Springs in the Valley

Greetings All!

     This week's "thought" comes to you from a devotional named, "Springs in the Valley," by L. B. Cowman (also the author of "Streams in the Desert" from which I quoted not long ago).

     
     I chose to share this particular selection because it displays such a profound understanding of God's personal intervention in our lives. In the age we live in, which loves formulas, and thinks we can duplicate the results of others simply by duplicating their methods, God often has a surprise for us.  For as many who have tried will testify, we can duplicate everything others do and still not get the same results.  Why? Because a sovereign God reigns over the universe who moves uniquely in each person, place, and situation -- a God who is intensely personal and isn't into cloning or copycat ministries.  In fact, the desire to duplicate the life and experience of others not only takes God's unique plan for each of us far too lightly, it also disavows the working of grace, and the richness of diversity within the Church -- the unique path to maturity that God has ordained for each individual believer.

     That's why I so enjoyed this entry.  It displays a profound understanding of God's unique care and work in the life of each believer.  If you have sought to do ministry at all, you have surely thought, or wrestled internally, with some of the things he speaks of here.  I know I have. 

     The only thing I might have changed would be the verse she uses for this entry.  She used Philippians 3:7, I would have used Matthew 20:1-16. Enjoy.

     "If God has called you to be really like Christ, He may draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility and put on you such demands of obedience that He will not allow you to follow other Christians, and in many ways will let other good people do things which He will not let you do.
     Other Christians, who seem very religious and useful, may push themselves, pull wires, and work schemes to carry out their plans, but you cannot do it. And if you attempt it you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.

     Others may boast of themselves, of their work, of their success, of their writing, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing. And if you begin to, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

     Others will be allowed to succeed in making money... but it is likely God will keep you poor, because He wants you to have something far better than gold, and that is a helpless dependence on Him, that He may have the privilege of supplying your needs day by day out of an unseen treasury.

     The Lord will let others be honored and put forward, but keep you hidden away in obscurity because He wants to produce in you some choice fragrant fruit for His coming glory. He will let others be great, but keep you small. He will let others do a work for Him and get the credit for it, but you He will make to work and toil without knowing how much fruit your efforts are bearing. The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch over you... rebuking you for little words and feelings or for wasting time.

     God is an Infinite Sovereign! He has the right to do as He pleases with His own.  Settle it forever, then, that you are to deal directly with the Lord Jesus -- that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, chaining your hand, or closing your eyes in ways that He does not deal with others.  Then you will have found the vestibule of heaven.  Others may, you cannot."

     In the parable of the kingdom in Matthew 20 Jesus speaks of hiring workers to tend His field for a denarius a day (the typical work day being 12 and not 8 hours)!  Yet as the story goes on, we see one worker works 12 hours, one works 9 hours, one works 6 hours, one works 3 hours, and one works only 1 hour -- but they all get the same pay!   And when they complain about the "unfairness" of this policy, Jesus (speaking as the landowner) responds, "Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I'm generous."

     The "pay" is obviously salvation, and its the same for those who follow Christ all their lives as it is for the person who comes to Christ in the last hour, on their deathbed. It's something Jesus sees as displaying God's uncanny generosity, though some see it as God being "unfair."

     Yet the same phrase the landowner uses to refer to money could also refer to the way God moves through all the varied details of our individual lives: "Doesn't He have the right to do what He wants with my own..."  Doesn't God have the right to deal with each of His grace-chosen children as He chooses?  And when He does, should we complain that we are not being treated as "fairly" as others (whose lives we envy)?  Should we not rejoice that the path He leads us on is one He designed specifically for us, in light of our unique makeup and personality, and the special work He desires us to carry out for His glory?

     You see, it is true -- God is an Infinite Sovereign!   And because He is, and deals with each of us uniquely, it can be said: Other may do what He will not permit us to do. He may even call us to do some difficult thing that others are not called to do.  He has the right to do as He pleases with His own.  No clones or formulas, just a sovereign God who as the divine Potter does what He desires with each unique and individual lump of clay.

In the Name of Him who is in Control, Pastor Jeff

Learning to See the Glories of God's Love

Greetings All!

Today's "thought" comes to you from a small, concise, easily readable book called, "A Gospel Primer for Christians - Learning to See the Glories of God's Love." It was written by Milton Vincent,  using a commendable bare minimum of words!  He covers some hefty Gospel truths with an economy of words.  If you are short of time, and would like to cover many important Gospel truths, and how to apply them to life, this is the book for you. Today I share two selections that spoke to me as I read through them.  1.) A Heart for the Poor and  2.) Chosen for Prayer.  Enjoy.

A Heart for the Poor

     "Like nothing else could ever do, the gospel instills in me a heart for the downcast, the poverty-stricken, and those in need of physical mercies, especially when such persons are of the household of faith. When I see persons who are materially poor, I instantly feel a kinship with them, for they are physically what I was spiritually when my heart was closed to Christ.

     Perhaps some of them are in their condition because of sin, but so was I.  Perhaps they are unkind when I try to help them; but I, too, have been spiteful to God when He has sought to help me. Perhaps they are thankless and even abuse the kindness I show them, but how many times have I been thankless and used what God has given me to serve selfish ends? Perhaps a poverty-stricken person will be blessed and changed as a result of some kindness I show him.  If so, God be praised for His grace through me. But if the person walks away unchanged by my kindness, then I still rejoice over the opportunity to love as God loves. Perhaps the person will repent in time; but for now, my heart is chastened and made wiser by the tangible depiction of what I myself have done to God on numerous occasions.

