Economic Distress

There has been much in the news over the past few weeks concerning the current evaluation of our country's economy. There are differing opinions everywhere you turn but there seems to be a consistent line of thinking that says we are heading for uncertain economic times. This has many people reeling as they are concerned for their way of life. There is one who is not reeling and His name is Jesus. His sovereignty is not shaken. His foundations are not being rocked. The self sufficient one calls us to see Him as sufficient for our needs. "And my God will supply every need of yours according to His glory in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:19. We love this promise of God to meet our needs while we seldom look to what extent He meets them. This verse says he meets our needs according to His glory. What does this mean? It means that God meets our needs not just to take care of us but He meets our needs because it glorifies Him. And when God receives glory we receive joy because our highest delight should be in Him. He is supreme to all things especially money. He gives us something of more lasting value, namely Himself. There is nothing more joyful than knowing we enter difficulties often times so that God may tear away our false securities and see him all sufficient.
C.S. Lewis writes in the book The Business of Heaven, a piece entitled The Necessity of Tribulation
"I am progressing along the path of life in my ordinary contentedly fallen and godless condition, absorbed in a merry meeting with my friends for the morrow or a bit of work that tickles my vanity today, a holiday or a new book, when suddenly a stab of abdominal pain that threatens serious disease, or a headline in the newspapers that threatens us all with destruction, sends the whole pack of cards tumbling down. At first I am overwhelmed, and and all my little happinesses look like broken toys. Then slowly and reluctantly, bit by bit, I try to bring myself into the frame of mind that I should be in at all times. I remind myself that these toys were never intended to possess my heart, that my true good is in another world and my only real treasure is in Christ. And perhaps by God's grace, I succeed, and for a day or two become a creature consciously dependent on God and drawing its strength from the right sources. But the moment the threat is withdrawn, my whole nature leaps back to the toys: I am even anxious God forgive me, to banish from my mind the only thing that supported me under the threat because it is now associated with the misery of those few days. Thus the terrible necessity of tribulation is all too clear. God has had me but for forty-eight hours and then only by dint of taking everything else away from me. Let Him but sheathe that sword for a moment and I behave like a puppy when the hated bath is over - I shake myself as dry as I can and race off to reacquire my comfortable dirtiness, if not the nearest manure heap, at least in the nearest flower bed. And that is why tribulations cannot cease until God either sees us remade or sees that our remaking is now hopeless."
Let us therefore pray for tribulation that would strip us of our comforts that we my see Christ as our treasure. If He is supreme to all things, which He is, then there is no one nor anything better for us to be enamored with. "Christ is all and in all" Col. 3:11
DAW

Truth

We are living in a time in which truth to most people is relative. That is, there is no one truth that holds for all people. Many believe that what they think is truth. Many of us had heard that this is common among those who are not believers in Christ but the sad reality is that it is true for many who are believers. We tend to listen to this ideas and opinions of others over and against the absolute truth of the Scripture. That is why I feel that it is so important to pray a prayer like David's in Psalm 25:4-5 before we begin our daily reading of Scripture.
" Make me to know your ways, O LORD;
teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation,
for you I wait all day long."
Here are a few quotes from John Piper on why truth is so important.
"If God exists, then He is the measure of all things, and what He thinks about all things is the measure of what we should think. Not to care about truth is not to care about God."

" Our concern with truth is simply an echo of our concern with God."

"To love God the Father, the Son, and the Spirit is to love truth. To pursue them is to pursue truth. Passion for their vindication in the world involves a passion for the truth. There is no separating God and truth , as if one can put relationship against truth. 'God is' precedes 'God is love,' and 'God is' has content and meaning. God is one thing and not another thing. He has character. His nature has contours that define Him. Concern with the true God, who is not created in our own image, is at the bottom of a truth-driven life."

"Indifference to truth is a mark of spiritual death"

2 Thess. 2:12 -They all will be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness. "This shows that believing truth involves the affections, since its alternative is 'taking pleasure' in something else. It also shows that truth is moral not just cognitive, since its alternative is wickedness and not just falsehood. "

"Loving truth is a mark of a God-entranced world-view. It is obedience to the first and greatest commandment."

These quotes can be found in the book A Godward Life on pages 106-108
DAW

What distracts us from Christ?

