sufficiency

  • "as if ... God was dead" | letter 160 on assurance & fighting for joy

    This past Sunday, Christians around the world celebrated the empty tomb and the resurrection from the dead of our Lord Jesus Christ. We worshiped by singing lyrics such as:

     

    Up from the grave He arose;
    with a mighty triumph o'er His foes;
    He arose a Victor from the dark domain,
    and He lives forever, with his saints to reign.
    He arose!
    He arose!
    Hallelujah!
    Christ arose!

    (Robert Lowry)

    In spite of singing those words with our lips Sunday morning, how many Christians live their lives day in and day out for all intents and purposes as if the resurrection never happened –– as if Jesus Christ never arose from the dead, as if He is not a Victor, as if our Lord is not ascended into heaven and living forever and reigning today at the right hand of Majesty and making intercession for all the saints?

    How many of us are living AS IF GOD WERE DEAD?

    Jeremiah 12:2 You plant them, and they take root; they grow and produce fruit; you are near in their mouth and far from their heart.

    How many of us become fearful, fretful, and frozen when faced with changing, perplexing, challenging, and trying circumstances all because we live as if God were dead? (Can we really call that living? ...) When storms come our way, how quickly do we forget that God's covenant mercies and love for His elect in Jesus Christ are everlasting, that His Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, that His government has no end, and that our God is working all things for our good, and our Father delights to give us the Kingdom and to shower out upon us and to load us up daily with His unsearchable, inexhaustible, incorruptible, undefiled riches, and that our inheritance in Christ is a good and pleasant and blessed inheritance ~ He is our great reward and is altogether lovely! ... that there is none that compares to our Beloved! How often do we pray to our Father in heaven for earthly bread for our bodies (or how often do we pray for other earthly blessings) –– and yet how seldom do we ask, seek, and knock for the gift of the Holy Spirit to renew, restore and revive our souls when we are dry and weary? (See Luke 11:1-13 and Isaiah 44:1-5; see also here.) 

    William Roberts... "had lost sight of providence... had slipped in his mind ... as if God was dead."

    William Roberts was a friend of the Welsh Calvinistic minister John Elias (1774-1842). When faced with a time of trial and great loss, Mr. Roberts was discovered to be a Christian who was living as if Christ were dead...

        Mrs Elias dealt in drapery and millinery, it was her name 'Elizabeth Elias' – which appeared above the door of the shop. The goods for sale came from the wholesale merchants in Liverpool and were shipped from the to the little harbour of Porth Amlwch Elias' s kinsman, William Roberts of Amlwch, and his wife were engaged in the same trade. In April 1818 the new ship, Marchioness, carrying goods from Liverpool to Anglesey was driven by a storm and was wrecked on Dulas beach. Pirates and thieves ran to the wreck, and completed the work of the storm, by taking away everything moveable from the ship and numbers of small business people of the island – including Mr and Mrs Roberts, and Mrs Elias suffered great losses.

        William Roberts, who was newly married, was distracted, and in his desperation went to Llanfechell to consult with his kinsman; but Elias was not at home. The nature of Roberts’ visit is made clear in the following playful yet penetrating letter which Elias wrote to his kinsman after returning home.

    Llanfechell I8 April 1818

    My dear brother, I am sorry that I have to make a complaint against a kinsman of mine, who lives a short distance from me to the east, who one day visited my family, who were beset by a little trial. I would have thought that my pious kinsman would have given them good counsel, cautioning them against grumbling, and exhorting them to submit to the wise vicissitudes of providence; comforting them, and showing them that all things work for good, etc. But my kinsman, too, was in a misfortune of the same nature; he had lost sight of providence in what had happened to him, and had slipped in his mind as if God had forgotten him, or that God was dead; and that no one could sustain him any more, and prosper him in his circumstances and give him a bite of bread. He had forgotten Job’s example; he had forgotten the 6th of Matthew and the 12th of Luke, or else he had cast doubt on the veracity of these chapters. Thus, instead of giving my family a good example, and good counsel suitable for the occasion, he behaved as one who had no belief in God, knowing not how to trust him under his chastisement, looking up to him through clouds hid him from sight. He spoke like the Gentiles who know not God, and threw my family into a deeper despondency. If you know my kinsman, and if you are conversant with the state of his mind these days, please endeavour to convince him; try to turn his face towards God’s rule over all things; that he at all times orders matters for the best purpose; that in tribulations and crosses one must exercise trust and submission; and must avoid thinking, in the midst of the darkest night, that God cannot change it into shining daylight, causing the light to chase away the blackest darkness. Say, also, to my kinsman (if you find opportunity to meet him), to beware of killing the new kind and tender wife that he has been presented, through his dissatisfaction; and remember to quote these words to him: ‘Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest not thou thyself?' Please also inform him that I have not written this as a Stoic, but with my eye fixed on God’s providence, believing that he makes all things good, and that it is possible to be joyful in him though bereft of the things of this world.

