July 14, 2008

• Postcards from God at Vail (and Madison): Leaving the Mountain Top for the City

  While in Vail, every morning I would take coffee and breakfast, my Bible, various books and my notebook and sit out on our small patio area. This is the view I had:

  

  "Is this heaven?"
  "No, it's Vail..."

  THE ATTRACTION OF THE MOUNTAIN TOP

  As the time approached to leave Vail, I became somewhat sad. I looked longingly at the mountains and stared wistfully at the stream. I don't know if I'll have a chance to go back again. I thanked God for the opportunity to be there, yet still felt a dull sense of sorrow. I've been to Vail now three different times and have come to really feel it to be a home away from home. I think part of that is due to the glory of the Creator being so evident there. Walking amidst the mountains, you have a keener sense of walking before God. The mountain air seems permeated with the Spirit of God. A bigger part is that during my last two visits, I really had some extended times away alone with God, concentrated retreat/renewal/reevaluation time, which is always wonderful and sweet, as well as hard and challenging. You remember with fondness the places you've met God in special ways, the Bethels in your life, the altars on which you've poured out oil, as God has poured out His oil on you in unexpected ways.

  THE INORDINATE ATTACHMENT TO THE MOUNTAIN TOP

  Just about as soon as I began to experience these feelings of sadness anticipating leaving, God gently chastised me (as only a loving Father can do) that I can't become too attached to any place or experience...or person or thing or expectation or dream or.... Our hearts are always seeking to attach ourselves to someone, some place or something. Through such attachments we seek comfort, assurance, stability, certainty, protection, affirmation and so forth.

  In "The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment" [1], Jeremiah Burroughs warns us of the danger of inordinately attaching ourselves to the comforts of this world:

  Be not inordinately taken up with the comforts of this world when you have them. When you have them, do not take too much satisfaction in them. It is a certain rule: however inordinate any man or woman is in sorrow when a comfort is taken from them, so were they immoderate in their rejoicing in the comfort when they had it. (226)

   

  Chris Lowney [2] writes of the Jesuit attempt to become free of inordinate attachments:

  Inordinate attachments fog one's vision...Only by becoming indifferent–free of prejudices and attachments and therefore free to choose any course of action–do recruits become strategically flexible. The indifferent Jesuit liberates himself to choose strategies driven by one motive only: achieving his long-term goal of serving God by helping souls.

  My experience with God on the mountain top is a little tricky for certainly communing with God "on the mountain top" is a good and necessary activity, but I must be wary of becoming inordinately attached to the place and/or the experience itself. I must be careful lest I be hindered from freely choosing the course of action God might have for me. The mountain top and even the mountain top experience can become weights that keep me from running with perseverance the race marked out for me. Such "inordinate attachments" can keep me from taking up the yoke of Christ and following in His will. Therefore, I must be ever mindful that...

  Mountain tops aren't given us so we remain on the mountain.

  Mountain top experiences aren't given us so we remain on the mountain.

  Mountain top experiences aren't given us only for our own personal edification but to build up the Body of Christ and to strengthen us to go out into the world.

  Granted, we must make time to meet with God on the mountain top, to breathe in His Spirit, to immerse ourselves in His Word and prayer, to be filled with the bread of life and drink His living water, but if we remain on the mountain top, if we overfeed and overdrink, we only become stuffed and bloated and are no good to anyone. Our lives are not intended to be lived exclusively on the mountain top. God feeds us with bread so we might feed others. We drink of the Spirit so fountains of living water might flow out from us.

  At times we forget that obedience to Christ's call to "Come, follow Me," means when He bids us, "Come," we must follow without delay and not tarry a moment, even when we're on the mountain top.

  How can we show others the glories of Christ if we remain tucked away with Him on the mountain top, sequestered and insulated from the world? If we insist on staying on the mountain top, we're no more useful than a light that remains hidden under a bushel. In a similar vein, how could we have seen the glory of God if the Son did not come down from heaven to earth to make Him known to us...

  As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.

  We enjoy eating a charcoal-grilled breakfast of fish with Jesus by the sea, but we can forget that the food He feeds us with is intended to be shared.

  Like the early disciples, we sometimes would rather stay in Jerusalem. But the Spirit has come to bring us power and boldness, not so we can sit on the mountain top and sing "Kum Ba Ya" to the choir, but to go out and be His witnesses and to take the Gospel to all the nations in word and deed.

