It's not you Xanga, it's me...

Over the past couple years, having led to be more involved locally, I've been blogging less here. Long story short, over the past few months, God has surprisingly and wonderfully (Isaiah 64:3a!) opened up an opportunity for me to lead a group of women in this study at our church...

Behold Your God: Rethinking God Biblically - official trailer from Media Gratiae on Vimeo.

(You can view the Introductory video as well as the complete Week 1 video (Beholding God: The Great Attraction, featuring A. W. Tozer) at http://beholdyourgod.org.)

I would appreciate your prayers for me as I prepare for and lead the study each week. (Sorry to be late in updating – we've just finished the third week of the study.) As I was recently rereading the last few chapters of Job, these verses in chapter 42 struck me:

7  After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. 8  Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” 9  So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did what the LORD had told them, and the LORD accepted Job's prayer.

The LORD requires that we (I) speak of Him what is right. When we (I) don't, it provokes him to wrath – His anger burns against us (me)! Considering this rebuke was in regard to private conversations these three men had had with Job, we (I) cannot help but weigh soberly and fearfully what it means for any of us (for me) to speak of the LORD wrongly in public, including blogging and public teaching! No wonder James gives us (me) this stern warning:  Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness... (3:1).

I would also appreciate your prayers for each of the women, as well as myself – that we would not squander this opportunity, but make every effort and apply ourselves diligently, using the means God has provided.

My heart's desire is that the Spirit of God would descend in fire upon this study, so each one of us might enter into a more intimate knowledge of the one true God. Our Lord has told us that this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (John 17:3). May none of us fall short of the blessed privileges Jesus Christ purchased for us at Calvary! I Peter 3:18  For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.

We can and we should use means, but we must not ever put our trust in means or rely upon our own flesh. May the Spirit of the living God be pleased to fall afresh in power upon the means He has appointed, and may I not be rash and resort to the arm of flesh by interposing a "meddling finger"!

Means of grace are put into my hand, but the work is in the Lord's. Watching, praying, and believing do belong to me, and these I must be taught of God, or I shall never do them right; but all deliverance comes from Jesus Christ. And because he does the work, fights the battle, and brings victory, he is rightly called the Saviour. I must watch against the inroads of an enemy; and when he comes in sight, must wrestle well with prayer, and fight the fight of faith; but if I thrust my arm into the battle, Jesus will withdraw his own he will be all or nothing. And if I lay my hand upon the ark, to help to hold it up, as Uzza did, I shall be slain, as Uzza was.

The crime of Uzza is but little understood; some think it a slight one, and the punishment severe. But the same sin destroyed Uzza, which destroyeth every sinner, even unbelief. What slew his body, slayeth all the souls that perish. He could not trust the Lord wholly with his ark, but must have a meddling finger, called in the Bible margin, his rashness. Rash worm indeed to help a God to do his work! and thousands everywhere are guilty of this rashness, and perish by this Uzzaizing. Jesus Christ is jealous of his glory as Saviour: he will not share it with an other; and whoso takes it from him shall take it at his peril.

God forbid I resort to Uzzaizing and thrust forth a meddling finger and rob God of His glory!

"All attempts to promote Christianity by human power and human authority have invariably and necessarily failed... Christianity, when transfused from the book to the person, consists in spiritually enlightened minds and renewed hearts: and by no power can these by produced but that of 'the Spirit of the living God.' –– And even all the legitimate, zealous, scripturally directed efforts for the advancement of the great work, must prove inefficacious and fruitless, unless God give His influence with them." ~ Ralph Wardlaw, "Lectures on the Prophecies of Zechariah" (Stoke-on-Trent: Tentmaker Publications, reprinted 2002 & 2007), 101.

Zechariah 4:6 ... Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.

Soli Deo Gloria!