        Yet, in spite of all this, I would gladly welcome my kinsman here as often as he likes!

        Give my kind regards to Mrs Roberts. I hope she finds support to live far more devoutly than the person mentioned above.

        I am, your afflicted friend and brother and fellow-labourer.

    John Elias

    ~ from "John Elias: Life, Letters and Essays" by Edward Morgan (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1973, revised edition published in one volume), 77-78, emphasis mine.

    When faced with trials, do you act as if ... God was dead?

    When faced with trials, do you act as if God was dead? ... Do you react as William Roberts did – does your trust in the sovereign rule of God begin to waver? Or, are you fully assured of and resting in God's good and perfect providence for all His elect (including yourself) – no matter the circumstances? With the apostle Paul, are you persuaded that God is working all things for your good (including each and every trial), that God is for you, and that nothing at all can ever separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord? (See Romans 8:31-39.) Or, like Roberts, are you guilty of forgetting the Scriptural teachings and examples? Are you distrusting of God in times of your Father's loving chastisement?

    Is your happiness so tied up in and dependent on fleeting, earthly blessings that your professed joy in Christ is shown to be defective and deficient in times of loss? Or, are you able, like the early Christians, to joyfully accept the plundering of your property, since you know that you yourselves have a better possession and an abiding one? ~ see Heb. 10:34b.

    In his commentary on Psalm 84, J.A. Alexander wrote that God is "the Living God, really existing, and the giver of life to others." Do you know God to be the living God? Do you believe that the God who breathed life into you and raised you from the dead is able to supply daily bread to your soul to strengthen, sustain and refresh you at all times, including those times when Providence appears to be frowning upon you? Deut. 33:25b ... as your days, so shall your strength be.

    Do you currently find yourself slipped in your mind as if God has forgotten you because you've fixed your eyes upon the current trial rather than upon the Good Shepherd? Have you been unable to submit to God and let the peace of God rule in your heart because you've lost sight of the LORD of hosts who is seated on the throne of glory and is sovereignly reigning forever and ever? Is your soul wasting away because you've neglected to ask for and to feed upon the Living Bread from heaven as you ought, so you might be nourished to trust God and be joyful in Him at all times – "though bereft of the things of this world"?


    O God of Bethel, by Whose hand
    Thy people still are fed,
    Who through this weary pilgrimage
    Hast all our fathers led.
    (Philip Doddridge)

    Thou bruised and broken Bread,
    My life-long wants supply;
    As living souls are fed,
    O feed me, or I die.
    (John Samuel Bewley Monsell, Jr.)

    Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
    Pilgrim through this barren land.
    I am weak, but Thou art mighty;
    Hold me with Thy powerful hand.
    Bread of Heaven, Bread of Heaven,
    Feed me till I want no more;
    Feed me till I want no more.
    (William Williams, tr. by Peter Williams)

    Do you doubt the veracity of Jesus' own words in Matthew 6 and Luke 12, and stagger at His promise to provide all-sufficient and overflowing spiritual sustenance to you through Himself?

    John 6:35  Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst....  47  Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48  I am the bread of life. 49  Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50  This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51  I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."

    John 7:37  On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39  Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

    John 4:13  Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14  but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15  The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

    When was the last time you fervently sought to experience and enjoy the birthright that is already yours as a child of God and pleaded His promises to Him to give you this water?

    Rather than standing firm in faith, do you find yourself reacting like Roberts –– as if you have "no belief in God, knowing not how to trust him under his chastisement"?

    Hebrews 12:5  And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

    “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
    nor be weary when reproved by him.
    6  For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
    and chastises every son whom he receives.”

