Relearning thankfulness

I'm pretty sure I haven't read anything from the pen of GK Chesterton, but I stumbled upon this quote doing the rounds a little while ago and I love it.  And it's personally helpful as I find myself emerging from a time when thankfulness has not been my strong card, at least not in some quarters, and discovering I need to relearn the art.

You say grace before meals.  Alright.

But I say grace before the concert and the opera,

and grace before the play and pantomime,

and grace before I open a book,

and grace before sketching, painting, swimming,

fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing

and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.

G. K. Chesterton

Understanding, appreciation and the source of all joy

We seem often to forget that salvation [through Christ] from sin and eternal destruction is a blessing of such magnitude that we should rejoice even if God never blessed us in any other way.

That quote was in my last post and its words just keep running through my head.  It encourages me to apprehend the significance of Jesus with all my heart, soul, mind and strength and reminds me to be to be abundantly grateful for everything else in this life.  These are good words.

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The quote is from Roger Ellsworth in They Echoed the Voice of God: Reflections on the Minor Prophets from his chapter on Habakkuk with addition from me. 

God's Kingdom will prevail

This world can be very daunting and discouraging for the believer.  It can be fierce in its hostility and seductive in its duplicity.  Either way, it can be difficult to resist.  But John's vision of judgment tells us that evil does not have the last word.  No matter how powerful and destructive it is, no matter how pervasive and successful it is, in the end sin will be overthrown.  The kingdom of the world will not last (Rev 11:15).  God will triumph.  His kingdom will prevail. 

From A Gospel Pageant: A Reader's Guide to the Book of Revelation by Allan Chapple, page 69.

Trusting God in natural disasters

What about the natural disasters that occur frequently in various parts of the world?  Many sensitive Christians struggle over the multitude of large-scale natural disasters around the world - an earthquake in one place, famine in another, typhoons and floods somewhere else.  Thousands of people are killed immediately, others slowly starve to death.  Entire regions are devastated, crops are ruined, homes destroyed.  "Why does God allow all this?" we may ask.  "Why does god permit all those innocent children to starve?"

It is not wrong to wrestle with these issues, as long as we do it in a reverent submissive attitude toward God.  Indeed, to fail to wrestle with the issue of large-scale tragedy may indicate a lack of compassion toward others on our part.  However, we must be careful not to, in our minds, take God off His throne of absolute sovereignty or put Him in the dock and bring Him to the bar of our judgment.

From Trusting God by Jerry Bridges - pages 102-103

Growth in adversity

If you stop and think about it, you will realise that most godly character traits can only be developed through adversity.  The kind of love that gives freely of itself at great cost to itself can only be learned when we are confronted with situations that call forth a sacrificial love.  The fruit of the Spirit that is called joy cannot be learned in the midst of circumstances that produce mere "natural" happiness.

God is His infinite wisdom know exactly what adversity we need to grow more and more into the likeness of  His Son.  He not only knows what we need but when we need it and how best to bring it to pass in our lives.  He is the perfect teacher or coach.  His discipline is always exactly suited for our needs.  He never over trains us by allowing too much adversity in our lives.

From Trusting God by Jerry Bridges page 128

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him,

who have been called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:28

Eternal life

...it is with awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.  There are no ordinary people.  You have never talked to a mere mortal.  Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.  But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.

CS Lewis, from his sermon "The Weight of Glory"

We talked about this in Bible study last year.  That it isn't just Christians who have eternal life.  Every human will live for all eternity.  The issue is where and how that eternity will be spent.  This is a sobering thought for all and helps me to think about how to best spend my days.

It's not rocket science, but I thought it was interesting

So, we have the ten commandments.  The first four are about loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.  Then the following six are about loving one another.  God first, and then the people.

Notice then, the Lord's prayer.

This, then, is how you should pray:

“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

Matthew 6:9-13

 

God first, and then the people.
Interesting.

 

And then in terms of the people JI Packer (I'm pretty sure at this particular point it is JI Packer speaking and not Carolyn Nystrom) says,

 

In asking God to meet observed needs, the second half of the Lord's prayer stands as a model.  Here we pray for daily provision ("Give us each day our daily bread" - we need it), for daily pardon ("Forgive our sins" - we need that) and for daily protection ("Deliver us from evil" - we need that too, more than we know.)

 

Provision.

Pardon.

Protection.

Nifty.

 

And the plurals us and our are key words, which show that we are meant to make this prayer for other Christians besides ourselves.

 

Quotes from Praying by JI Packer and Carolyn Nystrom pages 155-156

The blank cheque of prayer

In their book Praying, JI Packer and Carolyn Nystrom quote three passages from John.

And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
John 14:13,14

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.
John 15:16

In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.
John 16:23

Does God really give us a blank cheque? 

