Last year, in addition to writing some other posts for Advent, I wrote a series of posts entitled "WHY HAS JESUS COME?":

I'd like to pick up with that same question once again this year, starting with a poem and concluding with a personal note of testimony and an exhortation.

Even a Vapor
(letter 133 on assurance and fighting for joy)

James 4:14b  For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.

What are our lives? Even a vapor
All our days, LORD, teach us to number
All our ways, LORD, help us consider
Fully blessed and full of favor!
Have mercy on us sinners, O Savior!
Help us be satisfied in Christ our Savior!

A handbreadth – moments turning to years
Then the trumpet sound comes to our ears

What are our lives? A vanishing mist
Every breath heavenly stewardship

May our lips not brim with complaints
But spring forth with bountiful praises

May we not finish our days with sighing
But learn contentment, know Christ satisfying

Sink ever deeper into the flowing river
So our leaves remain green and not wither

Abiding in the Scripture, seeking living bread
Importunately crying till the heavens rent

Ascending to the heavenlies, peering ever higher
A sanctified expectation: Baptizer's descent with fire!

What are our lives? Even a vapor
All our days, LORD, teach us to number
All our ways, LORD, help us consider
Fully blessed and full of favor!
Have mercy on us sinners, O Savior!
Help us be satisfied in Christ our Savior!

Christ died, Lamb's life He did tender
So we might draw near and enter

To seek Your face, desire no other
To pant for You, all-satisfying lover

To behold Your beauty and splendor
Delighting in Your glory and grandeur

To know Your abounding pleasure
Surpassing all earthly measure

To dance in Your delightful river
To feel Your embrace, Comforter's whisper

Single-eyed, Your willing slave forever
For our affection no other contender

To drink of the fount of holy pleasure
To will and to do of Your good pleasure

In plenty or want, whether rich or poor
A weaned child, quieted and secure

Your name and renown our soul's single desire
Decreasing so You might be lifted higher

With pure longings and pants, seeking You above all treasure
Ecstatic joy in You as our portion and center

To never forget the one thing necessary
To fall on our knees and sup with Thee

All our days, LORD, may we ever savor
The true shewbread, Your excellent flavor

From grace to grace, be fully sated
Glory to God for so great a salvation!

Experiencing Your strong and lively consolation
Bubbling with the Spirit's lovely intoxication!

May we run our course with jubilation
This is the heritage of God's holy nation

What are our lives? Even a vapor
All our days, LORD, teach us to number
All our ways, LORD, help us consider
Fully blessed and full of favor!
Have mercy on us sinners, O Savior!
Help us be satisfied in Christ our Savior!

Oil of grace, flow down and inflame!
Perpetual fire, burn and sustain!

That we might serve You with joyfulness
Our hearts overflowing with gladness

Can our God withhold from His infinite ocean of grace
Plenty supplies for all whose hearts are set on pilgrimage?

What are our lives? Even a vapor
All our days, LORD, teach us to number
All our ways, LORD, help us consider
Fully blessed and full of favor!
Have mercy on us sinners, O Savior!
Help us be satisfied in Christ our Savior!

What is my life? Even a vapor
Have mercy on me, a sinner, O Savior!

What is my life? Even a vapor
All my days, LORD, teach me to number
All my ways, LORD, help me consider
Fully blessed and full of favor!
Have mercy on this sinner, O Savior!
Help me be satisfied in Christ my Savior!

Hebrews 3:4  For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God.  5  And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after;  6  But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, IF we hold fast the confidence AND the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.

Hebrews 7:19: For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God.

Deuteronomy 28:47 Because thou servedst not the LORD thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things;  48  Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the LORD shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee.

I recently made a comment on my friend Norm's ( @quest4god@revelife ) post Joy, joy, joy re: my experience in coming to receive assurance of forgiveness of sins and knowing the joy of the Lord as well as my posts on assurance & fighting for joy:

I was not exaggerating that in the least. NO joy. NO assurance.

Most Christians have a pretty good understanding that Jesus died for their sins, but many are remiss in beginning to explore and plumb to the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of what that really means for us – and as a result, many Christians end up in a perpetually joyless and unassured state.

The writer of Hebrews reminds us of the superiority of the Lord Jesus Christ in all ways, far above and beyond all the Old Testament types and symbols. He was the fulfillment of them all. The Son of God came to earth in the form of a man, born as a babe in Bethlehem, yet remaining fully God, all so fallen man might be redeemed and be privileged to draw near to God! How? He was the perfect and all-sufficient High Priest and sacrifice for sinners, and He entered the True Tabernacle in heaven as our Forerunner, our Surety, our Captain!

When you look at that babe in your nativity set, consider it! ~ Consider HIM! ~ If you are Christ's, you who were once fatherless are now adopted in to the family of God! You who were once far, can DRAW NEAR as children of God!