  The grand passage about the gates of hell [Matthew 16:18] really turns out to be a passage devoted to Christian strategy. What is needed always is a firm center from which we can start and to which we may need to return for reinvigoration, but most of the time must be spent in less congenial places. The chief ministry of concerned Christians must be carried on, not in churches and not in the midst of the delightful fellowship of the like-minded, but in the market places and in various parts of secular society. The classic pattern is that of Columba, who established his permanent base on the beautiful island of Iona in the Inner Hebrides, but who expected his fellow workers to spend most of their time on the Scottish mainland, engaged in the arduous task of the conversion of Scotland.[3]

  In Acts 8:1 we see that God allowed persecution to come upon His Church to mobilize her to move out of Jerusalem to fulfill the commission He had given her, to take the Gospel to Judea, Samaria and the uttermost ends of the earth–a goal many of us lose sight of. I admit that far too often than I would care to admit I prefer to stay up on the mountain top snuggled safely and comfortably alongside God and other believers.

  Sometimes we're no different than Peter (the one who knew not what he spoke), having had a great mountain top experience with God, we'd like to put up some tents on the mountain and hang out with Jesus, Moses and Elijah indefinitely. (Of course, I'd need a little help putting up the tent! Anyone bring the marshmallows for the s'mores?)...I love Peter as I can so identify with him, can't you?

  Do we cling inordinately and excessively to the mountain top and mountain top experiences to the neglect of following Christ into the world where we're commanded to shine as lights?

  If all Christians were to choose to remain on the mountain top, who would be left to shine the light of Christ in the dark world?

  Mountain top experiences are given us to energize and strengthen us to go outside the camp with Jesus, to follow the Lamb wherever He goes, to die with Jesus, so we might truly live, keep our lives for eternal life and bear much fruit.

  (Lest any out there who read this talk of "experience" and are more cerebral may think themselves immune to the pursuit of such mountain top experiences. Please consider that this danger of being captivated with mountain top experiences isn't limited to those of us who are more mystical/contemplative by nature, but can also be a danger to those who are intellectual/cerebral...In the former, the experience sought after impacts the affections/emotions, where the heart is warmed. In the latter, the experience sought after is intellectual enlightenment, where the mind is lit up. One is heat, one is light. One impacts the heart, the other, the mind. But they are both means through which we may encounter the living God and thus come to know Him more intimately.)

  When we begin coveting the mountain top ahead of the One who made the mountain, we know there's something wrong...the father of lies has twisted the Creator's good and perfect gift into an idol.

  When we begin coveting the mountain top experience ahead of obedience to the One we've met on the mountain, we know there's something wrong...the father of lies has even managed to twist the very act of communing with our Creator into an idol.

  It's hard to leave places. It's hard to leave people. It's hard to leave things. It's hard to leave experiences. It's hard to leave expectations. It's hard to leave dreams. It's hard to leave the mountain top...

  What inordinate attachments keep us from taking up Christ's yoke and following Him without looking back? (For example, see Matt. 8:18-22; Luke 9:57-10:12; Mark 8:31-9:1; Matt. 19:16-30; Luke 18:18-30; Mark 10:17-28; Luke 14:25-33.)

   

  How can we overcome our inordinate attachments so we might follow Christ wholeheartedly?

  ATTACHMENT TO THE WILL OF GOD

  
  CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE
  
  In his book "In Jesus We Trust," George A. Maloney, tells this story [4]:

  John Tauler, a 14th-century Rhenish mystic and Dominican theologian, prayed for eight years that God would send him a person who would be able to point out to him the true way of perfection. One day while he was in prayer Tauler felt this desire come over him very strongly. He heard a voice from within telling him to go to the steps of the church, and there he would meet such a teacher.
  
  Tauler found on the steps of the church a beggar in rags, with feet bare, wounded and caked with mud. He greeted the beggar with the words: "May God give you a good day." The beggar answered: "I do not remember ever having had a bad day." Tauler asked the beggar to explain how it was that he never had a bad day, never had been anything but happy. The beggar answered:
  
  

  You wished me a good day, and I answered that I cannot recall having ever spent a bad day. For, when famishing with hunger, I praise God equally; when I am in want, when I am rebuffed and despised, I still praise God; and, consequently, I know not what it is to have a bad day. You next wished me a good and happy life, and I replied that I have never been otherwise than happy. That is perfectly true. For I have learned how to live with God, and I am convinced that whatever He does must necessarily be very good. Hence, everything which I receive from God, or which He permits that I receive from others, prosperity or adversity, sweet or bitter, I regard as a particular favor, and I accept it with joy from HIs hand. Besides, it is my first resolution never to attach myself to anything but the will of God alone. I have so merged my own will in His that whatsoever He wills, I will also. Therefore, I have been always happy.

