Psa 27:13 I would have lost heart unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
Can I go a wee bit further brothers and sisters. I would have died unless I had seen the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I have seen His goodness. I have laid down in that goodness the way a child lays down in the arms of his mother. He has been so good to me. I am not hoping in some goodness in some future time, I am alive because of the goodness of God. He was good to me in the depths of the fire. When everything around me was falling to pieces, when I was hard pressed on every side, He was good to me. When I was lying wounded on the battle field of life, His goodness came charging in on a white Horse and picked me up. When I could see no way ahead and despair began rising like mighty floodwaters all around me, His goodness lifted me up to higher ground.
The Lord is my strength and my shield and my heart rejoices in Him. ‘When my mother and my father forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me.” Many saints have been rejected by their loved ones for a myriad of reasons and the Lord is with them through it all. His goodness and mercy follow us all the days of our lives. In the great dark dungeons of our lives, Gods goodness light up the way out. When we are faced with challenges that we simply cannot face, His goodness brings strength to our inner man. “In the time of my trouble, He shall hide me in His pavilion.” Oh brothers and sisters, I know this pavilion, I have hidden there many many times. In the secret place of His tabernacle He hid me and set me high upon a rock.
The greatest desire of my life has been to dwell in the house of the Lord. His pavilion, His tabernacle. I want to dwell there all the days of my life to behold the beauty and the holiness of my God. Yes indeed, I would have died if I had not seen these places, not hidden in these places, not run into that High Tower. The Lord is my light and my salvation and my goodness and He is the strength of my life. My own strength has failed me so many times, and I am glad, for in my weakness, I experienced the goodness of God. In my weaknesses I boast. I can do no other. And in that boast the power of Christ rests upon me. For surely, when I am weak, He is strong in me. When I am dying, His goodness is displayed in me. When I come to the end of myself the Lord Jesus is there for all the world to see. Lord Jesus, be glorified in your servants
Isa 12:3 Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.
William Cowper, in his famous hymn “God moves in a mysterious way,” writes “Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.” Even when God is angry with His people, His plan is moving forward. We can trust Him in all things. His ways are higher than our ways, He sees it all, we see a snapshot. And in that snapshot we often only see the dire circumstances that surround us, but of course there is an unfolding plan that will not change. “His purposes will ripen fast,unfolding every hour.The bud may have a bitter taste,but sweet will be the flow’r.” There is a bitter taste in the world today brothers and sisters, no doubt, but the sweet smelling aroma of His presence is with us still, in the hearts of His saints. No matter how bitter the hour, how pleasant is our Lord and God who holds us and sustains us in the midst of it all.
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.(Rom 5:1-2) We rejoice in the hope and the glory of God. God is our salvation, God alone is our strength. His strength and power and and glory are without beginning and they have no end. They are inexhaustible. Therefore, brothers and sisters, because of this great truth we shall draw near to Him with great Joy and draw waters from these inexhaustible wells, the glorious wells of our salvation. As the land is ravaged by drought, we who are found in Him shall never thirst as we draw near to Him. “Deep in unfathomable mines of never failing skill He treasures up His bright designs and works His sov’reign will. Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take; the clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy and shall break In blessings on your head.” Thank you for the rain Lord, thank you for your refreshing waters that water the very depths of our souls.
Every now and then, in a glorious symphony of realization, my heart is overwhelmed by the music of my Saviour’s love for me. I am swept up in its majesty! It carries me with the substantial fullness of a raging river and yet with the gentle sound of a thousand doves wings flapping in the wind. I am undone by it all. Every doubt and all the rocks of my flesh are removed and suddenly the river is in full unabated flow and all I want is to be taken. Time loses its meaning as I am swept towards the vastness of my Jesus. An ocean so vast that I am swallowed whole. Everything returns to its simplicity. All the barriers are broken down and I glimpse and am engulfed, once again, by the glory of it all.
The reason that we do not have more repentance is that we repent for what we do instead of what we are. Remember, repentance for what you do goes down deep, but repentance for what you are goes deeper ( Tozer) The presence of God, the manifest presence of God is a two-edged sword. In the incalculable light of God our Father, that reflects from the face of Christ our Lord, we see first ourselves and then we see God. We understand just how far removed from the perfection of our creator we are in the light of His glory and grace. We understand all the more the nature of our humanity and it stays with us. David’s eyes were opened by the prophet of God and he is horrified. He understands the depths and the nature of his crimes, yet his heart cry before God is the realization of where those crimes originated from. He knows well, in the light of God, that God requires truth in the inward parts, where the sin originates.