If that is not a wonder to you, if Jesus Christ and His incarnation and His atonement does not thrill your heart more today than ever, then get down on your knees and ask God to show you afresh and anew the great salvation and privilege He has made available to you through the Lord Jesus Christ! If you are Christ's, you can DRAW NEAR to GOD because your sins were punished in Jesus Christ once and for all and His righteousness was credited to you by faith! You can enter behind the veil with HIM! This is a spiritual reality available to all of us who have trusted in Him. And it will become a physical reality one Day when we are given our glorified bodies, and we see our Savior face to face – but let us not wait until then to begin to make that abundant entrance and begin to taste the firstfruits and Canaan's clusters and to sample the riches of our inheritance with all the saints! ... Don't waste your life on this side of the Jordan!

Alas, many of you don't really consider these things. You look at your salvation as a way out of hell and a way into heaven, but you don't understand we have the high privilege to enter into the Most Holy Place beginning today! If all it were about were getting us to heaven, why are we here? So let us not waste the blessing we have to draw near to God! The scepter has been extended! The veil has been rent! The King of kings has lifted up dust and ashes to heavenly places!  Ephesians 1:18  The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints...

I confess I didn't really consider these things very much at all until a few years ago. The words of Scripture to me were just words; they'd not become a living reality. And they'd not become a living reality because I'd not seen them as real possibilities for me, and so I never began to seek to know the living God in a living way! I was happy with head knowledge. Now, I have to make this disclaimer: we start with and remain rooted in that lovely and wonderful doctrine we find in the Scripture, HOWEVER we can't be content with and stop with a head knowledge. Let us go on and seek to know the living God (not merely to know about Him) and ask that His words be written in our minds and on our hearts, to become burning in the heart through the work of the Holy Spirit!

After all, we are in the New Covenant now, are we not? Should the words of Scripture be only written on external tablets (in our Bibles)?

Are not Christians a people who were once dead, but now made alive in Jesus Christ, so we might have living fellowship with the living God?

The devil is happy to have us take the Scriptures and study them to no end, so long as we never end up seeking a living relationship with the living God through Jesus Christ. Satan delights to have us quote Scriptures, so long as we continue to go around and around in circles and never truly DRAW NEAR to God and never to come TO JESUS, as our Lord described in John 5:

The devil is perfectly fine with us reading, studying and doing any and all things with the Scripture, but he absolutely bristles when we begin to seek to come to Christ Himself, that we might have life and life more abundantly. Satan is incensed when we begin to read the words of Scriptures and by the grace of the Holy Spirit begin to see in the Scriptures, as Martyn Lloyd-Jones called them, "the glorious possibilities of the Christian life," and we begin to see such things as joy and assurance as real and vital possibilities for us – no longer abstract theological constructs and no longer only for others – and then we begin to seek in earnest a true and living experience of the living God based on and informed by the promises of Scripture as taught to us through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth.

Peter tells us Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might BRING US TO GOD (I Peter 3:18a).

Have you ever really considered the gift of God we have...

Jesus came that we might DRAW NEAR TO GOD! Jesus came to BRING US TO GOD!

Wretched, unworthy worms, vile sinners who were separated from a holy God are granted an abundant entrance into the Presence of God TODAY!

Bankrupt sinners lavished abundantly with the riches of God in Jesus Christ!

God in Christ did for us what we could not do in our helpless and powerless state!

Dead sinners have been made alive and are now seated in heavenly places with Christ!

Jesus said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly," and "this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." Jesus' desire is that all those who are purchased with His precious blood might enter into fellowship with the living God beginning today... I am come that they might HAVE life... He that believeth on the Son HATH everlasting life... HAVE... HATH... LIFE that begins today! And our living out that life is to the glory of God! How despicable it is for us to refuse the fellowship God has for us! How abominable it is for us to disregard and despise our Savior's work and not seek to enter along with Him into the heavenly Sanctuary today!

Children of God, enter TODAY into the living inheritance Christ died to give you! Don't waste His precious blood, but DRAW NEAR to God through Him, so you might really be a living monument of His gift of grace to you. Don't waste your life living outside the fullness of the life He died to give you! He came to BRING US TO GOD! He came that you might DRAW NEAR TO GOD!

Take hold of the promises and plead, and keep pleading ... like Jacob, like the importunate woman...

God forbid you find yourself in the position I was in a few years ago. I was grieving and quenching the Spirit of God by insisting, "Such assurance and such joy is not for me!" When we do that we are calling God a liar!

But the truth is this: the devil is a liar! He keeps us from understanding and pleading and receiving the abundant life Jesus died to give us. Please, please immerse yourself in the Word of God and ask the Holy Spirit to make God and His Word become a living reality to you.

