Friday, September 28, 2007

Where It's Warm


Lately I have been looking forward to the coming autumn and winter. One reason is of course that I will finally be at home and surrounded by those I love the most. Besides that though, I love autumn and winter the most in themselves. The frigid cold weather always awakens a need to go where it is warm. It is warm inside your home with your friends and family. It is warm when you eat together and talk together and sing together. It is warm when you crawl into bed after such evenings and feel cozy with your sheets wrapped around you and the voices of your friends and family still ringing softly in your ears. And the colder it is, the more you appreciate and love the warmth that these things bring.

I was thinking how this is the same with my experience spiritually all year round. The coldness of the world surrounds me and chills me, trying its best to numb me of all feeling. I begin to lose sight of my sin and to forget altogether the warmth of the peace and joy that I have when I am close with my Savior. I must go inside where it's warm, that is, in my heart with Christ. As he comes alive there, He fills me and warms my whole being. And the colder it gets, the more I appreciate and love my time spent with him. This is why I love the autumn and the winter. A desire is awakened to seek the warmth of Christ in everything. I want the house in the picture above to be a picture of my heart, filled with warmth and light amidst the ice and snow of the world. I want it to be a place of rest and prayer where others are drawn to come and find the love of Christ dwelling there.

I think of Maltbie Babcock who would tell people before his long walks that he was going to see his Father's world. He wrote one of my favorite hymns that has been in my head lately. Its' powerful tune and lyrics have been providing such warmth to my heart and have been sending me inside my heart to spend time with my Savior. I always imagine this hymn being played on a piano in a warm living room with snow falling outside.

This is my Father’s world, and to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world: I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;
His hand the wonders wrought.

This is my Father’s world. O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world: the battle is not done:
Jesus Who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Not Happy Where I Was

God, who has given them grace and a new heart, and a new nature, has deprived them of all excuse if they do not live for His praise. This is a point which is far too much forgotten. A man who professes to be a true Christian, while he sits still, content with a very low degree of sanctification (if indeed he has any at all), and coolly tells you he "can do nothing," is a very pitiable sight, and a very ignorant man. Against this delusion let us watch and be on our guard. The Word of God always addresses its precepts to believers as accountable and responsible beings. If the Saviour of sinners gives us renewing grace, and calls us by His Spirit, we may be sure that expects us to use our grace, and not to go to sleep. J.C. Ryle

Something I have realized in a marked way recently is that I'm never happy where I was as I experience sanctification. Neither am I happy when I am sitting still. I am most happy and filled with joy when I am moving forward. I used to regularly compromise my faith grievously by going out and drinking with friends in high school and during my first two years of college. Since then, the few times I have drifted back in that direction, I have been thoroughly miserable. Recently in a more subtle area of my life, I have sporadically dabbled in listening to secular music again to the point where my heart is distracted by it. Having countless times committed myself to greater purity in the music I listen to, each time I go back to the place where I was once quite content, I have found myself unsatisfied and hungry for music filled with the substance and fragrance of Christ.

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy." 1 Peter 1:14-16

Isn't it always amazing how closely and perfectly the Holy Spirit uses scripture to touch our hearts and address our struggles? Peter is crying out to his Christian friends, Don't go back, even for a moment. Move forward. Take God's grace and his promises and move forward. Be holy as he is holy. And how spotless and pure that holiness is, I cannot imagine. I have been taking steps back recently and have found myself unsatisfied, unhappy, and without joy. J.C. Ryle points me in the right direction. If the Saviour of sinners gives us renewing grace, and calls us by His Spirit, we may be sure that expects us to use our grace, and not to go to sleep.

A song I listened to recently by Hillsong has been pointing me in this direction as well.

Let now the weak say I have strength
By the Spirit of power that raised Christ from the dead
And now the poor stand and confess
That my portion is Him and I'm more than blessed

You asked your Son to carry this
The heavy cross, our weight of sin
I give my life to honor this
The love of Christ, the Saviour King


This is my repsonse to what Christ did for me. I give my life to honor this. The love of Christ, the Saviour King.

He that supposes works are of no importance, because they cannot justify us, is a very ignorant Christian. Unless he opens his eyes, he will find to his cost that if he comes to the bar of God without some evidence of grace, he had better never have been born. J.C. Ryle

Let us take God's grace and run together with all our hearts. One day we will stand together before God's throne the workmanship of Christ, His Spirit, and His endless grace. Surely there will be no greater joy than on that day.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Hope Fully On Grace

Justifying faith is a grace that "worketh not" but simply trusts, rests, and leans on Christ (Rom. 4:5). Sanctifying faith is a grace of which the very life is action: it "worketh by love," and, like a main-spring, moves the whole inward man (Gal. 5:6). J.C. Ryle

I changed my blog title a little while ago to better indicate a change of focus in my life and my journalings. What I love about the verse in 1 Peter is that it connects grace with action. This idea has always seemed suspect to me since I have always been taught that we are saved by grace and not by works. After reading J.C. Ryle and particularly his quote above, I have learned that this is a different kind of grace that is being talked about in 1 Peter. It is sanctifying grace as opposed to justifying grace. The setting of our hope fully on God's grace is connected to the part earlier in the sentence which gives a prefix for the way or the context in which we are to set our hope fully on grace. "Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded..."