What is the message here?  Is Jesus giving his first disciples (and us with them) a blank cheque?  An invitation to write in whatever amount, so to speak, for whatever we want or think we want - and God will make it happen?... The thought from the text is that we should ask God for things that the Lord Jesus will also ask for on our behalf.  We are to make requests to the Father that the Lord Jesus will back.  Jesus will associate himself with us in our requests when our requests match what he wants for us.  That is the meaning of asking hi his name.  Jesus looks forward to his disciples asking for things that can only become a reality with his help and by his power, and that will make for his glory when they do.  That is what it means to ask according to God's will, the will of the Father which the Son knows and does.

From Praying by JI Packer and Carolyn Nystrom p. 154 (The underlining is my emphasis.)

Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to my selfish gain. 

Psalm 119:36

Doing some reading on prayer at the moment

Good praying is at once both duty and delight, but often we must begin where prayer is primarily duty. As we grow in the knowledge of prayer and in the practice of praying, however, God will sanctify our efforts and delight will come upon us.

From Praying by JI Packer and Carolyn Nystrom, page 10.



 

Finding the height, depth, length and breadth of God's Word

My blogging buddy Amy put this quote from Spurgeon on Facebook this weekend.

The more you read the Bible, and the more you meditate upon it, the more you will be astonished with it. He who is but a casual reader of the Bible, does not know the height, the depth, the length and breadth of the mighty meanings contained in its pages. There are certain times when I discover a new vein of thought, and I put my hand to my head and say in astonishment, "Oh, it is wonderful. I never saw this before in the Scriptures." You will find the Scriptures enlarge as you enter them; the more you study them the less you will appear to know of them, for they widen out as we approach them.

Charles Spurgeon, in his sermon "Christ our Passover"

Thanks Amy.  A great encouragement.

Why, God?

So we should never ask why in the sense of demanding that God explain or justify His actions or what He permits in our lives...When I say we should never ask why, I am not talking about the reactive and spontaneous cry of anguish when calamity first befalls us or one we love.  Rather, I am speaking of the persistent and demanding why that has an accusatory tone toward God in it.  The former is natural human reaction; the latter is a sinful human reaction.  Three of the psalms begin with why:

"Why, O LORD do you stand far off?" 
"Why have you forsaken me?"
"Why have you rejected us forever?"
(Psalms 10, 22, 74)

But each of these psalms ends on a note of trust in God.  The Psalm writers did not allow their whys to drag on.  They did not allow them to take root and grow into accusations against God.  Their whys were really cries of anguish, a natural reaction to pain.

From chapter eight in Trusting God by Jerry Bridges.

Trusting God

In the arena of adversity, the Scriptures teach us three essential truths about God - truths we must believe if we are to trust Him in adversity.  They are:

God is completely sovereign.

God is infinite in wisdom.

God is perfect in love.

From chapter one in Trusting God by Jerry Bridges.  And then a few pages later in chapter two...

If we are to trust God, we must learn to see that He is continuously at work in every aspect and every moment of our lives.

Thinking about holiness

I haven't really thought about the power of the word "think" in Philippians 4:8 before.

The Bible indicates that our thought lives ultimately determine our character.  Solomon said, "For as he thinks within himself, so he is" (Proverbs 23:7).  And old well-known verse puts it this way:

Sow a thought, reap an act;
Sow an act, reap a habit;
Sow a habit, reap a character.

It is because of the importance of our thought lives that Paul said, "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things" (Philippians 4:8).

As Christians we are no longer to be conformed to the pattern of this world but we are to be renewed in our minds (Romans 12:1-2; Ephesians 4:23; 1 Peter 1:14). Holiness begins in our minds and works out to our actions.  This being true, what we allow to enter our minds is critically important.

From chapter twelve of  The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges.

Holiness

A farmer plows his field, sows the seed and fertilises and cultivates - all the while knowing that in the final analysis he is utterly dependent on forces outside of himself.  He knows he cannot cause the seek to germinate, nor can he produce the rain and sunshine for growing and harvesting the crop.  For a successful harvest, he is dependent on these things from God.

Yet the farmer knows that unless he diligently pursues his responsibilities to plow, plant, fertilise and cultivate, he cannot expect a harvest at the end of the season.  In a sense he in in a partnership with God, and he will reap its benefits only when he has fulfilled his own responsibilities.

Farming is a joint venture between God and the farmer.  The farmer cannot do what God must do, and God will not do what the farmer should do.

We say just as accurately that the pursuit of holiness is a joint venture between God and the Christian.  No one can attain any degree of holiness without God working in his life, but just as surely no one will attain it without effort on his own part.  God has made it possible for us to walk in holiness.  But He has given to us the responsibility of doing the walking; he does not do that for us.

From the preface of The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges.

And then in chapter three...

God does not require a perfect, sinless life to have fellowship with Him, but He does require that we be serious about holiness, that we grieve over sin in our lives instead of justifying it, and that we earnestly pursue holiness as a way of life.

