Tomorrow morning I will enjoy fellowship with a group of men as we meet weekly in our reading/study of Sinclair Ferguson’s book, The Christian Life – A Doctrinal Introduction.  We’ll be going over the chapter entitled ‘Faith in Christ’.

One statement he makes is that “Repentence can only be truly evangelical when it is based on faith in God and in his word.”  He points to the psalmist’s words in Psalm 130:4, ‘But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.’  Ferguson writes, it was because he saw and trusted the forgiving grace of God that he feared him in his repentance.

As I read through this psalm, I quickly found it leading… preempting… encouraging the voice of my pleas for mercy.  “If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?  That question and moreso the understanding and reality behind that question should always and forever silence my complaints and my protests.  And then so quickly he follows with the Good News, “But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.”

Deep sorrow, persistent adversity, or a turn in the road we neither want nor understand may have brought us to our knees in the King’s presence… but praise God, we are there.  We are on our knees, casting our anxieties on the One, the only One, who has all power and authority to work all things to His glory and our good.  How many times have I grown restless and impatient in this place and gotten up and gone elsewhere seeking resolution… answers… peace?  Foolishness, I know; but I’ve done it repeatedly.  Again the word of the Lord leads and counsels me, “I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.”  Wait.  Wait… wait for the LORD.

Why wait?  I can do something… I can fix this… I… I… I.  “O Israel,  (O Tim,  O ____? )  hope in the LORD!  For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption.  And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.” 

My soul waits for the LORD.

Man, I’m starting to dig on this idea of ‘time away’!  How incredibly cool to unclog the heart and mind with shedding the day to day routine and responsibility and to do a little bit of spiritual housecleaning.  Last week, getting away for a few days to read pray and fellowship in the Dacks was really needed and helpful.  What a blessing.  And then to follow it up with a few days away with my wife, Amanda, and… nothing.  No work, no church ministry, no kids, no worries… just us and a fourth floor oceanfront view and wonderful roar of crashing waves for two whole days!  No summer crowds – I don’t do the Jersey shore in summer except in rare cases   and no agenda other than to be with my beloved.

God is good.  In His goodness He loves and leads his children to green pastures and quiet waters… He restores our soul.  I think I heard some good things from my Father over these past two weeks.  By faith, I am looking forward to hearing more and taking strength and direction from His sweet instruction and training in righteousness.

One day at a time.  Worries surrendered.  Forgiving quickly.  Revering God’s Word.  Pressing on in grace and truth.  Whether these be old or new habits, I look forward to God’s faithfulness in the days ahead.

It is good to be home.  Looking ahead to a vacation in the ‘prairies’??!  hmmm.  I can’t get those phrases outa my head, ‘from the mountains, to the prairies, to the ocean’s white with foam…’.  Will I have to go west to find prairies?  We do have friends in Iowa.

Have you ever wondered about what was going on in Moses’ head when he turned and started down the mountain?  He had just met with God!  God had met with Moses.  God spoke with him… clear as day…clearer.  God gave Moses His words written on tablets of stone.  “Here Moses, I’ve written a few things down.  Take these words to My people”.  Moses had been fearful before… I can’t, I can’t, I’m not able…  I wonder what was going on in his mind that day.  I don’t believe Moses ever stopped being afraid of man, I just think that he learned to fear God much more.

How about Paul?  He doesn’t seem a whole lot like Moses to me.  He was a man in charge… zealous for what he believed in.  So much so that he was running hard, not for Christ, but against Him.  Paul needed to learn to fear God and God taught Paul to fear Him.  The humility that was missing in Saul came out in Paul through Jesus Christ in him, the hope of glory.

In both cases, these men were changed by God and they obeyed God.  Moses took the tablets to God’s people and he grew in God-centered boldness.  Paul ran square into his enemy, Jesus Christ, on the Damascus road and was so confronted that his whole life was changed.  Paul grew in God-centered humility.

