Look daily into the Mirror of God's Word or you will miss what God wants you to see today!

How not to miss the visitation

Israel does not know,
my people do not understand.  Isaiah 1:3

Most of the sins we commit are not conscious.  It’s natural for us all to cruise along in a mental environment of easy-going benevolence, protected from self-awareness within walls of soft but impenetrable good intentions.

The Lord said, for example, “You are robbing me” (Malachi 3:9).  His people did not respond, “Busted!  We didn’t think you’d notice.”  They said, “How have we robbed you?”  They may have felt misjudged.  So God explained, and showed them a new path of realism and blessing.

Christ said, “You say, I am rich, . . . not realizing that you are wretched” (Revelation 3:17).  Then he counseled his people to do new business with him, “so that you may see” (Revelation 3:18).  Their loss would be painful — saying goodbye forever to the comforting illusion of their own okayness — but their gain would be the glory of his living presence (Revelation 3:20).

When Jesus wept over Jerusalem — he wept, he didn’t rage — he said, “Would that you had known on this day the things that make for peace!” (Luke 19:42).  In rejecting their Messiah, the people weren’t deliberately pushing away the shalom of God.  They just had a full to-do list that day, suddenly Jesus was more a problem than a resource and — well, their incomprehension made a snap judgment, and their historic opportunity moved on.  The Lord himself said, “You did not know the time of your visitation” (Luke 19:44).

To miss our own time of visitation, it is not necessary that we defy Christ.  Just not knowing, if we do not want to know, is enough.  We cannot repent of sins we cannot see, and we cannot see what we refuse to face.  But we can place ourselves deliberately out in the light of God’s Word, standing there without flinching, and ask the Lord to show us ourselves in our need, and show us himself in his all-sufficiency, and tell us what he wants us to do next.

In that place of honest self-reappraisal before the Savior of the world, he will certainly visit us, and wonderfully.

Ray Ortlund

Church should never be a clock!

Have you ever noticed how often Churches and Christians seem to be reactionary and not actionary? I have and I have been guilty of it myself. To trustingly, simply and consistently follow the clear teachings of Jesus seems to get lost to us so often. The pattern seems to be God works, folks respond, then we get our eyes off of Jesus and on to sustaining the success instead of simply trusting. Jared Wilson does a great job of describing the Prodigal Church syndrome and its well worth it for us all to look in the mirror of God's Word and ask some hard questions. Why do we do what we do, Why are we changing what we are changing and is the result Christians more in the image of God or more in the image of man?

Church should never be a clock! What I mean is, those old Grand-Father Clocks with the long pendulum that swings back and forth and back and forth...The Church, the Bride of Christ, is to be Steadfast, Immovable and Always abounding in the work of the Lord! We are to be joyfully faithful, happily dependent and cheerfully resilient. 

For my own part I hate and distrust reactions not only in religion but in everything. Luther surely spoke very good sense when he compared humanity to a drunkard who, after falling off his horse on the right, falls off it next time on the left.
– C.S. Lewis, “The World’s Last Night”

Once there was a church that loved God and loved people but had a difficult time showing it because the image they gave of God was rather one-dimensional and so then also was the way they attempted to love people. The church believed in a holy God, a just God, a vengeful God, and so they preached wrath very well, pushing the hearts of all who darkened the church doors with the imminent foreboding of their eternal damnation. They did their best to scare the hell out of people, and when that didn’t work, they cried and pleaded and begged. Wretchedly urgent, the church regularly reminded its people of the dire importance of obedience to God, of being holy as God is holy. And the church grew vividly aware year in and year out of the “thou shalt not”s of the Bible. And they came back for more. But fewer and fewer did. When some began to suspect this god was not quite love and that this god could never quite be pleased, they stopped trying. Some kept trying, fearful and diminished.

One day someone suggested the old way wasn’t working. People could not be won by a god who seemed angry all the time, and in fact it made no sense to expect people to have interest in a god who didn’t care about their happiness. The god of the old way seemed so preoccupied with holy things that he did not care much for people’s every day lives. Couldn’t we make the way of the church more practical, more appealing? The way we may see growth again, he reasoned, is to deconstruct the old way, remove the old barriers, and reassert that God is love. Where once the church emphasized God’s holiness, now they emphasized his love. Where once the church emphasized obedience, now they emphasized success. Where once the church emphasized sin, they now emphasized happiness. Where once the church focused on God’s demands, they now emphasized man’s specialness and abilities. If we help people tap into their inner potential, remind them of how wonderful they are, and how God loves them no matter what, people will be interested in church again. They changed the songs, the architecture, the style of dress. They took the crosses down. And lo and behold, people began to come again.