For the longest time I have been confused and largely ignorant of the distinction that Ryle makes in the quote above. I would read in so many passages how works count for nothing but then read in other passages that faith without works is dead, that we must run the race with perseverance, and that we must put on the full armour of God. All these latter images indicate that a great amount of striving and effort is required in following Christ. Sadly, so many times I would cease from such strivings for fear that I was being puffed up with pride and attempting to earn my salvation. It is a valid concern, no doubt, and perhaps it is very simply placed as one of the very first subjects of our striving, that is, for a child of God to train his mind not to let his strivings spill over into his view of his own justification and righteousness before God. Such righteousness is already secured by Christ and such a reality must be trained and secured in the mind. Once secure, it gradually becomes more of a joy to strive and work hard to fight sin, knowing that it is God's grace that supplies and sustains through it all. We become more amazed and humbled by God's grace the harder and longer that we work by love.

J.C. Ryle, when talking about past believers, points out that, "The more grace they have had, the more they have been "clothed with humility" (1 Pet. 5:5). Both justifying grace and sanctifying grace are equally humbling. Sanctifying grace, even as it requires my own actions, would not be possible or sustained without God's grace. The verse ends by telling us to set our hope fully on the grace that will be brought to us at the "revelation of Christ." Surely as we set our hope fully on this grace and experience it as we strive daily, we will experience the revelation of Christ more and more. This is where the verse comes back to the cross. No grace would be possible without Christ's perfect life and death on the cross. Our gaze never shifts from our Savior "who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross" (Heb. 12:2) For the joy that is set before us, we will daily take up our crosses as well and be humbled as Christ, with all his overwhelming joy and peace, is revealed more and more in our lives.

"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?" Luke 9:23-25

Sunday, September 02, 2007

A Man Of One Thing

I am writing this post because I am not a man of one thing. I look inside my heart and realize that I am a man of many things. Jesus Christ, he was a man of one thing. I look inside my heart and find him there as well. Would that my heart would yield to him living his passionate and purposeful life in me. Yielding to him is my only hope and the following voices have been showing me how this yield actually takes place and what it looks like.

I listened to a sermon today where the pastor was giving a testimony about his mother and her love for Jesus Christ. She was a woman who treasured her time spent in prayer, especially the time at the beginning and end of each day which was spent without any distractions. The pastor said he once took her to the theatre to see a play. During the play, he saw that she looked troubled and so he leaned over and asked what was wrong. "When Jesus comes back, this is not where I want to be found." she said. Her words made me begin searching my heart. I realize some would call her extreme but in my heart as I heard this, I knew she was right and that I was merely hearing the words of someone who had taken the Bible seriously and had taken her love with Jesus Christ seriously. I hear a voice inside myself protest when I consider this woman's extremity. Then I realize that her words are not coming from a legalistic heart but that she is speaking purely out of her love to please her Savior. She is not missing out on any pleasure that I have. I am the one missing out on the pleasure that she has.

My reading in Luke coincided with this as I read about the parable of the sower. The seeds that don't end up bearing fruit fail because either the devil takes the word from their hearts, they have no root and wither in time of testing, or they are choked out by the cares and riches and pleasures of life. Do I want to grow and bear fruit? This is Jesus telling me what stands in my way. Do I want to get really serious about growing and bearing fruit? I need to obey him and do what he says! "As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience." This is the pastor's mother, holding the word fast in her heart. Her desire for pleasure has been so filled during her time spent each day in prayer with the Savior, it has left her no desire for the pleasures of the world. She is a woman of one thing.

I was convicted to write this post while reading J.C. Ryle, a man from what I read appears to be a man of one thing. My words are poor compared to his so I will let him speak.

I want to strike a blow at the lazy, easy, sleepy Christianity of these latter days, which can see no beauty in zeal, and only uses the word "zealot" as a reproach...
Zeal in religion is a burning desire to please God, to do his will, and to advance his glory in the world in every possible way. It is a desire which no man feels by nature, which the Spirit puts in the heart of every believer when he is converted, but which some believers feel so much more strongly than others that they alone deserve to be called "zealous" men.
The desire is so strong, when it really reigns in a man, that it impels him to make any sacrifice, to go through any trouble, to deny himself to any amount, to suffer, to work, to labour, to toil, to spend himself and be spent, and even to die, if only he can please God and honour Christ.
A zealous man in religion is pre-eminently a man of one thing. It is not enough to say he is earnest, hearty, uncompromising, thorough-going, wholehearted, fervent in spirit. He only sees one thing, he cares of one thing, he lives for one thing, he is swallowed up for one thing; and that one thing is to please God.