Both men were changed by the power of the Gospel.  Really?  Moses was changed by the gospel?  Paul?  Who shared the gospel with Paul?   This I know.  …for the Bible tells me so. 

Romans 1:16-17  For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.  For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith,  as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

Everyone who believes, is saved through faith in the Gospel; the Gospel is Good News!

Back to Paul for a moment… I’ve wondered about Paul and his writing and relationship with the Corinthian church.  He writes with boldness and confesses that while he writes with such severity it is because he desires to rejoice and enjoy fellowship with them when he is with them.  He is also clear that his writing is for the building up and not for tearing down.  He makes his motive clear.  Think about it… when you or I are feeling beaten down in a confrontation with truth through a sermon or a conversation with a brother or sister in Christ, often the first defense thrown up in our flesh is to challenge the motive of the messenger.  Paul makes it clear in 2 Cor 13:10, his motive is to build up and not tear down, yet he acknowledges that his writing reflects a severe use of his authority given him by the Lord.

As I come down from the mountain… as I return from the Adirondacks, from a wonderful time away spent with my Lord and Savior…a Wonderful and Gracious Savior…a Gentle Shepherd; and as I come from a time spent with some precious saints… brothers in Christ who have loved me and prayed for me and encouraged me well from God’s word, I come and find myself back in pretty much the same circumstances that I left.  YET, I am coming back with a difference;  I have been changed.  I met with God and He changed me.  Maybe He changed things back here too.  I don’t know and it doesn’t matter.  God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us… has ministered His grace to my heart and changed me.

It is my hope… future grace… that I fear God more now than when I left and subsequently fear man less.  It is my earnest expectation that “I will rejoice,  for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.  For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”  My hope is in God.

God is good.  And from His goodness flows mercy and grace.  We stand in need… desperate need of these because we deservedly hang from a thread over the flames of eternal Hell.  We are each great sinners in need of a Great Savior.  Jesus Christ is that Great Savior!

Ephesians 2: 1-10, And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—  among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.  But  God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,  even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—  and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,  so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,  not a result of works, so that no one may boast.  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Blessings.

Hmmm… another missing book.  It seems I don’t have a very good loaner system.  I keep loaning out books, dvds, etc… but they don’t seem to ever return.  Most mornings I would probably consternate over that a bit more (a bit more than I should even   BUT, not this morning.  Today I head North.

Shortly (after packing, iPod prep, haircut, etc…) I will leave my wonderful wife and four chillens and turn my truck northward… to the ‘Dacks’ as my good brother Rob calls it!  The Adirondacks are a beautiful place and that’s where I will go for a few days of silence and solitude with my Counselor and King.

There is both a sense of desperation and delight as I go… I really need to get away and get quiet before my God, who knows All; I need to remember that.  Ezekiel understood and responded well in Ez. 37:3, ‘O Lord GOD, you know’.  In this, I am desperate.  There is alot here in NJ world that seems upside down and out of place and it’s shaking me.  In this, I also delight.  God’s word is clear.. His intentions are clear.  He is preparing me for another home, another dwelling place. 

I am finding the rejoicing in my heart being overwhelmed and so I am turning my attention to the God of all wisdom and the God of peace to meet my need.

The book I was looking for a moment ago was Don Whitney’s ‘Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life’… a very good book and one that has a chapter on the discipline of silence and solitude.  I hoped to refresh my thoughts on this chapter before heading on my way.  Oh well… perhaps the borrower is being blessed by it today?

I also look forward to the weekend ahead as my eldest son, Luke (16) will join me in the ‘Dacks’ for the ABC Men’s Retreat.  His first.  Our first.  I love these retreats… solid teaching from the Word… incredible times of worship and singing… sweet fellowship with the church of Jesus Christ!  A taste of heaven!  Luke and I will room together, talk together, pray together, be taught together, fellowship together, Worship our Lord and Savior… together!

By God’s grace and pleasure, it will be a ‘good’ five days away from life in New Jersey.  And then I will return home to my Amanda and my other three chillens.  That will be really cool too!

