Making the Most 05 The "rest" of the Lord's Day 032913

Making the Most
of the means of grace
05
5.  The "rest" of the Lord's Day

Sunday, the Lord's Day, the one day of the week we are to gather together and come before the Lord to worship and praise His name as a Body.  The Puritains were very strict about the Lord's Day and perhaps they had a valid point.  For them is was to be treated much like the Jewish Sabbath and to be a day of prayer and reflection.

But today it's a day mostly used to get stuff done around the house, to be entertained, to do for ourselves.  No, it is not to be some legalistic, cold and dry time nor is it to be considered a part of any works righteousness but isn't it to be more than just a day for our own interest and pleasures?

Don't we really need one day in seven when we can fight off all the distractions and diversions and focus on the Lord, to really "rest" in Him?  Can we be disciplined enough to set aside all the concerns and interests that keep our minds off of Him and simply relax in His goodness and grace?  Does it not seem right that we sacrifice one day of "me" to have a day for "Him?"

I mentioned the way the Jewish people would have counted days, from sunset to sunset, in the last blog.  Could we not begin to train ourselves to do the same.  Could we not begin to focus on His worship and His rest at sunset Saturday and set aside the mundane and common things of life until sunset Sunday?  Do we think we would really be losing anything by such an effort and practice?

Bible reading, prayer, spiritual discussions, faith related DVD's and programs are all means to keep our focus on Him and His grace for a mere 24 hours.  Would this not revolutionize our lives?  Of course it would and the blessings of doing so would be great.

The Lord's Day is meant for us to rest in Him.  And we all have to admit we need that rest - that rest in Him.  We need to have a time when we intentionally let go of our little worlds and cling to the hem of His garment.  Coming to Him on such a regular and disciplined basis will relieve us of much of the running to Him we have to do in a crisis.

This is not an easy thing to do.  It takes commitment and discipline and the mercies of the Holy Spirit but when done it will produce a greater sense of His peace and presence.  It's not some drab and monkish practice but rather a joyous giving on one day to Him and the things of His Kingdom.  One day, just one day.

The means of grace are great gifts He has provided so that we may consistently be growing in Him.  They are, well, essential practices He has given us so that we may facilitate, to whatever degree our efforts can, our being conformed to His likeness.  They are indeed means of grace -- and growth -- and hope -- and love.

Let me encourage you to begin making use of these means.  Seek the power of the Holy Spirit in making them an integral part of your life.  Accept the gifts and learn to enjoy them.

Finally, if you decide to indeed take up the means of grace I encourage you to follow the advise of one of the Puritain fathers.

"Do it as you can in order that yoou might do it better."

God bless you and keep you.

Making the Most - 01 Scripture 032614

Making the Most
of the means of grace
01
The Puritains write quite a bit about the "means of grace."  This is a strange phrase for us today which is unfortunate.

The "means of grace" are,
"....means which God has graciously appointed, in order to convey grace to man's hear by the Holy Ghost, or to keep up the spiritual life after is has begun."  JC Ryle, Practical Religion (Kindle loc. 264)

To keep it simple we will look at five "means of grace in this series.  We don't intend to write an in-depth treatise on each but rather too write devotionally - commonly - concerning these means.

The five means of grace are:
The reading of Scripture
Private prayer
Public worship
The Lord's Supper
The "rest" of the Lord's Day

1.  The reading of Scripture

God has promised that His Word will never be void of some effect.  It will accomplish His will in the llives of the reader.  For the believer the Word is the fundamental component of their spiritual nutritional system.  In the Word we hear from God and about God.  In the Word not only is the character and will of God revealed but His relationship to man (believer and unbeliever) is revealed.

We can all sit and "read" the Word but we must consider the "manner and spirit" in which we do so. (We must do the same with all the means of grace.)  Ryle writes about the difference in using the means of grace, in this case the Word, in a regular and formal manner without any sense of enjoyment but rather simply as a duty.  He holds that to make use of the means of grace in this manner is "utterly worthless and unprofitable."  And we must agree.

Time in the Word should be a time of expectant joy and even a holy curiosity.  The Word is not an "instruction manual" but rather a love letter in which God reveals all of Himself we need to know and all or our selves as well.  One must never go to the Word to just check it off as a duty but rather one should go hungry and expecting to be fed.

Psalm 119 is replete with requests that God teach the writer His statutes, commandment and most importantly His "ways."  His ways are the revelation of not only how He relates to us but how He calls us to relate to Him.  His ways are the boundaries and expectations inherent in a relationship with Him.  Nowhere else can we get the full and unadulterated direction we need to walk in His "ways' except in the Word of God.

Indeed the Word, reading the Word, is a means by which God communicates His grace and He also gives us example after example of that grace operating in the lives of real men and women like you and I.  But do we go to the Word to find that - or, do we go to find what feeds our flesh, scartches our itch or tickles our fancy?

Grace can grow cold when the fire is not stoked and in reading the Word we feed that fire - or in some cases that one little ember.  To forsake the reading of the Word and/or to approach this means of grace as a work is to cut oneself off from the promise of and in the Word - vanity makes all things void, self-love steals grace from our hearts and we live shallow and cold lives.  