    7  It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8  If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9  Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10  For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11  For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

    * * *

    He [Robert Murray M'Cheyne] came to Edinburgh on the 11th, to attend the meeting of ministers and elders who had come together to sign the Solemn Engagement in defence of the liberties of Christ's Church. He hesitated not to put his hand to the Engagement. He then returned to Dundee; and scarcely had he returned, when he was laid aside by one of those attacks of illness with which he was so ofted tried. In this case, however, it soon passed away. "My health," he remarked, "has taken a gracious turn, which should make me look up." But again, on September 6th, an attack of fever laid him down for six days. On this occasion, just before the sickness came on, three persons had visited him, to tell him how they were brought to Christ under his ministry some years before. "Why," he noted in his journal, "Why has God brought these cases before me this week? Surely he is preparing me for some trial of faith." The result proved that his conjecture was just. And while his Master prepared him beforehand for these trials, he had ends to accomplish in his servant by means of them. There were other trials also, besides these, which were very heavy to him; but in all we could discern the husbandman pruning the branch, that it might bear more fruit. As he himself said one day in the church of Abernyte, when he was assisting Mr Manson, "If we only saw the whole, we should see that the father is doing little else in the world but training his vines."

    ~ from "Memoir & Remains of Robert Murray M'Cheyne" by Andrew A. Bonar, 137

    May the God of all grace make all grace abound to us,
    so we might not live as if God was dead,
    so we might not grumble, doubt, and languish in times of trial and loss,
    but rather be strengthened in faith and thrive through Him
    as we enter into a true and lively knowledge of God as

    the Living God, really existing, and the giver of life to us!


    Related:

    My other letters on assurance and fighting for joy here, including:

    Other related posts:

    HT for the M'Cheyne text:  http://books.google.com/books?id=JIY6AAAAcAAJ&pg=PR3#v=onepage&q&f=false.

    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.

    Work found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Caravaggio_-_La_Deposizione_di_Cristo.jpg / {{PD-Art|PD-old-100}} / CC BY-SA 3.0.

  • blogging to placard Jesus Christ ~ the highest felicity

     
    This week, one of my son's friends posted this greeting on his Facebook page:


    "Have a Felicitous Birthday!"

    "Felicitous" is not a word we hear used very often in this day and age... but as I read that, I was reminded me of some words from Susanna Anthony's (1726-1791) diary.
    June, 1752. O my God, my gracious God, is it so? My soul, my immortal soul, is it as I have this day heard? Are believers thus nearly united to Christ? Is it a vital, spiritual, indissoluble union; "I in them, and they in me?" My faith was even ready to stagger at this, as to my own part. I can hold it, in a general view of it; but when it is set out in such lively terms; the inestimable privileges resulting therefrom, and the surprising heights and depths of the condescending grace of God, to take worms of the dust thus near to his infinite Majesty, I am ready to say, all my hopes are vain ! It can never be so as to me. I can never be thus united to the great God-Man-Mediator, and derive so more life from him! Can l be thus closely united to an infinite Being, and yet feel so little strength and grace? Can I be united to the pure and holy God. and yet be thus unholy? Can l be in him, in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead, as the branches are in the vine, and bear so little fruit? O, methinks it is impossible! And yet in this is all my confidence, delight, desire and expectation. This makes life supportable and death desirable.

       O my Lord and head, am I thus united to thee: thou in me, and I in thee! I could never have dared to claim such a union with the Most High, hadst thou not revealed it. O happy privilege! the only desire or joy of my soul. The highest felicity of a rational being, as it is the foundation, whence flows all the happiness I enjoy, expect, or desire. O blessed union ! O dear privilege! All that is worthy the wish of a rational creature. Why was I born to he made thus happy? O blessed, for ever blessed be God, that I have a being among rational creatures, for this end! That I should be raised to this honor and dignity of being so nearly allied to the great, eternal, infinite God. Here be all my future contemplation and joy. Here be all my sense of pleasure. Here be all my sweet repose, and all my rest. Here be all the confidence of my soul; its only centre, and fixed abode. Here let me lose all the relish of creature delights: and with these, here let me lose concern to please a vain world. Let them think me mean, sordid, low-lived, and having no taste for refined pleasures: while my whole soul is divinely ravished, with the infinite glories of thy nature, and the felicity of being so nearly united to Jesus the dear Mediator, it is enough.
     
