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.

Broken Hearts and Bruised Souls 032514

Broken Hearts and Bruised Souls
032614

There are, in every congregation brothers and sisters who live with broken hearts and bruised souls.  They sit quietly, usually alone in the back, pray haltingly and have a look of deep yearning on their faces.

They long to have a sense of being a part of the body but they sense that their "difference" somehow excludes them.  They are alone in the crowd and being in the crowd makes their loneliness even greater.  They sit and even with a frozen smile on their faces they weep rivers of tear inside.

I'm writing about the melacholy (depressed), the Bi-polar, those who suffer anxiety disorders and the like.  They live in our world and go to our churches and yet they never have a sense of being a part of any of it.

Shame is a big part of their lives.  They can't run, do, work or even feel as other do and so they have a sense of being aliens and strangers in a way you can only imagine.

They look OK, they even socialize ok but the cost of doing either or both is great.  One hour in church and they are exhausted, they feel rode hard and put up wet.  They are drained and so their hearts and souls ache regardless of the joy and hope that is theirs.

Imagine waking up each morning with a sense that your life is not worth living.  Imagine waking up each morning terrified of what evil or difficulty might come your way.  Imagine feeling like every odd look is an accusation, a confirmation of your difference.  Imagine yearning for heaven more to escape your life than to be with the Lord.

These are broken hearts and bruised souls.  These are some of the bruised reeds and smoldering wicks Jesus promised to not break or snuff out.  But even that assurance does little to aleviate the pain and ache of being so very different and trying to fit in.

"Hi, my name is Fred and I want to die."  Think about having that thought several times a day.  Think about having to resist introducing yourself that way.  Think about having that feeling and not being able to tell anyne about it.  No, I don't mean they want to kill themselves, few do; but they live with a tension that tears at their hearts and souls every minute of every day.

No one understands except their counselor and even they are clueless apart from their objective clinical training.  Their pastor does not understand.  Their famiies do not understand.  Worst of all, they do not understand.

Imagine having a wonderful blessing happen to you.  You know it's a blessing.  You see God's hand in it and yet instead of lifting your heart and soul you find yourself fighting a downward spiral.  What would lift another up casts you down.

Imagine yearning for relief you know, short of a miracle, will not come.  Imagine happiness making you sad, joy terrifying you and kindness seeming like condecention - pity of the pathetic.

Imagine having to live your life in your head because if you let it our people will flee.  Imagine fighting every moment to just hang on and not give up.  Imagine just wanting to sit in a darkened room until life fades away.

These bruised reeds need to be able to be who they are and live in the open.  They need to be understood and their condition must be appreciated as real and terrible.  They dont need pampering but they need to be able to speak their pain to someone(s) other than the folks they have to pay to listen.

They desperately need to have others understand that for them, their condition is as normal as it gets.  Yes, they need sound biblical encouragement and admonishment and lots of other good and godly input.  But most of all they need to be accepted, embraced.

Being a part of the life of a bruised reed is tough, trying and costly.  Which is why so few of us are willing to be a part of their lives.  They can be demanding and depressing, frustrating if not infuriating but that's more a factor of our limitations than their condition.  It is more a part of our wanting to be comfortable and at our ease instead of involved in a messy ministry.

No, we are not all called to minister to these beautiful bruised reeds but we are all commanded to love them and they take a different kind of love.  None of us are exempt from loving them up close and personal.

Fear keeps us at a distance and fear causes them to withdraw.  Perfect love casts out fear - right or maybe?

Uses of Affliction 09 032214

Uses of Afflictoin 09

FINI

"Oh how unskillfull and unwise am I to manage a suffering condition, to discern God's ends, to find out what God would have me to do, to moderate the vileness of my own passions, to apply the counsels and comforts of the Word for their proper ends and use."
Thomas Case, A Treatise on Afflcitions

God never allows affliction into the lives of His people for no good purpose.  As we have briefly seen there are uses for aflictions and they are indeed mercies.

However as Thomas Case wrote (above) we are unskillful and unwise in managing a "suffering condition."  But perhaps this is the greatest usage of afflictions, to provide us with the opportunity to gain the skill and wisdom we lack.

The Word and the Spirit are suffcient for us to begin (and continue) to develop the requisite skills and wisdom to make blessings our of buffetings.  If we will ony make use of these graces we will find that no matter how dark and difficult the affliction we can and will learn to bear up under it.  But we must make use of God's providence!

Sin, of course, is at the root of all affliction.  The corruption of the whole creation is both the catalyst and continuance of all we suffer.  Perhaps we fail to understand this or resist accepting this.  Were the whole of creation not so corrupted, well, we'd still be in the garden wouldn't we?  But we are not and so we MUST learn, we must seek the skill and wisdom we need.