Sin

Sin is a spiritual and moral malignancy.  Left unchecked, it can spread through our entire inner being and contaminate every area of our lives.  Even worse, it often will "metastasize" from us into the lives of other believers around us.  None of us lives on a spiritual or social island.  Our attitudes, words and actions, and oftentimes even our private unspoken thoughts, tend to have an effect on those around us.

Paul must have had this concept in mind when he wrote, "Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear" (Ephesians 4:29).  Our speech, whether it is about others or to others, tends to tear down or build up.  It either corrupts the minds of our hearers, or it gives grace to them.  Such is the power of our words.  If I gossip, I both tear down another person and corrupt the mind of my listener.  If I complain about the difficult circumstances of my life, I impugn the sovereignty and goodness of God and tempt my listener to do the same.  In this way, my sin "metastasizes" into the heart of another person.

From Respectable Sins by Jerry Bridges, page 23.

Christians are Word people

A small quote from Jon Bloom from the Desiring God blog about the goodness of good books - especially the Best Book.

Lord… You have the words of eternal life. (John 6:68)

Christians are word people. We’re really into words because the Founder of Christianity is the Word (John 1:1). He came to earth to deliver a message in words. Those of us who have believed his words recognize them as the “words of eternal life” (John 6:68). And we seek to speak these words to others so they too can have eternal life. We call these words the gospel.

Christians are also book people. We’re really into books because our Founder left us a book, a collection of the words he determined are most important for us to know and remember.

This means we’re not into books merely because they’re good for us — as in a good book is health food for the brain, though that’s true. We’re into books because words mean the difference between life and death. If books contain the right words, people may live — forever!

A Grief Sanctified # 4

To what exercises of mind and heart (attitudes and actions) should the bereavement experience lead us?  Said the Puritans characteristically, these three:

1.  The exercise of thanksgiving for all that we valued and enjoyed in the person we have lost and, in the case of a believer, for the happiness to which we know he or she has now been promoted.

2.  The exercise of submission to God, as we resign to him the loved one he has taken from us, confess to him that we had no claim on the continuance of that loved one's earthly life, and consciously put ourselves in his hands for whatever future experiences he has in mind for us.

3.  The exercise of patience, which is a compound of endurance and hope, as we live through our bereavement on a daily basis.

Richard [Baxter], in his sadness at losing Margaret, transparently models all three in the Breviate.  Lewis, mourning the loss of Joy, does the same in A Grief Observed.

From the section "The Sanctifying of Grief" from A Grief Sanctified by JI Packer, pages 188-189.

A Grief Sanctified # 3

Of what truths particularly should the bereavement experience remind us?  Said the Puritans characteristically, the three that follow:

1. The reality of God's sovereignty - that we, like everyone else, are always in his hands, and neither bereavement nor anything else occurs apart from his overruling will.

2.  The reality of our own mortality - that we, like everyone else, are not in this world on a permanent basis and must sooner or later leave it for another mode of existence under other conditions.

3.  The reality of heaven and hell - that we leave this owrld for one or the other, and that we should use the time God gives us here to unsure that as saved sinners we shall go to heaven, rather than as unsaved sinners go to hell.

From the section "The Sanctifying of Grief" from A Grief Sanctified by JI Packer, page 188.

A Grief Sanctified # 2

All life, said the Puritans, must be managed in such a way that it is sanctified; that is, all activities must be performed, and all experiences received and responded to, in a way that honours God, benefits others as far as possible, and helps us forward in our knowledge and enjoyment of God here as we travel home to the glory of heaven hereafter.  Of the experiences to be sanctified, some are pleasant and some are painful.  The Puritan labels for the latter are "afflictions" and "crosses"; and bereavement, with the grief it brings, is one such.

How may an experience be sanctified?  By relating it to the truth of the gospel, so that we understand it in biblical and evangelical terms; by letting it remind us of truths we might otherwise forget, or not take seriously; and by disciplining our hearts to accept it in an appropriate way - with gratitude or self-humbling or whatever.

From the section "The Sanctifying of Grief" from A Grief Sanctified by JI Packer, pages 187-188.

Suffering Well and hope

While the world tells us that human beings are just another part of the food chain, God tells us that humanity is the centrepiece of his plan.  By God's grace, we are precious to him.  And throughout human history, God has worked towards the glorious future he has planned for us in spite of the sin that characterises us.  When Adam and Eve sinned, they were expelled from the garden but not destroyed.  When the world was wicked in the days of Noah, God chose to rescue humanity through Noah and his family.  In the face of the tower of Babel, God promised Abraham that through his descendants, every nation would be blessed.  And in spite of the repeated, unrepentant rebellion of Israel that caused them to be cast out of the Promised Land, God continued to promise a future to Israel and, through Israel, a future for the whole world.

From Suffering Well by Paul Grimmond, page144.