       Lord, here I would delight to dwell. It is long since I have voluntarily chosen to lay up all my good in thee. And I have never willingly retracted. Though, alas! I have too, too often seemed so to do; yet, O my God, my desire has been to thee, and to the remembrance of thy name. I trust my heart has never even secretly drawn back from its first choice of thee; but has a thousand, and ten thousand times renewed its first solemn engagements to be thine. And, if a hearty consent to the terms of the gospel, and a daily desire after, and delight in Christ, and after conformity to him, be an evidence of my union to him, l will still hope. Notwithstanding all my yet unallowed weakness, barrenness and sin, I am united to this God by faith; and shall be brought to glory. Here, O my soul, take thy shield, thy faith and confidence. Be fixed, and be no more afraid. Here rejoice and triumph. If indeed united to the great Redeemer, thou art happy, and shall be so, though heaven and earth pass away. As long as the eternal God is thy refuge, nothing but sin shall hurt thee. And that shall not have dominion over thee. O my only desirable refuge, save me from every inclination to sin.

    ~ Source: "The Life and Character of Miss Susanna Anthony. Who Died, in Newport, (R I.) June 23, 1791, in the 65th year of her age. Consisting Chiefly in Extracts from Her Writings, with Some Brief Observations on Them." Complied by Samuel Hopkins, Second Edition. (Portland, Maine: Lyman, Hall & Co. 1810), 96-98. (Underlining mine.) / HT for the text: http://books.google.com/books?output=text&id=YO0QAAAAYAAJ&jtp=9.

    I bring Miss Anthony's words to you today because I long for you and I plead with you to seek to enter into and share in that highest felicity, to prove by experience the doctrine David wrote and sung of in the Psalms:

    ... Happy is that people, whose God is the LORD (Psalm 144:15b).

    and . . .

    Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts: we shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple (Psalm 65:4).

    and . . .

    The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage... Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Psalm 16:6, 11).


    • Do words such as these characterize your daily Christian life (your actions and attitudes)?

    happy, blessed, satisfied, goodness, pleasantness, goodly, life, fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore?

    • Do you count knowing Christ . . .


    ... as a dear, happy, and inestimable privilege?

    ... the only desire of your soul?

    .... your highest felicity?

    Blogging "for your progress and joy of faith"

    What a great joy it would be for me to see you walking in the truth, so I might be able to exult along with the apostle John:


    I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth!

    There are several reasons why I blog, but one of those is "for your progress and joy of faith" (Philippians 1:25, ESV). Can anyone say we are making any genuine progress at all in our Christian pilgrimage if our lives are, for all intents and purposes, devoid of joy, and if our faith that does not increase in an experiential (or experimental) knowledge of that highest felicity which Susanna Anthony had begun to know and which David described? Jesus Himself told us that He came that we might have life and life more abundantly, that our joy might be full, and that streams of living water might flow out of our hearts as we come to Him and drink!

    In times of persecution and trial, the early Church rejoiced with joy unspeakable and full of glory (I Peter 1). The believers in Acts 5 rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for Christ's name, and in Hebrews 10 we read that the believers rejoiced in God when their goods were plundered! In writing from prison, the apostle Paul charged us to rejoice in the Lord always. Always!

    Turn to Acts 8, and notice how the early Church behaved as she was scattered during persecution. These believers did NOT cry out and whine with a grumbling and complaining spirit, "Woe are we! Why us?" and engage in a fleshly, self-absorbed pity-party –– but rather they responded in the Spirit:

    "Woe are those souls who don't know Christ! And woe are we if we don't preach the Good News of Great Joy, the only way to this Highest Felicity to all the peoples –– no matter where God in His providence may send us! This is a God-ordained opportunity for testimony! Blessed are we who have been sent to this place to declare His glory even here, among the Samaritans, for we know God has a plan to gather a people for Himself out of all the peoples of the world for the sake of His name! O! that Almighty God might use our witness here to pluck more souls from the fire, just as we were plucked out by His grace! How will these souls call on Him, how will they believe on Him unless we testify of Him who is our exceeding Joy?"

    –– And so we find the saints in Acts 8 "scattered abroad" going "every where preaching the word..." with the result being this: "great joy in the city." This type of life of rejoicing is a part of what Martyn Lloyd-Jones called "the great and glorious possibilities of the Christian life." But O! how we have dumbed down those great and glorious possibilities and limited the Holy One of Israel –– and we have settled for earthly husks and fleeting shadows! How puny our expectations! Truly we are living in a day of small things because we are living in a day of small and diminished expectations! O! that our God might give us clearer views of Himself that our expectations might be heightened and made great, informed rightly by the Scripture!

