dreaming of manure

Constantly we find ourselves slipping into bitterness and apathy and gloom as we reflect on them ( past disappointments and present heartbreaks) which we frequently do. The attitude we show to the world is a sort of dried up stoicism, miles removed from the “unspeakable joy” which Peter wrote about ( I Peter 1:8). “Poor souls, “ our friends say of us, “how they’ve suffered.” And that is just what we feel about ourselves !

But these private mock heroics have no place at all in the minds of those who really know God. They never brood on might – have – beens ; they never think of the things they have missed, only of what they have gained.

“ But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ, “ wrote Paul. “ What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him… I want to know Christ ( Philippians 3:7-10). When Paul says he counts the things he lost rubbish, or “dung” ( KJV), he means not merely that he does not think of them as having any value, but also that he does not live with them constantly in his mind: what normal person spends his time nostalgically dreaming of manure ? Yet this, in effect, is what many of us do. It shows how little we have in the way of true knowledge of God.

( page 25 Knowing God J.I. Packer)

words from another century

JC Ryle was a pastor in Liverpool in the 1800's and wrote a book called Holiness. I pulled this off the shelf recently and just found some statements that I thought might contribute to our spiritual growth.

Here are some free samples: ( sort of like Sam's club -- but for your brain)

Page 75 " A single day in hell will be worse than a whole life spent carrying the cross."

page 67 " But it does cost something to be a real Christian, according to the standard of the Bible. There are enemies to be overcome, battles to be fought, sacrifices to be made, an Egypt to be forsaken, a wilderness to be passed through, a cross to be carried, a race to be run. Conversion is not putting a man in an armchair and taking him easily to heaven. It is the beginning of a mighty conflict, in which it costs much to win the victory. Hence, arises the unspeakable importance of counting the cost."

page 20 : " True holiness does not consist merely of believing and feeling, but of doing and bearing, a practical exhibition of active and passive grace. Our tongues, our tempers, our natural passions and inclinations; our conduct as parents and children, masters and servants, husbands and wives, rulers and subjects; our dress, our employment of time, our behavior in business, our demeanor in sickness and health, in riches and in poverty ---all these matters which are fully treated by inspired writers. "

same section: " True holiness, we surely ought to remember, does not merely consist of inward sensations and impressions. It is much more than tears and sighs and bodily excitement and a quickened pulse and a passionate feeling of attachment to our favorite preachers and our own religious party and a readiness to quarrel with everyone who does not agree with us. It is something of the 'image of Christ' which can be observed and seen by others. It is something that would be demonstrated by our private lives and character. "

blood pressure medication or prayer ?

I found myself getting angry the other day. I was reminded by the word of God that he who has been merciless will be shown no mercy. It does seem like at times that no matter how well you are prepared for the day, your faith will be tested and your patience will be tried. In my reading I came across this and wanted to reprint it for whom it may concern:



“ What gives so much force to the impulse of anger is the overwhelming sense that the offender does not deserve forgiveness. That is, the grievance is so deep and so justifiable ( in our minds) that not only does self righteousness strengthen our indignation, but so does a legitimate sense of moral outrage. It’s the deep sense of legitimacy that gives our bitterness its unbending compulsion. We feel that a great crime would be committed if the magnitude of the evil we’ve experienced were just dropped and we let bygones by bygones. We are torn: our moral sense says this evil cannot be ignored and the word of God says we must forgive.” ( Faith in Future Grace page 265)

wisdom from the 1600's

Richard Baxter wrote these words:

" Let not your first opinions, about the controverted difficulties in religion, where Scripture is not very plain, be too peremptory, confident or fixed; but hold them modestly with a due suspicion of your unripe understandings, and with room for further information, supposing it possible, or probable, that upon better instruction, evidence and maturity, you may, in such things, change your minds."