  
  The beggar had given all for All and had found the secret of happiness. It consisted in perfect childlike abandonment to the heavenly Father's will in all circumstances of life and joining such surrender to profound humility. This is the shortest road to God.

  ...It is my first resolution never to attach myself to anything but the will of God alone.

  ...I have so merged my own will in His that whatsoever He wills, I will also.

  Sounds like the Lord Jesus Christ...

  
  My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. John 4:34.

  I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me. John 5:38.
  
  Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,
  

  
  Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,

  but a body have you prepared for me;

  
  in burnt offerings and sin offerings
  you have taken no pleasure.
  
  Then I said, Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,
  as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.
  
  

  When he said above, You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings (these are offered according to the law), then he added, Behold, I have come to do your will.  Hebrews 10:5-9.
  
  For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. John 6:38.

  Our dear Savior was perfectly attached to His Father's will. Jesus said that His very food was to do the Father's will. Truly He and His Father were one...Unlike the first Adam, the only begotten Son of God, the last Adam, was not attached to His own agenda, to getting His own way or to His own will, therefore the Lord Jesus was free to seek only the will of His Father.

  Jesus completely submitted Himself to His Father's will. In both life and death, He walked in His Father's will for Him...though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing. Fully aware crucifixion awaited Him, He steadfastly set His face toward Jerusalem because He savored the things of God and not the things of men. He went as a willing Lamb to the slaughter.

  The words Jesus used to describe His relationship with HIs Father...

  "I always do the things that are pleasing to him,"

  and

  "I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me"

  
  were not just talk, not just idle words...

  For when it pleased the LORD to bruise him (KJV), when it was the will of the Lord to crush him, because Jesus' desire was to do His Father's will and always sought to please His Father, He voluntarily submitted to His Father's will and became became obedient unto death, even death on the cross. Perfect submission...wondrous love...while we were yet sinners...

  Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, Sit here, while I go over there and pray. 37 And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me. 39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. 40 And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, So, could you not watch with me one hour? 41 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. 42 Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done. 43 And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. 44 So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. Matthew 26:36-44.

  And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. 40 And when he came to the place, he said to them, Pray that you may not enter into temptation. 41 And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and knelt down and prayed, 42 saying, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done. 43 And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. 44 And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Luke 22:39-44.

  Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit! And having said this he breathed his last.  Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, Certainly this man was innocent! Luke 23:46-47,

  And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit...When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, Truly this was the Son of God! Matthew 27:50, 54.

  Truly this was the Son of God! Certainly we would think if anyone were able to commit Himself totally to God, it would be God's own Son. At Golgotha and Calvary we see the culmination of the Son's perfect life and His complete attachment to the Father's will. He obediently laid down His life in our place. And in the midst of overwhelming physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual agony the likes of which we will never know, including His own Father turning His face away, He continued to entrust Himself entirely to His Father. He finished all the work the Father had given Him to do. Truly this was the Son of God!

  Jesus attached Himself solely to the will of God and merged His will with His Father's that whatever the Father willed, even death on the cross, the Son also willed. The Son of God wore the yoke of the Father perfectly. He was the perfect Son.

  The One who perfectly attached Himself to the will of God and never shrunk back from doing the Father's will calls us to do the same:

  And Jesus answered them, The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. 27 Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name. Then a voice came from heaven: I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again. John 12:23-28.

  CHRIST OUR STRENGTH

  We cannot simply "resolve" to attach ourselves to do the will of God and expect that to happen. Our best intentions and efforts will never succeed at bringing about the life of Christ in us. But thanks be to God that in Christ we not only see what it looks like to live as a perfect son of God, but through Him we have been given the power to do so. The same Spirit Who strengthened and empowered Christ to will and to do of His Father's good pleasure now dwells in all who are in Christ Jesus. If we have been united with Christ in His death, we are also united with Him in His life. We are dead to sin and self but alive to Christ, and are, therefore, free to present ourselves to God as slaves of righteousness. As we take on the yoke of Christ, we are set free to say "no" to inordinate attachments and free to say "yes" to God, free to attach ourselves to nothing but His will. Having been made alive in Christ, we are now capable of yielding ourselves unto God as those who are alive from the dead (see Romans 6:1-7:6), and as we do so, we will be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus, so that more and more...

