Monday, September 30, 2013

093013 Motes

John Owen wrote, "Most would rather hear of the doctrines of grace, the pardon of sin, and the free love of God than break the fallow ground of their hearts and see to the weeds and briars that grow thee, though this is the only way to come to a true knowledge of grace."  (Indwelling Sin in Believers)

Self-examination is not something that comes naturally to either reprobate or redeemed.  Certainly we avoid what we might call the "big" sins but we do that to avoid the unpleasant and public consequences more than we might do it for the glory of God.  But as there are NO distinctions made between sins the fact that we are so prone to make distinctions tell us a great deal about the condition of our souls.

It would seem, at least in my experience, that it is so very hard to take the time and make the effort to find the mote in my eye, much less the log.  Logs I can for the most part avoid.  But this makes me wonder if in this teaching Jesus was not trying to tell us that our personal motes are in actuality logs.  We will nit-pick another's sins while finding a comfortable means of avoiding doing the same for ourselves.

I would challenge us to take an accounting of our motes.  One Puritan writer, his name fails me, tells us the the "small" sins we commit and dismiss are more heinous than the (supposed) great sins.  The reason for this is that we commit the "lesser" sins with greater impunity thereby bringing greater insult to the glory of God and greater injury to our souls condition.

I would suggest that the apathy that is so prevalent in our age is now a part of our faith.  We carve out a comfortable harmatology (theology of sin) and do all we can to abide there regardless of the effort needed to maintain the self-deception.

I was talking with a friend who had just taken a very expensive vacation and was struck by the phrase, "I earned it, I deserved to take a break."  What distressed me was what appeared to be his utter disregard for the fact that he had earned nothing.  Though he labors diligently in his profession he seems to have no understaaning that everything he has is a gift, a blessing, a mercy from the heart of God.  Nor did he seem to realize that his attitude expressed a certain selfishness concerning this merciful provision.

These are the motes we need to seek to root out.  Where do we fail to keep God's providence and His intent for that providence?  How do we get to a point where we even think there is a possessive "mine" to any of God's merciful providence?  Yet, I - we do that so very often.  How do we experientially repent of such subtle sins as this?
Self-examination - diligent and disciplined - is demanded.  Certainly as His child I am secure in my salvation but am I faithful in it?  Is He indeed the sovereign Lord to whom all things belong and for whom all things should be done?  Or is He a co-sovereign Lord who at some point abdicates to me and allows me to reign over what He alone has provided.

Yes, we may have to work terribly hard in and for what He provides.  Long ours and hard work may be our daily lot but regardless of any effort or sacrifice on our part it is all from His providence and it is all, always His.  It never - ever- becomes ours.  This is a "mote" that is truly a log.  This is that one drop of poison that poisons the whole cup.


Friday, September 13, 2013

Peace and the sense of peace. 091313

Romans 5:1 ESV
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Of this passage, William Bridge wrote:  There is "A fundamental peace which does naturally arise and flow from their justification.  And there is an additional peace, which arises from the sense of their justification."

That we are justified and hence at peace with God is a fact.  From this fact we may draw comfort and peace.  But it is our sense or experience of your justification that we draw a second if not special peace.

But sense being subject to the ups and downs of our living this peace may seem all to transitory and fleeting.  We may struggle to be at peace while our senses are pulled and twisted by the world, our flesh and the devil.

Perhaps we rely too much on sense and not enough on the truth found in the Word.  There is always something to twist or other wise hinder our senses.  It is in our senses that the flesh finds its best target as when we confuse our felt needs with our real needs and our felt condition with our true condition.

We d ourselves no good when we seek to live on some "sense" of our justification.  The evidence that we do not deserve it and are not worthy of it is just too overwhelming to our senses.  But we will still seek to attain that "feeling" of justification.

Consider this;  the only place I can see where we can truly gain a sense of our justification is in our sense of our sinfulness.  Apart from that justification has no meaning and certainly no sense.  It is the same old story.  It is only at the cross looking upon the price paid that we can have the solid and appropriate sense of justification.  For we are justified from our sins and there only.

If I desire to have a sense of the peace wrought by my justification I must see my sin and it's cost and accept that He has redeemed me from it.  There is no other place from which my justification makes sense or gives sense than at the foot of the cross.

There in lies the lesson
M

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Psalm 94:12. 091213

Psalm 94:12 ESV
Blessed is the man whom you discipline, O LORD, and whom you teach out of your law,

Consider:
"A man by trouble comes to know his own heart, which in prosperity he is a stranger to.  He sees the weakness of his grace and the strength on his corruption; how nothing is weak but grace, nothing strong but sin; and this lays him in the dust"
Thomas Case, A Treatise on Afflictions

Do we really look deeply at His purposes in our afflictions or do we merely look at the affliction and seek its relief?  Do we allow the heat of the furnace to burn away all the fleshy concerns and fears that we might see the root, our sinfulness and its true power and place in our hearts?

Heart-breaking-ly it seems most common for us to seek relief without examination much like going to a doctor seeking some easy diagnosis and quick cure when we, in reality, suffer a terrible malady.  Would we really want to be told we have the flu when a cancer was eating away at us?  It seem, when it comes to our life in Him, we would.

God's hand can lay heavy upon the shoulders of His children.  But like a father who firmly grips his child as the come to a street crossing, He does it for our good and betterment.  It is not pleasant but when we do not allow the Master Physician the Great Father to show us the truth we merely delay the cure having to suffer the dis-ease again.

What affliction has God laid on you?  Be mindful that the affliction is secondary to what God desires to do in your life and heart.  Perhaps He desires a change of habit or behavior but I encourage you to look deeper, to your heart, and seek the root sin that gives bloom to the obvious one.

There is lies the lesson.
M

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Finger Thinking 091113

Psalm 73:25-26 ESV
Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. [26] My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

How often is this a statement that we make or even consider?  It is so very easy to get caught up in the everyday to the point that we forget the only hope that we have.  It is so very easy for us to become numb to this truth.

Caught between the World and the Devil our flesh is so easily empowered and our hearts so easily benumbed.  It is only in those providential acts of merciful affliction that we desire to cry out as David does.  It is only in the loss or hindering of His mercies that we see how very precious they are.

There are no small blessings, so insignificant mercies and yet we are so very prone to treat them so.  We miss so very much of His wonder and lovingkindness simply through inattention and diversion.  We hope for heaven and miss the awesomeness of His providence in the everyday.

It does us little good to determine to not be diverted - there is little strength in our determinations.  It does us less good to approach Him as though it were some business or social goal we have set for our selves.

No, it is only in His strength that the distractions of the World and the Devil can be dispelled and we can regain the sight we need to whole-heartedly adore Him and see the value of all the mercies He pour out upon us moment by moment.  

We are to live in and by the Spirit and not the flesh - but this takes - no, demands a submission, a humbling that we are not prone to give.  We are so very oriented to achievement, to works that we bow not our knees for the common and the ordinary.  We have been fooled into thinking that we can deal with those things and only need Him for the "big things."

There is none in heaven for us but Him.  There is truly nothing here of any comparative value.  But we don not live that out in the everyday.

Pray that He will strengthen your heart, your soul, to bend your knees for the common and everyday things we have seen as the products of our efforts.  Do not be fooled into thinking that you accomplish anything apart from His providence.  

There and there alone will we find the peace He has for us.