I was over 50 years old when I received a Spirit-breathed assurance of forgiveness of sins, and only after that time did I begin to experience what Peter refers to as "joy unspeakable and full of glory." You are not too old – nor are you too young!

A joyless, unassured and doubting Christian is very much in contrast to God's desire for us to serve Him with joyfulness and gladness of heart.

After I chose my screen name for blogging as naphtali_deer, in my first post, why Naphtali?, I explained:

I've added a few things to that post since then, but one thing I NEVER in my wildest dreams anticipated receiving, because I didn't understand it was available to me through the cross of Christ, was that blessing of Naphtali in Deuteronomy 33:

I'm dead serious about your knowing such all-satisfying favor and full blessing of the LORD, or as I've continued to write of it now over the past couple years, knowing full assurance of faith and the joy of the Lord. This experience of the living God is not something available to only a select few believers. These blessings come from knowing the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit in ever increasing measure. And these blessings begin to break your heart and God's desires become your desires! The love of Christ will begin to constrain you, and you will find yourself increasingly offering yourself as a living sacrifice to God, seeking to hallow His name and praying for His Kingdom to come! These blessings will raise you to heavenly places and keep you from wasting your life and bowing to the carnal and earthly.

I'm dead serious because I know the anguish, misery and lukewarmness and lack of direction that comes from living a life without a deepening sense of being satisfied with Christ and the blessings He has for us. So long as we continue to seek satisfaction, blessing, assurance and joy anywhere else, we are not enjoying God as He intends. And if we aren't enjoying God as He intends, we are not able to glorify God as He intends. God wants us to be satisfied with His favor and His blessing in Jesus Christ. Is He not more than enough to satisfy your every soul's need?

I am praying God might grant you grace to seek and enter into that Naphtali blessing, i.e. - an ever-increasing experiential knowledge of our Savior's favor and blessing!

~ Karen

My other posts on assurance and joy including:

• Letter 1 on assurance and fighting for joy
• Letter 3 on assurance and fighting for joy (Jesus' desire vs. Satan's desire)
• Letter 10 on assurance and fighting for joy (joy is for ALL!)
• Letter 18 on assurance and fighting for joy (my testimony of joy)
• John 3:36a Whoever believes in the Son HAS eternal life (letter 64 on assurance & joy)
• "give me also springs of water" - Will you be an Achsah? (letter 66 on assurance & fighting for joy)
• You whine and complain (Letter 70 on assurance & fighting for joy)
• Remembering the pit & bog so I might rejoice in Him & you might also! (Psalm 40:1-3) | letter 74
• Can there be more? | letter 113 on assurance & fighting for joy
• the lover's inquiry | letter 114 on fighting for joy
• don't be afraid | letter 115 on assurance & fighting for joy
• come sinners, make consideration of Israel's Consolation ~letter 132 on assurance & fighting for joy

why Naphtali?
postcards from England: are we excited over a dead fish and a car wreck? (considering the glorious possibilities)
update w/ excerpt: Lloyd-Jones' sermons on the role of experience in Christianity
The flags unfurled ... Christ's eternal banner | Lloyd-Jones ~ a third type of assurance
The Father's Inheritance (Eleven days' journey ~ A lamentation & an exhortation)
Why not pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit?
Advent #1 WHY HAS JESUS COME? that we might have life & life more abundantly
"I will be like the dew" (Hosea 14:5) ~ Precious Dew, Heavenly Shower
Is your ambition holy? / What are you living for? (Louis Paul Lehman) / The Christian's Aim
Christian, don't waste your life whining
Where are you lifting up your eyes? Psalm 121:1-2
"Bread of Heav'n on Thee I Feed"
Psalm 45:1 ~ Sovereign Grace Constraining, My Heart Inditing
Psalm 131 ~ Lord, calm my soul; Lord, wean my soul in this mephitic air | W.H. Hewitson



Work found at
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mist_Covering_a_Meadow_under_Forest_Encroachment.jpg  / CC BY-SA 3.0 / by Wingchi

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

Numbers 6:22  And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 23  Speak unto Aaron and unto his sons, saying, On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them, 24  The LORD bless thee, and keep thee: 25  The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: 26  The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. 27  And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel; and I will bless them.

From Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on Numbers 6:22-27 (boldface mine):

I Peter 1:2  Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied. 3  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4  To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, 5  Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6  Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: 7  That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: 8  Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory...

Hebrews 4:14  Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. 15  For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. 16  Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

John 6:37: All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

Psalm 108:5  Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: and thy glory above all the earth; 6  That thy beloved may be delivered: save with thy right hand, and answer me.

Psalm 84:5  Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them. 6  Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools. 7  They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God. 8  O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah.