This is why Tozer is saying that repentance for what you are goes deeper than repentance for what you did. Both are required, one is seldom sought. The Catholic goes to confession ever week and confesses the same sin over and over again yet the heart remains the same. Many evangelicals do the same, just in a different format and typically alone. The real work in the heart of a man and a woman lies in the depths of their hearts. Only by coming into the presence of God, before the throne, a way made for us by Jesus Himself, can we ever truly be changed to the depths of our hearts. David acknowledges his transgressions and then says that his sin (singular, meaning the sin nature) is ever before him. If we would diminish the power of the sin nature, we would use the gift of reconciliation, given to us by Jesus and come before the throne in true and deep repentance. We can never leave that place unchanged. He waits for you.
2Co 4:9 Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;
It’s sometimes hard to sleep when our thoughts have been taken captive by anything other than Jesus. Paul said that he was troubled on ever side but not distressed. Perplexed but not despairing. Persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed. He had “learned,” to be content in every situation. No magic wand, but trust. He had walked through enough fires to have learned there was another in there he could see. He had been through enough waters to know the One who was holding back the sea. Taking our thoughts captive by lifting our eyes to Jesus. Anxiety is swept away and we are flooded with a peace that surpasses all understanding.
There can be no doubt that faith is forged in the fire and the tempering of our spirits happens when we are plunged into the waters. When the wind and the waves have done their work, and only that which was anchored remains, then we begin to see the saint come forth. Come forth from the fire, come forth from the storm, come forth from the grave clothes. Jesus stands and beckons us to “come forth.” When nothing should survive then we come forth and thrive by the power and the will and the good pleasure of the righteous hand of God. If you are in the fire today, do not cry out to God to quench the flames, rather pray that God Himself will sustain you in their midst. If the storm threatens to engulf you, do not pray to be rescued from it but rather to be sustained in its depths. If there is a mountain that stands in your way, do not pray for its removal but rather pray for the strength to scale its heights. In this way the mountain is removed and God is glorified and the saint lies down and sleeps in peace.
As I was walking and praying today, the Holy Spirit dropped this phrase into my spirit, “Debilitating Doldrums.” Now, that word “doldrums,” is an old sailors term for a geographical spot slightly north and slightly south of the equator in the Atlantic sea between Brazil and Africa. It is a corridor, if you like, that in days of old, if sailors found themselves there, they could be stranded for weeks because there is no wind there. The effects of the Doldrums are caused by solar radiation from the sun, as sunlight beams down directly on the area around the equator. This heating causes the air to warm and rise straight up rather than blow horizontally. The result is little or no wind, sometimes for weeks on end. Many sailors ran out of food and water and died there.
How does this relate to the saints? Oftentimes yesterdays failures causes in us a period of reflection and regret and remorse. None of that is wrong in and of itself and in fact is a vital part of who we are as God’s children. Yet, if we get stuck there, if this inner reflection goes beyond a point that is healthy, it takes the wind out of our sails. We shall find ourselves in the doldrums. The wind of the Spirit does not blow. Our spiritual resources begin to dry up. We become morose. The only solution for the sailors of old and for those of us who find ourselves there, is for the wind to blow. We must pray that the wind will blow again as we take our eyes of ourselves and look to skies.
If the wind begins to blow, no matter how small the breeze, remember this. You have to raise the sails to catch the wind. That is our part. An unhealthy inner refection with our eyes upon ourselves brought us into this place, and raising the sails once the wind blows will take us out. Remember the four Rs. 1.Reflection 2.Regret. 3.Remorse.4. Repentance. All of these make up the corridor of the doldrums. They all come because of the direct gaze of God upon our lives and our actions. And when they have found their proper place then the winds of forgiveness begin to blow. We have to accept that we are forgiven by God then we have to forgive ourselves. We must let His forgiveness carry us from that place so that we can continue the journey. Do not die in the doldrums, rather catch the wind and live.
