Newsletter

Rest in the Wilderness – Psalm 57

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David had enemies on every side. He fled to the Cave of Adullum.  And many gathered to him there. “Everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul.” (1 Samuel 22:1)And David was their leader in that dark and distressing time.  How did he guide them?  He wrote Psalm 57.

He encouraged them to follow his own example and to ask God for mercy. ‘Take refuge in the shadow of God’s wings until the storms of life has past.’  Acknowledge the hardship, the debt, difficulty, distress and bitterness and run to God.

‘God fulfills his purpose for me’  v.2. ’He will save me’ v.3.  ‘Against the Lions, fiery beasts, and men whose teeth are spears and arrows,’ v 4 he points them to God.  “God will send out his steadfast love and his faithfulness!” v 3  He calls them to worship.  “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!” v 5

Many obstacles, enemies and painful issues remain, but “My heart is steadfast, O God. I will sing and make melody… I will sign praises to yo among the nations. For your steadfast love is great to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.” v 7, 9-10.

Is the steadfast love of God a tonic for you when life falls to pieces? Does worship grant you courage to face the fallenness of our lives?  In the midst of enemies, bitterness, distress David leads his people to praise God for his steadfast love and faithfulness.  There is real medicine there.  

Notice, David doesn’t ask for anything in this Psalm.  No request to improve their situation.  He simply praises God whose steadfast love never changes and never fails.  God is his sure and certain refuge. The tower of his strength and his place of quiet rest.  God is bigger than your problems and better than your bitterness.  Fix your mind upon him when the going gets rough.  He never fails. Instead of being swallowed up with your troubles be lifted up by God’s coming victory and glory! “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!” v 11

Dying to Live

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In a self-centered culture self-denial seems evil.  Even worse, it seems stupid. Self-defeating. How can we fulfill ourselves if we deny ourselves?

Jesus taught radical ideas. He was very counter-cultural. Still is.“Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 10:39; 16:24).

To find your life you must lose it. To follow Jesus requires saying no to self and that is the way to self-fulfillment.

The life and death of Jesus accomplished everything necessary to return us to our created purpose; namely, loving God above all and our neighbors instead of our selves. Jesus opens the gates of our self-created prison of sin and slavery and points out the path of freedom. But we hesitate. Why? 

Why are we so comfortable in our current prison of darkness and why are we so afraid to walk into light’s freedom? What gnaws at our living trust in Christ’s comfort and care? What prevents us from returning God’s love? Why don’t we put the needs of others ahead of ourselves?

Because we love our old selves and are, sadly, content in our self-imposed prisons.  Our self-love and immediate personal peace resist the central engine that drives the Christian life – change!!

We especially cower from dealing with our failures, weaknesses, and our, obvious-to-everyone-else, needs. Those are the chains that bind us to the prison cell and nurture a false contentment. We don’t want to change or to have our flaws exposed. ‘Better the devil we know’ we wrongly think. So, we lay content in our prison and refuse the more difficult road of discipleship.

Yet, Jesus calls us to be disciples – to learn a better way to live – to grow. He calls us higher, and that means change.  To grow in grace is to improve. It is to die a little to your old self and live a little more to God. It is making God the engine and self the caboose that follows in His train.

When we willingly change to take the plank out of our own eyes we begin to see clearly to assist others in removing their specks.  And, when we overcome our stubborn failures by the mighty grace of God, we are more willing to extend that grace to others in their struggles to change.

We can have peace with God and war with self at the same time.  The price of discipleship is high; die to self, admit flaws, change. The reward of discipleship staggers – God himself!

So, come after Jesus. Follow Him. Deny yourself and be fulfilled!

Afraid of the Silence?

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Are you afraid of the silence?

Recently, my random, scattered, painful thoughts decided to muster and attack me in unison. They dragged me, depleted and depressed, into a painful darkness. My mind was rotting under the onslaught. So, I took a walk. But I feared my own belligerent mind.  So, I marched to a sermon to soothe and sooth my mind. (Look up “sooth.” I am twisting it into a verb.) I was afraid of the silence; of being alone with my unwanted painful and distressing thoughts. I had become Elijah.

Elijah had done great things for God. He called down fire from God and slayed the false prophets of Baal.  Yet, afterward, he ran in fear from Jezebel’s threats. God called him to Mount Horeb, Mount Sinai, where God met with Moses.  God sent a strong wind, an earthquake, and a fire.  But the Lord was not in the wind, fire, or earthquake.  God spoke in a whisper. A still small voice recommissioning Elijah. See 1 Kings 19.

