A Little Secret

Satan plays us like fiddles, and we just never catch on. 

I’m convinced that everybody in our churches is both better and worse than we perceive when we gander at the folks around us.

Theologically, we understand that every saint in our particular church is a sinner saved by grace.  We know that each and every one was hostile toward God and dead in his or her treaspasses and sins until the redeeming work of our triune God breathed life into his or her corpse.  However, in spite of receiving the gift of salvation (for what do we have that we have not received?) and being drawn by the Father to the life-giving Son and being born again of the Spirit, none of us is immediately delivered from all of our sins.

Hence, we are all living contradictions.  Paul tells us that we have died to sin, yet the very fact that he tells us this in addition to exhorting us to fight sin tells us that our sin is alive and waging war.  If we have died to sin, why must we still fight it?  Is it not dead already?  How many dead men have you fought in your life?  Yet, as contradictory as it may seem, we who have died to sin must still fight it.  We must fight it every day until we die or until Christ comes back for us.

I don’t know all the reasons why God has ordered things in this way.  However, I am convinced that one reason is so that each and every one of us needs God and needs our neighbor every single day of our lives.  And so that each and every one of us has burdens which we cannot carry alone.  Therefore, the blessed law of God fits our needs like a taylor-made suit.  Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength; and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Luke 10:27).  And Paul tells us to, “bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).

The way that Satan tempts us fools is by alternately convincing us that our burdens are greater than others’, that they need to bear their own burdens, and that others don’t have burdens like we have.  When we need to humbly consider others’ needs before our own (Philippians 2:3), and a brother or sister in Christ needs to be served and needs help with a burden, we are rendered inactive by contemplating the weight of our own burdens or his or her need to do it alone.  When we need to confess our sins to one another, so that we can pray for one another and be healed, we are rendered silent by contemplating how perfect so-and-so seems and we believe that we are the only ones struggling.

The results of being played like fiddles by the father of lies are damning.  Our churches, which should be places where people can come for help and healing and hope, are places where everybody fakes a smile and tries to seem more under control than the family next to them.

All that to say that each and every person in your church has burdens that he or she cannot carry alone.  And each and every one was created by God in His image for His glory, called by name, redeemed, and is worthy of as much time, energy, emotion, etc. as you can spare.

May God give us the grace to both live and proclaim His Gospel, such that words like these describe our churches:

“Our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. You also became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything. For they themselves report about us what kind of a reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come.” 1 Thessalonians 1:5-10

“Comfort, O Comfort My People,” says your God

“‘Comfort, O comfort My people,’ says your God.” -Isaiah 40:1
 
From Isaiah chapter 40 through the end of the book of Isaiah God seeks to comfort His people through His prophet.  The way that God does this stands in stark contrast to the way that many so-called Christian leaders seek to comfort people today.  Where they make everything about man, God makes everything about God. 
 
The way that God comforts His people is by telling them who He is, what He has done, and what He will do.  We see a beautiful picture of who God is in Isaiah 40:12-14:
 
“Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand,
         And marked off the heavens by the span,
         And calculated the dust of the earth by the measure,
         And weighed the mountains in a balance
         And the hills in a pair of scales? 
Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD,
         Or as His counselor has informed Him? 
With whom did He consult and who gave Him understanding?
         And who taught Him in the path of justice and taught Him knowledge
         And informed Him of the way of understanding?”
 
He also contrasts Himself with the idols of the Israelites in Isaiah’s day.  He mocks the idols who were made by craftsmen and gold- and silversmiths.  How much greater is the eternal God who was never made than the idol that was formed by human hands?  Then, in Isaiah 41:22-23 God challenges the idols of the Israelites:
 
“Let them bring forth and declare to us what is going to take place;
         As for the former events, declare what they were,
         That we may consider them and know their outcome.
         Or announce to us what is coming; 
Declare the things that are going to come afterward,
         That we may know that you are gods;
         Indeed, do good or evil, that we may anxiously look about us and fear together.”
 
