Why God Created Everything - John Piper

 Observation from John Piper (2006)....

"God created the world to exhibit the fullness of His glory in the God-centered joy of His people."

                   (To display His glory through our joy!?!)

Four hundred years earlier theologians wrote this as the first teaching in the Westminster Catechism --

Question #1: What is the chief end of man?

Answer: The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

 I love the consistency of these statements - God created everything to joyfully display His glory...forever!

Peter says it's "joy unspeakable and full of glory" - GOD'S glory!

I find these thoughts so exciting! How does God display His glory? Through the joy of His people! WOW!

Psalm 104:33 -- "I will sing to the LORD all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. May my mediation be pleasing to Him as I rejoice in the LORD."

Let's exhibit His glory everywhere we go today!

Fortunatus and his friends

I was glad when Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus arrived because they supplied what was lacking from you. For they refreshed my spirit and yours also. Such men deserve recognition.
1 Corinthians 16:17-18 (NIV)

.

I am so glad that Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus have come here. They have been making up for the help you weren't here to give me. They have been a wonderful encouragement to me, as they have been to you, too. You must give proper honor to all those who serve so well. 1 Corinthians 16:17-18 (NLT)



Paul writes these words to the Christians in Corinth. He was in Ephesus, and the three men, Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus, brought him a message from the struggling Corinthian church.


Paul mentions a written letter from the church at Corinth in 1 Corinthians 7:1. Probably this is the message they brought with them, and they could further explain and give detail through their verbal comments when seeing Paul face-to-face.

It was not a simple "Hello, how are you? We are praying for you" message. It was apparently long and detailed about the problems and ungodliness that had infected the church at Corinth.

We can tell from 1 Corinthians some of the problems they reported. The three men must have been greatly burdened to travel all the way to Ephesus to counsel with Paul.

We know very little about these men. In verse 15 (chapter 16) Paul writes, "You know that the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achai, and they devoted themselves to the service of the saints."

So we know Stephanas and his family (Achai is in southern Greece - its major cities are Athens and Corinth) were the first gospel followers in the area and they were diligent leaders of the small congregation.

We know from 1 Corinthians 1:16 that Paul himself baptized the Stephanas household.

But even if we don't know much, we know that Paul applauds them: such men deserve recognition. They are to be honored for their dedication and faithfulness. They are serving well.

They were Christians who stepped up and filled in the gap - who filled an empty place for ministry - they deserve honor. They would minister to Paul as representatives of the entire body of believers in Corinth. What the whole congregation could not do, because of distance, they could do.

And because of their faithfulness and love for Paul, we have today
in our New Testament the book of 1 Corinthians, the letter from Paul they delivered back to their church in Corinth.

I want to be like those early Christians -- refreshing those around us who are ministering -- encouraging them -- holding up their arms as Aaron and Hur held Moses' -- and as we do that we are serving well.....

Anonymous Confederate Prayer

This prayer was found on the body of an unknown Confederate soldier on a battlefield in 1863.  A soldier 'known only to God...."


     I asked for strength that I might achieve;
     I was made weak that I  might learn humbly to obey.

     I asked for health that I might do greater things;
     I was given infirmity that I might do better things.

     I asked for riches that I might be happy;
     I was given poverty that I might become wise.

     I asked for power that I might have the praise of men;
     I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.

     I asked for all things that I might enjoy life;
     I was given life that I might enjoy all things.

     I got nothing that I had asked for;
     but everything I had hoped for.

     Almost despite myself my unspoken prayers were          
        answered.

     I am, among all men, most richly blessed

The Purpose-Driven Porpoise

From Psalm 104 - A Hymn of Creation:

How many are Your works, O LORD! In wisdom You made them all; the earth is full of Your creatures.

There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number--living things both large and small.

There the ships go to and fro, and the leviathan, which You formed to frolic there.   Psalm 104:24-26


The leviathan - giant sea creatures, like whales and dolphins and porpoises - which He formed to frolic there!

Frolic - to make merry - to have fun - to be playful!

That's the job -- the purpose -- of the sea creatures -- to play and frolic in the oceans!

The psalmist pictures the great sea creatures as large and sportive animals whose very existence glorifies and delights the Creator!

They gladden the heart of God.