A Christian directory page 49

I was struck by the idea that some of our ideas are not ripe and need time to mature. I needed this exhortation from another century today.

persistence in prayer

Jesus said: " For everyone who asks, receives and he who seeks, finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened. "
( Matthew 7:7 ff)

I stumbled across this paragraph:

" ...His point seems to be that the secret of prayer is persistence. Keep at it, keep speaking, and even if nothing comes, speak again and again. And finally the answer is given. It may not be the kind of answer we want - the kind of stopgap peace and the kind of easy security, the kind of end to loneliness that we are apt to pray for. Christ never promises peace in the sense of no more struggle and suffering. Instead, He helps us to struggle and suffer as He did, in love, for one another. Christ does not give us security in the sense of something in this world, some cause, some principle, some value, which is forever. Instead, He tells us that there is nothing in this world that is forever, all flesh is grass. He does not promise us unlonely lives. Instead of all these, the answer He gives, is Himself. If we go to Him for anything else, He may send us away empty or He may not. But if we go to Him for Himself, I believe that we go away always with this deepest of all our hungers filled."

( adapted from Frederick Buechner Listening to your life page 132)

ouch

Thoughts on laziness: “ Does then the sluggard disappoint and provoke his earthly master ? See that we be not such sluggards to our heavenly Master. Laodicean professors are specially hateful in his sight ( Rev 3:16). The slothful minister carries in a tremendous account to him that has sent him. No more pitiable object is found, than the man who has time to spare; who has no object of commanding interest; and is going on to the end, as if he had spent his whole life in children’s play, and had lived for no useful purpose. He may probably have given out a portion of his time for some miscalled religious duty. But he might as well be asleep as on his knees; in idleness as in meditation – so little pains – so little heart is connected with his duties ! “ I found this phrase particularly pointed: ( No object of commanding interest, and is going on to the end, as if he had spent his whole life in children’s play and had lived for no useful purpose.) He continues: “ There is indeed no higher blessing than usefulness; no more affecting lamentation than that of the wornout labourer, who is conscious that his usefulness is ended. But the slothful is satisfied, that his usefulness should never begin. He is content with a life of utter uselessness. He willfully gives himself up to it; as if indolence was his supreme good, and every kind of exercise the object of his shrinking dread. Such a life can never approve itself to conscience, and assuredly will never escape the condemnation of God. It is poverty to himself. He becomes his own enemy. The springs of solid happiness are impoverished, and the true end of life frittered away. Let us look at the sluggard: time, talents, and opportunities have been given graciously to him, perhaps a godly education and every encouragement for hopefully promise. But if diligence is needed; if the man must labor and strive then his field must be left for the present time. He needs a little more sleep first. And thus he sleeps on, and shuts both eyes and ears against every disturbance of his fatal slumber. Nothing is done or attempted for God, for his own soul, or for his fellow creatures. His vineyard is left open. All his good purposes are the stone wall broken down. Satan goes out and comes in at will. All is devastation and ruin.” ( page 461) Charles Bridges ( commentary on Proverbs Banner of Truth publishing)

the race set before us

Run the race that is set before you

One of the ideas stuck in my head from years of listening to sermons is this one:

Regret is a form of unbelief. One of my weaknesses has been this tendency to look back at the past and think that the “old days” were better than these days ( an idea specifically prohibited in the book of Ecclesiastes). There is a glossing over the bad and remembering the good to the extent that I have difficulty being content in the “now.” The Lord has shown me this is sin because I am casting doubt on the goodness of His timing and questioning His leadership in my life. This came home to me in a new way when I was reading Hebrews 12 recently.

It goes like this: “ …let us also lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us…” This truth landed on me in a new way and reminded me that I am not supposed to run the race that I ran in 2001 or in 2007. The Lord is calling all of us to run the race that is…. “ set before us.” We are to run this race with endurance and maybe one of the weights I need to drop is this idea of constantly regretting past decisions. This is such a paralyzing way to live and it robs a person of all joy in the present.

Therefore, if you find yourself saying…” why were the old days better than these ? “ , dismiss that idea as sin and move forward with your new station in life. Embrace Isaiah 43:18,19 which says:

Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder things of the past. Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it ? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.