PS
Are these posts of any benefit to you?  If they are or are not I would like to hear from you. Your input and/or encouragement would be a blessing and mercy.  You can comment on the blog page or, if you want, you can email me at sheepdog.ms@gmail.com.

Bless you for your help!
Michael

Uses of Affliction 05 031814

Uses of Affliction 05

4.  Correction and punishment for sin.

For those who do not think God punishes our sin here perhaps a re-reading of the OT would be appropriate.  We like to avoid that word punishment by using words like correct or discipline but changing the word does not change God's purpose.  Nor is it any better to talk of God allowing us to suffer the consequences of our sin as opposed to saying He punishes them.  Allowing us to face the consequences of our sin is in and of itself a form of punishment.

Sorry folks, but God not only forgives but He punishes as well.  Afflictions are His means of conveying His displeasure, correcting, applying discipline - punishing sin.  It is His mercy and grace that limits the intensity of the affliction for we all know quite clearly what we actuallly deserve for our sin.

I know few believers for who a simple note concerning some sin they are trapped in would suffice.  It seems the bigger and deeper the sin the bigger and deeper the punishment.  Wow - aren't we distressed by the idea of God punishing us for our sin?

Now many of you will have a hard time with this idea and I can sympathise.  For many of us punishment means an excessinve act of arbitrary anger on the part of someone in authority.  It does not seem so much like correction as revenge for some wrong we have committed hence we have a terrible time thinking of God's punishment.

But, at least for me, the important thing is that God's punishment has a point, a purpose and it is done in love.  God's punishment is intended for our sanctification - our being conformed to the likeness of Christ - which should be a point and purpose for us as well.

Grace is NOT a free pass, a get out of jail free card.  Grace is the turning away of the eternal punishment we deserve onto Christ so that we may never never need fear it.  But in our daiy lives, in our daily sanctification God will punish us for sins especially those sins which are deeply set in our hearts.

You love temporal tiing too much, they are little gods in your life?  That is sin and god may well see the need to punish you for your idolatry.  He may well see that only exile will bring you back from the edge.  Perhaps He may allow or impose some physical issue or impairment.  Perhaps you will suffer the loss place or position.  Perhaps, as seems more and more likely, you will suffer imprinsoment, a loss of freedom for your sin.

But punshment is a mean God uses to correct and discipline His children in love and a deep unknowlable desire that they be comformed to Christ's likeness.  Punishment always has a point - a purpose.

I struggle with this as Patti and I pass through the affliction we are facing.  I used all the soft words (correction, discipline, refining, etc) for what is taking place but as time passes and my sin was made clearer.  I ceased to be shocked by the idea that God might be punishing me - I certainly deserved it and I don't know that anything less would have made the impact this punishment did.

I struggled with the idea that God was mad at me and was rejecting me even that I had never believed in the first place.  But the more I prayed and read the Word the more I came to see that God was never closer to me than when He found it necessary to punish me to bring me out of sin.

Not all afflcition must be seen as punishment.  It may very well be simple correction or common discipline but we can not afford to refuse the idea that God does and will punish His erring children for His glory for their good.

Punishment is not the absense of grace or mercy.  Indeed I've come to think that, for the believer, God's punishment for sin is an act of mercy and a great reminder of grace.  There is a certain sweetness to the rod when we see it as an act of mercy.  He loves us that much.

When my father used to punish me he would always tell me "This hurts me more that it does you."  I neve believed him - don't believe it even today - but what I feel about that is not what I feel about God's punishment.  His love is so mighty, so intense that I do believe that when He punishes one of His, it does hurt Him more than it does us.

One of the uses of afflcition is indeed to punish - to show us in a very up close and personal way if not the wages of sin then the pocket change.

Heart Keepers 06 031014

Heart Keepers 06

6.  The realizing of God's presence with us and setting the Lord always before us.

God is always with us.  The Holy Spirit indwells us.  All this is true but do we intentionally set that in the forefront of our minds and the center of our hearts?

Are we desirous of being obnoxiously aware of and desperately desirous of His being always and all ways before us?

Without the practice of the disciplines of the faith, without partaking of His means of grace and His mercies this will never never be the case.  We are but babes in holiness (in many ways but especially in terms of separation from the world).  As babes we need goood food and good exercize.  Without both we will not grow or we will grow poorly.

But we have too much to do.  Too much to worry about.  Too much of too much.  So we nibble a breakfast bar of faith thinking it will provide the nutrition we need for our daily walk.  We crave spiritual fast food and just the occassional healthy meal and think we will be OK.

We set God before us when we are in need; not accepting that we are always in need.  Prosperity and comfort keep us fat, sassy and lost.

Keeping the heart takes work - focused and diligent work - but who has the time?  Who makes the time?  So we stubble along bringing ridicule to the name of God by our shallow, ignorant and intermitant faith.  We violate the first line of the model prayer since we do not "hallow" His name as it should be hallowed.

We do not keep our hearts and so our lives are warped and twisted all the time we claim to be serving the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Jesus made it very very clear that it is our hearts that are the source of evil and it is our hearts we must keep.  It's not a feeling, its facts.  It's not a disposition, it's discipline.  It's not neat, it's necessary.

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.