May 25, 2010

• transparency in blogging & the struggle for sanctification

  This is follow-up to my last post here (Are You not a fountain? (let a drop fall here for me)) and on deerlife ("when man reaches the lowest depths of unbelief" (William Williams' "The Experience Meeting")).

  Many of you may be have wondered how much we as Christians should show our weaknesses and struggles, especially as we blog. I will say we should and we must use discretion as we do so. Whenever we share we should do a way that honors God and that guards the reputations of our loved ones and friends. And we should never merely flaunt our sin or our struggles merely to bring attention to ourselves or to our sin. We must seek to glorify God as we write and speak, as we should be doing in all things.

  There are ways we can be transparent and share our weakness and struggles and glorify God in the process.

  As we write/speak, we can let our brothers and sisters know how we're struggling so they might come alongside us and hold us up in prayer. How can people ever know how to pray for us if they don't know how we struggle? I'm not saying we should share all these things publicly or specifically here on the internet; again, we must use discretion. However, let's ask God to give us the grace to take off our masks, a bit, why don't we? We need not fear but we can trust our Father will protect as we follow His lead in this.

  If we never show our weaknesses and struggles, if we never show we are weak, if we never show we struggle, people will never see the grace of God that has been at work in our lives and they will not understand the Christian life is a battle: from beginning to end. And it doesn't get any easier. Does Satan ever stop being the enemy of Christ? Does he ever stop prowling? Can we expect he will stop attacking, accusing and tempting us? Are we not still in these bodies of flesh which cause us grave temptation? Are we not still in the world, which continues to buffet us with non-stop temptations?

  If we don't ever speak of our struggles and weaknesses, many who are Christians may think they are second-class Christians, that there is something wrong with them since they struggle and they think we don't. They may think they are missing out on some secret, instant twelve easy steps to sanctification. I'm sorry, I'm not coming up here and grinning from ear to ear with a fake pasted on white toothy smile. That is not me. None of us are like that 24/7. I hate that. That kind of Christianity is a bogus and is a scam. Contrary to what you may have heard, sanctification is a lifelong process, er, rather let's call it what it is: sanctification is a battle. It's not easy. Yes, not easy, but it is possible through Christ who dwells in us! Make war on sin and the lusts of the flesh through the indwelling Spirit! That's why the apostle Paul spoke of mortifying sin. Yep. That's written to Christians. A serious battle there. Yes, it's true we're saved from the penalty of sin once for all; that's our justification. It's true we are given the power to overcome sin but we are not saved by the presence of sin. Therefore, our fight to be holy as God is holy is a lifelong battle. Yet, we do know that God's will for us is sanctification, and He will provide us with all we need to be holy through His Spirit, His Word and fellow believers.

  I will say that in the midst of that battle, in the midst of the struggles and the fighting, God can help us to rejoice. And not only that, but  He wants us to rejoice. To keep us pressing on with joy even in the struggle, no matter what the circumstances, beyond our own feelings. Yes, this is impossible with us, but possible with Him. That type of rejoicing is nothing any of us can work up in our own strength. That is a gift and a grace from God Himself. Joy that is more than a feeling. A joy that is rooted in our relationship with Jesus Christ and therefore it is a joy that is independent of our circumstances. Over the past several months, God has been helping me to do that far beyond what I thought possible (please see my posts here). O, to be able to rejoice in the Lord no matter the circumstances, to trust by faith, that's truly possible only by the grace of God alone. I admit I've struggled in that in that past several weeks, but God has continued to hold onto me and has come to rejoice my soul when I felt no joy at all.

  If we don't ever speak of our own weaknesses and struggles, some unbelievers may think they can never come to Christ because they are too messed up. I got the incorrect concept somewhere along the line that I had to get my act together before I came to Christ. The devil likes to do that, you know, because that completely twists the Gospel of grace and makes it no gospel at all, it becomes all about us and our works. Of course, we know the Gospel is nothing about that, but rather until we see we can't get our act together, we won't ever come to Christ.