  ...we will see our lives are not our own to do with as we will but are to be yielded to the will of our Redeemer.

  ...we will seek the Father's will and not our own.

  ...we will pray, "Thy Kingdom come, my Kingdom go."

  ...we will pray, "Not my will, but Yours be done."
  
  ...we will delight to do His will.

  ...we will be grieved when we disregard or disobey His will for us.

  ...we will purify ourselves by mortifying and casting off all that hinders us from doing His will.

  ...we will attach ourselves to nothing but the will of God alone.

  ...we will merge our own will in His that whatsoever He wills, we will also.

  ...we will find our very food is to do God's will.
  

  The children of God can no longer continue to persist in anything that is contrary to the will of our Father. The Spirit will not let us rest. We will increasingly hate those things that keep us from being attached only to the Father's will, anything that keeps us from seeking and walking in our Father's will–not only blatant sin, but also those inordinate attachments to things that are not sinful or bad in themselves, e.g.-the mountain top, the mountain top experience. Apart from Christ we would have no such desire for we are selfish and self-centered by nature. But in Christ, we have been made new, and we are being continually transformed so we will increasingly want God's will for us. As Christ's resurrection life works in us, we will find it abominable to cling to inordinate attachments and affections, and seeing them as a hindrance, we will begin to cast them off and mortify them in His strength. (For example, see Romans 8:12-13; II Cor. 6:11-7:1; Col. 3:4-5 ff; I John 2:28-3:9.) As we do so, we are working out the emancipation from self and sin Christ bought us on the cross. The Son has set us free to follow God with total abandon, to be attached only to the will of God.

  When we are attached to the will of God, we will will find it easier to hold the good gifts of God with an open hand and a thankful heart, ready to let them go should God call us away. We can begin to enjoy the mountain top and the mountain top experience without letting it control or master us, without it becoming an idol.

  THE PROPER PERSPECTIVE ON THE MOUNTAIN TOP

  Burroughs wrote this about contentment in our current circumstances (51-52):

  A Christian comes to this contentment not by making up the wants of his circumstances, but by the performance of the work of his circumstances. This is the way of contentment. There are circumstances that I am in, with many wants: I want this and the other comfort – well, how shall I come to be satisfied and content? A carnal heart thinks, I must have my wants made up or else it is impossible that I should be content. But a gracious heart says, 'What is the duty of my circumstances God has put me into? Indeed my circumstances have changed, I was not long since in a prosperous state, but God has changed my circumstances. The Lord has called me no more Naomi, but Marah. Now what am I to do? What can I think now are those duties that God requires of me in the circumstances that he has now put me into? Let me exert my strength to perform the duties of my present circumstances. Others spend their thoughts on things that disturb and disquiet them, and so they grow more and more discontented. Let me spend my thoughts in thinking what my duty is , what is the duty of my present circumstances which I am in?'....'What does God require of me in the circumstances I am now brought into?' You should labour to bring your heart to quiet and contentment by setting your soul to work in the duties of your present condition. And the truth is, I know nothing more effective for quieting a Christian soul and getting contentment than this, setting your heart to work in the duties of the immediate circumstances that you are now in, and taking heed of your thoughts about other conditions as a mere temptation.

  
  

  What is the duty of my circumstances God has put me into?
  
  What does God require of me in the circumstances I am now brought into?

  
  Regarding the mountain top: God doesn't give us time on the mountain top or mountain top experiences so we would remain there. Our very DNA is missional for the divine seed planted in us is a missional seed. God Himself is a sent and a sending God.[5] He is a God of mission and a God on a mission. The Father demonstrated that by sending His only begotten Son. The Son of God demonstrated that by the incarnation, to walk, work and eat with sinful, fallen men, so He might bring the Kingdom of God to the world of men. The Spirit demonstrates it as He has come to indwell and fill us. The Word of God reminds us that we are called to be missional...As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.
  