May the glory of the LORD endure forever; may the LORD rejoice in His works...
Psalm 104:31


And then we look at the closing verses of the Psalm:


I will sing to the LORD all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.  Psalm 104:33

That's our job -- to proclaim His praise!

The sea creatures exist to frolic and bring joy to God.
That's their response to His goodness!

We exist to praise and glorify Him.

That's our proper response!

What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.....says the Westminster Catechism.

I want to do as good a job at achieving God's purpose for me as the sea creatures do at theirs!

I will sing to the LORD all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live....

and that's forever!



And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky."

So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems....and God saw that it was good.
                           -- Genesis 1:20-21 - The 5th day.....

Cut Flowers - Eric Metaxas

Q. But right-thinking people want to do good...right?

A. Of course. But it is as if we're cut flowers. We might look great, but we are dying. We've been cut off from our Source. And He wants to reattach us so that His life can flow through us again.

But many people say, "Hey, I'm looking great! Check out the color of my petals! The bees are all over me!"

But because we're cut flowers, it's only a matter of time until we wither and die. It's inevitable. Without God we have no life, no goodness that lasts. We were meant to live forever, but until God reattaches us to Him--until we choose to allow Him to do that--we have no eternal life.

--From Everything You Always Wanted to Know about God...by Eric Metaxas...

       I am the vine; you are the branches.

 If a man remains in Me and I in him,

he will bear much fruit;

apart from Me you can do nothing.

John 15:5

The Pursuit of Joy - Jonathan Edwards - from John Piper and C S Lewis

Thoughts from Jonathan Edwards:


....the end and goal of creation hangs on knowing God with our minds and enjoying God with our hearts.


The very purpose of the universe -- reflecting and displaying the glory of God -- hangs not only on true knowledge of God, but also on authentic joy in God.



"God is glorified," Edwards says, "not only by His glory's being seen, but by its being rejoiced in."



Here is the great discovery that changes everything. God is glorified by our being satisfied in Him.



The chief end of man is not merely to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, but to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.


The great divide that I thought existed between God's passion for His glory and my passion for joy turned out to be no divide at all, if my passion for joy is passion for joy in God.



God's passion for the glory of God and my passion for joy in God are one.



What follows from this, I have found, shocks most Christians; namely, that we should be blood-earnest -- deadly serious -- about being happy in God.



We should pursue our joy with such a passion and a vehemence that, if we must, we would cut off our hand or gouge out our eye to have it.



God being glorified in us hangs on our being satisfied in Him.

We quake at the fearful luke-warmness of our hearts.



We waken to the truth that it is a treacherous sin not to pursue that satisfaction in God with all our heats.



There is one final word for finding delight in the creation more than in the Creator: treason.



Edwards argued for this in a sermon that he preached on Song of Solomon 5:1....




     Persons need not and ought not to set any bounds  to their spiritual and gracious appetites...they ought to be endeavoring by all possible ways to inflame their desires and to obtain more spiritual pleasures...


     Our hungerings and thirstings after God and Jesus Christ and after holiness can't be too great for the value of these things, for they are things of infinite value...endeavor to promote spiritual appetites....there is no such thing as excess in our taking of this spiritual food. There is no such virtue as temperance in spiritual feasting.



--From  A God-Entranced Vision of All Things, The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards, by John Piper and Justin Taylor







C S Lewis on the same subject....



If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds that our desires not too strong, but too weak.



We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offers of a holiday at the sea.


We are far too easily pleased.



      -- From The Weight of Glory, by C S Lewis

What Is Prayer? - Derek Prime

From Practical Prayer, by Derek Prime


Seeking God's Face (Psalm 27:8)

When you said to me, "Seek My face," my heart said "Your face I will seek."

This is a delightful Old Testament description of prayer, found most of all in the book of Psalms. Physical sight is not what is meant, but the seeing of God with the inward eye, which is an anticipation of what awaits us in a new and wonderful way in the new life to come.

The verb from which the word 'face' comes means to turn towards someone, to really pay attention to him or her. A person's face identifies him to us, and often reflects his feelings, attitudes and sentiments. To seek God's face, therefore, is to come into God's presence with the deliberate purpose of communicating with Him.