There is the presence of God to be found in glorious worship, the kind of worship that lifts your spirit. It can lift up the head and invigorate the heart and fill you full of joy and you leave strengthened. This is good worship. Yet there is another kind of presence of God in worship, the kind of presence that there seems to be a famine of throughout the land. The first kind of presence we spoke of lifts your heart, the second kind of presence invades every part of who you are. It falls from heaven like a heavy dew, heads are lowered and hands are raised. All becomes quiet. One barely breathes as the Spirit of God slowly descends down through our heads into our hearts and down to the very soles of our feet, and the ground upon which we stand becomes Holy ground.
The first kind of presence uplifts us, the second changes us fundamentally. As living waters pour into us then it rises up like a great river that is so full that it overflows its banks. The banks themselves begin to crumble and fall into this river of pure life as it swells up and floods every part of who we are. The landscape is being changed by this flood, the very topography of our lives is being flattened by its power and everything that is not securely rooted to its foundations is simply swept away. Changed forever. And when the flood recedes we are left with a glorious afterglow. As the deer pants for the waterbrooks, I wonder, do our hearts pant after this kind of encounter.
The Lord Himself does not need professional worship teams. He does not need people to encourage us to stand up, jump up and down and raise our hands. In the Welsh revival two young women singing either acapella or simply backed by a piano typically sang “Here is love, vast as the ocean.” And there was love, in the very midst of them, vast as the ocean, flooding the hearts and minds of all who attended. Brothers and sisters, in all our modernity, what have we lost? In the program of churches and the professional class of worship leaders and pastors we have lost the simplicity of it all. And in the losing of it we now have to entertain the people. Spirit led worship is exactly that, it is Spirit led.
In work we have a routine. In life we have a routine. Prisoners in prison have a routine. Oftentimes we are slaves to the routine, it is what gets us through life. Yet, there is nothing routine about the Holy Spirit of the Living God. He is dynamic and you can never know what way the wind will blow next. Have we sold our souls for a routine? Routine in the home, routine at work, routine at church. Routine people do not change the world. Routine people do not do wage war on the battle-fields of life. The Spirit of God is dynamic and those filled with His “dynamis,” change the environment around them because the environment inside them has been filled to capacity and is overflowing its banks. Lord fill us again to overflowing with the kind of presence that invades every part of who we are.
When all the leaves have faded
And fallen to the ground
I pray the trees still standing
Right there on Holy ground.
When everything is stripped away
And we stand before the throne
And we have no earthly covering
but the Blood of Christ alone
We'll see what only God can see
And where it had begun
On the wretched bloody battle-field
Of Calvary there, was won.
The Blood He shed for you and me
It covers everything
And though we stand there naked
There stands our Christ the King
And there we'll know as we are known
White garments dressed before the throne
There'll never be another fall
For the Blood of Christ it covers all.
Psa 119:2 Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with their whole heart.
This is the beginning of Psalm 119 and is a continuing themes throughout. Seeking the Lord with our whole hearts. With our whole hearts. It is the key to an abundant life in Christ. Can I suggest that to seek the Lord with anything other than our whole hearts is an exercise in futility. If we do anything in this world half heartedly we know we shall not succeed. Secular folks know this all too well. How is it that we could ever imagine that we could seek the Lord with anything less than all that we have?
In verse 32 the psalmist says that “I will run the course of Your commandments for you shall enlarge my heart.” This is a beautiful way of saying that I will run after my Lord, I will run after His ways, I will be diligent and delight myself in His ways. When I do this, then my very heart in enlarged. My capacity to love the Lord and the world will increase. My ability to forgive and to show mercy will be full to overflowing in this heart of mine that is now significantly deeper. Running after the Lord with everything that we have is like excavating the depths of our hearts. Into that excavated heart flows the river of life from the throne of God.
In verse 111 the psalmist tells us ” Your testimonies I have taken as a heritage forever, I have inclined my heart to perform your statutes, forever, to the very end.” Oh, the magnificence of a fully committed heart that is resolved to believe and to follow the Word of God and the promises of God until the very end. There is a huge difference between being on a boat in a shallow river than being on a ship in the deepest ocean. In the deepest ocean one senses and can feel the power of its depths. It is moved by the wind and heaves forward in massive powerful waves. This too is the power that resides within the heart of the saint who has sought and found the Lord with His whole heart. Come away from the shallow rivers saint, and come into the depth of the deepest of all oceans, the Fathers heart.
Psalm 71:14-15 But I will hope continually, And will praise You yet more and more. My mouth shall tell of Your righteousness, and Your salvation all the day, for I do not know their limits.