It is an oft repeated, much misused and wonderful admonishment to us to, "Trust in the Lord with all your might and lean not on your own understanding.  In ALL your ways acknoledge Him and He will make your paths straight."  Note it is straight paths we are promised not smooth and easy ones.  Why, oh why will we not yield to His will in all conditions and circumstances and trust His love and power?

We love our ease and comforts too much and have been infected with a view of our faith that is diluted with falsehood and evil.  We are PROMISED tribulation, persecution, hatred, etc. in this world.  Why do we fight against what the Lord has made clear?

We are promised His presence and His provision to live for Him in this world but it is prayer to change our hearts not prayer to change our world that is needed.  Oh we can pray for an change of condition and circumstance but I think that if our focus is on that we have missed the whole point and our afflcitions do not accomplish what He intendes.

We sing;
Have Thy own way Lord.
Have Thy own way.
Hold or my being
absolute sway.

But do we simply mouth the words instead of singing the prayer?

We sing;
Create in me a clean heart
Oh Lord
and renew a right spirit within me

But we are unwilling to allow Him to do so if it causes us any dis-ease or loss of comfort.

Affliction are, whether we will or can see it, mercies, indeed blessings for in them we are made more like our Master for we merrely share in the afflcitions He suffered for us.

Are we willing for God to bring and use afflictions to conform us to our Master's likeness?

Predisposed “Second Hand” 01

Predisposed “Second Hand” 01

In his book A Lifting Up for the Downcast, (which I HIGHLY recommend) William Bridge writes

“Now it is man’s disposition to come to God at second hand. So long as man can find a fullness in any creature, he comes not to God; . . . . . So long as man has encouragement elsewhere he does not encourage himself in the Lord his God.”

We often wonder at the longevity of our struggles.  They seem to go on and on like the Ever- ready Bunny.  Bridge gives us an acute insight into why that is and perhaps how we can avoid it.

It seems to be a question of where we are prone to look in times when our souls are distressed and downcast.

First however it is important that we understand that it is our souls that are downcast.  Tragedy and trauma (either sudden or prolonged) have their effect on every part of us.  But it is our souls that God is concerned with first and so our souls should be our first concern.

When we get sick, do we pray first for His healing and after a season go seek medical help?  Or do we, without a thought of Him as our source of relieve, make the appointment with the doctor?

It is not an either/or I am proposing but a both/and.  The season of waiting in prayer need not be of great duration and certainly if the condition worsens we should pray harder/more and go see the doctor.  But because we assume there is a solution awaiting us at the doctor’s office we give no thought at all to seeking Him. 

In difficult times, when a solution seems desperately needed, how much time do we waste casting here and there for that solution?  Why do let the situation wear upon our hearts and minds until our very souls are in chaos?  Would we not do better and calmed to seek Him first, to cry out to Him for relief or provision and then to seek about for His answer? 

I so appreciate the Puritan writers.  So much of what they have to say graciously accepts the weakness, limitations and foolish propensities of man.  Oh, they may call it foolish and silly but they knew without a doubt that this is how we are and how we would be until He calls us home.

They, wonderfully, knew that:

1Cor 10:13  No temptation (adversity) has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

“Common to man,” what gracious encouraging words.  Even in adversity, when we exacerbate it with our casting about, this is common to man, every one of us!  It is, in the context of a fallen world and the lives of growing disciples, normal.  It’s what we’ve always done and we default back to it naturally.  It is not per se a sin but it is a foolishness that adds to our distress.

We have a lot of time, energy, peace and comfort to lose when we look about us in the world for aid and comfort first.  Note, I said FIRST!  Even though we sense that His provision is available through natural means (doctors when we are ill etc.) how rude is it of us to jump past Him – how thoughtless, how dangerous? 

It is an unconscious denial (take that word gently) of His sovereignty when we bypass the throne on the way to find help.  It is He who, first and foremost, is the source of our answers and needs.  When we (consciously or unconsciously) just assume that we are keeping ourselves to ourselves for ourselves instead of going to the ONE who loves us best and forever.

NOW, I am NOT trying to convict anyone of a sin – maybe silliness or foolishness but not of sin.  When we need to stop our cars quickly we don’t tend to pray before we put on the break but notice how quick we are to thank Him when the car stops just short of a collision.

When our souls are distressed and cast down  (for whatever reason) we need to intentionally go to the source of all and any provision first.  Oh, you may be lifting the phone to make that appointment but you can go to Him as you do. 

There is a great distance between wishing for a solution and praying for a solution.  Wishing puts its faith in chance, praying puts its faith in God.  Which do you think will give greater comfort? 

More to come  . . . .