It is not like giving thanks for a meal, or reciting the Lord's Prayer, which sometimes we don't even remember afterward whether or not we prayed. That is the opposite of deliberately and earnestly seeking God's face.

Imagine going into a crowded room in order to establish contact with a friend to enlist his assistance. You know that if you catch his eye--seek his face--he will get your message and come to your aid. As you seek him in the room, you will keep looking his way until he sees you, until you see him turn his face toward you.

And then you will know you have been successful.

To seek God's face is to be occupied with God's Person before we start asking Him for anything, and then not to stop seeking Him until we know that His face is turned towards us, and that our requests are received by Him with pleasure.

It is no surprise that seeking God's face is a key secret of radiance.

Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.
(Psalm 34:5)

Important People We Never Heard Of -- #1

 

There was a farmer in North Carolina, in the 1930's, who greatly influenced history.

He was a Christian and excited about a revival going on near him. The preacher, Mordecai Ham, was well-known and great crowds were attending and many were receiving Christ as their Savior.

The farmer decided to invite his neighbors to attend the meetings with him and he loaded them into his pickup!

A sixteen-year old boy joined the group. Every night he went to the revival and the farmer kept praying for his salvation.

Finally, the last night, the lad went forward and received Christ as his Savior.

That young man was Billy Graham!

Just think how the world has changed, for millions of people, by that farmer's obedience to proclaim God's message. 

Today's challenge: we might not have a pickup, but we have a multitude of other ways to get out the joyous message of freedom in Christ. God loves us and invites us to co-partner with him to change people and so change the world. We don't have  to be famous, or rich, or powerful. God can use us just as we are! With or without a pickup! 

How can He use you today?

Overlooking Offenses

  

                              Overlooking  Offenses

"A man's wisdom gives him patience. It is his glory to overlook an offense" (Proverbs 19:11).

I read once that the art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

To overlook someone's offenses allows us to drop our defenses (in my case usually arrogant and self-righteous) and just humbly drop the burden and move on.

And we can choose to do that!

It gives us such luxurious freedom!

Remember 1 Corinthians 13: "(Love) is not easily angered; it keeps no record of wrongs..."

And "love covers a multitude of sins..."

Keep the big picture in mind -- small, petty offenses to us have nothing to do with the big picture! They are meaningless. Overlook them!

Prayer for today: "As You have been to me, loving Father, help me be to others today."

I am a Christian - What does it mean?

When I say "I am a Christian," I am not shouting that
I live a godly life.

I'm whispering "I was lost, but now I'm found and forgiven."

When I say "I am a Christian," I don't speak of this with pride.

I'm confessing that I stumble and need Christ to be my guide.

When I say, "I am a Christian," I'm not trying to be strong.

I am professing that I'm weak and need His strength to carry on.

When I say, "I am a Christian," I'm not bragging of success.

I am admitting that I have failed and need God to daily clean my messes.

When I say, "I am a Christian," I'm not claiming to be perfect.

My flaws are far too visible, but God believes I am worth it.

When I say, "I am a Christian" I still feel the sting of pain. I have my share of heartaches.

So I call upon His Name to comfort me and walk the journey with me.

When I say, "I am a Christian," I'm not being 'holier than thou.'

I'm just a simple sinner who received God's good grace and am eternally filled with gratitude and praise.

Reshaping the Pot

 "The pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hand; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him"(Jeremiah 18:4).

God sent Jeremiah to watch the potter reshape a marred pot, carefully handling the material and reforming it "as seemed best to him" into a new, better pot!

The prophet reminds us that God is the skillful potter and we are the clay.

He is sovereign and can use what He creates to both destroy and create beauty in us. He, the Master Potter, can, and is wiling to create new and precious pottery from our shattered pieces. He doesn't look at our scarred broken lives and discard them as waste!

He picks up our pieces and lovingly reshapes them as He sees fit.

Even in our scarred brokenness we have value to our Master Potter.

In His hands the broken pieces of our lives can be reshaped into beautiful vessels to be used by Him for Hs glory!

                         Something beautiful, something good

                             All my confusion He understood

                    All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife

                       But He made something beautiful of my life

What Do You Think About Heaven?