    • How do you respond in times of trial and stress and disappointment? Have you known the supernatural joy of the Lord bubbling up from within and flowing out through the operation of the Holy Spirit sustaining you and imparting to you Habakkuk 3 joy?

    Getting into the temple!

    Having read Miss Anthony's diary, the Rev. Edward Dorr Griffin (1770-1837) became convicted of the profound deficiency in his own spiritual pilgrimage. Here was his response:

    Wednesday, Oct. 4 [1797]. In consequence of reading the prayers of Miss Anthony, and discovering her intense desire to obtain more clear and transforming views of God, I have been led to reflect on the great difference between her prayers and mine. I have been, for the most part, asking for particular exercises of divine power, to produce effects in regard to me, my friends, my people, and Zion at large. And in prayer my mind has been more on the desired effects, than on that fulness and glorious sufficiency of wisdom, power, goodness, majesty, condescension, patience, faithfulness and truth, which there is in God. Thus I have stopped at the threshold, without getting into the temple. Had I in prayer been more intent to gaze into God, and had I exercised myself more in adoration and praise, I believe my acquaintance with God would have been vastly greater, and my mind more transformed into his likeness. Let it in future be the burden of my prayer, "Lord, show me thy glory."

    ~ Source: "Memoir of the Rev. Edward D. Griffin, D.D., Compiled Chiefly from His Own Writings" by Edward D. Griffin & William Buell Sprague (New York: Taylor & Dodd, 1839), reprinted in 1987 by Banner of Truth Trust, 30. HT for the text: http://books.google.com/books?id=JbAEAAAAYAAJ).

    In short, if you are Christ's, I want you to get into the temple –– for that is our inheritance as children of God! The veil to the Most Holy Place has been torn from top to bottom! The way has been opened through the body and the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ! Through Him we have access! I want each and every day for each and every one of you who are Christ's to be a felicitous day! I don't want you to stop at the threshold without getting into the temple!

    And for you who may have doubts about this "Christian hedonism," know this:  our fervent pursuit of joy in Christ isn't merely for our own spiritual well-being... How can we really expect to be vibrant ambassadors of Jesus Christ taking the good news of great joy (highest felicity!) to all the nations, if we have not begun to experience and know for ourselves that highest felicity! How can we invite others to the Lord's banqueting house if we've never sat down in His shade with great delight, if we've never supped with our first Love to know His fruit sweet to our taste, if we've never been sustained and refreshed by His Holy Spirit, if we've never known His banner over us to be love by the Spirit's inner witness, if we've never known the felt comfort and strong assurance of His left hand supporting our head and His right hand embracing us, if we've never known God's lovingkindness to be better than wine, better than life? (See Song of Solomon 2:3-6). How can we with any integrity exhort the nations to sing to the LORD a new song if we have no new song to sing ourselves?

    Our pastor has been preaching through the book of Colossians, and I jotted down the following question in my bulletin this past Sunday morning:

    "What does it REALLY mean to be a 'partaker of the inheritance of the saints in the light'?"
    (see Colossians 1:12, NKJV)

    I think you'd have to agree with me that Miss Anthony and King David show us what it REALLY means to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in the light... But, sad to say, too many of us look around at the average 21st century Christian (or even the unbelieving world!), and we're tempted to think we're doing pretty well, aren't we? That's why in addition to exhorting you to read the Bible, I continue to encourage you to read good Christian biography!

    • Have you begun to enter into and enjoy that inheritance of which King David and Susanna Anthony partook? If not, would you pray for God to give you a clearer vision of Christ and a greater understanding of the inheritance that is yours as a blood-bought child of God?

    "NOT nice little moral or psychological pep talks" ... but "laboring to placard God"

    In his biographical message on Jonathan Edwards, "The Pastor as Theologian," John Piper said:

    "What our people need is not nice little moral or psychological pep talks about how to get along in the world. Most of our people have no one, have no one, who is laboring to placard God before their eyes. And so many them are starved, and they don't know why they're starved. They don't know what to ask for. They interview pastors for their churches and they don't know what questions to ask even. They don't know what's missing in their souls by and large. They need the infinite God, the God-entranced vision of Jonathan Edwards."