In the silence we can choose to be crushed by our own thoughts, or we can hear the whisper of God. Martyn Lloyd-Jones has famously said: “Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?” In the silence we can speak truth to our souls or be crushed by our cares, fears, and anxieties.  Christian meditation is seeking God in the silence.  It is to sooth your mind. (Did you look it up?) It is slowing down and looking up.  It is meeting with God, hearing his whisper, in the silence.  It is filling your mind and nurturing your heart with God’s Word, God’s truth, God’s presence, and God’s promises. 

Back to sooth. It is an archaic word meaning truth. And truth, it seems, has gone archaic today for most think God’s truth has died.  That absence of solid truth fuels our painful thoughts and multiplies our anxieties.  Sooth your mind with truth. Soothe your mind with truth.  Run into the silence, heed the still, small voice of God, and be at rest.  Speak truth to yourself in the silence. It is the balm of Gilead to a troubled mind. Give Christian meditation a try. Reclaim your mind for God.

Remember Who You Are!!

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Have you heard of those who suffer from temporary amnesia? Due to some trauma they have forgotten who they are. They have lost their identity. They also do not know where they fit, nor what to do. They have forgotten their family, their job, their joys – everything. They wander around aimless, asking who they are? 

This is in essence the modern dilemma. We do not know who were are, why we are here, where we fit. So, we grasp for some comforting identity, some meaningful purpose. 

What is mankind? What is our true identity? What were we created for? What is our purpose?  We are made in the image and likeness of God. To know him, reflect and enjoy his greatness and glory – we are made to like Him, and to be like him. 

Yet, instead of imaging him, we, in our amnesia, are trying to make God in our own image. We call the shots and make the rules. God must answer to us and submit to our sense of right and wrong, to our definition of meaning and identity. We end up attacking the image of God that is in us. We are fighting against ourselves, and our created purpose. 

We are fighting against our own biology, the way we are fashioned. God has already set the rules, the purpose and direction of life.  We can fight against it, but we can never win.

There is great rest and peace in knowing who we are created to be. Sin has given us delusions of grandeur. But God has created us in real grandeur.  

Psalm 8 proclaims, “what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet … O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

Do you know who you are? God does. He created you, in his own image, to know and delight in him and his creation. Wake up to your created glory! Remember who you are; and known true rest and peace.

Signals of Transcendence

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To stop and smell the roses can be frightening thing – that is why we do it so infrequently. We often think of that phrase, ‘Stop and smell the roses’, as a call to forsake the busy rat race for a quick time of sweet rest and refreshment among the treasures of nature.  Pause, relax, let the stress drain away while you watch the waves or stare at a mountain peak.

So, how can that be a frightening thing? Because, to ‘stop and smell the roses’ can be a ‘signal of transcendence.’  Peter Berger coined the phrase to means hints and clues in life that awaken us to unseen realities. Os Guinness has a new book out by that title where he shares how ten people came to understand that there must be more to life.

Peter Berger described these hints and clues as “signals of transcendence” that awaken us to unseen realities.  Have you ever experienced a “there must be more to life” or a “signal of transcendence?”  Some thought that so stunned you as to change your perspective on life radically? It could be a deep disappointment, or a frustrated desire, or the scent a flower, or a death, or a sermon?  Anything can be a signal of transcendence calling you to reevaluate your assumptions in life.

You might think that I am talking about conversion, and that is in the mix, and it is often the end of a journey that begins with a ‘signal of transcendence.’

There must be more to life. Let me give you a taste of this from my own experience.  When, as a teenager, death stuck my extended family twice, I thought, there must be more to life.  When I learned about Corrie Ten Boom who survived the Nazi death camps, but her sister did not, forgave a guard from that camp.  When I went to L’arbi in Switzerland and knew the tangible presence of the Holy Spirit, when I was called to be ministry during a sermon, when I was called by God to my first church, when my children and grandchildren were born.  God can use any experience to awaken us to profound, and neglected spiritual realities.

The essential thing is to listen when God speaks in this way.  Heed the still small voice. Follow up on the signal. Don’t forget how the rose smells.  It may change your life. 

Fully Known and Truly Loved

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Does anyone really know you? Does anyone really love you?  We are all created in the image and likeness of God in order to commune with God: to enter a relationship with him, to know and love God. We are made to know, love, and enjoy fellowship with God and with others made in His image. But, sin has really messed us up. Now, we have lost fellowship with God, and we fear to be known, but still long to be loved.

Does anyone really know you? Does anyone really love you? Now, the safest course is to hide ourselves and stoically refuse to acknowledge our need for loving fellowship. You cannot love is you do not play the game. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained.  Those who are neither known nor loved tend to be sad, shriveled shells of broken humanity.

