Heart Keepers 04 030614

Heart Keepers 04

4.  Imposing strong engagements upon ourselves to walk more carefully with God and avoid the occasions whererby the heart may be induced to sin.

Most of us know where danger lies.  We know, or should know, what tempts us and where we are weak.  Flavel makes the point here that we have to set clear and sound boundaries for ourselves if we indeed want to keep our hearts.

Knowing what "engagements" we need to set is critical and if more subtle than we think.  I can think of no better example that TV as a place where we need to engage ourselves to greater caution.  It is so easy to become numb to the world and its philosophy than TV.

We used to watch a detective show in which there was some romatic tension between a female detective and a writer of mysteries.  All was well until we the two main characters had begun sleeping together in the same house as the writers teenage daughter.

Even though there were no graphic love scenes we became concerned that we had not been concerned about the "fornication" that was implied by the show.  Here we were watching a show where sin was not only taking place but being celebrated as a good thing and we had missed that somehow.

Well, we had to set a boundary.  Why?  Because we had been so enamoured with the show that we were allowing the blatant sin to go unaddressed.  In being fans we were, in the privacy of our own home, somehow endorsing the illicit relationship between the two characters.  Not being sensitive to this, being so slow to be convicted by this concerned us for our hearts and how they had been numbed or even hardened to what we were watching.

Can you see Flavel's point in this?  We can not affort to allow our hearts, or consciences for that matter, to become numb or hardened.  We need sensitive hearts and consciences so we may not be led into heart sins.

OK, it may seem hokey but the question is, "Would I be doing this if Jesus was with me?"  What you would n't do in His physica resence we shouldn't do period.  It may seem sillly but that's a very simple way to impose upon your heart that which will keep your heart.

Trusting God - Trouble (a) 021714

When we read Matthew 5 and 6 we are so blessed by the promises and assurances Jesus gives us.  There is so very much in these chapters that perhaps it is easy to miss some of it.  I've been thinking particularly of:

Matthew 6:34 ESV
"Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

I noticed first that "tomorrow will be anxious for itself."  I am comforted that Jesus understands our anxieties.  And I am encouraged that He counsels me to accept that there will be "anxiety" in each day.

And what would I count as "anxieties?"  Well, I would consider that the word translated anxiety means to be troubled with cares so what I am anxious about is what I have both legitimate concern for and illegitimate concern for.

I'm anxious about sin.  The day is full of temptations.  Gossip, lust, lack of trust, making "my" plans, poor stewardship are all potential concerns of mine.  But I can't let their potential comsume my mind.

I do however need to responsible for these temptations.  So in order to not be anxious about sin I need to prepare my mind and heart every morning for the coming day.  My days being pretty much a regular routine, I know when and how I'll be tempted for the most part.  I know where to divert my mind and my eyes.  I know when I need to pray and pretty much what I need to pray for.  But all of that is adressed early in the day before I leave home.

We, I think, are anxious in direct proportion to our lack of knowledge of our hearts and our failure to prepare ourselves for the day's trials and temptations.  I know that if I just rush into a day and fly on auto-pilot I not only miss the opportunity to avoid sin but I miss His blessings that come throughout the day.

Are you anxious about sin?  I think most of us are more anxious after the fact than before it.  But we can and need to get ahead of it by preparing ourselves for what we know is coming.  We must prepare our selves for that battle we fight every minute of every day and we need to prepare in His presense.

Lord, I go forth today in Your name and by Your power.  I enter the battle once more calling upon You to strengthen me and guide me; protect me and preserve me.  Make me more sensitive to temptations Lord.  It's so easy to get caught up in sinful things when I am insensitive to them.  Make my heart sensitive and my mind aware of what may come and what does come in the way of temptation and Lord grant that I might resist and where I fail to resist bring me to repentance  Amen

Sensitivity to the "sought."

Ok  - behind this is the belief - based on scripture - that no one seeks after God.  I won't list all the texts that make that clear, the argument has be faithfully and fully made by many many Christian writers.

But I will state that what is missing in many ministries and churches is a sensitivity to the "sought."  We see in Jesus a clear example of how we are to see and deal with the unbeliever.

