Dec
31
A prayer for year’s end and beginning
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As my final blog post of 2006, I am reprinting a prayer from The Valley of Vision that we will use in our service tonight:
O God, your love is beyond compare.
You are good when you give,
when you take away,
when the sun shines upon me,
when the night gathers over me.
You have loved me before the foundation of the world,
and in love you have redeemed my soul.
You love me still, in spite of my hard heart, ingratitude, distrust.
Your goodness has been with me during another year,
leading me through a twisting wilderness.
Your goodness will with me in year ahead;
I launch my boat on the unknown waters of this year,
with you, as the pilot of my future, as of my past.
If you appoint storms of tribulation, you will be with me in them.
If you ordain joy and success, you will receive thanks and honor.
If I die, I shall see your face the sooner;
If I live, I shall walk by faith and not by sight.
Only glorify yourself in me whether in comfort or in trial,
as a chosen vessel suitable always for your use.
Give me your grace to sanctify me,
your comforts to cheer,
your wisdom to teach,
your right hand to guide,
your joy to strengthen,
your law to convict,
your presence to stabilize.
May the fear of the Lord keep me in awe of you,
and may the triumphs of your kingdom be my joy. AMEN.
Dec
27
Idea or person?
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In preparing to preach this coming Lord’s Day on Mark 4:35-41, I have been blessed by J.C. Ryle’s ‘The Ruler of the Waves,’ which appears as a chapter in his book Holiness (which, by the way, is an essential part of any Christian library). Let me quote:
I fear the personality of our Lord is sadly lost sight of by many professors in the present day. Their talk is more about salvation, than about the Saviour; more about redemption, than about the Redeemer; more about justification, than about Jesus; more about Christ’s work, than about Christ’s person. This is a great fault, and one that fully accounts for the dry and sapless character of the religion of many professors.
As ever you would grow in grace, and have joy and peace in believing, beware of falling into this error. Cease to regard the gospel as a mere collection of dry doctrines. Look at it rather as the revelation of a might living Being in whose sight you are daily to live. Cease to regard it as a mere set of abstract propositions and abtruse principles and rules. Look at it as the introduction to a glorious personal Friend. This is the kind of gospel that the apostles preached. They did not go about the world telling men of love and mercy and pardon in the abstract. The leading subject of all their sermons was the loving heart of an actual living Christ. This is the kind of gospel which is most calculated to promote sanctification and meetness for glory. Nothing, surely, is so likely to prepare us for that heaven where we shall meet Christ face to face, as to realize communion with Christ, as an actual living Person here on earth. There is all the difference in the world bewteen an idea and a person.
Dec
22
I’ll be on vacation all next week, so this will be my last post until next year.
I wanted to give a hearty thanks to our God who brought the Holland family to Kosciusko. This will be our first Christmas as members of your church family and we couldn’t be more thrilled.
So, until we gather again to boast in the lavish blessing of our Lord, have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!
Dec
19
Handel-ing Christmas - Part 5
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Today we’ll look at the texts from the Messiah’s Part II, numbers 40-44, highlighting Psalm 2:1-4, 9 and Revelation 11:15.
Psalm 2:1-4, 9 “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his anointed, saying, ‘Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.’ He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. ‘You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.’”
Revelation 11:15 “Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.’”
Make no doubt about it, the incarnation of our Lord, was the beginning of the world-wide conquest of Kingdom of God. We are very familiar with the type of war that has evolved over the past few decades. Instead of masses of troops sent in to a battle front, now, small well trained units are inserted undetected. This is the incarnation. The King has come and he has come veiled. He has come as the most unlikely conquering hero, a Jewish infant born in a stable to an unwed mother and her carpenter fiance’. However, look at the verse quoted above about this simple boy. He is the mighty God. He will reign forever and ever. He will be victorious.
Sometimes we approach Christmas with kid-gloves on. We view it as a time of sweet sympathy for “cute baby Jesus.” Don’t be lured into this anemic view of our Lord. The conqueror had come. The most terrifying soldier ever known had entered into the world to do battle with sin, misery, and death. The incarnation is fundamentally militant. Instead of approaching Christmas like we approach a home video we instead should fall down as the shepherds did in awe-filled fear, knowing that the Sovereign Ruler of the world had come. He is worthy of our praise!
Dec
18
Blogging the Bible
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Slate.com deputy editor David Plotz has recently begun a project called Blogging the Bible: What Happens When an Ignoramus Reads the Good Book. Plotz, who calls himself ‘a proud Jew, but never a terribly observant one,’ came upon the idea while bored to tears at a synagogue during his cousin’s bat mitzvah. In despair he picked the Torah on the pew rack and began reading in Genesis and became fascinated at what he thought he knew and what he had never been told. He is now reading through the entire Old Testament and blogging about it as he goes along.
Plotz is no biblical scholar, and his wit borders on irreverence at times, but I find it strangely compelling to read how he reacts to the Old Testament texts. He reads not to point out inconsistencies or prove/disprove a system of belief; rather, in his words,
My goal is pretty simple. I want to find out what happens when an ignorant person actually reads the book on which his religion is based. I think I’m in the same position as many other lazy but faithful people (Christians, Jews, Moslems, Hindus). I love Judaism; I love (most of) the lessons it has taught me about how to live in the world; and yet I realized I am fundamentally ignorant about its foundation, its essential document. So, what will happen if I approach my Bible empty, unmediated by teachers or rabbis or parents? What will delight and horrify me? How will the Bible relate to the religion I practice, and the lessons I thought I learned in synagogue and Hebrew School?
Plotz interacts with readers, Jewish, Christian, and others. It merits checking with from time to time. I’ve known people who have done this sort of thing and found themselves transformed in the process. Reading the Scriptures, even the Old Testament, is like letting a lion out of his cage for a while. You just don’t know what will happen next. When anything really interesting happens, I’ll update you.
Dec
15
Handel-ing Christmas - Part 4
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Isaiah 9:2 The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: and they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. (Handel’s Messiah, Part 1, No. 11)
A very profitable study for any student of the Bible would be to consider the light imagery in reference to Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament as well as the New Testament, Jesus is associated with light while sin is associated with death. As we approach December 25 and the consideration of the incarnation of our Lord, take time to think on Jesus as the “light of the world”. Consider the cry of our hearts struggling over sin and how often we utter words like, “It just feels like I’m in the dark!” It is difficult to find a truer statement of our struggle with sin. It is the light of Jesus and the light of the gospel that dispels the darkness of sin. It is a beautiful bit of God given imagery for us to consider our incarnate Lord as the light that has come into the world.