Col 2:6-7,  Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. 

1 Kings 6:11-13, Now the word of the Lord came to Solomon, “Concerning this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes and obey my rules and keep all my commandments and walk in them, then I will establish my word with you, which I spoke to David your father.  And I will dwell among the children of Israel and will not forsake my people Israel.”

These verses have been on my heart the past two days as I’ve wondered about God and the if/then promises in His word.  I have much to learn and I also remember and stand on what He has taught me thus far.  It is the reality of His sovereignty that clarifies His commands.  And it is a joy to behold God in His word… it is, indeed, all of grace. 

The conditional covenants that God makes with his people are truly wonderful.  Yet how could a sovereign Creator God relinquish control to the creature?  He doesn’t; and for that we must be eternally grateful.  Our sovereign God is NEVER ‘not sovereign’.  No matter how we might choose to define His sovereignty, no matter how we will, in our own hearts, deface the sovereign grace of God… He remains forever Sovereign. 

How is it with you?  How did  you get God to respond to you?  What level of obediance did you achieve (walking in his statutes, obeying his rules, keeping all his commandments and walking in them) for God to take notice and responsively establish his word with you? 

Is it not God who has ordained, in His sovereignty, to dwell among the children of Israel and to not forsake his people Israel?  Is it not God who has called you, put a new heart in you, made you alive in Christ, established you in the faith, empowered you to walk…obey…keep…walk?  Are you not doing this as He establishes you in His word? 

John 17:14-19, “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.  I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.  They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.  Sanctify them  in the truth; your word is truth.  As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.  And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.” 

Rejoice in the Sovereign God… rejoice in his Sovereign Grace… rejoice, again I say REJOICE!

Glory glory glory.

Transforming power… the New Testament indicates that the transforming power of regeneration is total. It meets our needs at every point. This is not to say that regeneration produces perfection. But just as total depravity means sin has influenced every area of our lives, so grace reaches into every aspect of our experience where the ravages of sin first ventured. It is through the new birth that the image of God, like an embryo in the womb, is restored. It then begins to grow to the full maturity of the later stages of Christian experience. …In regeneration the mind is illuminated… the heart is purified…the desires are renewed… we begin to live a new life!

(The Christian Life, Ch6, Sinclair Ferguson)

This morning two prayers converged before me. I was reading in 1 Kings ch3, where Solomon prays to the Lord in a dream at night. As I read these verses, I began to pray that God would bless me in the same way… that He would…

“Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?”

 It is often that I feel this way… “Lord, how can I do this? How can I do what you’ve put before me.  Lord, please give me an understanding mind and discernment between good and evil.”   I then saw that I had received an email from an older brother in the Lord who is praying for me and he is praying Philippians 1:9-11 on my behalf, a familiar and wonderful prayer…

“And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”

As the return of our Lord draws nearer, I am concerned that the schemes of the enemy of God are having a significant influence on the body of Christ, abroad but also in our families and local church bodies.  Please pray like Solomon… please pray like Paul… for the church (you and your church) and for the elders at your church, that they may lead and oversee well to the glory of God.

I loved it when I read the last verse in 1 Kings 3:28,

“And all Israel heard of the judgment that the king had rendered, and they stood in awe of the king, because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in him to do justice.”

God gave Solomon the wisdom of God and the people ’stood in awe’… not (so much) of Solomon, but of God.  AMEN! Let’s look to God and pray for the wisdom of God so that we might all walk in obedience before our LORD and King.

“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)

Blessings as you walk by faith today,

I read this brief thought and prayer (from The Valley of Vision) and thought that each of you might desire to have this in your arsenal as you read, study, preach, teach, minister or sit under God’s word in various ways. 