  Henry Drummond [6] wrote:

  The Heaven of Christianity is different from all other Heavens, because the religion of Christianity is different from all other religions. Christianity is the religion of Cities. It moves among real things. Its sphere is the street, the market-place, the working-life of the world. (28)
  
  The Kingdom of God is like leaven, and the leaven is with us now....if the leaven does not mix with that which is unleavened, if it does not do the work of leaven—that is, to raise something— it is not the leaven of Christ. The question or good men to ask themselves is: Is my goodness helping others? Is it a private luxury, or is it telling upon the City? Is it bringing any single human soul nearer happiness or righteousness? (33)

  We are Christ's ambassadors to the world. We are to take the God of the mountain top and His Gospel into the world in word and deed.

  God blesses us on the mountain top so we can bless others. We cannot bottle up the blessings of God and keep them for ourselves.

  Freely we have received, freely we are to give.

  Light is to shine.

  Seed is to be scattered

  Leaven is to permeate.

  Salt is to be sprinkled.

  Bread is to be broken.

  Wine is to be poured.

  Perfume is to pervade.

  Water is to flow.

  What is our duty then in the circumstances God has put us into? What does God require of us in the circumstances we are now brought into?

  We are to take full advantage of our mountain top times but to do so with an eye to taking the God of the mountain top out to the world. While on the mountain top we are to feed on the bread of life and drink of the living water so that as we are filled we can go out and feed others, or as the Jesuits might put it–To serve God by helping souls, or as Jesus put it–to Go and make disciples, or, as the apostle Paul put it–To shine as lights...

  Curious at it may seem, the immortal, invisible, only wise God has entrusted His mission to the Church. Just as Christ was sent to earth show us the glory of God, the people of God are sent into the world to manifest the God of glory to the world–to be Christ to the world, to be living epistles to be read by men, to be His fragrance wherever we go, to be restorers and rebuilders seeking the welfare of the cities in which we dwell.

  Drummond wrote:

  Surely next to its love for the chief of sinners the most touching thing about the religion of Christ is its amazing trust in the least of saints. Here is the mightiest enterprise ever launched upon this earth, mightier even than its creation, for it is its re-creation, and the carrying of it out is left, so to speak, to haphazard—to individual loyalty, to free enthusiasms, to uncoerced activities, to an uncompelled response to the pressures of God’s Spirit. Christ sets His followers no tasks. He appoints no hours. He allots no sphere. He Himself simply went about and did good. He did not stop life to do some special thing which should be called religious. His life was His religion. Each day as it came brought round in the ordinary course its natural ministry. Each village along the highway had someone waiting to be helped. His pulpit was the hillside, His congregation a woman at a well. The poor, wherever He met them, were His clients; the sick, as often as He found them, His opportunity. His work was everywhere; His workshop was the world. One’s associations of Christ are all of the wayside. We never think of Him in connection with a Church We cannot picture Him in the garb of a priest or belonging to any of the classes who specialize religion. His service was of a universal human order. He was the Son of Man, the Citizen.

  This, remember, was the highest life ever lived, this informal citizen-life....(34)
  

  As we climb down from the mountain top to follow Christ in obedient faith, taking with us the loaves and fish He has blessed, God assures us He goes with us. With His commission to go, comes His promise...And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. The God of the mountain top goes with us as we go out into the world.

   

  * * *

  

   

  When I was in Vail...He was with me...

  When I left Vail..He was with me...

  And now back in Madison...He is with me...

   

  Let your conversation be without covetousness;
  and be content with such things as ye have:
  for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
  Hebrews 13:5, KJV
  

   

  I have no reason to covet the mountain top...He is with me...

  I have no reason to be discontent...He is with me...

   

  ...if the Lord has blessed you in heavenly places, that should content you. Burroughs (208).

   

  As I sit outside back at home on our deck writing this post...He is with me...

   

  

   

  "Is this heaven?"
  "No, it's Madison..."

  Here at home there is still the temptation getting stuck in my "mountain top" experiences rather than taking the God of the mountain top out into all the world...

  * * *

  There was a time to be in Vail...with Him...

  And now there is a time to be in Madison...with Him...
  
  And perhaps, Lord willing, there will be a time to be in Vail again...with Him...

  But now is the time to praise Him for the time I spent in Vail...with Him...

  Otherwise I exalt the good gift above the Giver of the good gift...
  
  There are times to remain on the mountain top...with Him...

  And there are times to leave the mountain top...with Him...

  And there are times to go out into the world...with Him...
  
  

  To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: 2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; 3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. 9 What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth? 10 I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. 11 He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. Ecclesiastes 3:1-11, KJV.