As a safer compromise, we will settle for being loved but not truly known. We will receive the love and attention that we crave, but it is not really “me” who is being loved. They are loving a sanitized image, a filtered projection of a self that is not really me. We fear that if we are really known we will not be really loved.

But our greatest fear is to be fully known, and not loved.  This, we think, is what ought to happen to us. We are broken, confused, rebellious people.  We don’t love people like that, why should others love me when I am like that. If they really knew me, they were reject me.

Our greatest need, our deepest longing, our highest joy is to be fully known and still sincerely loved. To be loved, warts and all. We are often seeking this relationship with others, but slowly, carefully. We receive initial indications of love, or at least potential love from another. Then, we risk unveiling a little more of ourselves and wait for the results. If all goes well, we reveal a little more, then a little more. Until finally, we reveal the dark stuff, the sinful and broken parts of who we are.  If they love us at that point, well, we have arrived.

God knows you. He knows everything about you. You cannot hide anything from God. And, in the Gospel, the good news, he tells us that he loves us. God can love even enemies and rebels.

God knows you  and still loves you. Will you rest in that love? Or will you continue to hide yourself and ignore your warts? Someone really loves you, the real you.  Through faith you can find shelter in the gracious love of God.  “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Dancing with God?

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I don’t dance often nor particularly well. And I only dance when I have something spectacular to celebrate. I dance when I am happy. And also, because I am a fallen self-conscience guy, only when no-one is looking!  Still, dancing at its best is a spontaneous physical response to an internal unconstrained joy. And here is the punchline – God has invited us to dance with Him! To enter into His joy by receiving his undiminished happiness. God has created us out of the fullness of His love.

We are made in the image of an infinitely happy God. God is essentially a community of persons celebrating mutual glorifying love. From eternity past God has existed in a fellowship of love, light, and life. The three persons of the Trinity pour themselves out in love and honor and delight toward the other persons in the Godhead.

What does it mean to glorify someone? When we delight in another and praise them we glorify them.  When we enjoy the other for who they are we glorify them. When we pour ourselves into and for the other in order to see them radiate with joy we glorify them.

God – Father, Son, and Spirit – has always existed in a radiant community of pure, self-giving love. It is this God, this eternally and infinitely happy God, this full to overflowing God, that creates us in His own image. I am straining finite words in an attempt to stretch them around an infinite concept. These words may fail to do it justice, but they do, I trust, entice us.

We are made to be like the infinitely happy God. We are formed and fashioned to glorify another, as He does; to wrap our lives around another in order to make them happy, as He does; and to give others joy, as He does. That is how we bear the image of God well. We were made for community – ‘it is not good for the man to be alone.’ We were made to focus and aim at the joy of another. We are never more at rest than when we sacrifice for the contentment, fulfillment, and joy of other persons. We were made to give ourselves away in other glorifying love because we are made in God’s likeness.

If we have not received this message sooner, God shouts it to us clearly through our grandkids. Typically, grandparents find no greater delight than in their children’s children. They pour themselves into those precious image bearers, they glorify them! Later, I will show you pictures of my grandkids. Oh, what a delight to give myself away to them. We are never more ourselves than when we truly love others. But the main object of our love, the focus of our lives ought to be the God of glory himself!

God created us to know him, to enjoy him, to glorify him. God has invited us to the dance of life. When we give ourselves away to God in other glorifying love, we receive back the same, ten-fold. God has invited us to dance, not merely with other creatures made in His image, but with God himself.  We are called to enter into the community of self-giving love that is God himself. And the dance increases.

So, what is heaven anyway? It is dancing in delight with God and his people, forever. It is living the heavenly life now, and always. It is receiving and then reflecting back, the glory, the love, the fulness of God. Will you dance with me? Won’t you dance with Him?

A Relationship With God?

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You can know God! You can have a real, vital, living relationship with the eternal God, the creator and Lord the universe.  You can talk to him. You can relate to him as father! Now that is an enticing proposition. We are all eager to have a relationship with God.

But, we too often think that we need to establish and maintain this communion with God just as we do other relationships.  We need to start the relationship. “Clean up my life and give my heart to Jesus.” I need an introduction somehow. I must prove that I am useful to God. I need to offer him something. “I will scratch your back, if you will scratch mine.” Most relationships are a means to another end. Friends are our ticket into the right crowd, or they will open doors for my career.

We think of relating to God in utilitarian terms. If I know God I will receive forgiveness and go to heaven when I die.  So, knowing God is useful, beneficial.  He gives gifts to me – blessings. He is a means to another end.