    "They are like people who have grown up in a room with an 8-foot flat white plaster ceiling and no windows. They have never seen the broad blue sky, or the sun blazing in midday glory, or the million stars of a clear country night or some trillion-ton mountain. And so they can't explain the sense of littleness and triviality and pettiness and insignificance in their souls. But it's because there is no grandeur. What our people need is the God-entranced vision of reality that Jonathan Edwards saw."

    ~ Source: http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/biographies/the-pastor-as-theologian. The first quote is from the audio recording, the second from the written transcript.

    Dr. Piper was addressing a group of pastors at the 1988 Bethlehem Conference for Pastors. I'm not a pastor, but know this:  I am not blogging here to give you nice little moral or psychological pep talks! Just over three years ago in this post, I wrote:

    I consider my writing here a stewardship for which I will be held to account one day. I'm a steward of God's Word...all His Word...nothing held back, no sugar coating...no shrinking back...

    I'm no Piper, and I'm no Edwards –– but I have the same heavenly Father, and the same Savior –– I've been bought with the same precious blood, and adopted into the same family of God, and have been given the gift of the same Holy Spirit –– and so I pray God would be pleased to honor and to use my efforts here to placard God before your eyes, that His Heavenly Dove might descend with fire upon those words I write which are true to Scripture, and infuse them in such a way that that the Breath of God might blow and shatter into smithereens that white plaster ceiling that blinds you to the all-surpassing Beauty and Glory and Goodness and Majesty of Christ –– to tear down and demolish any misunderstandings and misconceptions you have about Jesus Christ and the life and the inheritance He died and rose again to give you, so you might come to understand that God's prospering you means nothing less than God granting you the grace to call upon Him, to go to Him, and to pray to Him –– that you might seek Him and find Him as your all-surpassing and all-satisfying treasure as you search for Him with all your heart –– in other words, that God's prospering His people today in the 21st century means exactly the same thing that the LORD said to His people in Jeremiah 29, over 2,500 years ago:

    11  For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. 12  Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. 13  And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

    I am praying that you would see that your soul's highest and greatest and happiest and most felicitous good is for you to draw near to God through Jesus Christ, and to know Him, and then, having known Him, pressing on to know Him more and more! That is the truest and highest and purest and choicest prosperity we can know! Remember that Jesus Christ was punished and died in our place to bring us back to God! I pray that God might grant you freedom from bondage to man-centered and self-absorbed notions of Christianity, and set you free as He opens your eyes to a truer, clearer, grander, higher, richer, and loftier spiritual sight of Him, so you might no longer trudge and plod along day after day undernourished and emaciated, but begin to recognize your soul's hunger and thirst, and hasten to run to Jesus Christ and eat and drink of Him, so you might be satisfied and happy with Him, and be filled with all the fulness of God! And then, having tasted and seen that highest felicity, hasten to run to all the ends of the earth with the good tidings of great felicity for all peoples! Know this:  Puddleglum Christianity will NOT turn the world upside-down!

    May God send out His light and His truth:  that they might lead you to that highest felicity ~ unto His holy hill, and to His tabernacles. That you might go unto the altar of God, unto God your exceeding joy:  yea, upon the harp may you praise Him, O God my God, O God your God, among all the nations for the sake of His name! (~ Psalm 43:3-4, adapted).

    For your joy and for His glory,
    Karen


    Related posts:

    more on Susanna Anthony:

    consider ... our ways, the great cloud of witnesses, Susanna Anthony,
    "... since thou hast been thus gracious ..." ~ Susanna Anthony and grace upon grace

    more on blogging:

    Why I blog and the only kind of recommendation I should seek
    Why I write and minister - My credo for being a godly encourager
    dedication 2010 (reflections on God's Word & God's grace) ~ no sugar coating...
    blogging to build up the ruined Church of God / expository exultation
    Here I stand & from here I cast (devoted to prayer & the ministry of the Word)
    five years ago ~ for your joy (AND an inheritance | Richard Sibbes & the Sealing of the Spirit)
    year end reflections, # 1: "end of the year ... in the midst of heartache" | Letter 97 on joy


    please see my series of posts on assurance & fighting for joy HERE

    other related posts:

