the gate

I am grateful to God that in this fallen world He didn’t leave us destitute and hopeless. He not only gave us the Holy Spirit but His Holy Word. God’s word has given me comfort in the troubled times. One portion of scripture that has got me through what I thought was the darkest of days early in my Christian walk was Psalms 27. It was the light at the end of a very dark tunnel. When it seemed as satan’s minions were all about me trying to destroy my soul, God’s word never failed to give me hope and strength. Please read these words from the mouth of God penned by a human agent to give us hope when we are hurting.

Psalm 27

The Lord is my light and my salvation;

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But you say, “Well, if I were made a new man, I fear that I should go back to my old sins. Must I not trust to something to keep me?” No, to nothing but God; for all the bonds and all the devices that men make, to keep themselves from sin, are of no more strength than a spider’s web. God must keep you alive as well as make you live; “for I am God,” saith he “and there is none else.” Rest in the almighty power of God to keep you from going back to sin after he has rescued you from it.

You know, also, that you must be perfect, or you can never enter heaven. How are you to become perfect? Well, you must look to God for that, too, for he, the perfectly Holy One, can sanctify you wholly, spirit, soul, and body. May your faith embrace the whole of salvation, and see it to be all in God in Christ, and look to God in Christ Jesus for it all!

Charles Spurgeon, The Life-Look, 1876

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When we started this blog last month, I came into it knowing that most Americans aren’t readers. I had found a study saying that 50% of Americans over the age of 16 are functionally illiterate, and most of the other 50% just choose not to read.

I think in some ways, non-readers can be compared to people locked inside some institution (for literate people who watch 4 hours or more of TV a day instead of reading…perhaps being locked in a padded cell in a mental institution is the best analogy for them, I don’t know). There is a ginormous world filled with wonder and mystery and beauty and challenge and inspiration and knowledge that non-readers never see because they are locked inside walls—shut off from this wonderful world that exists only for readers.

For hundreds and thousands of years, people have been writing. Sure, I can be a writer and throw in my two-cents worth (sometimes I will). But I can also be a resource, introducing people who will never find them otherwise, to some of the amazing things others have written.

Two men who have had an incredible influence on my own life are Howard Hendricks and Chuck Swindoll. Howard Hendricks is 84-years-old, and is one of Chuck Swindoll’s mentors. A few months ago, I was reading a conversation they had, as transcribed in Veritas, a publication of Dallas Theological Seminary. They were talking about the danger of legalism. Did you read it? If I had to guess, I’d say no. So I thought I’d share with you this excerpt from Chuck Swindoll.

Well, the place to begin is to affirm that anything that is set forth in the Scriptures as a directive is a directive, period. It’s not legalism.

…

The problem comes when we get into areas that are not set forth in Scripture, either in precept or even in principle. These may be such things as length of hair, tattoos and other body piercings, skirts or pants for women, makeup or no makeup. Those are not scriptural issues. Sometimes these issues are cultural, and you do have to address them when you are in that particular culture. But I think legalism begins when you do or refrain from doing what I want you to do or not do because it’s on my list and it’s something that I am uncomfortable with.

The problem with legalists is that not enough people have confronted them and told them to get lost. Those are strong words, but I don’t mess with legalism anymore. I’m 72 years old; what have I got to lose? Seriously, I used to kowtow to legalists, but they’re dangerous. They are grace-killers. They’ll drive off every new Christian you bring to church. They are enemies of the faith. Other than that, I don’t have any opinion!

So if I am trying to force my personal list of no-no’s on you and make you feel guilty if you don’t join me, then I’m out of line and I need to be told that.

There’s a lot of legalism in Christianity today, don’t you think? It’s hard to improve on the way Chuck Swindoll describes the danger of legalists. “They are grace-killers,” and “they are enemies of the faith.” The only thing I would add … they will kill your joy if you let them.

If you want to read the whole 8-page article, here it is.