As I read about the Christians of old, (David Brainerd, Johnathan Edwards, Martin Luther, The apostle Paul) I am intrigued by their capacity to be completely consumed with Jesus. Christianity was not a religion to them that could be picked up and put down at a moments notice. Christ was their life. There were consumed by who He is. This to me is very convicting because I have never been one that is constantly thinking about God. In fact I would dare say that there are many today who live with their mind constantly fixed on Christ and the evidence around us is overwhelming. We pick up the banner of Christianity when we want our circumstances to be better or when perhaps we are in the company of certain individuals but never a constant dwelling on the person of Christ. And that is to our shame. We have come to see Christianity as something that we try to accomplish and not as an intimate fellowship with Christ. And therein is our undoing. We seek to use Christ to make things better or perhaps to give us material wealth, or perfect circumstances, be it jobs, health, our families. As John Piper says "God will not be used as currency for the purchase of idols." There is nothing wrong with those things in and of themselves, but there is something devastatingly wrong with desiring those things more than we desire God. God is of supreme value. There is nothing better than Him (and this includes His gifts!) We were made to see Him as supremely valueable and find joy in Him. The good news is that He is infinite and that means that infinite joy can be found in Him. There is nothing that is better than God. We often time trade this joy in God for the things of the world because we think there is greater joy to be had from them than Him. For instance if I have had a long tiring day, I will come home and turn on the TV in an attempt to find some sort of contentment without having to think too much. In all actuality I am seeking distraction from my own mind. Is TV better than Christ. Did TV die in my place that I might find my ultimate joy in God. NEVER! That even sounds foolish to say. But that is how we treat it. It is as if we are telling God, "This television brings greater comfort than you. It is more delightful" Oh how little we know of the God that is. But it is not just television that we use as means of comfort and peace. We use all manner of things, be it money, houses or a life free of suffering of any kind. This is where Satan gets us. The Bible says that Satan has come to "steal, kill and destroy." I am convinced that the way Satan steals is to give. He gives us all these material possessions and comforting circumstances that blind us to the goodness and greatness of God. We never give God a second thought because we have found our comfort in all other things. The problem here is twofold. One, all this world offers is temporal and it will fade almost as quickly as it comes. Second, we blind ourselves to eternal joy found in Christ alone. This world's offers garbage compared to the eternal glories of Christ and yet we are content feasting in the land field of earthly comfort. Christ offers us so much more. He offers us Himself. There is nothing greater than God and He tells us to find our delight in Him.(Psalm 37:4) God is offering us more we ask or imagine. We can never begin to understand all the goodness that is in Him. Therefore God is ultimately gracious to allow suffering in our life because we find joy not in our circumstances or possessions but in Him alone. Let us therefore fix our eyes on Christ not just glance at Him once or twice a week.
DAW

God's Discipline

Hebrews 12:1-13

This particular passage of Scripture has been keen this morning in encouraging me when I find myself in the midst of God's discipline. I often times find myself particularly downtrodden over sin in my life. As well I should be to a certain extent. There needs to be sense that sin is terribly offensive in the midst of God's holiness. Then when God's discipline hits as it should, I grow weary not from the discipline but from the guilt contrived from the discipline. I find it much easier to wallow in guilt than find delight in discipline. This is exactly what the writer of Hebrews is warning against. I believe that this writer knows that when we wallow in guilt we render ourselves ineffective. Our focus in those times is on the wrong object. Any time that we spend more time thinking of ourselves rather than Christ we find ourselves in the wrong boat. Guilt is one weapon used by the enemy to cause us to think more of ourselves than God. The writer of Hebrews here says that those who are disciplined by God should find great delight in it. The discipline itself may not be pleasing but the God's desire behind it is greatly comforting. He tells us that, "God is treating us as sons." What a marvelous thought. We are indeed the children of God. We know from other Scripture passages that God does all the He does for His glory and in so doing bestows a greater love on us than we ever thought possible because we find our highest delight in Jesus. The same is true of discipline. If we find ourselves in the throws of God's discipline we should rejoice first of because we are His children.(v7) Secondly we should rejoice because we know that God is going to use this situation to bring about His glory therefore filling us with ultimate joy. He is indeed giving us Himself. What a marvelous truth. The reason God's disciplines us is for our joy. He knows that whatever we attempted to find pleasure in that was rebelling against His holiness will only leave us empty and longing for more. Therefore, He chastises us in order that we would see the truth the He Himself is our highest delight. There is nothing in the created world that can even compare to the delight found in the person of Christ. (Psalm 73:25) Therefore, we should rejoice in discipline because it is God's way of guiding us to ultimate joy by showing us that nothing can take the place of Jesus in supplying infinite joy.

DAW

God's All Seeing Eye

"Let us frequently remember the shortness and uncertainty of our lives, and how that, after we have taken a few turns more in the world and conversed a little longer amongst men, we must all go down into the dark and silent grave, and carry nothing along with us but anguish and regret for our sinful enjoyments; and then think what must needs seize the guilty soul, to find itself naked and alone before the severe and impartial Judge of the world, to render an exact account, not only of its more important and considerable transactions, but of every word that the tongue hath uttered, and the swiftest and most secret thought that ever passed through the mind."
- Henry Scougal The life of God in the Soul of Man


This is probably one of the more convicting things that I have read lately. It brings to remembrance that we must be on guard at all times putting forth effort from the strength that God supplies (Col 1:29) in order that God be glorified to the utmost by our every thought.