 

Most of our images of heaven, like most of our songs about heaven, are influenced by popular Victorian and Platonic descriptions, rather than by thoughtful, scriptural, consideration of what God is planning to do.

  Romans 8 tell us, "For the whole creation groans in travail, waiting for the redemption of the sons of God."

   Why? Because He is going to make a new creation! The ultimate purpose of God was not Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden; it was Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, and all His people in a new heaven and a new earth.

   For the cross of Christ was not something that was bought into the picture to fix a problem with God's original plan. The cross was not Plan B - far from it! It was part of the original eternal plan -- that in view of man's inevitable rebellion, God prepared the solution in advance. The crucifixion of Christ and our salvation because of it, was foreordained by God from the very beginning!

Revelation 21 tells us about the coming of the new heaven and new earth. "I am making everything new...God's dwelling place is now among the people, and He will dwell with them...He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain...I will be their God and they will be my children..."

   And we say, "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!"

Quoteworthy - Miracles - Albert Einstein

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." - Albert Einstein


I was weeding. One sturdy little seedling, perhaps 6 inches tall, stood erect as a telephone pole, daring me to pull it up. I tugged and yanked. Out it came - with a pecan at its root! Left alone, that little soldier, in a few years, would have become a great pecan tree, sheltering birds and insects and providing food for squirrels.  A miracle in the making - just needing a few years to present itself as a for-real, authentic, bona-fide miracle!


Does a "miracle in the making"  still qualify as a miracle?  If a giant tree had grown up overnight, we would have taken pictures, called journalists - announcing the amazing news that a great pecan tree had sprouted and reached mature growth  in just a few hours! It would be like seeing a time-released photo show on the Nature channel. Growing and leafing out and producing pecans before our very eyes.


It would be a miracle!


Does that mean the only difference between miracles and just "normal" nature is time? Is that the only way to distinguish? Just time elapsing?


I don't know about you, but I think it is all a miracle! Everything around us,
every moment of our day......just one miracle after another.....

Here dies another day

During which I have had eyes, ears, hands,

And the great world around me;

And with tomorrow begins another,

Why am I allowed two?

   - G. K. Chesterton

Discarding the Valuable, Keeping the Worthless

                                                          Holding on to the Worthless

The weight of gold that Solomon received yearly was 666 talents [about 25 tons], not including the revenues from merchants and traders from all the Arabian kings and governors of the land.

King Solomon made two hundred large shields of hammered gold; six hundred bekas [7 1/2 pounds] went into each shield. He also made three hundred small shields of hammered gold with three minas [3 3/4 pounds] of gold in each shield.

Then the king made a great throne inlaid with ivory and overlaid with gold...all King Solomon's goblets were gold, and all the household articles in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold.

The king had a fleet of trading ships at sea along the coasts of Hiram. Once every three years it returned, carrying gold, silver and ivory, and apes and baboons....

Year after year, everyone who came brought a gift -- articles of silver and gold, robes, weapons, and spices and horses and mules....

King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings.... 
                           1 Kings 10:14-25



Later, after Solomon's death, his son, Rehoboam, ascended to the throne.


Here's what happened:


After Rehoboam's position as king was established and he became strong, he and all Israel with him abandoned the law of the LORD.

Then the prophet Shemaiah came to Rehoboam and to the leaders of Judah who had assembled in Jerusalem...and told them, "This is what the LORD says, 'You have abandoned Me; therefore I now abandon you to Shishak.'"


Because they had been unfaithful to the LORD, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem in the fifth year of King Rehoboam.


With 1200 chariots and sixty thousand horsemen and the innumerable troops of Libyans, Sukkites and Cushites that came with him from Egypt, he captured the fortified cities of Judah and came as far as Jerusalem....

When Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem, he carried all the treasures of the temple of the LORD and the treasures of the royal palace.

He took everything, including the gold shields Solomon had made.

So King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them and assigned these to the commanders of the guard on duty at the entrance to the royal palace.

Whenever the king went to the LORD's temple, the guards went with him, bearing the shields, and afterwards they returned them to the guard room.

    -- 2 Chronicles 12:1-11


Their king had abandoned the law of the LORD (the text says, the king "and all Israel with him") and so lost his country's priceless heritage...all that Rehoboam's grandfather, King David, had set aside for the temple and royal treasuries, and all that his father, King Solomon, had later acquired...all gone...in the fifth year of his reign...what several generations accomplished was squandered in just a few years...