Mark 6:34 ESV
When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things.

Matthew 9:36-38 ESV

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. [37] Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; [38] therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."

They, those to be harvested, are out there and if we are to believe our Lord they are ripe for the harvest.  We are to go and labor in the field to bring in what God has prepared.  

But one does not harvest different produce in the same way.  You harvest wheat one way and tomatoes in another.  One does not harvest everything in the same way.  If you attempt to you can damage the crop.

I believe there is a lack of sensitivity on the part of many believers to the condition of those they would seek to reach.  We have tried the canned methods and have found them lacking.  What we haven't tried to any great extent is taking them as they are where they are and "harvesting" then in the appropriate manner.  We have failed to pray for the sensitivity we need for the harassed and helpless.

What a wonderful picture of the ripe fruit mixed with harassed and helpless sheep.  

No, we don't not water-down the gospel.  We do not dance around the issue of sin and hell.  But we do not use it as a club to beat them into the kingdom either.  

"Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling."  There's a hint at how we are to go about the work of the harvest.  Think of tender grapes being carefully cut from the vine and gently places in the basket.  Think too of acorns which are harvested by beating the limbs of the tree (not the acorns) to get the ready ones to fall to the ground for harvest.  Different fruit, different harvesting methods.

My main point is that we need to be sensitive to the ripe ones and the not yet ripe ones as well.  

This leads me back to the sheep thing.  Sheep can be spooked so easily and when they are spooked they can easily injure themselves - severely.   We often do more harm than good in how we deal with these harassed and helpless ones.  This is not acceptable.

How much good does the pro-life protest do when it vilifies the patient and the provider?  Sinners?  They most certainly are.  Condemned?  Who outside of Christ is not?  But objects of cruelty they must never be and yet some think they are doing God's work when they shout epithets and vilification at these men and women.

Yes, I know, there are lots of goats out there with the sheep but can you really tell the difference?  Can we in good conscience treat every unbeliever like a goat.  Would we not honor Jesus and do better if we treated everyone as harassed and helpless?  Would we not do better to call them (for Him) softly and tenderly?

We can not change the gospel, leaving out or softening the hard parts.  To do this is to cheapen the gospel and cheat the hearer.  But the hard parts of the gospel do not have to be communicated in a hard way.  They are hard enough without our adding our own perverse passion to them.

I believe the following verse can not be limited to converse between just believers but applies to how we speak the good news of redemption to everyone:

  Ephesians 4:15 ESV

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,

We grow into Him, Christ, when we speak the truth in love whether we are speaking to a brother or sister or to a goat.  But helpless and harassed sheep especially must hear the good news softly and tenderly.  Anyway else would cause them to stumble and we all know what that brings us.

OK - so the idea above is not well developed - hope to do better with it as I pray and think on it.  But I am convinced that we must be sensitive to those we seek in His name.  It may mean we spend years in harvesting one grape but it is His grape and needs to be harvested rightly.

Yeah - grapes - sheep - mixing a lot here but Jesus saw the connection - I pray you do as well. 

Just a note - He taught these helpless and harassed sheep "many things."  what "many things" should we be teaching?

Later

M

Intimate insights 002

For I know my transgressions, And my sin is ever before me. (Psa 51:3)

Too often I've read the whole passage (Psa. 51:2-4ff) and been blessed.  Tonight however I was caught off guard by a statement in a sermon I was listening to.  As soon as I heard the statement this verse came to mind.

With this verse came the realization that my sin is not ever before me - that I have paid poor attention to the faithfulness (of lack of it) in my walk with Him.  It was a visceral blow to suddenly recognize a sinful attitude I had had in the past and never even noticed.

No, I'm not suggesting we go rummaging through the past to discover past sins but rather that we may need to pray for a greater insight and sensitivity toward sin - in our own lives (we already do that with others).

Father, I don't want to be ignorant of my sins nor do I want to continue to generalize them thereby weakening significance in my life.  I ask you to make me mercifully aware of my sin so that although it is indeed ever before me - Your grace and mercy are there as well to lead me to repentance and restoration.  I am so prone to overlook or under regard my sin - it is so easy to do.  Help me Father to be aware and to address my sin in a way that is healthy for my growth and brings glory to You.

