our senses and his promises, we rest in his promises, whether the situation is the Old Testament wilderness or all the variations of “in this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33). The only thing Jesus adds is a tender reminder about how the way of faith is better than – more blessed than – the way of sight.

How many times have I wanted Jesus’ audible voice and physical presence? I would even have settled for some handwriting in the sky or on the living room wall. But there is a better way…Believe. Believe in the one who has spoken promises and has backed up all those promises with his self-sacrificial actions.

So many followers of Jesus feel spiritually handicapped because they don’t feel the presence of God. They feel blind and numb. All they can do is trust in the God who has spoken to them and, because of him, put one foot in front of the other, care about others, and faithfully slog through the mire of life. Well, it’s time to track these people down and give them a big fat kiss because they are the ones who are knocking on the door of the abundant life. They are learning to believe what they don’t feel, and they are blessed. They are the heroes we can emulate.

In a culture where feelings are used to determine one's gender, sexuality, and state of mind, the Bible offers an alternative: feelings ought not to rule us. Emotions are important and offer insights into our hearts, but emotions do not determine who we are or what we ought to do. Christians are to find this guidance and the peace that comes with it, in the living God, who we are to know by faith.

Where is God? - Part I

When life is difficult - and seems to be getting worse - we often ask, "Where is God?" "Why don't I feel him near me"? "Why does he feel so far away?" "As a Christian, why do I feel so lonely?" Ed Welch provides some insights into living life when God feels far away.

Everyone who believes that God exists would like “a personal encounter with God.” We want that back-and-forth, knowing-and-being-known, emotional liveliness that is the fruit of a growing relationship. No one who follows Jesus harbors dreams of emotional and experiential dryness. Instead, bring on that promised abundant life (John 10:10).

Moses led the way. He wanted to feel God. He wanted the promises of God bolstered by a display of God’s glory (Ex.33:18). Times were tough. Doubt was in the air. A little experiential boost in which God confirmed his promises to Israel would go a long way. And God accommodated Moses’ request. His glory would go whooshing by and Moses would get to see God’s back, which we assumed happened but Moses doesn’t record the event.

The desire to experience God is a good thing, a very good thing. Scripture leads us in our aspirations for full-bodied praise, love and unity.

But there is a problem. What about those who feel God’s absence but desperately want to know his presence? What about those who sense that God hides himself, and he seems to do it at the times we need him most? What about those who’s emotional experience is so dominated by depression or fear that the experience of God just cannot break through?

Questions like these bring us back to Scripture – back to the Lord – with internal tensions that acknowledge both “I will never leave you or forsake you” and “My God why have you forsaken me.”

What we find in Scripture are the deeper ways of God with his people. “Sometimes God puts his children to bed in the dark” is one way to put it. Another way is this: in this era, our God has chosen to make walking by faith more fundamental, and more blessed, than walking by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). This means that there will be many times when we can see the goodness of the Lord with our very eyes. But there will be other times when our experience says “God is far away” and he counters “I am with you.” In those cases, his words win.

Just expand the word “sight” in “walking by sight” to include all things sensory, such as our emotions. Then we are back on track: God is speaking right to us. He is not far away. This teaching gets to the heart of Scripture. Scripture exists because we need revelation. We can’t see reality clearly with the naked eye. Scripture is God’s technology that allows us to see everything we need to see.

You don’t feel his presence?

Tomorrow, we'll look at what God's Word has to say.

Be Lights in the World

"Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain." Philippians 2:14-16

Take Up Your Cross and Follow Me - Part V

In this final post on suffering, John Calvin exhorts us to choose how we will respond to the suffering in our lives. Will we move towards God or away?

In the midst of the bitterness of tribulations, we should recognize the kindness and mercy of our Father toward us. For even in such tribulations, He doesn't cease to promote our salvation. Indeed, He afflicts us not to ruin or destroy us, but instead to deliver us from the condemnation of the world. This awareness leads us to what Scripture teaches in another place: "My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights" (Prov. 3:11-12). When we discern our Father's rod of discipline in our lives, shouldn't we present ourselves to Him as obedient and teachable sons rather than as obstinate and hopeless men who've become hardened in wrong doing?

If God didn't call us back to Himself by means of correction when we fell from Him, He would destroy us. Thus, it's rightly said in Scripture that we are illegitimate children, not sons, if we are without discipline.

