"To Him be glory forever": January 2020

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

How Marvelous, How Wonderful!

This morning I woke up with a song running through my head. The song is My Savior's Love, which is also known by it's opening line, "I stand amazed at the presence."

The particular part of the song that was running through my mind was the chorus, which says:

"How marvelous, how wonderful! And my song shall ever be:

How marvelous, how wonderful is my Savior's love for me!"

This morning the words of that chorus reminded me of a few things. The first is the great distance between a holy God and each and every human being, the distance between the Creator and created people. That distance was present for Adam and Eve but they were able to have easy fellowship with God so long as they remained obedient.

We know how the story went. Temptation to distrust God appeared on the horizon and they changed course to follow that path, rather than the course God had given them. Every human since then has lived with a two-fold separation from God. We have lived with the Creator/creation distinction, and then also the problem of being marked by our own sin.

How can a sinner stand in the presence of a holy God? We can make all kinds of excuses and rationalizations, but at the end of the day there is no satisfactory answer, at least none that will come about through our own efforts. The only hope that we have is through the gracious gift of God in Jesus. Paul said it this way:

"but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners,

Christ died for us."

That is the marvelous, and wonderful, love that the song sings of. That while we were in our sin and far from God, his Son died to remove the stain of our sin and allow us to come before God and be in his presence again. The Creator/creation distinction remains but the separation due to my sin has been removed because I believe in what the Son did for me. May you too trust in Jesus and taste the marvelous, wonderful love of God in your life.

Saturday, January 18, 2020

Whiter Than Snow

This is a picture I took today, looking out the window from my new study. We are rearranging some things in our house and one of those changes was that I moved my study out of one room and into another. In a sense it is the same view, as it is only about 10 feet away from where I used to be and on the same side of the house. But in a sense it is a different view, because before I had my back to the window and now it is just a few feet away on my right side. Turn my head to the right, and this is what I see.

I should have taken this picture early yesterday, as we had new snow overnight which was clinging to the branches when I woke up. As the day progressed we had several rounds of light snow, sunshine and brisk winds. At the end of the day things look pretty much like they do right now. A layer of snow covering the ground, virtually untouched by animals or children.

One of the songs I've been listening to a lot this week is Jesus Paid It All. The chorus goes like this:

"Jesus paid it all

All to Him I owe

Sin had left a crimson stain

He washed it white as snow"

Without researching the writing of the song, I believe the words in the Bible that underlie the image the chorus brings to mind are from Psalm 51, which says this in verse 7:

"Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."

The psalm is David's confession, after being confronted over his sin with Bathsheba. David confesses to the Lord and seeks forgiveness of his sin, knowing that the cleansing the Lord will provide will be complete. Every speck of his sin will be dealt with.

This is the same kind of forgiveness that we may still seek, as we repent of our sin and turn to the Lord. The "advantage" we have over David is in that we can clearly see in the New Testament how our forgiveness is achieved through the death-and-resurrection of Jesus. When we believe in him as our Savior and Lord, then the forgiveness of our sin is assured. Washed away, leaving us whiter than snow.

We continue to live in a fallen world. We continue to struggle with sin. We continue to repent. Here in this world, looking to the Lord, we see all kinds of things in our lives that just aren’t right. But by faith in Jesus we can be assured that as the Lord looks to us the stain of our sin is washed away, leaving us as white as snow. Amen.

Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Believing In Nonsense

I came across something last week that I had heard before. The idea was credited to John Piper, and it was basically this: "We read whole books, and should read whole books, but rarely does a whole book change us. What grabs us and makes an impact is a chapter, or more often a paragraph, or a sentence, or a phrase." The idea is that reading books is worthwhile but most often what we come away with and are shaped, or influenced by, are just one or two things within that book.