  Come, ye weary, heavy laden,
  Lost and ruined by the fall;
  If you tarry till you’re better,
  You will never come at all.
  ("Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy" by Joseph Hart, 1759)

  Until we see that no matter how hard we try, we will keep failing, why would we come to Christ? Only when we come to see our total inadequacy and insufficiency will we begin to turn to Christ. Many of us are so stubborn that our loving Father must let us go and get down on our hands and knees and wallow in the mud of the pig sty, eating those corn husks, to go low and even lower, for it's only then we will have ears to hear the Good Shepherd's voice crying to us to come to Him. It's only then we've come to the end of ourselves and our self-sufficiency. Let's not try to live a sugar-coated life that gives anyone the false conception that living the Christian life is all about what we do. God forbid. It is all what Jesus Christ has done for us on the cross and what He continues to do in us through His Holy Spirit. Let's not be proud Pharisees, but rather be humble tax collectors so we might be monuments of God's grace and point helpless and hopeless sinners to the sure help and hope they can find in Jesus Christ.

  About living the Christian life: We never get to the point where we can ever simply say, "Let go and let God." We're in a battle here. A constant battle. A lifelong battle. In the Bible we read the commands to be mortify the flesh, to put off the old man and put on the new, to be filled with the Spirit and to put on the whole armor of God. Paul prays we would be know the love of Christ and be filled with all the fullness of God. Notice that all those commands and prayers are to and for those who are already Christians. Yes, the Holy Spirit has come to us to birth us into God's family, and He dwells in us, but there is always room for us to grow and to experience more of Christ, to know more of His Holy Spirit power at work in us. (Please see my post here for more on that.) We won't ever thrive in the Christian life if we are not relying more and more on the power of the Spirit. We cannot walk out the commandments of God in the power of the flesh. Never. Much as the apostle Paul said to the Galatians, How foolish are we if we've started off the Christian life in God's Spirit to think we can walk it and finish it in our flesh. As I've mentioned previously, one of the lost treasures in the Church today is right teaching on the work of the Holy Spirit. We teach people the Spirit blows where He wills and that we must be born again. Yes, right. Indeed. But then so many of us go ahead and limit, quench and grieve the Spirit by relying on our flesh rather than His Spirit. Let's remember that the God who justifies us also works in us to sanctify us. We never grow out of our need for Christ. Let us keep reminding one another of our continuing need of Christ for eternity. May we allow God's grace to humble us so we might see the futility of relying on our flesh and see the glorious possibilities our God has for us as we walk in the Spirit: to no longer be overcome by sin but to overcome sin.

  I do not write very often of my struggles in a direct way, though I will sometimes write indirectly in the form of poems. For the Christian, writing about our struggles is not unscriptural so long as it points the reader to Christ and His sufficiency. Throughout the Scripture we see God's people struggling to run the race set before them. Especially in the Psalms. However, in all the Psalms but one (sorry, which one it is eludes me at the moment), even those times when the Psalmists have fallen into deep doubt, despair and questioning, the Psalmists always end up affirming God as a sure help. In the midst of the uncertainty, the Psalmists always end up declaring the truth about God: that God is good, God loves His people, God will never forsake His own, God is sovereign over all that happens and is working all things for their good.

  We also see continued exhortations throughout the Bible for us to persevere, to press on, to run the race set before us and so forth. And along with those exhortations, we see the doctrinal reminders of God's sovereignty, His enduring love and goodness and faithfulness and so on. I will tell you that those truths about God are there not as mere theological treatises to spit back as part of a creed, but they are there for meat for our  weary souls, meat for us to eat on the journey as we run the race set before us as we cross the wilderness to the promised land. We see that Israel kept failing when she forgot the truth about God. The whining and murmuring came again and again, "Is the Lord among us or not?" They had forgotten the miraculous deliverance from Egypt God worked on their behalf and then the signs and wonders He performed right before her eyes! God rebuked them time and again for limiting Him and provoking Him and testing Him. They had forgotten the truth about God, they began to doubt God, and we are all prone to do the very same thing.