If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. - Hebrews 12:8

Therefore, we are indeed wicked if we shun Him while He manifests to us His kindness and His care for our salvation. Scripture teaches that there's a difference between believers and unbelievers. Unbelievers become worse and more obstinate in consequences of the lashes they receive....Believers repent just like individuals gifted with the status of sonship. Choose, then, which of these you will be.

Take Up Your Cross and Follow Me - Part IV

Calvin continues with his exhortation on suffering by referencing the Apostle Paul from Romans 5:3-4 (I'm starting in verse 1):

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

We see now how many related benefits are born from the cross. The cross destroys the false notion of our own strength that we've dared to entertain, and it destroys that hypocrisy in which we have taken refuge and pleasure. It strips us of carnal self-confidence, and thus humbling us, instructs us to cast ourselves on God alone so that we won't be crushed or defeated. Such victory is followed by hope, since the Lord - by providing what He has promised - established His truthfulness for what lies ahead. Even for these reasons alone, it's clear how vital the discipline of the cross is for us. It's no little thing to be stripped of our blind self-love and thus to be made aware of our own weakness. Moreover, having been impressed with our own weakness, we learn to despair of ourselves. Then, having despaired or ourselves, we transfer our trust to God. Next, we rest in our trust in God, and we rely on His help and persevere unconquered to the end. Then standing on His grace, we see that He is true to His promises. Finally, being confident in the certainty of His promises, our hope is strengthened.

Take Up Your Cross and Follow Me - Part III

We continue to turn to John Calvin to teach us the ways that the Lord uses suffering to grow us in faith.

There are many reasons why we ourselves must spend our lives subject to a constant cross....there's the fact that unless our own weaknesses are regularly displayed to us, we easily overestimate our own virtue, being by nature inclined to attribute all good things to our own doing....Thus, we're drawn into a foolish and inflated view of our[selves]. And then, trusting in our own [selves], we brazenly exalt ourselves before God Himself, acting as if our own abilities are sufficient without His grace. There's no better method for God to curb such arrogance than by demonstrating to us through experience our weakness and frailty. He afflicts us with disgrace, poverty, childlessness, illness, and other troubles. And we, for our part, quickly crumble before such blows, being far from able to withstand them. Thus humbled, we learn to call on His strength, which alone can make us stand under the weight of such affliction. Indeed, the holiest among us know they stand by God's grace and not by their own virtues. Yet they would nevertheless become too confident in their own courage and constancy if they weren't led to a more intimate knowledge of themselves by the testing of the cross....When they have so cast themselves on the grace of God, they experience the presence of divine power in which there is sufficient and abundant help.

In our afflictions and struggles, God is working to help us love Him more making those afflictions means to better lives in the Lord.

Take Up Your Cross and Follow Me - Part II

Picking up on the theme of suffering in life, John Calvin writes about how Jesus himself had to suffer.

For those whom the Lord has chosen and condescended to welcome into fellowship with Him should prepare themselves for a life that is hard, laborious, troubled, and full of many and various kinds of evil. For it's the will of their heavenly Father to test them in this way so that He might prove them by trials. Having begun this way with Christ, His only-begotten Son, He continues similarly with all His children.

For although Christ is the Son, beloved before all others - the one in whom the Father's soul delights - we nevertheless see how little ease and comfort Christ experienced (Matt. 3:7; 17:5)....Scripture gives the reason for this: It was necessary that Christ "learned obedience through what he suffered" (Heb. 5:8). Why, then, would we exempt ourselves from the same situation to which Christ our head was subjected - particularly since He was subjected to suffering for our sake to provide for us a pattern of patience in Himself? On this account the Apostle Paul teaches that all God's children are appointed to this end - to be made like Christ:

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers - Rom. 8:29

From this also we receive remarkable consolation, that in the midst of dark and difficult circumstances, which we consider hostile and evil, we share in Christ's suffering.

Take Up Your Cross and Follow Me - Part I

Having finished reading through the Psalms, I'm heading back to John Calvin for some daily insights. Calvin wrote extensively on suffering and why it is such an integral part of human existence. Over the next few posts, I want to explore this notion of suffering through his writings in the Institutes of the Christian Religion. The focus of the posts will be Jesus' words in Matthew 16:24:

Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."

What does this mean to us as believers? More to reflect on in the next post.