'SHIP 003

'SHIP  003

Obedience is our duty.  We have both a commission to fulfill and an obligation to grow.

Are you?  Obedience?

It takes work - hard work.

It takes sacrifice - tough sacrifice.

It take your commitment - which of course is meaningless without the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Peter tells us that we have been given everything we need for life and godliness.  Now that's not some certificate or diploma.  It's the means we have everything needed to begin and continue in the fulfillment of our obligtion and the fulfilling of our commission.

So, how're we doing?  Are we "lukewarm" like our brothers and sisters in Laodicia?  

Revelation 3:15-22 ESV
"'I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! [16] So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. [17] For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. [18] I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. [19] Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. [20] Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. [21] The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. [22] He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.'"

What's "lukewarmness?"

For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 

Ouch!  Also, note verse 20!  Contrary to how we have heard this verse used, Jesus is talking to the Church (collectively and individually).  Hellooooo!  Anybody home?

How can Christ be "outside" the Church knocking on the door to come in?  I have no idea but obviously it's possible.

No look closely at verse 20b.  "If anyone," "in to him," "eat with him," "grant him."

Him (and of course Her as well - duhh) - singular.  That means we do not wait on everybody else!  We don't need to!  Indeed, we can not afford to!

You are a sheep - part of a flock -BUT whether the flock follows the Shepherd (or not), you can, you must.  What does "following" the shepherd look like?  Simple, trusting obedience to the one trusted.

But, when sheep get fat they tend to get sassy.  They're full, they have no sense of danger so they just do their own thing.  They don't sense the NEED anything.

Oh, wait, could this be something?  Do we tend to forget our need?  Not our need for food, for material provision but our NEED for Him.  Let me ask two questions.  First, "When was the last time you were convicted of sin?"  Second, "When was the last time you sinned?"  Any disconnect there?   Any loss of sensitivity?  Any (and oh this is scary) absense of sensitivity?

Uhhhhhhh --- 1 John 1:8-10 ESV
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. [9] If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. [10] If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

Oh, we'll cop to sins - when they're in our faces.  But do we live insensitive to them?  Do we minimize, ignore, prevaricate?  Are we able to dodge conviction?  Are we shown our sin and then comparing it to what we call BIGGIES do we just walk past it?  The eating of a piece of fruit threw the whole of creation into the corruption and devastation of sin.  So how serious is any sin?

Do you hate sin as sin or do you just hate the consequences?  

Consider:
"...the choicest believers, who are assuredly freed from the condemning power of sin, ought yet to make it their business all their days to mortify the indwelling power of sin...Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you. Your being dead with Christ virtually, your being quickened with him, will not excuse you from this work."                                From Mortification of Sin, by John Owen.

Disobedience is sin.  Right" Or have I missed something?

Finger Thinking 122612

Luke 9:23 ESV
And he said to all, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

"AND follow me"

Consecutive?  Concurrent?

How do we read this admonition?  Is it steps?  One big "happening?"

Can we "follow" Him without His call?  Without self-denial?  Without daily taking up our cross?

His call makes me His.  "It is finished."  But even though His work is finished for me it is not finished in me.  The denial and the taking up are both part and parcel of the journey - the following of Him.

At least in my experience they are.

Everyday I find that I forget that I am His and not my own.  Perhaps I do that because I know that such a surrender may result in a loss of comfort and ease in my life here.  Perhaps I am afraid of that loss to too great a degree.  Perhaps I am yet too attached to me and my material ease and comfort.  Well - we both know there is no "perhaps" in it.  There is little question of my attachment and my struggle with it.

A poor man can be proud and possessive of his poverty.  He can cling to and depend upon what little he has and hoard it jealously.  He can clasp it in an iron hand refusing to let God remove it so that it might be replaced.  He indeed has a "death grip" upon what little he has.

The rich man may cling to all he has just a passionately as the poor man clings to his little.

But for most of us there is a middle place.  We will "give up" just so much before we begin to balk and sulk.  I know I do.  I find that I cling to too much even if it's just a little.  That "little" is mine and as long as it is, I think I am OK.  Of course, that in itself shows me that I have a long way to go.

Remember the poster of the kitten clinging to the limb?  Remember the caption, "Just hang in there?"  Well, that's where I find myself all too often.  I'm clinging to the dubious security I have (the limb) and refusing so let it go so that I might trust Him.  My "hanging in there" smacks too much of "hanging on to."