At first read it seems almost wrong… affronting… rude… detrimental… certainly ‘negative’ to consider such self-abasing language, for are we not children of the King?!   Yes, we may be children of the King and we may be joint-heirs with Christ and yes, we are also, in the present reality of our flesh, very much tempted to step outside the Truth of our desparate need for ‘Christ in me’ and to rebelliously pursue the “I in me” to live in a state of self-righteousness, forsaking the saving and sanctifying Christ-righteousness that brings all glory to our God. But with our great need ever before us… Then grace, grace, will be my experience and cry. 

Who knows, it may be that we will find ourselves as spiritually hungry men to be more readied to preach/teach sound doctrine with understanding as we grow up in Christ and the fullness therein.  This prayer is certainly helpful to lead us in laying ourselves at the foot of the old rugged cross in complete surrender and dependence on our Great Savior. 

http://www.challies.com/archives/articles/quotes/a-ministers-strength.php 

A Minister’s Strength

The prayer immediately before a sermon is one where the congregation is prone to drift off. This prayer is usually a minister’s plea for God to grant him words to speak and for God to grant the ability to hear and understand for those who listen to the sermon. I’ve noticed, though, that when I am the one who is to preach immediately afterward, this prayer takes on a new dimension of desperation. The one standing in the pulpit (hopefully) has a real sense of his unworthiness, his unsuitableness, his inability to do in his own power the task he is called to do. This morning I will be preaching at a church nearby and already I feel that sense of inability and already I’m turning to God to grant me strength. This prayer from The Valley of Vision has given me words to speak to God to ask for his help.

*****

Unchangeable Jehovah,
When I am discouraged in my ministry and full of doubts of my self,
fasten me upon the rock of thy eternal election,
then my hands will not hang down,
and I shall have hope for myself and others.
Thou dost know thy people by name,
and wilt at the appointed season lead them out of a natural to a gracious state by thy effectual calling.
This is the ground of my salvation,
the object of my desire,
the motive of my ministry.
Keep me from high thoughts of myself or my work,
for I am nothing but sin and weakness;
in me no good dwells,
and my best works are but sin.
Humble me to the dust before thee.
Root and tear out the poisonous weed of self-righteousness,
and show me my utter nothingness;
Keep me sensible of my sinnership;
Sink me deeper into penitence and self-abhorence;
Break the Dagon of pride in pieces before the ark of thy presence;
Demolish the Babel of self-opinion, and scatter it to the wind;
Level to the ground my Jericho walls of a rebel heart;
Then grace, grace, will be my experience and cry.
I am a poor, feeble creature when faith is not in exercise,
like an eagle with pinioned wings;
Grant me to rest on thy power and faithfulness,
and to know that there are two things worth living for:
to further thy cause in the world,
and to do good to the souls and bodies of men;
This is my ministry, my life, my prayer, my end.
Grant me grace that I shall not fail.

We need to understand why we need to know the Truth. We need to teach the Truth. We need to believe the Truth…

in our homes and in the church…

And we need to understand and help our families and church understand that we can’t hide Jesus Christ under a bushel… NO!  We can’t get fuzzy on the eternally-impacting reality that NOT all roads/religions lead to God.

For personal edification and perhaps passing along or usefulness as a current event news piece to use for teaching, check out this blog and especially the US Today editorial link..

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2009/10/16/separation-of-church-and-sport/

 http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/10/column-and-id-like-to-thank-god-almighty.html#more

While this editorial seems a calm and polite push-back… take note that ‘the world’ is taking note of the different “types” of christians/evangelicals that exist in the world… even they can spot a “true believer”; and they won’t be… can’t be content to let it slide. The truth that God alone… Jesus Christ alone is the Way, the Truth and the Life is something the enemy hates with a passion equal to the task that brought about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

One, God is Sovereign.

Two, the prince of this world still prowls about as a roaring lion… the thief is still all about stealing, killing and destroying… for keeps!

Lets make sure our families and church know the Truth. Let’s make sure “we” are not offering up our families and the church to “alters” God has not called them to. Let’s make choices based on the Truth that there is but One God and One Mediator… 1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

Blessings.