And those solid gold shields....

It's fascinating to imagine -- the guards probably polished the bronze to shining perfection -- but they were still bronze, not gold!

Who were they trying to fool?

So the guards, who had previously carried solid gold shields to escort their King, now carried cheap imitations!




Do we do this? Let what is priceless slip through our fingers and hold on tenaciously to what is without value? Polish it up and try to make it look good?

Not acknowledging that what we are grasping is only a substitute, a counterfeit, not the real thing!

Letting go of the important and holding on to the trivial.

It's time to reverse that - right now!

Life Stinks!? - Max Lucado

"Yes, life stinks. But it won't forever.  As one of my friends likes to say, 'Everything will work out in the end. If it's not working out, it's not the end.'

  In the meantime, don't overreact. Psalm 37:7 says, 'Be still in the presence of the Lord and wait patiently for Him to act. Don't worry about evil people who prosper, or fret about their wicked schemes.'

  This is a toxic world. But neither do we want to join the Chicken Little chorus of gloom and doom: 'The sky is falling! The sky is falling!'

  Somewhere between Pollyanna and Chicken Little, between denial and blatant panic, stands the levelheaded, clear-thinking, still-believing follower of Christ.

  Psalm 27:3 says, 'My heart shall not fear -- though war arises against me, yet I will be confident!'

  Confident in Him!"

The Potters and the Gardeners - Charles Spurgeon

                   The Potters and Gardeners - Charles Spurgeon

These were the potters and those who dwelt among plants and hedges, who lived there in the king's service
             (1 Chronicles 4:23).


Potters were among the ranks of manual workers, but the king needed potters and therefore they were elevated to royal service, although the material upon which they worked was nothing but clay.

In the same way we also may be engaged in the most menial part of the Lord's work, but it is a great privilege to do anything for the King; and therefore we will play our part, hoping that, even though we live among the pots, we will soar in the service of our Master.

They may have wanted to live in the city, amid its life, society and refinement, but they kept their assigned places because they were doing the King's work.

There is no ideal place for us to serve God except the place He sets us down.

We are not to run from it on whim or sudden notion, but we should serve the Lord by being in it a blessing to those among whom we live.

These potters and gardeners had royal company, for they lived with the king, and although among hedges and plants, they lived with the king there.

No lawful place or gracious occupation, however menial, can keep us from communion with our Lord.

In hovels, run-down neighborhoods, and jails, we may keep company with the King.

In all works of faith we can count upon Jesus' fellowship.

It is when we are in His work that we can reckon on His smile.

You unknown workers who are serving the Lord amid the dirt and wretchedness of the lowest of the low, be of good cheer, for jewels have often been found among rubbish, earthen pots have been filled with heavenly treasures, and ugly weeds have been transformed into precious flowers.

Dwell with the King and do His work, and when He writes His chronicles, your name shall be recorded.

[The names of these potters and gardeners are recorded for us in 1 Chronicles, chapter 4.  The book was written for the exiles who returned from Babylonian captivity  when King Cyrus gave them the opportunity and means to go back to their homes in Judea. The author wanted them to know they were part of God's special treasure, His Chosen People who would come back to Israel and prepare for the coming Messiah. After all, it was prophesied that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem and would be reared in Nazareth and would attend Temple in Jerusalem. They were, each one, a part of God's eternal plan. Just like we are!]

Reshaping the Pot

                                           

                                                      Reshaping the Pot

Jeremiah 18:1-6  "...The pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hand; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him."

God sent Jeremiah to visit a potter's house and he sees the potter shaping the "marred" clay with his hand, carefully handling the material and forming it into another pot.

The prophet reminds us that God is the skillful Potter and we are the clay.

He is sovereign and can use what He creates to both destroy evil and create beauty in us. God can shape us even when we are  broken. He, the master Potter, can and is willing to create  new and precious pottery from our shattered pieces. He doesn't look at our broken lives and mistakes them as waste to be thrown away.

Instead, He picks up our pieces and reshapes them as He sees fit.

Even in our brokenness we have immense value to our Master Potter.