Now, on the other end of that stick is a "letting go" that's just as bad.  It's a self-motivated letting go - a proud and resentful - "Well, just take it all then!"  It's an angry and proud surrender (??) to God that really is no surrender at all.  It is more of a throwing whatever I do have back into God's face.  It isn't a pretty or a useful thing.

Paul wrote:
1 Timothy 6:6-8 ESV
Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, [7] for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. [8] But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.

So, there is no gain and perhaps even loss in godliness without contentment?  Mmmm, Ouch!  There certainly can be no true value in contentment without godiliness.

Ahhh but then there is vers 8.  Food and clothing = content.  Am I willing?  I can say that, but will I accept that?  Or, do I have a few other "buts," I'd like to throw in?  Oh how I wish I didn't!!!!  But, I know I do - even if I'm being very effective at not seeing them right now.

Here's my quandry.  What, if anything (stuff, aspirations, feelings, associations, $), does God want me to give up?  It is clear from the Gospels that following Him carried with it the very real potential of giving up stuff - but what do "I" need to give up?

Then, is it actually "stuff" He wants me to give up or is it an attitude, thought process, false belief, sinful fear---------?  I think of Job and I shiver.  Job has got me beat hands down!  Yet in his loss he struggles with everything but trusting God.  It's almost viscseral to read, "Even if He kills me, I will trust in Him."

Maybe the struggle is between having everything we want and being dead.  I feel like a petulant child fussing over surrendering toys I haven't played with in ages - "Well just take it all - all of it - I don't want any of it.  Why don't you just kill me?"

Wow - are you as suprised at the depth of my shallowness as I am?  And you know what's even more disturbing?  So far I haven't "lost" anything.  Oh, we can see potential even probable loss looming ahead of us but so far - we really haven't "lost" anything we've noticed.

Ok - maybe that's not true.  We have lost (or at least are losing - letting go of) trusting in others, even trusting in ourselves instead of Him.  We have faced the fact that "chariots" are not the answer.  We've lost that, "I'm counting on you," attitude towards others and ourselves.  We've discovered that "faith" belongs only in Him - not in friends, associates - not even those with whom and for whom we've sacrifced and worked and prayed.  "Chariots," can't work when the other option is Him.  And making aliances with "Egypt" won't work ethier.

We, like so many of you, are waiting - or at least struggling to wait - upon Him to do what we should depend upon Him alone to do.  We are getting to know the feeling David must have felt when those about him mocked asking, "Where's your God?"

Do you feel like the only answer to that mocking is, "I don't know."  Or perhaps an overly cocky, "He is there."  Or do you just pray no one asks you that quesiton?

Times are tough and I believe that especially for believers it will get tougher.  Yes, I mean that in a material way but it will also be a tough time for our faith and our faithfulness.

Not naked and not starving.  If that's what He has for me will I be faithful in it?  Right now, all I can say is that I want to be - I hope to be - but I will not do it by my own ability or power.  So, like many many of you, I sit and pray and wait, fighting myself to trust only in Him.

John Flavel and me Keeping the heart. 001

Duties Included in Keeping the Heart
Flavel, John (2010-08-03). Keeping the Heart. Kindle Edition.

"Frequent observation of the frame of the heart.  The heart can never be kept until its case be examined and understood."

Proust wrote, “No man is a mystery, except to himself.”

How many times have you thought, “I can’t believe I did/said that!”  Well, there ya go.  We need to examine our hearts regularly.  But we need help to do it well.  We talk of being able to do all things through Christ who is our strength.  Well, here’s one of the “all things” we avoid. 

Means:  Make a list.
What makes you laugh?  What makes you cry?  What hurts you and provokes anger?  What brings you satisfaction?  What brings you security?  What do you ache for?  What do you fear?
Which of those things are in line with your profession – or not?
Why?

It includes deep humiliation for heart evils and disorders.

OK, “humiliation” is a tough word – but it is also a good intervention word.  Flavel is talking about what you may have just discovered in the above exercise.  These “evils” and “disorders” have to be robbed of their power in your heart and the best way for that to happen is to lay them out before God.

Consider the sacrifice Christ made for those things.  Consider how He did so to enable you to humiliate them – to see and acknowledge their shameful presence in your heart.  BUT – do so ONLY if you are firmly aware of the fact of God’s grace in your life.