So I had that thought hanging out someplace in the back of my mind while I was reading According To Plan: The Unfolding Revelation Of God In The Bible, by Graeme Goldsworthy. It is an introduction to the field of biblical theology. It's a pretty good, and very readable book, that walks through the revelation of God's plan of redemption, beginning with creation and ending, presumably, with Christ. I'm a bit past halfway in my reading of it.

And so I was reading about the people of God, having left slavery in Egypt and headed for the Promised Land, when they receive the Law and are called to live in obedience to it. Goldsworthy writes this:

"Salvation or redemption means being restored to a position of sonship and fellowship with God. To claim to have received the gift of friendship with God while persisting in a life marked by alienation and enmity is clearly nonsense."

That sentence in bold just stopped me in my tracks. Goldsworthy cuts to the chase in saying how impossible it is to claim to have faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord, and then continue to live each day as if you are your own savior and lord. To claim one as true but to live for all practical purposes as if it's not is "clearly nonsense."

Have you ever known times of prayer, where perhaps you confessed of a sin, repented of it, and almost as soon as your prayer ended your mind turned to thoughts of getting back to it. I know that I have. The biblical phrase for this is:

"a dog that returns to his vomit."

We could praise God for many specific things but the ones that come to mind as I wrote this is his mercy and forgiveness. I was reading Psalm 130 earlier today, where the Psalmist writes:

"If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O LORD, who could stand?

But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared."

So I can praise God that when in those times I am living on the wrong side of the tracks in my relationship with him, that he is forgiving when I come back to him. Or, to refer to the biblical phrase above, when I see how disgusting the thing I am "eating" truly is, he has forgiveness as I came back to him. Which is infinitely better than to continue believing and living in what is truly, and clearly, nonsense.

Note: It appears that one of our cats had an upset stomach sometime today.

Saturday, January 4, 2020

Getting Sidetracked

The last two weeks have been a bit hectic. We had worship on Sunday and then again two days later, on Christmas Eve. Our candlelight service was beautiful, in my opinion, and people from several other local churches joined us. I took off Christmas day, and then the day after, which was Kat's birthday. The next day, Friday, I woke up with the task of Sunday's sermon as my number one priority. I had already planned everything else for worship, and so the sermon was the only thing on my agenda for Friday and Saturday.

Well, it should have been the only thing on my agenda, but it kinda wasn't. Two weeks ago we decided that our boys would have an easier time at bedtime, and get a better night's sleep, if they had separate bedrooms. And we figured out that the way to make that happen was through a series of changes in our home. We would have to convert our spare bedroom into my study, then Robin and I would move our bedroom into my former study, then move Kat into what was our bedroom, and then move Xander into what was Kat's bedroom.

The same Friday that I needed to work on my sermon Kat and Robin cleared out the spare bedroom and Robin painted a wall. We had figured out how to configure my new study, as the room would be smaller. Robin, Kat and the boys worked on moving one bookcase and its books. So the next step would be moving my desk.

So as I worked on my sermon I took occasional breaks to help with the moving process. I decided some of my books could be moved over to church, and some could be given away to the local second-hand store. I cleaned up the various drawers and nooks on my desk. And, unlike the sermon I was working on, I could see tangible progress in the moving project. It was easy to get sidetracked and work on a necessary project, although of secondary importance to what I knew was a high priority.

It is easy to get sidetracked in the Christian life. We are tired and weary. Or perhaps we are emotionally tied-up in a particular situation. Or maybe we are spending a lot of time with people whom we love dearly but their values aren't grounded in the same things that our are, and so we drift off away from the Lord for a period of time, instead of remaining close to him.

As this post was taking shape in my mind I found myself coming back to the words of Jesus that we remember as the Great Commandment:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

These are the words of Jesus that can anchor us in the ways that we live, day-by-day, as his disciples. When we ground ourselves in them we can stay on the right paths and not get sidetracked. They draw us back when we notice we are drifting.

May you turn to these words, and the Lord who gave them to us, to stay on course as you love and follow him. Amen.