In His hands, the broken pieces of our lives can be reshaped into beautiful vessels to be used by Him.

Something beautiful, something good

All my confusion He understood

All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife

But He made something beautiful of my life!

Great Words from Philip Yancey - The Sermon on the Mount

In The Jesus I Never Knew Philip Yancey exposes his own puzzlement with the Sermon on the Mount -- especially the Beatitudes.

Here are some of his thoughts regarding how the sermon describes Christ's dual message: absolute Ideals and absolute Grace.



  

     For years I had felt so unworthy before the absolute ideals of the Sermon on the Mount that I had missed any notion of grace.

     Once I understood the dual message, however, I went back and found the message of grace gusts through the entire speech.

     It begins with the Beatitudes--Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek; blessed are the desperate--and it moves toward the Lord's Prayer-- Forgive us our debts...deliver us from the evil one.

     Jesus began this great sermon with gentle words for those in need...and continued on with a prayer that has formed a model for all twelve-step groups. "One day at a time," say the alcoholics in AA; "Give us this day our daily bread," say the Christians. Grace is for the desperate, the needy, the broken, those who cannot make it on their own. Grace is for all of us.


     For years I had thought of the Sermon on the Mount as a blueprint for human behavior that no one could possibly follow. Reading it again, I found that Jesus gave those words, not to cumber us, but to tell us what God is like.

     The character of God is the subject of the Sermon on the Mount.

     Why should we love our enemies? Because our merciful Father causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good. Why be perfect? Because God is perfect. Why store up treasures in heaven? Because the Father lives there and will lavishly reward us

     Why live without fear and worry? Because the same God who clothes the lilies and the grass of the field has promised to take care of us.

     How could I have missed it? Jesus did not proclaim the Sermon on the Mount so that we could furrow our brows in despair over our failure to achieve perfection.

     He gave it to impart to us God's Ideal toward which we should never stop striving, but also to show us that none of us will ever reach that Ideal...it forces us to recognize the great distance between God and us, and any attempt to reduce that distance by somehow moderating or watering-down its claims misses the point altogether.

     ...The Sermon on the Mount proves that before God we all stand on level ground: murderers and temper-throwers, adulterers and lusters, thieves and covetous. We are all desperate, and that is in fact the only state appropriate to a human being who wants to know God. Having fallen from the absolute Ideal, we have nowhere to land but in the safety net of absolute grace.

Quoteworthy....The Silver Trumpets

And the LORD spoke to Moses saying: Make two silver trumpets for yourself; you shall make them of hammered work; you shall use them for calling the congregation and for directing the movements of the camp... when you go to war in your land against the enemy who opposes you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, and you will be remembered before the LORD your God, and you will be saved from your enemies. Also in the days of your gladness, in your appointed feasts...you shall blow the trumpets."
    -- Numbers 10: 2, 9, 10


Reminds me of Susan in the Chronicles of Narnia. Aslan gave her a special horn to blow in times of distress.

But these silver trumpets were to be used for many things -- to call the people together, to announce travel instructions and to call out to God when facing the enemy.

And we also have two trumpets: God's Word and prayer. We can call on God when we need direction in our journey,  when we need help in opposing the enemy, and when we want to call on our friends and spiritual family members.We can read His Word and determine His path for us and find help to combat the enemy.  We can gather with our spiritual family and read His Guidebook, sharing and gleaning spiritual truth from others.

There are many trumpets in Scripture. From Exodus all the way to Revelation.

In Exodus: 

On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled...the smoke billowed up like smoke from a furnace...and the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him. (Exodus 19)


In Revelation there are seven trumpets mentioned. The final one:

The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven which said:


  "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever." (Revelation 19)


Remember our revival? Our special trumpet call? 

G I N Y  -- God I Need You!


And His answer? G I N Y back -- Grace Is Now Yours!


We must all have our trumpets ready as we go out into the world --


Remember these words?

When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound and time shall be no more....when the morning breaks eternal, bright and fair...when the saved on earth shall gather over on the other shore...and the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there!

We're sure anxious to hear that trumpet!

Victory is Certain and Secure - Max Lucado

 From Max Lucado  --

"Some years ago I attended a San Antonio basketball game. It was the final game of the regular season, and it was unique because it did not matter. The Spurs had already won their division. This game had no bearing on their standing.

