Gazing On Christ
Posted by jerrywhite on Aug 31, 2009
“Gazing on Christ will give rest, satisfaction, and peace to our souls. Our minds tend to be full of countless perplexed thoughts—fears, cares, dangers, distresses, passions, and lusts throw us into disorder, darkness, and confusion. But when our best thoughts are fixed on Jesus, our hearts will be kept holy, serene, and spiritual. For ‘to be spiritual minded is life and peace’ (Romans 8:6 NKJV). Reflecting on Christ takes our minds off things below—things that aren’t worth comparing to the great worth, beauty, and glory of what we see in Christ (compare Philippians 3:7-11). When we take our eyes off Christ, we become strangers to heavenly life, and live without the spiritual refreshment and satisfaction that God offers in his gospel.”
Kris Lundgaard
Through The Looking Glass, 11
~~~
Do you know how to gaze upon the Lord Jesus? Many professing believers do not. Do you arrange your daily schedule so you can sit at His feet to enjoy His nearness and so He can enjoy your undivided attention? Is the Lord Jesus a real Person to you—One who can be delighted or grieved by your behavior—One who enjoys your company alone with Him? Do you let temporal things keep your time occupied so that you neglect eternal investments? Do you realize how much He wants you to be near Him? His sacrificial death and shed blood was so you could come boldly into His presence. He opened the way because He wants you, and all His children, to be near Him. When you draw near so that He can draw near He is delighted (James 4:8). If you are distracted by many things does He say to you, “My beloved child, why do you not want time alone with Me? Why are all these earthly cares and pleasures more important than time alone with Me? Do you not need to keep drinking of the living water that flows from My throne? It will refresh you like nothing else that fills your busy days.”
~~~
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
Psalm 42:2 (ESV)
Email This Post
Love’s Plan
Posted by jerrywhite on Aug 27, 2009
“We all know what it is to plan a pleasure for a child and then watch to see its pleasure. Some of us know what it is to plan the best our love can think of, which yet may be, naturally speaking, a disappointment to that child; and we know how we watch for its response. Love is planning for us. Love has planned the best that Love could plan. Perhaps we cannot help one another more than by praying that we may never disappoint our Father’s faith in us, but always follow our blessed Lord in this as in everything, and answer His trust with the words ‘O yes, Father.’ ‘Are you pleased with My will, My child?’ ‘O yes, my Father.’ ”
Amy Carmichael
Edges Of His Ways, 132
~~~
Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.
Matthew 11:26 (ESV)
~~~
“Heavenly Father,
If I should suffer need, and go unclothed,
and be in poverty,
make my heart prize thy love,
know it, be constrained by it,
though I be denied all blessings.
It is thy mercy to afflict and try me with wants,
for by these trials I see my sins,
and desire severance from them.
Let me willingly accept misery, sorrows, temptations,
If I can thereby feel sin as the greatest evil,
and be delivered from it with gratitude to thee,
acknowledging this as the highest testimony
of thy love.” The Valley of Vision, 294
Email This Post
Necessary Trials
Posted by jerrywhite on Aug 24, 2009
Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations.
1 Peter 1:6 (KJV)
~~~
“Three gracious words, ‘If need be.’ Not one of all my tears has been shed for nothing! Not one stroke of the rod has been unneeded, or that might have been spared.
Your heavenly Father loves you too much and too tenderly, to bestow harsher correction than your case requires. Is it loss of health or loss of wealth or loss of beloved friends? Be still, there was a ‘need be.’ We are no judges of what that ‘need be’ is; often though, in spite of aching hearts we are forced to exclaim, ‘Your judgments are greatly deep.’
God here pledges Himself, that there will not be one unnecessary thorn in the believer’s crown of suffering. No burden too heavy will be laid on him; and no sacrifice too great exacted from him. He will ‘temper the wind to the shorn lamb.’ Whenever the ‘need be’ has accomplished its end, then the rod is removed — the chastisement suspended — the furnace quenched.