  At all times I am to present myself a living sacrifice...to Him...

  At all times I am to yield my will...to His.

  At all times I am not to seek my will...but His.

  At all times I am never to attach myself to anything...but His will.

  Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. Romans 6:13.

  I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:1-2.

  God is the LORD, which hath shewed us light: bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar. Psalm 118:27, KJV.

  Matthew Henry writes this about Psalm 118:27:

  the sacrifice we are to offer to God, in gratitude for redeeming love, is ourselves, not to be slain upon the altar, but living sacrifices (Rom. xii. 1), to be bound to the altar, spiritual sacrifices of prayer and praise, in which our hearts must be fixed and engaged, as the sacrifice was bound with cords to the horns of the altar, not to start back.

  
  Thank God that in Christ Jesus we have all we need to present ourselves as living sacrifices and to attach ourselves to the will of God as Jesus did:

  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. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. 31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Romans 8:29-32.

   

  O Jesus Sweet, O Jesus Mild
  (Samuel Scheidt, 1650,
  Tr. by Mark E. Hunt, 1976; alt 1990)

  O Jesus sweet, O Jesus mild,
  your Father's will you have fulfilled.
  From heav'n above to earth you came,
  and born as man you took our name.
  O Jesus sweet, O Jesus mild.

  O Jesus sweet, O Jesus mild,
  your birth the world with hope has filled.
  Your death has ransomed our lost race,
  for on the cross you took our place.
  O Jesus sweet, O Jesus mild.

  O Jesus sweet, O Jesus mild,
  we seek to do what you have willed.
  All that we have comes from above;
  Lord, keep us walking in your love.
  O Jesus sweet, O Jesus mild.

  Hello Madison, goodbye Vail

  Father, grant me grace and power to walk humbly before You and with You,
  free me from inordinate attachments,
  fix and engage my heart to do Your will only,
  let my first resolution be to never attach myself to anything but Your will alone,
  so I might will and to do what You require of me in the circumstances I am now brought into,
  to fulfill the duty of the circumstances You have put me into,

  Help me to go out and shine as a light in the world,
  no longer on the Rocky mountain top,
  but here in the city of Madison and
  wherever else you may lead me...
  even to the ends of the earth.

  Father, grant me grace and power to walk humbly before You and with You,
  in the land of the living, in the city,
  fix and engage my heart to do Your will only,
  to merge my own will in Yours that whatsoever You will, I will also,
  so I might will and to do what You require of me in the circumstances I am now brought into,
  to fulfill the duty of the circumstances You have put me into,

  Help me to climb down from the mountain top,
  that I might take the Bread of Life to the city,
  to feed others with the Food You've fed me on mountain top.
  Thank You for Your promise that You are with me always...
  even to the ends of the earth and to the end of the age.

  
  
  
  

  You may also be interested in:
  

  • "Dan Kimball and the Challenge to Christian Subculture"
  • Henry Drummond's "The City without a Church" in The Greatest Thing in the World And Other Addresses
  • Oswald Chambers' "The Spiritually Self-Seeking Church" from My Utmost for His Highest

  
  

  
  

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  Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Holy Bible.

  "O Jesus Sweet, O Jesus Mild," Text © 1978, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Hymn #232 in the Trinity Hymnal (Suwanee, Ga: Great Commission Publications, 1990). Lyrics are subject to US Copyright Laws and are the property of their respective authors, artists and labels. Commercial use prohibited.

  [1] All the quotations of Jeremiah Burroughs taken from "The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment" (Carlisle, Pa: Banner of Truth Trust, 2005, reprinted from Banner of Truth Trust edition, 1964).
  
  

  [2] Chris Lowney, "Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Year Old Company that Changed the World" (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2003), 119.

  [3] Elton Trueblood, "The Yoke of Christ and Other Sermons" (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1958), 39.

  [4] George A. Maloney, "In Jesus We Trust" (Notre Dame, Indiana: Ave Maria Press, 1990), 129-130. Brennan Manning referenced Maloney in his book "Ruthless Trust: The Ragamuffin's Path to God," see Chapter 12.

  [5] I think I first heard this phrase (or something like it) from Michael Frost, author of the book "Exiles" and coauthor of "The Shaping of Things To Come" with Alan Hirsch.

  [6] The quotes from Henry Drummond are from "The City without a Church" in The Greatest Thing in the World And Other Addresses, circa 1880.

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