Psalm 27:1  The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? 2  When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. 3  Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident. 4  One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple. 5  For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock. 6  And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me: therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy; I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the LORD. 7  Hear, O LORD, when I cry with my voice: have mercy also upon me, and answer me. 8  When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek. 9  Hide not thy face far from me; put not thy servant away in anger: thou hast been my help; leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation. 10  When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up. 11  Teach me thy way, O LORD, and lead me in a plain path, because of mine enemies. 12  Deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies: for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty. 13  I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. 14  Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.

Embittered, pricked in heart? Go into the sanctuary of God (Psalm 73)
As the Visible Disappoints
Psalm 27
How long wilt thou mourn? I Samuel 16:1 - Through many disappointments & deceit, To Zion ascend, go up to the mercy seat
Lenten Reflections: When he broke all supply of bread (My breaking is for your blessing)
Where do you go when the world is unlovely? (Psalm 84 & the theology of Biblical counseling)
As a deer pants ... Is your soul panting for God? (Psalms 42 & 43)
Though the waves arose
A Hymn for "Shelf" Times ..."Lord, We Know That Thou Art Near Us"
Still This Weekend, Still This Night
When We Think the LORD Has Forsaken and Forgotten Us
disaster's hidden call
Where are you lifting up your eyes? Psalm 121:1-2
"As your days, so shall your strength be"
All things (even bad things) work together for good... (from the archives)
when we're being shaken: let us look unto JESUS!
the Lord God must be my strength and my portion
"I will be like the dew" (Hosea 14:5) ~ Precious Dew, Heavenly Shower

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

 
Matthew 21:6  The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. 7  They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. 8  Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9  And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” 10  And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” 11  And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”

12  And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 13  He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”

14  And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. 15  But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, 16  and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read,

“‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies
you have prepared praise’?”



Luke 10:21  In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 22  All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

23  Then turning to the disciples he said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! 24  For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”

Matthew 11:25  At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; 26  yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 27  All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

O, the infinite adorable mystery!
Our Father's divine sovereignty:

Hidden from the wise, revealed unto babes
To the true temple, to Jesus Christ we came

Let the little children come,
Do not hinder, forbid them not!

Hidden from the wise, revealed unto babes
To the true temple, to Jesus Christ we came

Limbs healed, which once were lame
Our mute lips opened, sovereignly ordained

In the temple, amidst the money changers
From our mouths ascends perfected praise

A holy offering and a sacred fragrance
Burst forth hosannas to the Son of David

To the fleshly eye pure praise is despised
Dancing before the LORD labeled undignified

With us, hear our dear Savior rejoice,
Exulting in His Father's sovereign choice:

O, the infinite adorable mystery!
My Father's divine sovereignty:

Hidden from the wise, revealed unto babes
To the true temple, to Jesus Christ they came

Let My little children come,
Do not hinder, forbid them not!

Hidden from the wise, revealed unto babes
To the true temple, to Jesus Christ we came

O, how blessed to be a worshiping babe
May we cry forevermore, "Hosanna, Save!"

Before the LORD make merry and delight
Like David, dance before Him with all our might!

By grace alone, we were chosen in Christ,
All glory to God, He deemed it good in His sight

O, the infinite adorable mystery!
Our Father's divine sovereignty:

Hidden from the wise, revealed unto babes
To the true temple, to Jesus Christ we came

Let the little children come,
Do not hinder, forbid them not!

Hidden from the wise, revealed unto babes
To the true temple, to Jesus Christ we came

Before the world's foundation,
A holy calling, God's predestination

O, the infinite adorable mystery!
Our Father's divine sovereignty:

Hidden from the wise, revealed unto babes
To the true temple, to Jesus Christ we came

Little children, to Jesus come,
Do not delay, worship the Son!

II Samuel 6:16  As the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, and she despised him in her heart...

21  And David said to Michal, “It was before the LORD, who chose me above your father and above all his house, to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the LORD—and I will make merry before the LORD. 22  I will make myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be abased in your eyes...

Luke 18:16  But Jesus called them to him, saying, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. 17  Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

Wake up and tremble, rightly ascribe
we did not choose, He chose us, worthy the Lamb, solus Christus
"Salvation unto Us Has Come by God's free grace & favor"
True Calvinism is NOT . . .
First Sunday of Advent: The most scandalous bailout ever
no glory to me, o my Savior ~ only because You chose to favor | a spiritual birthday celebration
True Calvinism is NOT . . .
Letter 7 on assurance and fighting for joy (remember His love for us while we were sinners)
If I be not given spiritual sight ~ "with unveiled face" (letter 127 on assurance & joy)
I am a leopard - Christ is a lion ~ The Resurrection Celebration
the servant's evaluation: What do you have that you have not received?
4th Sunday after Epiphany: Characteristics of false religion, # 4-Self-righteousness

Scripture quotations unless otherwise indicated 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.