This isn’t about beating yourself up.  It is about beating the bugs out of the rug – the evil and disorder out of your heart.  Denial is so easy and so seeing becomes hard.  Denial is so easy and so dealing with evils and disorders is so messy.  The longer the evil and disorder remains denied the longer it works against your growth, stability and comfort.

I knew a man who after a year of literally living on OTC indigestion medicine finally went to the doctor.  To his horror, he had stomach cancer and it was too late to really do anything curative about it.  So it is with the evils and disorders that live in our hearts – though we are alive “in” Christ these things make our hearts dead to Him.  They are like the veil in the Temple were it to be repaired.  We cannot fully know the comfort and security of being His because of these things.
Means:  From the list take the evils and disorders you find to the throne of grace. 

Confess them and confess their hurtfulness to your spiritual health. 

Ask God to help you to begin to remove (humiliate) them. 

Ask Him where to start. 
Perhaps even keep a list in your wallet or purse so that when you pray you can always have a reminder of your deep heart need.

It includes earnest supplication and instant prayer for purifying and rectifying grace when sin has defiled and disordered the heart.  “Whatever thou deny me: give me a heart to fear thee, to love and delight in thee.”

This is praying “for.”  Above we took the load to Him.  Here we ask for what we need, “purifying and rectifying grace.”

Means:  Good old regular and strong, “on your knees” prayer.
Make use of David’s prayers such as we find in Psalm 23 and following.

Make use of the recorded prayers of others as can be found in the book, Puritan Prayers.

Thou hast struck a heavy blow at my pride, at the false god of self, and I lie in pieces before Thee. But Thou hast given me another master and lord, Thy Son, Jesus, and now my heart is turned towards holiness, my life speeds as an arrow from a bow towards complete obedience to Thee. Help me in all my doings to put down sin day. Grant me grace to bear Thy will without repining, and delight to be not only chiselled, squared, or fashioned, but separated from the old rock where I have been embedded so long, and lifted from the quarry to the upper air, where I may be built in Christ for ever.  Anonymous (2010-07-01). Puritan Prayers (Kindle Locations 105-110).  . Kindle Edition.

Write out your prayers.

It includes the imposing of strong engagements upon ourselves to walk more carefully with God, and avoid the occasions whereby the heart may be induced to sin.

This is head work.  How do you avoid those things which encourage, sustain or implant evils and disorders in your mind?  It is not only a matter of what you decide to forego or abstain from, but a matter of what you will take up, engage in and practice.
What will you choose to replace that which you find to your detriment?  How will you fill the minutes, the hours?  What will serve you to your benefit and growth in godliness?

These are not “laws,” but choices.  These do not determine “if” you are His but rather “how” you are His and how you give His Spirit the means and opportunity to heal, restore and strengthen you.  It can be as simple as not watching a TV show to as complex of breaking off an relationship.
Where upon your path do you stumble?  What is it that you stumble over?  Who is it that is a stumbling block to you?  These are the things concerning which you need to make strong resolutions – choices.

Though God can use these things, He cannot bless them.  Their use is limited to His conviction of your heart.  The blessing comes from taking the medicine He prescribes.  Though the medicine taste bitter, even nasty, we know it is all and only for our good and His glory.

Means:  Make a list, pray about where to begin and then begin.  Do so being as gentle and gracious with yourself as is He.
Who
What
When
Where
Choices have two ends: the choice to “not,” and the choice "to.”  As we choose to not we must choose to do.  In that list, make a column of what will replace that which you have marked for elimination.  Prayer, study, fellowship with other believers, worship – all these are good and godly replacements.
Our modern age supplies us with countless opportunities for choosing good things (as it does for evil).  I know that when all else fails I listen to sermons by Alistair Begg or read books written by one of the Puritans.  These choices may not be for you, they are but two options.

It includes a constant and holy jealousy over our own hearts.  He that will keep his heart must eat and drink with fear, rejoice with fear, and pass the whole time of his sojourning here in fear. All this is little enough to keep the heart from sin.

This is a choice as well.  You must choose to save your heart for God and godly things and resent that which works against it. 

You who are fathers – would you have less concern for your heart as you would for the safety and purity of your children – your daughter?  You mothers, would you feed your newborn from a dirty bottle?  Young people, would you allow harm and evil to come to your dearest friends?  So, as you would wish yourself to be in regards to these who are so dear to you – be so to your own heart.