     The gospel reminds me daily of the spiritual poverty into which I was born and also of the staggering generosity of Christ toward me. Such reminders instill in me both a felt connection to the poor and a desire to show them the same generosity that has been lavished on me. When ministering to the poor with these motivations, I not only preach the gospel to them through word and deed, but I reenact the gospel to my own benefit as well."

Chosen for Prayer

     "When God chose me in Christ before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4), He did not merely chose me to be "holy and blameless in Him."  He chose me to be "before Him in love" (see Eph. 1:4 NKJV). To be sure, I am always in God's presence on earth, and in heaven I will be in His presence more fully than ever. But it could also be said that in this life I am especially "before Him in love" when I come before Him in prayer and worship (Ps. 100:2 / Ps. 68:4 / I John 5:14).

     Therefore I can infer that prayer is not simply something I am allowed to do as a Christian, prayer is actually one of the great purposes for which God chose to save me.  Christ Himself confirms this fact when He makes the following statement to His disciples: "I chose you... that whatever you ask of the Father in my name He may give it to you" (John 15:16). As I come into God's presence to behold Him, worship Him, or make request of Him, I am arriving at the pinnacle of God's saving purposes for me. God is radically committed to my life of prayer. He shed the blood of His Son so that I might be cleansed and rendered fit to stand before Him in love. He also permitted the brutal rending of His Son so that I might now have a way into the Holy Place through the torn flesh of Jesus.

     "Draw near" He says in Hebrews 4.  "Draw near" He says in Hebrews 10. "Pray without ceasing" he urges elsewhere. How can I not feel the infinite sincerity of these invitations, especially when considering the painful lengths that God endured so that I might enter into His presence in prayer?  Indeed, the gospel itself serves as the sweetest of invitations to pray; and preaching it to myself each day nurtures within me a mighty impulse to come "before [God] in love" and do the praying I was elected to do."

     May his words be an encouragement to contemplate and then apply the Gospel to the way we live.  Not just in private times of prayer, but in the way we relate to others in every sphere of life. In helping the poor, in the way we do business, in the way we treat our spouses and children, friends and co-workers, fellow believers and non-believers.  If we are Christian, and thus saved by the sheer mercy of God, we have experienced His grace. But oftentimes we as believers forget that our experience of His grace obligates us to show that same kind of grace to others (Matthew 21:18-35). If we've received grace, but do not in turn show it to others, have we not stifled one of God's primary intended purposes in giving it to us? "Love others as I have loved you," says Jesus.  Can we do that if we are not seeking to exhibit grace in all we do and to all we meet?

In the Service of the Gospel, Pastor Jeff

Generosity

Greetings to All,

In light of "Black Monday" (yesterday) with the stock market plummeting over 500 points due to the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, and the sell off of Merrill Lynch (which made both investors and the general public extemely leery of the economic stability of the market), I thought these quotes were appropriate.

They come from Martin Luther's book "Table Talk." And it's not just "talk" on his part. Luther was so well known for his generosity that when his wife Katie would hear someone knock at the front door, she would run and hide the silverware and dishes and other household essentials! Knowing Martin's generosity she feared that he would give them away, since he never sent any needy person away from his door empty handed!

Likewise, the first major effort of the Wittenburg church (once Luther took over as pastor) was to establish a "common chest" for welfare work. It provided for the children of poor people and orphans, poor maidens who needed an appropriate dowry for marriage; provided re-financing of high interest loans for burdened citizens at 4% annually (the lowest bank rates were 15% and went as high as 30% annually). It also and supported the educational or vocational training of poor children.

Luther, who was given the Augustinian monastery he had lived in when a friar, housed up to 30 people at a time on an ongoing basis - students, orphans, the sick, former nuns and monks who had left the Catholic church, and persecuted Christians from all over Europe. The following quotes explain his view on money. Enjoy.

To the objection that this (generosity) was open to abuse, Luther replied: "He who has nothing to live on should be aided. If he deceives us, what then? He must be aided again."

On another occasion: "God divided the hand with fingers, so that the money would slip through." "Three conversions are necessary for the believer - conversion of the heart, conversion of the mind and conversion of the purse."

And in a note to a friend he wrote:

"Give and it shall be given unto you. This is the maxim that maintains my house... There is a monastery in Austria, which, in former days was very rich, and remained rich as long as it was charitable to the poor. But when it ceased to give, then it became unworthy (of its wealth) and is so to this day. Not long ago a poor man went there and solicited alms, which was denied him. He demanded the cause why they refused to give for God's sake? The porter of the monastery answered: 'We are become poor." The mendicant then replied: 'The cause of your poverty is this: You had formerly in this monastery two brothers - the one was named Date (give) and the other was named Dabitur (it shall be given to you). The former you thrust out; the other went away by himself.'"

God is in control, He's not just in charge. He's the Sovereign Potentate, and not simply a heavenly "president." And as Sovereign Potentate He promises: "Give and it will be given to you" - even if the economy takes a down swing.

In the service of Christ, Pastor Jeff

Dr. Jeffrey F. Evans

Christ Community Bible Church