  So now, why did the apostle Paul put that grand passage at the end of Romans 8? So we could recite those verses as part of a catechismal test? No! The Bible is God's Word to His flock. He is our Shepherd. His Word is part of His gracious provision for our needs. As the flock, we are in need of food and drink for the journey. Paul took care of the flock seriously; he was a shepherd writing to the sheep in Rome. They needed sustenance for the journey and so do we. Those words are there at the end of Romans 8 because we might come to a time when, like Israel, we might be sorely tempted to doubt God's love, to forget, and then we would need to be reminded God is for us and nothing can separate us from His love for us in Christ Jesus. Nothing!

  Or, why did the author to the Hebrews tell us as believers to encourage one another daily? Because we need encouragement. Because we will become discouraged. Because we will struggle. Because we will need help.
  
  Biblical doctrine and the whole Bible is given to us to help us persevere in our daily walk. That's living doctrine: the Holy Spirit leading us into all truth and writing these things on our hearts so we might run the race set before us with joy. Doctrine gets a bad rap, but if you get doctrine done right, if you sit under some good preaching or read some good sermons, you can't help but keep eating of doctrine. I love doctrine because it has helped me to know Christ more intimately, so He has become my daily food and drink to help me to press on in the race set before me. That's why I'm so big on doctrine here and I will encourage you and keep encouraging you to dig in for yourself to read and study the Word of God. Pick up and read! Go and eat of Christ firsthand in the Bible.

  We do no one any favors (including ourselves) by hiding our discouragement and doubts and struggles and weaknesses. But again, let's remember that the Biblical writers all bring us back to the truth about God and get our eyes off our discouragements, doubts, struggles and weaknesses and put our eyes back onto Christ and the truth about Christ. One reason God gives us His Word is to encourage us when we are discouraged. And one reason He places us in the Body of Christ is so we can encourage one another so we might stand strong and not give up when we are tempted to do so.

  Therefore, on those occasions when I share my struggles, as you read what I write here, know that I am striving to do the same thing as the Psalmists and the other writers of the Bible: to affirm the truth about God in the midst of those struggles. Yes, I have questions and doubts. Yes, I am weak and I struggle, I am not above that, but in spite of all that, I am fighting to rest in those bedrock truths because the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is a Rock, Who can be counted on at all times. In Hebrews 4:11, we are exhorted to strive to enter Christ's rest. Strive to enter that rest. That's it exactly. That's what I'm doing as I write here and I want you to do the same. So I will keep pounding home these truths about God here, not only because I want you to hear them, but because I need to hear them, and also because God Himself is glorified as we speak and proclaim these truths loudly about Him, rather than blathering on and on about our troubles. So yes, we can speak of our troubles and our struggles, but as Christians we cannot remain there. We cannot allow ourselves to get carried away into endless rants and tirades. We must always be setting our minds on things above, to fix our eyes on Jesus, not our troubles, our weaknesses and our struggles. Ye, it's easy to get stuck there. I know that. But we must continue to seek the bread of life and the living water as I wrote of the other day "Are You not a fountain? (let a drop fall here for me)" and to encourage one another to do the same. In the midst of our hunger and thirst, we continue to seek Christ and lift up Christ as our sufficiency, as our bread and living water, our sustenance. As we sit in the darkness (and yes, we will all have those dark times), we must keep reminding ourselves that He is the light. We must continue to affirm and declare what we know is true about God, no matter what we see, no matter how we feel. Doing that brings our Lord much pleasure and builds up our souls and is a great testimony to those who are in the darkness and have yet to come to know Christ themselves.

  Here are some of those precious truths about God which I keep coming back to, which are all rooted in Biblical doctrine (yes, doctrine: again – pick up and read, please!), that characterize God's relationship to those of us who are His children by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
  
  

  God is good.
  God is for us.
  God rejoices over us and wants us to enjoy Him and rejoice in Him.
  God's covenant mercies in Christ will never fail.
  God will never condemn us or punish us for our sin because our sin was punished in Christ.
  God's love for us will never fail.
  God will never leave us.
  God will never forsake us.
  God will work in us to will and to do of His good pleasure.
  God will complete the work He has begun in us.
  God is sovereign over all things, all things, even our sin, even our past: all things.
  God is working all things for our good.
  God does not always give us what we want but always gives us what is for our good and what we really need.
  God disciplines us for our good.
  God is working all things for the furtherance of His Gospel.
  God is working all things so His Son Jesus Christ might be preeminent.
  God is working all things for His glory.