Amen

Sorrow for sins OR afflictions? Yep!! 001

Christopher Love, a Puritan preacher and writer makes a distinction in his, A Christian's Directory, between our sorrow for sin and our sorrow in afflictions and trials.  I highly recommend this book as a wonderful encouragement and of course, a challenge.

In this work he explores that curious place where we are sorrowing for our sins and 
afflictions, a place where we can lose our way and confuse our sorrowing.  It's not as complicated as it sounds but I wanted to post something to help those who consider reading this work get the most out of it.

We sorrow for sin and we sorrow for afflictions.  One is not necessarily related to the other.  As a matter of fact, one is easily confused for the other or embellished by the other resulting in just an unproductive sorrowing.

Let us first consider our sin.  We always need to start by turning our minds and hearts to the cross where the penalty for our sins was forgiven.  Then we need to look to the is empty tomb, the proof of His victory over sin and death for us.  This is how we can grasp the seriousness of our sin and deeply appreciate His graciousness.

But - we can't afford to just stop there.  It is a dangerous thing to be presumptuous concerning our being forgiven.  Yes, He died once for all and the matter, in God's economy, is settled - yet we still sin.  Since we still sin we need to still be convicted and brought to repentance.  We're not "done" and we won't be done until He comes or we go.

Sin is never not serious.  It impedes our usefulness to God, it dishonors God, it sullies His glory.  This we need to have abhor and be repelled by.  We need to sorrow for our sins - we need godly sorrow for our sins.

It is all too easy to sorrow simply for the consequences (here) of our sins.  There is nothing wrong with this but if that is all we sorrow for - well, we need to repent of that.  It is the sin itself we need to sorrow for.  

The world, the flesh and the devil want us to minimize our apprehension of our sin.  They want us to not see the terrible cost of them.  They do this by playing upon our assurance and adding to that the easy and dismissive view of sin that is so very rampant in the "church" today.  They want us to (as far as possible) hide our sins even from ourselves.

It is not fashionable in the church today to have the perspective of Paul:


Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?   (Rom 7:24)

Instead they want us to narrow our view to verses like:


For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.   (Rom 8:38-39)

Indeed this passage is true and we can rejoice in it.  But when it is used to corrupt and minimize our sense and conviction of sin we are severely damaged.

James tells us that in reference to sin we must:


Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.   (Jas 4:8-10)

"Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom."

This should be the response to sin in our lives that drives us to the throne of grace in humility and gratitude.  Ok - I'm not talking "shame" although a sense of it is never inappropriate when we are caught in a sin.  But I would encourage you to develop a stronger sense of guilt than shame.  Shame can focus our attention more on us than on Him.  Since our "guilt" is before God it is a more effective way to really see and understand our sin and our forgiveness than shame could ever be.

Sorrowing for sin may well have some focus on ourselves but the main focus must be on the one against whom we have sinned.  Not some mean, nasty, far off God who just waits for us to mess up so He can "get" us.  But the loving and gracious Father who from the beginning has provided the remedy for our sin and claims us as His own at His own expense.  In short we must go sorrowing to the One who has already forgiven us and acknowledge His grace and our faithlessness.  We have His forgiveness, we must seek His empowerment - strength - insight - power ect. to "kill" our sin.

Sorrow for sin is central to our faithfulness.  It is critical to our health.  It is essential for our effectiveness in displaying His glory.  

Father,

I have sinned, I do sin and i will sin.  We both know that.  Please give me such a heart for You and such a gratitude that I never dismiss or lightly engage my sin.  Help me indeed to sorrow mightily and appropriately for each and every sin.  

Do not allow me to continue insensitive to the sinfulness of sin.  Do not allow my head or my heart to presume upon Your forgiveness.  Rather may Your Spirit so convict me that I run to You as a small child confessing my sin and seeking the comfort of Your grace.  Help me to weep for my sin as I remember to great cost of its forgiveness.

Amen