The game intrigued this preacher. I saw a sermon illustration waiting to happen. Christians occupy the same spot that the Spurs did.

According to the Bible, we've already won. According to prophecy, victory is secure. According to the message of grace and the death of Christ on the cross, no one can snatch us from our Father's hand.

So how do we behave in the meantime? Well, the Spurs were a good example. They were relaxed, confident, and happy. And they won the game. 

In these last days we need to show up, play hard, and be happy. After all, the victory is secure!"

Because He Loves us!

 

                                           Because We Love Him!

Psalm 91:14-15 -- "Because he loves Me, says the LORD, I will protect him, for he acknowledges My Name; he will call on Me and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation."

So many practical promises here: He will rescue us; protect us; allow us to pray to Him and promises to answer; He will be with us in trouble...and He will deliver us...and He will honor us -- both now and forever!

All these gifts! (Remember Forrest Gump?  'Life is like a box of chocolates'? Well that's like these verses! So open the box and start indulging yourself today!)

Restore My Joy - Is it too much to ask?

 

                                          Restore My Joy - Is it too much to ask?

"Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin...Create in me a pure heart, O God....restore to me the joy of your salvation." (Psalm 51:1, 2, 10, 12)

I find it necessary to read this psalm multiple times. It appears in centuries past that congregations recited it together every week at worship services. I can see why.

David  composed it just after he was confronted with his sin with Bathsheba and his attempt to cover it out by having her husband Uriah killed.

When I was younger I was amazed at David's presumptuous attitude! -- What gall, I thought! Such serious sins and to ask God to restore his joy!!?

Asking forgiveness -- that's OK. But asking for his joy in God's presence to be restored? That's just too much!

But now I am older and have seen more clearly - and more frequently - the darkness of my own heart and realize that all sin is treason against our holy God-- all sin is serious - displeasing to Him and deserving of judgment and death.

But His gracious forgiveness of all our sins does restore us - brings us back into our close fellowship with Him and brings back our joy in His presence.

Yes, it is hard to believe, and that's why we call it 'Amazing Grace'!

His total complete forgiveness does this for us.

And so I pray, with David, when I confess my sins and experience the miracle of forgiveness,  please restore the joy of your salvation to me, a sinner saved by your grace!

What is Jesus doing right now?

What Is Jesus Doing Right Now?

One of the things He is doing right now is:

1. He is praying for us

Jesus' prayers for us assures the security of our salvation.


If  He were not effective in His role as our mediator/advocate we could lose our salvation.

Jesus Christ who died -- more than that, who was raised to life -- is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.  (Romans 8:34)

Therefore He is able to save forever those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them.  (Romans 7:25)

-- He is in the Presence of God right now -- at the right hand of God. In Scripture God's  right hand is the symbol of His unique and almighty  power and authority.


-- His intercession is continual and intentional - He lives to intercede for us! - Present tense!


 Jesus' prayers for us restores us to fellowship with God when that fellowship is broken by sin.


Christ is called our "Advocate," like our "defense attorney."
When we sin He is there interceding for us before God - being our Advocate - every day - all the time.


"It's me, it's me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer!"

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have One who speaks to the Father in our defense -- Jesus Christ, the righteous One.

(1 John 2:1)

He's not just praying for us.  He is also -

2. Jesus is preparing our heavenly home for us

The picture is of a wealthy father who adds additional rooms to his home to accommodate his married children and their families. Much like the Amish farmer in earlier days. 

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, but also in Me. In My Father's house are many rooms...I am going to prepare a place for you; I will come back and take you to be with Me...

(John 14:1-3)

There's room for all!

And He is also....

3. Jesus is producing fruit in the lives of believers

As the branch  is connected to the vine and draws its life and nourishment to sustain life and produce fruit, so the believer is grafted into spiritual union with Christ to draw spiritual nourishment from Christ.

Spiritual fruit is the result.

I am the true vine, and My Father is the gardener....every branch that does bare fruit He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful...Remain in Me and I will remain in you. I am the vine and you are the branches. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me...Without Me you can do nothing...This is to My Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be My disciples. 