But as the years went by they noticed something. Little by little, they discovered that while some new people were discovering church for the first time, most who came were in recovery from the old way of doing church. And all together, they learned that many could not grow very deeply in their faith. They changed Sunday School to small groups, special music to video montages, began applying Bible verses to songs on the radio and movies at the theater. They deconstructed more things, made more things over. The church had — in their own estimation, cleverly — traded out the “don’t”s for “do”‘s, but even the regular dispensing of practical helps for victorious living wasn’t having the desired effect. People enjoyed the worship services now. But day to day they seemed no closer to God than in the old way of doing church. In fact, they seemed day to day lessinterested in God than before . . .

And he cautioned them, saying, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”
– Mark 8:15

Leaning more on Christ in 2013 than on myself!

Well, 2013 is now a reality, the next 365 days lay before me only as God allows it. Yet, I find myself strangely driven to seek Him more this year, to be more consistent in my walk with God, to be more faithful to my wife, my children, my friends and the church I have the huge joy to pastor. I want to be a better pastor this year, to be a better example, to preach better, to study more deeply, to respond quicker to emails and phone calls, to learn more of technology and how to apply it to my everyday life. I really want to disciple others better, to be more accessible to my family and others, to count others more significant than myself. I want to confess my sin more, be more open and honest with others and more accepting of criticism and suggestions. I want to give more, serve more and pray more. I deeply desire to care more about others, to listen more and talk less, to be more creative and a better steward of God's creation and my talents. I just want to be better this year!

All of the above is good, even noble, but fatally flawed, if for one second I think I can accomplish these things on my own, or if I am driven to accomplish them as a means to garner more favour with God...but ultimately these ideals are flawed because they totally lack the presence of Christ or rest on Him.

My prayer, my need for 2013 is to lean more on Christ! To look to Him, think on Him, study Him, praise Him, remember Him and run to Him! Paul told the Philippians, "Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." Phil. 2:12-13

Oh, I need to strive to be holy, to, "work out my own salvation with fear and trembling" but I do so with the confidence and dependence that is it God... "who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." How, or why? Because of Jesus Christ...which is what Philippians 1:6 and chapter 2:9-11 is all about...it is why Paul will say in chapter 4, "I can do all things through CHRIST who strengthens me." But in the context we need to realize, I need to realize this is a promise surrounded by trials, set-backs, failures, temptations, adversity and anything else negative we want to imagine...it also covers, successes, callings, great feats of strength and creativity, victories over sin and Satan, or anything positive I can imagine.

Leaning on Christ, thinking about what Christ has done for me and to me, realizing, trusting and acting upon the truths that I am forgiven, restored and declared righteous before God is amazingly freeing...guilt, shame, and captivity are gone in Christ. The hymn writer is correct... "My Sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought, my Sin, not in part but the whole. Is NAILED to the cross and I bear it no more, Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Oh my soul!"

Paul challenges the Romans to be holy and transformed, to sacrifice their lives and their minds, not based on DUTY but on the, "mercies of God!" Romans 12:1-2...So this year my desire is to lean on the finished work of Christ more...to think, read, pray and spend time with Jesus to be amazed by the power of the gospel in my life! To know, that because of Christ's perfection I can overcome sin, I can be more like Christ this year than last...but I can rest...my attempts will be meet with failure at times, and in this I can hope and run to the One who has already lived perfectly for me...I will also know the joy of victory over sin, temptation and certain struggles...in these times I can rejoice that it was the perfection of Christ that makes it possible and I know more joy is there for me to experience yet.

So, please pray for me and I will in the strength of God alone because of Jesus through the Holy Spirit pray for you, that we will lean on the ever-lasting arms of Jesus! That we will work hard at leaning, that we will strive to trust in Christ more and not ourselves and that in that work we will see that our, "labour is NOT in vain in the Lord." May 2013 as God provides it to us be the year we lean more on Christ and work really hard at doing it!