The Love of God

Are we more fascinated with the love of God or the love of God. That is to say, do we think more about the fact that God loves us or the fact that it is indeed God who loves us. I have a tendency to think more about the fact that God loves me and that leads to asking the question, why does God love me? Once on this track I can come up with all manner of selfish reasons to say that God loves me, all centered around what I have done or who I am. The truth is that God loves me because of who He is not who I am. This is a gloriously freeing truth. Once we understand this we can be free in knowing that no matter what I do or how I change God will continue to love me. (I am not saying here that we can do whatever we desire and God will just wink it away. I am saying that in His love he will discipline us to conform us to His likeness, and that is most loving! Heb. 12:3-11) As one writer put it "God does not love us because we are valuable, but we are valuable because God loves us." If we only look at God's love as a gift we may think we have earned it as a reward. When we see that love is who He is and it stands alongside His holiness we are compelled to see who we really are. His love should never drive us to think more of ourselves but rather more of Him. It is the love of God that should compel us to find out more about Him. It should cause us to ask "Who is this King of Glory?"Psalm 24:8 Once we have embarked upon that journey we will discovery more of His character and find that it is truly in Him that we find lasting and infinite joy. When we value God as supreme we find that joy in anything else is fleeting and fades quickly. Yet God has no end and no limit and when we find our joy in Him (not His gifts) we find that our joy will also have no end. That is why God loves us. He loves us because it shows who He is and knowing who He is brings us joy. God's love brings about our infinite joy in Him. That is most loving! Could there be a greater love than that which seeks to bring about our infinite joy.

DAW

Future Grace

This is John Piper's explanation of the term "future grace" which is also the title of a book he has written. I put here in my blog because of the incredible truth of living in the grace of God moment by moment is the only way we can continue to exist. Glory be to Christ "for from Him and to Him and through Him are all things."
Dustin

This can be found at http://www.desiringgod.org

---

What do you mean by "future grace"?

I don't just mean grace that comes to us in the distant future, like at the Second Coming. Clearly that is coming. It is referred to in 1 Peter 1:13, that we are to hope fully in the grace that is coming to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So there is going to be great grace for us at the Judgment Day because we believe in Jesus.

What I have in mind when I say "future grace" is the grace we'll receive at the Second Coming and the grace that is arriving every moment as I move into the future. So, whether I will be able to finish giving this answer is owing to the sustaining grace of God.

A key verse for me in understanding this is 1 Corinthians 15:10, where Paul says,

By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

Now if you stop and think about it, that means that minute by minute we're working. But are we working in our own strength? No, he says, "I'm working hard, but it is not I but the grace of God." So when is that grace of God coming? It's coming every moment. It is arriving, as it were, out there in the future.

So as I think about a difficult phone call I have to make in five minutes, or about getting out of bed, or of enduring another day of sickness, or a hard marriage, or another day of a wonderful thing, I shouldn't think that I'm going to be left alone for that. There's going to be a grace sufficient for every good deed, as it says in 2 Corinthians 9:8. God gives us a grace for every good deed.

So future grace is God's power, provision, mercy, and wisdom—everything we need—in order to do what he wants us to do five minutes, five weeks, five months, five years, and five thousand years from now.

---

© Desiring God

A Psalm of Refuge

A psalm of refuge

Christ You are my refuge. I find comfort and solace in Your presence. Though I may be exhausted, my spirit is alive with joy at the thought of You. My energy melts away as candle wax, yet your strength sustains me. My heart grows weary in laboring love, yet Your grace fills me. Rest seems to hide from me, yet Your very essence exudes relaxation. Much in me longs for escape but You are my escape. You are for me a strong tower. As the song of a bird is soothing to the ear so are your words to my heart. They give life to the dead places of my soul. They provide strength to my tired and aching muscles. You Oh Christ are my life. In you I long to dwell. Christ you are my refuge.

Do we find joy in the attributes of Christ?

I am amazed at how little time I have given to thinking on the character of God. If Jesus is to be my ultimate joy, (psalm 73:25, Psalm 16:11) then it seems that perhaps I should know that which is to bring me joy. Apart from knowing Him I can have no affection for Him. Henry Scougal writes of this in his book, The Life of God in the Soul of Man.
"Let me further suggest some particular subjects of meditation for producing the several branches of it (the divine life). And first, to inflame our souls with the love of God, let us consider the excellency of His nature, and His loving kindness toward is. It is little we know of the divine perfections; and yet that little may suffice to fill our souls with admiration and love. to captivate our affections, as well as to raise our wonder: for we are not merely creatures of sense, that we should be incapable of any other affection but that which entereth by the eyes."
"Shall we doat over the scattered pieces of a rude and imperfect picture, and never be affected with the original beauty? This were an unaccountable stupidity and blindness. Whatever we find lovely in a friend or in a saint, ought not to engross, but to elevate our affection: we should conclude with ourselves, that if there be so much sweetness in a drop, there must be infinitely more in the fountain; if there be so much splendor in a ray, what must the sun be in its glory!"
What higher task could there be than to dwell on the glory of God and in so doing elevate our joy to heights unknown. What love can this be that by doing all he does for His glory is most loving because it brings about our highest joy.