You can see the undulations of Davids heart as he goes back and forth. He makes much mention of his enemies and the things that ail him. It takes up a considerable amount of his thinking. His mind vacillates between complaints about his enemies and the glory of God. Yet in verse 14 we see the turn. The mind and the heart that was fixed between these two points is now firmly fixed upon God alone. And in this we find our own proper response to our trials and tribulations and infirmities. Let us not give the enemy nor the situation any ground. Let us hope in Him continually. That is a declaration. “I will praise you, (despite my circumstances) yet more and more,” that’s another declaration.
And now that the mind is focused on God, here we hear the results. “My mouth shall tell of your righteousness, and Your salvation all the day, for I do not know their limits.” All day long, night and day David’s heart and mind is now firmly fixed on God. And as his eyes settle upon the glory his wonder increases dramatically. He begins to see that there is no end to the righteousness of God. He is captivated by it. He is equally captivated by the salvation of His God, he realizes it has no beginning nor does it have an end. Glory to God. He then is encouraged in his own heart “I will go on in the strength of the Lord God.’ You see what happens when our focus is totally upon God? We see His strength, we see His power, it begins to grip every part of us.
And out of that flows praise. It’s now not because of his enemies that he does not want God to forsake him, he now does not want God to forsake him until “I declare your strength to this generation and Your power to everyone who is to come.” Glory to God. He says “Your righteousness Oh God is very high, You who have done great things Oh God,who is like You.” When we, in the midst of our storm, cast our eyes upon Jesus, forgetting what surrounds us, He elevates us above the tumult. He does this in our hearts and our minds and in our souls. We are not praying for deliverance, we are praying for the strength to continue to praise Him.
And just like Paul and Silas in the dungeon, who were not praying for deliverance rather they were singing the praises of their God, then down will come the power of God in our lives to the astonishment and marvel of all who see it. Glory to God, let us praise Him this day. This is our deliverance. This is our open door to heaven. This is how we see the glory of God and join in with that heavenly throng. “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God almighty.”
Psa 60:2 Thou hast made the earth to tremble; thou hast broken it
In every situation in our lives, we are somewhere between victory and defeat. All of us have known both. All of us would do well to remember victory while in the midst of defeat. and defeat while in the midst of victory. This is the balance of the saints, knowing and understanding that the Lord is God over every part of our lives. Might I suggest that Christendom is broken and the earth trembles under the darkness of the end of the ages. Yet even now we must cry out that God would heal the barren land of Christendom so that this dark world may have as much light as it can as the end of the ages comes quickly.
Let us praise God that He always gives us a banner of truth over those who fear Him. In the battle-field of life, the remnant saints of God shine out. And not only to a dark world but to a lost people who call themselves after the name of Jesus. Truth flies high over the battle-field for all to see. Who will run to its banner? Who will cry out to God when their heart is overwhelmed? The banner shall lead them to the Rock that is higher than all of us. This banner shall be a shelter and a strong tower in the last days of gross darkness. We shall abide in the tabernacle of Truth. We shall take a hold of the heritage of those who fear the living God. For remember saints the help of man is useless. Rich men and poor men alike are like vapors.
Trust in God at all times. Let your soul wait silently upon Him in the heat of the day. Cry out to God in the heart of the battle. He alone is your Rock and your salvation. He alone is your defense and those who abide in it shall not be moved. He alone is your salvation and your glory. Even from the ends of the earth when you cry out to Him, He will attend to your prayer. Learn to remember the days of your defeat in the days of your victory, and never forget the days of your victory when in the midst of defeat. For the one unchangeable God rules over them all and is at work in them.
Psa 27:4 One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek ; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple.
This is the answer to life and to our walk right here in this verse from the 27th Psalm. One thing I have desired. One thing brothers and sisters. This is what my life will be. That I would seek the Lord and that I would dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. Its not that I would “get,” to heaven. It has nothing to do with getting anything in that sense, it is all about dwelling. Oh to God that men would seek to dwell rather than seek to get. Get into heaven, get out of hell. Sordid self seeking its own. It is the Lord I shall seek.
I will seek Him to behold His beauty. I will seek Him early in the morning and in the noon day. I will seek Him in the evening and before I retire to bed. I will seek Him as I lay my head upon my pillow. He is my all in all. When we have this singular mind then, and only then, in the time of trouble shall He hide me in His pavilion, in the secret place of His tabernacle. He shall set me high upon a rock.