‘If need be’! Oh, what a pillow on which to rest your aching head — that there is not a drop in all your bitter cup but what a God of love saw to be absolutely necessary.”
John MacDuff
Fill Me With Hope, September 16
~~~
It is difficult to remember when we are in the midst of trial or tribulation that our heavenly Father has pre-measured it and appointed for us to go through it in order to transform us. It is equally hard to remember that the same love that blesses us richly has purposed the painful time as well. Our hearts must firmly grip two truths if we will live with peace and joy through necessary trials: Our sovereign Father orders our path; our loving Father measures our every burden. The Lord Jesus walked this way before us and understands what it means to learn obedience through suffering (Hebrews 5:8).
Email This Post
The Father’s Plan and Power
Posted by jerrywhite on Aug 20, 2009
“Jesus Christ was always looking at the Father’s will, the Father’s plan, and then seeking by faith the Father’s power. That was His yoke.
It came into evidence so often. For instance, when He healed on the Sabbath day, and they accused Him, He said, ‘I could not help it. My Father worketh hitherto, and I could do no other than work out what My Father wrought in.’ He went across the lake to give His disciples a vacation. Five thousand hungry men broke in, and in their advent He saw the intrusion of His Father’s plan, and adopted it. He started for the home of Jairus. A woman with a touch arrested Him, and in her slight touch He saw again His Father’s will and plan, and waited to heal her. Then He moved leisurely forward, knowing that at the house of Jairus He would have sufficient power to raise his daughter. And in the garden it was His Father’s will beneath which He bowed His meek soul, saying, ‘Not My will, but Thine!’”
F. B. Meyer
The Christ-Life for the Self-Life, 119
~~~
If we are wholly submitted to our Lord Jesus then we can believe He is guiding our steps in His will and therefore be at rest. If we are not completely yielded then whatever comes along that does not fit our plans and desires disappoints and frustrates us and results in a complaining spirit. Grumbling is one of the few sins listed in 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 for which the Lord judged Israel on their exodus from Egypt. The Lord Jesus learned to live sensitive to His Father’s will accepting intrusions as from His Father and listening attentively in His quiet times to what the Father may say for Him to do. The very sustenance of His life was to do the will of His Father (John 4:34). Not only that but He knew that He must have the Father’s power to accomplish His will, and so He lived in utter desperate dependence on the power of the Spirit. This is His way for us as well.
~~~
Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.
Proverbs 19:21 (ESV)
Email This Post
The Evangelical Mystic
Posted by jerrywhite on Aug 17, 2009
“I refer to the evangelical mystic who has been brought by the gospel into intimate fellowship with the Godhead. His theology is no less and no more than is taught in the Christian Scriptures. He walks the high road of truth where walked of old prophets and apostles, and where down the centuries walked martyrs, reformers, Puritans, evangelists and missionaries of the cross. He differs from the ordinary orthodox Christian only because he experiences his faith down in the depths of his sentient being while the other does not. He exists in a world of spiritual reality. He is quietly, deeply, and sometimes almost ecstatically aware of the Presence of God in his own nature and in the world around him. His religious experience is something elemental, as old as time and the creation. It is immediate acquaintance with God by union with the Eternal Son. It is to know that which passes knowledge.”
A. W. Tozer
The Christian Book of Mystical Verse, vi (Introduction)
~~~
Our Heavenly Father wants us to know Him through His truth (doctrine), and knowing the truth includes experiencing it. Here is the goal of life — to know God. Understanding His truth comes from studying and meditating on the Word of God under the illumination of the Holy Spirit. Experiencing His truth comes from the direct operation of the Holy Spirit upon our hearts (souls). The former affects the way we think. The latter changes who we are. One is an encounter with the truth of God, and the other is an encounter with the God of truth. We need both. Sound doctrine establishes us on a firm foundation. Spiritual experience establishes a very real and personal intimacy with the Lord Jesus. By this God is glorified and by this we are satisfied.
~~~
Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.
John 14:21 (ESV)
Email This Post