    The Christian should not just believe the truth, and know it..." | the Father's assurance
    happiness & joy: the distinction that SHOULD be made | letter 155 on assurance & fighting for joy
    the 6th sola: "The Price of salvation is the Prize of salvation" ~ John Piper
    Lenten Reflections: Why did Jesus die? ACCESS! | Letter 140 on assurance & fighting for joy
    "I cannot consider myself to have been a believer (in the full sense of the word)"
    don't waste your new year ~ teach us, satisfy us, make us glad (Psalm 90:12-15)
    The Father's Inheritance (Eleven days' journey ~ A lamentation & an exhortation)
    Advent #1 WHY HAS JESUS COME? that we might have life & life more abundantly
    Advent # 9 WHY HAS JESUS COME? Adoption: the highest privilege the gospel offers ~ J.I. Packer
    Mistakes about Religion & What Religion Is ~ Henry Scougal
    "The duties of religion are delightful" ~ the fruit of "The Life of God in the Soul of Man"
    What is a nominal Christian?
    Phebe Bartlet – a child put in our midst ~ "Do you love Me?"
    year end reflections, # 2: rejoicing in "The Often Unwanted but Necessary Gift" | Letter 98 on joy ~ more on Jeremiah 29:11-13

    Scripture quotations unless otherwise indicated are taken from the King James Version of the Holy Bible. / Scripture quotations marked ESV 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 NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  • "the treasure you can never find in a mall" ~ Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable Gift!

    You trying to figure what to do with your life
    You make a lot of money, hope you doing it right
    because the money is God's, you better steward it right
    Stay focused! You ain't got no ride?
    Your life ain't wrapped up in what you drive,
    the clothes you wear, the job you work,
    the color your skin – naw you Christian first.
    People living life for a job,
    Make a lil money, start living for a car,
    get em a house, a wife, kids, and a dog
    When they retire, they living high on the hog –
    but guess what? – they didn't ever really live at all:
    To live is Christ and that's Paul I recall,
    To die is gain, so for Christ we give it all!
    He's the treasure you can never find in a mall!

    ... I refuse to waste my life
    He's too true ta chase that ice
    Here's my gifts and time cause I'm constantly trying to be used to praise the Christ
    If He's truly raised to life,
    then this news should change your life
    And by His grace you can put your faith in the place that rules your days and nights.

    Don't wanna waste my life, life, life...
    Don't wanna waste my life, life, life...
    Don't wanna waste my...
    Don't wanna waste my...
    Don't wanna waste my...

    (Lyrics from Lecrae's "Don't Waste Your Life," emphasis mine)

    http://youtu.be/9N01-mNO0us ~ Features an excerpt form John Piper's sermon "Boasting Only in the Cross"

    * * *

    Isaiah 32:9-10
    Rise up, ye women that are at ease; hear my voice, ye careless daughters; give ear unto my speech.
    Many days and years shall ye be troubled, ye careless women: for the vintage shall fail, the gathering shall not come.

    From Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary on Isaiah 32:9-10 (boldface mine):

         In these verses we have God rising up to judgment against the vile persons, to punish them for their villainy; but at length returning in mercy to the liberal, to reward them for their liberality.

         When there was so great a corruption of manners, and so much provocation given to the holy God, bad times might well be expected, and here is a warning given of such times coming. The alarm is sounded to the women that were at ease (9) and the careless daughters, to feed whose pride, vanity, and luxury, their husbands and fathers were tempted to starve the poor. Let them hear what the prophet has to say to them in God's name: "Rise up, and hear with reverence and attention."

         Let them know that God was about to bring wasting desolating judgments upon the land in which they lived in pleasure and were wanton. This seems to refer primarily to the desolations made by Sennacherib's army when he seized all the fenced cities of Judah: but then those words, many days and years, must be rendered (as the margin reads them) days above a year, that is, something above a year shall this havock be in the making: so long it was from the first entrance of that army into the land of Judah to the overthrow of it. But it is applicable to the wretched disappointment which those will certainly meet with, first or last, that set their hearts upon the world and place their happiness in it: You shall be troubled, you careless women. It will not secure us from trouble to cast away care when we are at ease; nay, to those who affect to live carelessly even little troubles will be great vexations and press hard upon them. They were careless and at ease because they had money enough and mirth enough; but the prophet here tells them, (1.) That the country whence they had their tents and dainties should shortly be laid waste: "The vintage shall fail; and then what will you do for wine to make merry with?  The gathering of fruit shall not come, for there shall be none to be gathered, and you will find the want of them, 10.

    "Rise up... hear ... give ear..."