As I dwell in the house of the Lord, all the days of my life, then I know of His grace. I know of His mercy. I have been delivered by His righteous right hand. He has hid me from my enemies. Even when all have forsaken me, even as it suggests in the Psalm, forsaken by father and mother, then the Lord has been a Father to me. These things I have known in my walk with the Lord. I would have lost my heart if I had not seen the goodness of the Lord in the here and the now. My Father is not watching from some far away distant heaven. My Savior did not simply come and then leave. They are here, right here, right now by the power of the Holy Spirit. What is your one desire? If it is the Lord then you will have an open door to heaven which no man can shut.
The great high point of my life, was my death. When I was born again I stood like Peter , James and John on the mount of transfiguration. And just like them, I mistakenly thought it was time to build something. Little did I know that quite the opposite would be true. It was time to dismantle everything. Or to say it more accurately, for everything to be dismantled. And this would take place in the depths of the valley floor, not on the top of a mountain. Chambers writes “Before sanctification we know nothing, we are simply put in the place of knowing, that is, we are led up to the cross. In sanctification, we are led through the cross.”
Can you say that you life is one of being “led through the cross?” Has it been a process of being crushed and broken in the darkness of the valley floor? Have you spent much of your life trying to scramble up unattainable mountains? Supernatural joy and likeness to our Lord comes not in the building of structures in high and beautiful places. It comes in the midst of surrender to the dismantling process in the depths of the valley of the shadow of death. And the purpose for it all is to transform us into useful servants of the most High God. We too often think of the cross as a place of deliverance, rather than a place of transformation. The transformation is indeed the fruit of our deliverance.
The cross is not the beginning of the life of Jesus, it is the culmination of it. Our transformation begins the moment that we take up our cross. Being brought to the cross is one thing, being nailed to it is quite another. Staying there is one thing when you have no power, staying there when you have the power to come down is quite another. Between the two positions lies a great gulf, on one side is life and on the other side is death. To live in Christ we must die. The mountaintop will come in good time, when He lifts us from the valley floor and takes us home. In the meantime, our business is the business of dying, its the business of the cross. Our calling is to die daily.
How long will you hide your face from me? Have you ever asked this question of the Lord? If not, might I suggest you have not experienced the hottest parts of the furnace as of yet. In the middle of a prolonged trial we can often have the same thought as king David did.. David’s trials were not fleeting or even seasonal, but often lasted for years. David has taken refuge and shelter in caves and embraced the darkness of having found a reprieve from his trials. We can do the same. We can run into dark caves and shut our minds away from the troubles that we find ourselves in. That dark cave can look like many differnt things. It could be mindless television. It might even be alcohol or pills. Distractions of any sort can form the basis of a cave. And yet, just like David, the cave that promised safety and a place of refuge, always turns into a place of bondage.
David, in the midst of this, cries out “Consider and hear me oh Lord my God, enlighten my eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death.” This sleep, this cave, this place that we can find ourselves in, in the midst of troubles and trials, can very easily turn into the “sleep of death.” And the first step to awaken us from this place is to cry out to God with everything that is in us. To fall down on our faces and rend our hearts and seek His face. To remember the faithfulness of our Lord and how He has always delivered us and how He alone is trustworthy. His mercy prevails in the midst of trials. As we remind ourselves of these things we begin to rejoice in the God of our salvation. Sing to the Lord brothers and sisters, sing today of His goodness and His mercy. Sing praises unto our God. Awaken the dawn with your shouts as you step out of the darkness, into His marvelous light.
Eze 47:3 And when the man that had the line in his hand went forth eastward, he measured a thousand cubits, and he brought me through the waters; the waters were to the ankles.
There is a river that flows from heaven itself. It flows through our hearts and beckons us to come deeper. This river is spoken of in many places in Scriptures. It is the presence of God and it brings us deeper into the heart of the Almighty. There are trees on either side of this river and their roots are directly connected to the river and they are perpetually green, evergreen trees for the healing of the people and the nations. The river itself brings healing everywhere it goes. To be walking in the Spirit is to be swimming in the river of life.
As we see in Ezekiel 47, the Lord brings us to through the waters. Always the Lord, compelling His children to come deeper into Him. Not ankle deep, not knee deep or even waist deep but fully immersed in a river so vast that it cannot be crossed, it can only be swum in. We must give ourselves to the river, let go and give way to the current of the Holy Spirit. Whether you are ankle deep, knee deep or even waist deep, you are still standing on your own two feet. In many respects you are still in charge. Yet to give ourselves completely to the river then we are no longer standing.