God says, “let your idols explain the past or predict the future.  Let them do anything, whether good or evil, so that we will know that they are gods.”  Then, the God who throughout history had declared the former events and announced what was coming answers His own challenge.  God, through His prophet Isaiah, comforts His people by announcing to them what was coming, which He can only do because He is God and He will ensure that what He speaks will come to pass.  The most magnificent of these announcements of the future through the prophet Isaiah is found in Isaiah 52:13-53:12.  Remember that the book of Isaiah was written around 700 B.C.  That is around 700 years before Jesus was born.  I have used this passage a few times while doing street evangelism.  I like to walk up to a person and ask if he or she wants to play a “game.”  I ask if the person knows the difference between the Old and New Testaments.  Then I say that my “game” is that I will read a passage from the Bible and he or she has to guess whether it is from the Old or New Testament and tell me to whom the passage refers.  Because the passage is so clearly about Jesus, the answer that I expect is “New Testament.”  However, this passage is from the Old Testament, as I said 700 years before Jesus was born.  The reason we have a prophecy that is so clearly about our Messiah 700 years before His birth is that, unlike any idol that has ever been, is now, or ever will be, and unlike any other so-called-god who has ever been, is now, or ever will be, the God of the Bible can both declare what former events were and announce to us what is coming: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%2052:13-53:12;&version=49;.
 
God’s Servant in chapters 52 and 53 would have His appearance “marred more than any man,” be “despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief,” who would be pierced through, crushed, chastened, scourged, oppressed, and afflicted so that His people would be free from the penalty of their transgressions and iniquities and be healed.
 
As John 3:16 tells us, whosoever believes in Jesus will not perish, but will have eternal life.  This fits together with the whole picture of the Old Testament.
 
Just as God- in order to satisfy His holiness, righteousness, and justice- punished the sins of His people in the Old Testament in a sacrificial substitue, namely, a spotless animal; so it is that God- in order to satisfy His holiness, righteousness, and justice- now punishes the sins of His people in a sacrificial substitute, namely, our sinless Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ.  Just as God made promises to Abraham, and by believing God Abraham was declared righteous; and just as those under the sacrificial system believed the promises of God through the sacrificial system, and were thereby declared righteous; so it is that now those who believe God’s promises of forgiveness of sins, communion with God, and eternal life through Christ Jesus are declared righteous.
 
Therefore, by having faith in Jesus, by believing in Him, by trusting Him, we can have the assurance of knowing that God’s words to the faithful Israelites in Isaiah 43 also apply to us:
 
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine! When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, Nor will the flame burn you. For I am the LORD your God, The Holy One of Israel, your Savior… Since you are precious in My sight, Since you are honored and I love you… Do not fear, for I am with you.”
 
This still leaves several questions unanswered.  While I do not know why great suffering is given to some and not others, I believe that both unanswered questions and suffering exist to cause us to long for the day when we will have no unanswered questions and there will be no more suffering.  The day when we see the “Lamb who was slain” in all His glory, the Messiah who created all things, sustains all things, and will judge all things with merely the power of His word.  The day when there will be no more sickness, no more death, no more suffering, no more mourning, no more grieving.  The day when faith is replaced by sight, and hope is replaced by knowledge.  When we see the God whom we are to love with all of our heart, soul, and strength with our very eyes.  The day when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
 
May these things cause us to react as John reacts to Jesus’ promises in the next-to-last vers in the Bible:
 
“Amen Come, Lord Jesus.” -Revelation 22:20

“An Atheist in the Woods”

AN ATHEIST IN THE WOODS 
An atheist was walking through the woods.
As he was walking alongside the river, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him.

He turned to look. He saw a 7-foot grizzly bear charge towards him.

He ran as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder & saw t hat the bear was closing in on him.

At that instant the Atheist cried out, 
He looked over his shoulder again, & the bear was even closer.

He tripped & fell on the ground.

He rolled over to pick himself up but saw that the bear was right on top of
him, reaching for him with his left paw & raising his right paw to strike him.

‘What majestic trees!
‘What powerful rivers!
‘What beautiful animals!
He said to himself.

‘Oh my God!’
As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky.

 

‘You deny my existence for all these years, teach others I don’t exist and even credit creation to cosmic accident.’

‘Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament?
Am I to count you as a believer’?
‘Very Well,’ said the voice.

The light went out. The sounds of the forest resumed.

And the bear dropped his right paw, brought both

paws together, bowed his head & spoke:

‘Lord bless this food, which I am about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord, Amen.

The atheist looked directly into the light, ‘It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now, but perhaps you could make the BEAR a Christian’?

Time Stopped.
The bear froze.
The forest was silent.

Daily Challenge

I was challenged by this thought, and decided I shouldn’t be the only one.

What if somebody followed you and watched everything you did on any given day?  You could not talk to this person to defend yourself or explain anything that you did or didn’t do.

How valuable would He say that God and His Word are to you?