Jesus affirms this idea in Luke 9:62 But Jesus said to him, “ No one after putting his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Even Paul recognized the need to exhort the Philippians: “ … but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on…” ( 3:13-14)

I thought that the Pixar film “ Up” was helpful in thinking through this as well. This man drags around his house most of the movie clinging to the memories of the past. Eventually he had to learn that it was time to “go have a new adventure.”

( He ends up dropping all the furniture out of the house too.)

Why does all this matter ? If I’m stuck in the past, then I will be ineffective for ministry in the present. I am not on this earth to reminisce about the “ good ol days,” but I am here to be God’s ambassador in the present. Time is running out for the world to repent of their sin and the fields are “white with harvest.” There is too much work to do to sit and wallow in self pity about things that “used to be.” How will I give an account to the Lord ( see Romans 14) for how I lived in 2011 ? What will my journal read Dec 31, 2011 … “ spent the year thinking about how I could have lived differently in 2009 ? “ Talk about a waste of time. I take seriously the Biblical idea that whether I live or die, I live to the Lord. I will have to give an answer for what I did with the time God gave me. I can’t see how it will be profitable for me to to tell the Lord someday: “ Well, here they are … here are all my regrets… I carried them for 40 years.” I am thankful for all the people that have been my friends over the years and I value the relationships that God has given me. At the same time, I have a strong desire to step into the “race” that is set before me right now.

Jeremiah 23:7
“ Therefore, behold the days are coming, “ declares the Lord, “ when they will no longer say, ‘ As the Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt’,

8 but ‘ As the Lord lives, who brought up and led back the descendants of the household of Israel from the north land and from all the countries where I had driven them.’

Then they will live on their own soil.”

quite a vocabulary

This is from an essay by Edwards on the excellency of Jesus Christ. He was writing about how Jesus is a perfect mingling of attributes. The idea being that Jesus is both lion and lamb, powerful and meek at the same time.



“Such a conjunction of infinite highness and low condescension, in the same person is admirable. We see, by manifold instances, what a tendency a high station has in men, to make them to be of a quite contrary disposition. If one worm be a little exalted above another, by having more dust, or a bigger dunghill, how much does he make of himself ! What a distance does he keep from those that are below him ! And a little condescension is what he expects should be made much of, and greatly acknowledged. Christ condescends to wash our feet; but how would great men, ( or rather bigger worms), account themselves debased by acts of far less condescension !”

Jonathan Edwards page 681 “Works of Edwards”

why our culture goes to the movies

It is very difficult to go into Blockbuster these days. The amount of disturbing images on the covers of the DVDs is shocking and revolting at the same time. I sometimes wonder what will be next. How much worse can it get ? I am sure people in the 1950's asked the same questions. I found this section in a book by John Stott and thought it might give us a clue.




“Until our sins are forgiven, we are exiles, far from our true home. We have no communion with God. In Biblical terms we are ‘lost’, or ‘dead’ through trespasses and sins which we have committed.

It is this that accounts for the restlessness of men and women today. There is a hunger in the heart of man which none but God can satisfy, an empty space which only God can fill. The demand for sensational news in the press and for extravagant love or crime stories in the movies; pools and pubs; the dirt track and the dog track ( or football stadiums); the current epidemic of drugs, sex and violence --- -all these are symptoms of man’s search for satisfaction.”

Augustine said concerning God: “ You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”


Taken from Basic Christianity John Stott page 74-75

Stop regarding man

I think this has appeared before on this site, but it's worth revisiting.

The idea has to do with Romans 12 where Paul states that we shouldn't think too highly of ourselves. I like the way G.K. Chesterton states it :

" Are there no other stories in the world except yours; and are all men busy with your business ? How much happier you would be if you only knew that these people cared nothing about you ! How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it; if you could really look at other men with common curiousity and pleasure; if you could see them walking as they are in their sunny selfishness and virile indifference ! You would begin to be interested in them, because they were not interested in you. You would break out of this tiny and tawdry theater in which your own little plot is always being played, and you would find yourself under a freer sky, in a street fully of splendid strangers."

( page 15 Orthodoxy)

I think these ideas give us a perspective and echo what the Bible says in Isaiah 2:22: "Stop regarding man, whose life is in his nose. Why should he be esteemed ? "