When we are fully given to our Lord. When we are yielded to the depths and the power of this vast river, the power of the Holy Spirit, only then can we truly be led. All resistance is gone in its depths. It is carrying you towards the sea, the vastness of God Himself. Ever closer, ever deeper into the Father’s heart. And the Lord says to to you “come, I will bring you through the waters into the deep.” “Seek me with your whole heart and I shall be found and you shall be rewarded for your diligence, I am your exceeding great reward.”
My wife and I know something of the pain of losing. Our first child lived only for two days. In the end it was God’s unfailing healing love that brought us through. He gives, and He takes away, blessed be the Lord as Job would say. None of that negated the pain nor stopped the tears, but it did restore my broken heart. He wipes away the tears and catches them in a bottle as a memorial. And my pain ebbed like the slow receding tide as the world continues to turn. I have a firm assurance that when this tide rises again one day, and takes me up into my eternal home, there I will see the child of my youth. The why’s of it all are really just a faint echo of the world as I lay down wrapped in the arms of the one who ever weaves this tapestry of life.
In the end I had “two” funerals for my son, Stephen. The first was on an overcast rain soaked day in Scotland, which perfectly matched my darkened closed down unsaved heart. The second would come fifteen years later, many years after being saved. It came from nowhere and broke over me like a violent thunderstorm. Thunder and lightening and a torrential rain of tears. Healing, never saw it coming. God was working His way into every chamber of my heart, and everywhere the waters of life flowed, there was healing, and there was healing for me. These are the mysteries of life and a God who works in mysterious ways whose thoughts and ways are so much higher than ours. As you ponder your own loss in this world, it is very likely that no answers will ever come as to the why. When we learn to put aside the why and live this life rather than die, then once again we shall surely fly.
Great loss is a clipping of our wings. Here is the definition of wing clipping …..”Wing clipping is the process of trimming a bird’s primary wing feathers or remiges so that it is not fully flight-capable, until it moults, sheds the cut feathers and grows new ones.” I have had my primary wings clipped many times over the years as I am sure that you have dear reader. The moulting and the shedding of cut feathers and the growing of new ones takes time and comes with its own unique pains. And then one day………we fly. We live again, fully restored. A process full of mystery and undoubtedly unique to every single person.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts (Isa 55:8-9)
The context of these well known verses comes in the verses prior. It is an appeal to the wicked to repent and He will “abundantly pardon.” Imagine that, God calls you to repentance with a promise of an abundant pardon. It is hard for us to imagine that in our earthly minds. If someone consistently sinned against us, over weeks and months and years, decades even, it can be almost impossible to think that we could so forgive them as to never even give all the previous crimes against us a second thought. To have the slate so wiped clean as to be brand new. This is miraculous. We could, in and of ourselves, never do this.
Yet, out thoughts are not His thoughts. His ways are so much higher than our ways. In our own power it would be beyond our ability to grasp. You might as well throw punches at the moon. Yet we do not stand by our own power. Those who know Jesus stand by the power of God, by His Spirit. Now, if the Lord our God offers such an abundant pardon to the wicked what does He offer to His children? “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” An abundant pardon leads to an abundant life. You may think that you have blown it with God but His thoughts are higher than your thoughts saint. If you have been hiding behind the tree with some fig leaves, it’s time to emerge from there and to stand before God.
The rain that falls from heaven falls also upon your head. And the snow that falls from heaven and waters the earth waters you too oh child of God. It causes the buds to bloom and the seed to come forth and gives bread to the hungry and water to the thirsty. This is the Word of God and it does not return to Him void. It speaks life to you and prospers your soul. You shall go forth from here with joy and His peace shall lead you as the mountains and the hills break forth in praise and worship and the trees of the field shall clap their hands in wonder at His ways. A word to one of His children today.