(John 15:1-7) 

We were grafted into Christ and now we are being nourished and pruned so we can produce abundant fruit for Him!

A friend in California owns many acres of farmland and they produce a great harvest of citrus fruit.

She mentioned once they were expanding their acreage and citrus planting  to produce more.  I asked her if they were  planting lemons or oranges or grapefruit.

She answered, "We just buy citrus, and then we graft the little plants into what we need. In one greenhouse we will make them into lemon trees. In another we make them into oranges. What we graft on them determines what kind of  tree and fruit we will get!"

Since we are grafted  into Jesus, our fruit should be those listed in Galatians 5: love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Our fruit should reflect our Root - our true Vine   - Jesus!

After all, It Was Our Lord's Supper

                          After All, It was Our Lord's Supper

There are some symbols and celebrations in our church calendar that link us with all of Christendom: Christmas, baptism, Pentecost, the cross, the empty tomb....all our major  doctrines are enveloped in each of these. None more so than the Lord's Supper.

In other places and times it might be called Eucharist, Holy Communion, Sacrament of the Altar, or Blessed Sacrament.

No matter what it is called, for the last 2000 years, it is celebrated in accordance with the instructions of our Lord Jesus Christ given at His last meal with His disciples, in that private upper room in a stranger's home. A borrowed room for a homeless God-man who was facing a voluntary, horrifying, cruel death --  the holy, sinless God for His sinful unworthy, ungrateful creatures.


With His suffering death looming closely at hand, what did Jesus consider most important?

Apparently He treasured most the opportunity to explain to His disciples what exactly was going to happen, and what it all meant.

T. S. Eliot reminds us that too often we "have the experience, but miss the meaning."

Of all the terms for the celebration, probably the Lord's Supper paints the simplest picture of what happened that night so many centuries ago.

Lord's Supper is probably the most commonly used term. I like the term Eucharist, though, because it, I believe, paints the most profound truth of the event.

Eucharist: from the Greek word eucharistia, which means "thanksgiving."

     And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them...(Luke 22:19)

He gave thanks! When the rest of the world would have said, "It's time to get out of Dodge " and raced for the nearest and quickest way out of town, He lingered. He waited. Pondered the events to take place and shared the meaning of it all with His friends. He wanted desperately for them to understand.

He didn't want them to miss the meaning.

Eucharistia - thanksgiving. When He had given thanks. Knowing that the iron spikes would pierce His hands and feet the next day, that He would be on public display while He died, for hours, jeered by the crowd. Until He took that last gasping breath --"It is finished!"

He gave thanks.

(Another phrase from T. S. Eliot: And still we call this Friday good...Yes, it has been called "Good Friday" for centuries.)

But there is more in the word than thanksgiving.

The root word of eucharistia is grace (charis).

Grace is a gift. He was giving us the gift. Or was He receiving the gift? For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross....Maybe we are the gift....We are the gift to Him, as He is the gift to us....

But there is another word hidden in there: Joy (chara).

Joy: the holy grail sought by all of mankind for all our history.

From Augustine in his Confessions:  "Without exception...all try their hardest to reach the same goal, that is joy."

C S. Lewis describes that same longing, or yearning, as coming from the deepest emptiness of our heart, because the very genesis of our search for it was placed in our hearts by God Himself.

Just as the little word joy is found hidden deep in the meaning of thanksgiving, so is it found deep in our lives in the act of thanksgiving. After all, have you ever seen someone who is truly thankful, expressing his gratitude to God, who was angry? Bitter? Mean-spirited? Impatient? Depressed? Overwhelmed? Unhopeful? Joy is like a precious oil that cleanses us from thoughts and actions that displease God.

Why live a life of cheerless ingratitude?

Thanksgiving precedes the miracle, and releases our joy. Daniel, praying and thanking God..as was his usual custom...knowing the lions' den was waiting...Jesus and the loaves and fishes...Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus...our Savior Redeemer in the upper room...the disciples on the road to Emmaus...
thanksgiving first and then the miracle of God's action.

Thanksgiving.

Grace.

Joy.

It's all there, in the word eucharistia and in the event of the Eucharist.

When we celebrate Lord's Supper, or Eucharist, are we going to "have the experience, but miss the meaning"?