We think that we maintain our relationship with God with submission and obedience.  If I am good, God will bless me.  If I serve Him, he will have my back. If I make sacrifices for God, he will owe me one.  Too many have a cause and effect agreement with God. Or, so they think.

But truly knowing God turns this all around. It is God that initiates the relationship.  We are not ‘useful’ to God.  That is not why he befriends us. Early in Genesis when all men had descended deeply into sin and “the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5, 8).  And, “Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” That word ‘favor’ means grace. God was not responding to Noah’s good works, faith, or sacrifice – he simply showed him grace.  That was the foundation of their relationship.

God asked Noah to respond to his grace, not earn it. The unmerited grace and one-sided favor of God transforms us.  Knowing God in this way we respond with joy and gratitude to his love and kindness but we do not merit it.  And therefore, we cannot lose it.  When God claims you as his friend, no one can take you out of his hand. Grace is forever. That forever commitment from God releases, calms, encourages, stabilizes, and empowers us to live a life of gratitude. It is God who begins and maintains his friendship with us – that is life in God’s Covenant – so that we respond in love, kindness, thanksgiving and praise to God for what He has done for us. 

Do you want to know God? He invites you to respond to his mighty grace.  You have found favor with God.

Work, Rest, and Retirement

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We are made to work, to accomplish, to rule over God’s creation, to exercise dominion.  But, we cannot work forever, unceasingly. God commanded us to rest one day in seven.  God gives his beloved sleep, rest, every night. We are made to work 8 hours a day; 20 if you are a farmer or a mother. But we all need rest. ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.’ We should not work ourselves to death, but to work ourselves to life!

The purpose of life is not to go on vacation. Retirement does not equal 52 weeks of vacation. The purpose of vacation is to get back to work.  The purpose of retirement is re-tread-ment – you can retool for a different kind of work. Many are terrified of retirement – but what will I do? How will I invest my time? What will be my purpose? We are made to work, to accomplish, to build, to create. We rest, so that we can work without reaching the point of exhaustion.

Even Jesus told his disciples to take a break. In Mark 6:30-32, after he had sent out the 12 apostles and they had just returned,  “The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves.”

They were returning from work, from a missions trip and they needed rest and refreshment. Go to a desolate place beyond the reach of the busy, hectic chaos, and the many demands on your time. Don’t take your cell phone or your computer. Bring a book that you don’t have to read, and enjoy. “For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.”  Go to a restaurant, leave a big tip, enjoy.  Rest. Be refreshed. 

So, get away from it all. Find a boat and go to a desolate place, alone. You will find God, rest, and refreshment there. And then, back to work!

The Sabbath Keeps You!

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“Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy.” Exodus 20:8  Oh, no! Here is comes. A long list of things that I should not be doing on the Christian Sabbath, the Lord’s Day. Whatever you enjoy, stop doing right now. God demands it. Wrong! I am here, not to place a burden on your shoulders, but to grant you a blessed relief and to point you to pure joy. I am a hungry beggar showing other hungry beggars where I found bread.  I found bread for my soul and to spare on the Sabbath Day.

In Mark 2:27 we read, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” We do not serve God’s day by keeping a list of rules, God’s day serves us with rest, joy, and peace.  It is designed by God to be a blessed day of rest and worship.  It is the Market Day for the soul.  It is a whole day reserved to walk and talk with God, and to rest in what He has accomplished for us.

God has scattered his blessing throughout the day. He says to us, “I will give you rest.” “I have completed my work, and now you can rest, and look forward to greater rest.”  We are commanded to “Call the Sabbath a delight!” Isaiah 58:13  It is a day of blessing, joy, rest, worship, and delight.

But many people do not find it so. They call it a burden. They see it is a duty and not a delight. Over 150 years ago, J.C. Ryle said, “Our Sundays and how we use them is one of the most sure signs of our spiritual condition.” If it is the Market Day of the soul, and it is, we have too much supply and not enough demand.  We work 5 days a week, run errands on Saturday, but Sunday is finally our day – a day to do whatever we want, to pursue our highest pleasure.

Yes it is! And what is your highest pleasure? Knowing and enjoying God. Pursuing God on the Sabbath day is our delight. We find it a treasure. It conveys the greatest blessings. J. C. Ryle again writes, “The Sabbath is God’s merciful appointment for the common benefit of all mankind…It is not a yoke, but a blessing. It is not a burden, but a mercy…Above all, it is good for souls.”

So, call the Sabbath a delight, for the Sabbath was made for man.