The Spirit of God is always the Spirit of liberty; the spirit that is not of God is the spirit of bondage, the spirit of oppression and depression. The Spirit of God convicts vividly and tenesly, but He is always the Spirit of liberty. God who made the birds never made birdcages; it is people who make birdcages, and after a while become cramped and can do nothing but chirp and stand on one leg. When we get out into God’s great free life, we discover that that is the way God means us to live “the glorious liberty of the children of God.” (Oswald Chambers)
There are two main types of garden in this world. There is the garden designed by man. Wonderful and regulated in its design, measured distances between flowers, well thought out patters that please the eye. And then there is the seed that has committed itself to the Wind of the Spirit which carries it and deposits it where it will, and there it springs up and flourishes in the garden of our God. The wide open fields of God’s great free life. The so called wildflowers that grows in open meadows or drainage ditches. or in the side-streets of slums or in valley floors or mountain ranges. Who knows where the wind of the Spirit shall deposit them. God knows.
So, shall you commit the seed of your life to the wind of the Spirit? Shall you surrender yourself to be taken wherever you shall be taken? Or shall you commit yourself to the hand of man? To the designs of men? To the relative safety found in regulation? One of those choices involves great risk but also results in great freedom. The other guarantees certainty and the price is conformity. Imagine a bird, designed to fly in open skies, trapped in a birdcage. What a tragedy. Guaranteed food and shelter but the cost is no flight in open skies. Maybe the one who constrains you lets you out of your cage every now and then and you fly straight to the window. There is something in you longing to be free as you gaze at open fields or eternal skies. It’s Gods calling. Are you free today or are you being called to freedom today?
2Pe 1:2 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,
Grace and peace, multiplied to us adds up to an abundant life in Christ. Multiplied by many factors. In the very next verse we see that we have everything that we need to to live this abundant life, it is through the knowledge of God. The word is Epignosis, to acknowledge God in all of your ways. When we acknowledge God in everything, recognize Him in every part of our lives and seek Him first and His righteousness then we shall live in Godliness, Godliness meaning a continual awareness of Him which leads to holiness.
The enemy of our soul knows well that if saints begin to walk in Godliness then this is a tremendous threat to his kingdom here on earth. So, he must distract us. That is one part of the struggle. Life itself is the the other and may even be the greatest distraction of all. How many plates do you have spinning in your life saint? All of them demand your attention. All of them are a distraction away from this Godliness that walks hand in hand with a multiplied peace.
Our marriages, our children, our parents, our careers, even our walk with the Lord can be tyrannical distractions and we run to and fro, exhausting ourselves trying to keep these things altogether. And in the end many of the plates fall and break despite our valiant efforts. They have to be surrendered and vanquished. We cannot hold onto them and walk in the abundant life of grace and peace if we do not surrender all these things into the hands of God. We must commit our very lives, our soul, into His hands and that includes everything that occupies our hearts and minds and souls.
Whosoever finds in the contemplation of God’s love, rest and peace and joy only, should carefully scrutinize his feelings lest they be excited by an erroneous view of the Eternal Majesty ; representing Him as being actuated by a mere tender affection melting into compassion. Stretching forth His hand only at an impulse of pity, that guilty men may cease to fear, and take to themselves rest ; as if His eyes looked not upon their guiltiness. The Eternal is not a being of mere emotion, but of unchangeable and untainted righteousness, and there is a law which all the universe knows “the pure in heart alone can see God,” -and the eye must behold Him, glorious in holiness, to measure in any way the depths of His love (William Carey 1827)
That my friends is totally profound. It is worth reading a few times over. What our brother is saying is that only the eye that has beheld His glory, the glory of His holiness, can rightly speak to the depths of His love. For within the depths of His love lies grace and majesty and glory and justice. Isaiah glimpses the majesty of God and falls down upon his face as one who is dead and cries out “woe is me…..I am undone.” Yet, of course, he also sees the glory of God who is high and lifted up and the train of His robe, His majesty and His glory, fills the temple. The fire of this encounter, both terrifying and glorious, changes Isaiah forever. He now has the fire of God’s glory in his bones.
Behold the goodness and the severity of God. The heads and the tails of the one coin. Focus on one part of God to the detriment of the other and you do God, yourself and humanity a disservice. The man that only “knows” God’s wrath knows not God at all, he has a mere head knowledge. The man who only knows God’s love, knows not God at all, he has mere “tender affections,’ which will not save him or anyone else. God’s love is a consuming fire. It has the power to save and the power to consume. The eye that has beheld the Lord our God can plumb the depths of His love. God is not the God of the vain imaginations of tender men and woman given over to emotions. Neither is He the wrathful vengeful God of the religious zealot. He is good and He is severe. He pardons and He rightly judges. Has the eye of your spirit beheld His glory?
A Call To The Remnant 