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hopefully you guys have been delighting in the Lord this week since my last post.  i have been, except for when my stupid water softener decided to run all day and dump water for 12 hours.  pray that i will still delight in the Lord when the water bill comes!

anyway, i always intended this to be part of the first post but one huge post was a bad idea.  plus, i wanted you guys to have a chance to digest part 1.

i hinted at the gist of part 2 when i quoted this verse:

psalm 119:16 - i shall delight in your statutes; i shall not forget your word.

delighting in the Lord is a lot more than just enjoying a stevie wonder record.  if we considered everything that we enjoyed in life as from the Lord, then we would also be delighting in the Lord when we *insert sin here*.  you feel me?  we have to differentiate between things that just feel good and things that truly are good.

the Scripture exists, in part, to guide us towards a lifestyle that pleases God.  it teaches proper conduct, character traits that God desires in our lives, and principles for life that should guide our decision making at all times.

doing the right thing is difficult sometimes.  maybe even most of the time.  if we choose right decisions out of obligation, we will resent God and constantly look over our shoulders at “what could have been”.  but if we do good out of gratitude and focus on the fact that those decisions please God, we have a better chance in delighting in them.

that is what i think the verse above is talking about.  we never resent our girlfriends when we deplete our bank accounts for those roses on valentines day.  we do it because we know it makes them happy.  it’s basically the same thing with God.  He is our Groom and we should be showering Him with gifts (except we don’t know his shirt size).  we have to resort to substandard gifts like worship, sacrifice, obedience, praise, etc.

psalm 37:4 - delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart.

psalm 37 is about resisting doing evil as well as being a charge to the christian to remain faithful.  v4 is beautiful all by itself but finds its true meaning in the following verses.

psalm 37:5-6 - commit your way to the Lord; trust also in Him, and He will do it. (nasb)

psalm 37:5-6 - commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him and He will act.  (esv)

He isn’t about fulfilling our desires of champagne riches and caviar dreams, but rather helping us fulfill our desires of righteousness and peace.  it is a promise to us as His people that as we commit ourselves to Him, resist evil and delight in Him (His ways, His statues, Him) that He will make us who we want to be, which should be who He wants us to be.

it is typical in the Bible for God to flip the script.  it doesn’t surprise me that His promise to fulfill our desires matters only when we have adjusted our desires to His.

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Jesus explains that His life is transmitted by the Spirit. ‘It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing…’ (John 6:63). What the blood of Christ has accomplished for us, the Spirit of Christ effects in us. It might be said that the blood speaks of His life poured out; the Spirit speaks of His life poured in. In terms of our experience then, the two flow together. The eternal Spirit who offered up the blood of Christ also breathes in us the power of that sacrifice (Hebrews 9:14).

There is an actual partaking of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). Jesus does not give us a mere philosophy of life or a code of ethics. He gives us Himself. The Christian life is not a creed or a dogma. It is participation in the very life of Him who loved us and gave His blood for us.

Robert Coleman, Written In Blood, pp. 30-31

ponder this, and direct your comments to God

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delight -  a high degree of pleasure or enjoyment; joy; rapture.  to give great pleasure, satisfaction, or enjoyment to; please highly. (dictionary.com)

a friend of mine told me last week that he was having problems delighting in the Lord. i prayed for him, that God would help him to do that.  later on i thought about how i might be able to help him too.  verses that i looked at about the subject seemed to reiterate that we should delight in the Lord, but didn’t give many suggestions about how to do that. 

then steve and i took a road trip to corcoran state penitentiary (home of charlie manson among others) where our brother is currently doing 20 years for a crime he did not commit.  we sat around a table and talked, laughed, prayed and drank really expensive water.

there was one particular thing that he talked about that has not left my mind since he said it.  he talked about the birds that were there in corcoran.  seeing the light of day is a privilege in that place.  seeing something new and different is definitely not.  so he has become intimately aware of his repetetive surroundings.

he described, in detail, what they do and how they fly in their “beautiful V formation“, what birds he hasn’t seen there, and the occasional crow that comes around.  honestly, it started out a little odd but the more he talked, the more i realized that he wasnt making small talk but filling us in on the things that God is using to get him through this trial.  he was sharing about how he still sees God all around Him, even in one of the hardest prisons in this country.

seriously, when is the last time that you took pleasure in the little things of life?  not new snowboards or cars (depending on your tax bracket), but the little things?  or even noticed some of those things?

i found myself last night really enjoying the company of my son and my friend’s daughter.  we played together as the rest of the people in the house were scrapbooking.  we threw balls at each other and we had an epic battle between a cheetah and a giraffe (the giraffe won in case you were wondering).  it was a lot of fun.

one could say that i had a great time with the kids.  this is true.  but i really feel like i delighted in the Lord as well.  life is about people and the relationships we form with them.  our great commandments in the Bible are to love God and to love our neighbor, right?

God has given us people in our lives that as we delight in them, we in turn delight in the Lord.  husbands, delight in your wives.  parents, delight in your children.  everyone, delight in the beauty of creation and the marvel of the green tea with boba or a really juicy orange.  delight in the mist in the morning that brings green grass, delight in a good stevie wonder record.  delight in a warm bath.

every good and perfect gift comes from the Lord.  if we acknowledge Him each time we encounter something in life that is good, we delight in Him.

this all may become a little “save the whales” if you neglect to acknowledge the source of these blessings.  but the more aware we become of what is going on around us and how God is blessing our lives, the more we can be thankful.