  I hope for those of you who've read my blog for a while now, that you've picked up on these themes. I admit I often repeat myself in my writing, but all of these things bear repeating. I make no apologies for continuing to write and talk about the goodness of God, His joy, His enduring love, His faithfulness, His sovereignty, His good plan for His own and for His gospel and His desire for His glory, etc. I mean, what else are we here to do but to proclaim His glories? And we not only need to hear these things ourselves and tell one another these things, but God Himself is honored and magnified when we speak and write these truths about Him. Like an old favorite record that keeps getting played until the grooves are almost too deep, I'm going to keep playing this record. I hope He will give you an ear to enjoy it. I mean, honestly, whose praises will we be singing for all eternity?

  These are the doctrines that keep me sane and will keep all of us sane and standing strong even when all else in us wants to give up and turn away and quit. These are the meat of the Christian life: the realities about the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God whom we trust by faith, even when the world around us may be falling apart and we are being shaken. In the midst of our weaknesses and struggles, we have opportunity to point ourselves and others to the Lord Jesus again and again as we rehearse these things to ourselves and speak of them to others. How wonderful!

  I've changed up Philippians 1:18...

  only that in every way, whether in strength or in weakness, CHRIST IS PROCLAIMED, AND IN THAT I REJOICE!

  
  Amen.

  Christ is proclaimed! That's the bottom line! ...And in that I rejoice!

  I love to talk about Jesus! I love to write about Jesus! We have all been made alive in Christ to proclaim Christ! God has put that new song in our mouths, let's proclaim Him always!

  May God give us grace to proclaim Christ in our weakness as well as our strength.
  May God give us grace to proclaim Christ as we walk on the rocky path as well as the smooth.
  May God give us grace to proclaim Christ in the rain as well as the sun.
  May God give us grace to proclaim Christ in the darkness as well as the light.
  Etc.
  Amen.
  Glory to God!

  ---

  Related posts on . . .

  humility, emotions & transparency:

  • Mary's Emotions, part 2: What Does the Church Do with Marys in Our Midst?
  • are you gossiping the word to one another?
  • Things To Look for in a Church, 7: A Broken People
  • Bible Reading: Things To Look for in a Church: What We Find in Solomon's Temple, #5: Humility before God...

  the Holy Spirit:

  • Why not pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit?
  • Naphtali News: God speaking to me about my failures & the one thing needful (a post on the Holy Spirit)

  sanctification:

  • Postcards from God in England: sanctification is gloriously messy!
  • why we need a new heart (Bible reading - Matthew 5)
  • Encouragements to press on: the Creator upholds His new creation

  mortifying sin:

  • Bible Reading: Job 2:1 - "Again" (To press on we must always be mortifying sin | John Owen)
  • the visitor we can't ever entertain (mortifying sin)

  assurance in the midst of doubt:

  • Bible Reading-Isaiah: When We Think the LORD Has Forsaken and Forgotten Us
  • Reflections on the Resurrection: What We Can Learn from Mary's Emotions, part 1
  • Encouragements to press on: Seeing God is in our midst after all
  • "As your days, so shall your strength be"
  • All things (even bad things) work together for good...
  • Third Sunday of Advent: His Kingdom is unshakable even when we're being shaken

  doctrine:

  • Why I write and minister - My credo for being a godly encourager (see part 2)
  • Things To Look for in a Church, 4: An Orthodox Spirit-filled People
  • Things To Look for in a Church, 6: A People Hungry for the Word of God
  • postcards from England: are we excited over a dead fish and a car wreck?

  • 5:59 PM
  • 12 Comments