    I Corinthians 10:11 Now these things happened to them as an example,
    but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. (ESV)

    "Prayer Answered by Crosses"
     by John Newton

    1 I asked the Lord that I might grow
    In faith, and love, and every grace;
    Might more of His salvation know,
    And seek more earnestly His face.

    2 'Twas He who taught me thus to pray;
    And He, I trust, has answered prayer:
    But it has been in such a way
    As almost drove me to despair.

    3 I hoped that in some favored hour,
    At once He'd grant me my request;
    And, by His love's constraining power,
    Subdue my sins, and give me rest.

    4 Instead of this, He made me feel
    The hidden evils of my heart,
    And let the angry powers of hell
    Assault my soul in every part.

    5 Yea more, with His own hand He seemed
    Intent to aggravate my woe;
    Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
    Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.

    6 Lord, why is this? I trembling cried;
    Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death?
    'Tis in this way, the Lord replied,
    I answer prayer for grace and faith.

    7 These inward trials I employ
    From self and pride to set thee free,
    To break thy schemes of worldly joy,
    That thou mayst seek thy all in Me.

    * * *

    Holy God,

    Humble us,
    Crumble us,

    Break our schemes of worldly joy,
    Blast our gourds, every vain toy,

    So we might have no other gods before Thee,
    To no other bow or bend the knee,

    The trembling, broken, contrite soul
    The only soul made fully whole

    Set free to seek our all in Thee,
    And find our all in all in Thee

    Only the single-eyed
    Can be fully satisfied

    Cast aside the night
    For unswerving Delight

    To the Bridegroom I cleave and cling
    In Christ I boast! To Christ I sing!

    For You, O Christ, are the True Vine, the vintage that never fails to supply,
    For You, O Christ, are the Living Water, the wellspring that never runs dry

    For You, O Christ, are Everlasting Light, Who never fails to brighten,
    For You, O Christ, are Exceeding Joy, the thirsty soul to gladden

    Right hand embrace,
    Fruit sweet to my taste

    All-surpassing Excellence,
    Refreshing Radiance

    Eternal Treasure,
    Unbridled Pleasure

    Never a disappointment
    O! Bountiful Ointment!

    J.A. Alexander's rendering of Isaiah 29:19:

    And the humble shall add joy (i.e. shall rejoice more and more) in Jehovah,
    and the poor among men in the Holy One of Israel shall rejoice.

    II Corinthians 9:15
    Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.
    Thanks be unto God for his inexpressible gift.
    (ESV)
    Thanks be unto God for his indescribable gift. (NKJV)

    What are you doing with God's unspeakable, inexpressible, indescribable Gift, the Lord Jesus Christ?

    Do Isaiah's words describe you? Are you being careless? Do you prefer worldly, earthly gifts over and above Him?

    Do you draw near with your mouth, giving thanks to God with your lips only, while your heart is set upon the world and far from Him?

    Isaiah 29:13 And the Lord said:...
    this people draw near with their mouth
    and honor me with their lips,
    while their hearts are far from me,
    and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men...

    Mark 7:6  And he [Jesus] said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,

    ‘This people honors me with their lips,
    but their heart is far from me;
    7  in vain do they worship me,
    teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’"

    Luke 11:35
    Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness.


    Related:

    Scripture quotations unless otherwise indicated are taken from the King James Version of the Holy Bible.

    Scripture quotations marked ESV 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 NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

    Lyrics are subject to US Copyright Laws and are the property of their respective authors, artists and labels. Commercial use prohibited.

    "Prayer Answered by Crosses" accessed from http://www.hymnary.org/text/i_asked_the_lord_that_i_might_grow / Public Domain. I capitalized the references to the Godhead.

    Photo credit: Work found at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Queensgate_Shopping_Centre_-_geograph.org.uk_-_528123.jpg  / CC BY-SA 2.0 - Attribution: Tony Atkin.

About me...

Christian hedonist in training. Pressing on to know more and more of the joy of the LORD. Pleading with God to rend the heavens and revive and refresh my own soul, as well as His Church, to His praise, honor and glory.

Thank God. He can make men and women in middle life sing again with a joy that has been chastened by a memory of their past failures. ~ Alan Redpath

My other websites

tent of meeting: Prayer for reformation & revival

(See also Zechariah821. Zechariah821 is a mirror site of tent of meeting, found on WordPress)

deerlifetrumpet: Encouragement for those seeking reformation & revival in the Church

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