God is good.  remain too caught up in the rat race and you miss that.  focus on how God is blessing you each day and you will delight in Him.

more to come…

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I want to be remembered.

Please check

this out.

The previous video I posted is about Tenny. I followed the internet trail and found out he passed away. There is an entire website dedicated to honoring his memory. Everyone testifies that he was passionate about sharing God’s truth. I want the same to be said of me, and have people mean it. I was moved deeply by what Christ did in and through Tenny. Now he joins the choir of heaven in praise to the King of glory, Christ the Lord.

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[Jesus] bears our banishment—he takes upon him not merely the penalty of suffering and death—but that of exclusion from the house and home of God. That penalty he has endured—that exile he has under gone—that distance he has experienced—and all this as the Substitute, bearing what we should have borne, in order that we might inherit all to which he could lay claim. Through means of this substitution of the Son of God in the room of the exiled sinner, that sinner finds free access to the innermost shrine of heaven, the very presence of the Father. And the Father’s message to each banished one is — enter in! Stand no longer afar off; despair no more, as if the gate were closed. Behold, it is open—wide open! Go in at once, and end your banishment. Go in, and find peace, love, friendship, acceptance, through him, to whose finished work of glorious substitution the Father is bearing such blessed testimony!

. . . .

[W]e need not, in terror and uncertainty, steal slowly and sadly back to our Father’s house; we need not wait, nor doubt, nor suspect, nor distrust; we may go at once, and go boldly, to God, on the simple security given to the sinner by the work of the divine Sin-bearer. That work has not simply made it possible for God to receive us—but secured our reception. It has not simply unbarred the gate—but flung it open, as widely open as God himself could fling it, or as any sinner needs that it should be flung. No, it has sent out messengers of peace and messages of love, assuring us not only of a welcome when we return—but of God’s sincere desire that we should do so. … It is not possible to imagine greater freeness for the sinner, in his going to God, than has been provided by the vicarious life and death of Him who is “the end of the law for righteousness, to every one who believes.” Nothing can be freer, safer, surer, than “the new and living way.”

. . . .

When outside here on earth, he was our substitute; now when within, in heaven, he is our representative. He has gone up and gone in for us. He carries us in along with him, and gives those, who accept his substitution and representation, the same privilege of nearness and fellowship as he has himself. As our High Priest, he communicates between us and God. As Intercessor, he pleads our case. As Representative, he has so identified himself with our persons, that we are lost sight of under his shadow. The Father sees him in us, and us in him. All our imperfection is lost in his glorious perfection; and we, in being presented to the Father, are presented as part of his glorious self; all our unloveliness forever merged in the infinite loveliness of the beloved Son.

The Banished One Bearing Our Banishment, Horatius Bonar, 1867

comments are closed to encourage you simply to ponder this in your heart

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I remember reading, when I was in college, someone discussing the barrenness of busyness. That which is most important doesn’t require us to keep a frantic pace in life. What happens instead is that we get caught up in the frantic pace of life because we are chasing recognition, or significance, or wealth, or some other idol or form of self-justification, and what is most important gets swallowed up by that which is less important, and our life becomes consumed by the temporal rather than being invested in the eternal. Hence, the barrenness of busyness.

Busyness steals away from us prayer, Bible study, and meditation. Busyness prevents us from pondering the glory of God like David, and Jonathan Edwards, or experiencing, as Phil Wickham describes, nature as a worship leader.

Chuck Swindoll says in his book, Growing Strong In The Seasons of Life, “Busyness rapes relationships. It substitutes shallow frenzy for deep friendship. It feeds the ego but starves the inner man. It fills a calendar but fractures a family. It cultivates a program that plows under priorities. Many a church boasts about its active program: ‘Something for every night of the week for everybody.’ What a shame! With good intentions the local assembly can create the very atmosphere it was designed to curb.” (p. 406)

Is busyness raping your relationship with Jesus? Is it raping family relationships? Is it raping or preventing other relationships?

On their deathbed, how many people say, “I wish I’d spent more time at the office”? How many people on their deathbed say, “I wish I’d given more hours of my life to video games, TV, and movies”? It doesn’t make sense to wait until we are about to exit this life to decide what is important in this life.

How can we help each other resist the pull of the rat race of American culture? How can we encourage each other to nurture relationships and invest in that which is eternal?

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