Pray to live knowing that it is not only your heart, but it is His as well.  Think of the price He has paid so you might walk after Him in security and confidence.  Would you cheat on one who was so dedicated to you, who had given so much for you?  Consider those times when someone you considered close shunned or betrayed you – what was that pain like?

Or think of something in which or of which you place great meaning.  Would you allow someone to damage or destroy it?  Are you cautious about who uses it – perhaps even who sees it?  What greater meaning can any “thing” have than the redemption of your heart and His promise of His provision?
It is not sin to be selfish with your heart which He has redeemed.  It is sin to allow it to be used and abused, tarnished or torn by sin and the agents of sin.  We may give our hearts to others through Him but for no other reason than His service.

Means:  Who or what would draw your heart from you – from Him?  They have no such right, no such authority.
Keep your heart from their influence and certainly from their grasp.
It includes the realizing of God’s presence with us, and setting the Lord always before us.
This well could have been the first on the list for it is certainly the most important.  The old quip that “character is what a man is when no one is watching,” is not off the mark.
God is always watching – and He knows our suffering and difficulties.  He knows our grief.  He knows our needs.  He knows our weakness.
He wants His highest good for our lives here as well as in heaven. 
It is hard to really understand, but true that God is our truest friend.  He will never forsake or abandon us.  He is always at work for our betterment in His grace and glory.
He is the one who can not only search our hearts, but heal them and strengthen them as well

Urged by my need, invited by Thy promises, called by Thy Spirit, I enter Thy presence, worshipping Thee with godly fear, awed by Thy majesty, greatness, glory, but encouraged by Thy love.  Anonymous (2010-07-01). Puritan Prayers (Kindle Locations 121-122).  . Kindle Edition.

Bless me by revealing to me more of His saving merits, by causing Thy goodness to pass before me, by speaking peace to my contrite heart; strengthen me to give Thee no rest untiI Christ shall reign supreme within me in every thought, word, and deed, in a faith that purifies the heart, overcomes the world, works by love, fastens me to Thee, and ever clings to the cross.  Anonymous (2010-07-01). Puritan Prayers (Kindle Locations 125-128).  . Kindle Edition.

This and That Kind of a weird good news 101612

There still remains some wildness in the thoughts and fancies of the best Christians, to humble them; but if you find a concern before to prevent them, and opposition against them when they come, and grief and sorrow afterward, you find enough to clear you from the charge of reigning hypocrisy.  John Flavel

For all the bad press the Puritans get it's amazing how it's refuted when we actually read their works.  But they we a practical and realistic people who knew that living here for Him is a moment by moment fight.  They also knew that sometimes we get whipped.

They knew that the great victory was sure but they also knew some battles would go to the other side.  Their works are full of comforts like those above.  Read and consider the following:

If any upright soul should hence infer, 'I am a hypocrite too, for many times my heart departs from God in duty; do what I can, yet I cannot hold it close with God!' I answer, the very objection carries in it its own solution. You say, 'Do what I can, yet I cannot keep my heart with God.' Soul, if you do what you can, you have the blessing of an upright, though God sees good to exercise you under the affliction of a discomposed heart.  John Flavel

Though I hate to use the term, this middle ground or no-mans-land where the fighting is tooth and tallon is where we tend to be condeming when we ought not.  From the above quote we can see that the Puritans understood the nature and measure of the battle we fight and they considered fighting them evidence of our uprightness in Him.

Who else but a believer would be concerned with potential hypocricy?  Who else but a believer would have any conerns God-ward?  Who else but a believer would concern themselves with living out the faith?

We need to see our struggles as comforts and encouragements - as evidences that we are of the faith.  To be able to see and to be broken by the fact that we are not good enough to apporach the throne is to celebrate and acknowledge His grace and love.  Dead men and women do not so worry and distress themselves.  They can't, they are dead.  They may pretend to life, somehow being animated in a religious fashion but they are dead pretenders, hypocrites.

You, however, who have great and grave concern for the honor and glory of God in your lives, should, even in the midst of your weeping, rejoice that God has so softened and enlivened your heart that you may be broken.  Oh that all men and women would be so tender hearted - so sensitive to sin.  A hypocrite never fears hypocricy for it is their normal condition.  You, however, find even the hint of hypocricy in your life to be a matter of crying out to God and drawing closer, tending to your duties with greater diligence and calling our for His provision in a loud and weeping voice.  

You also are blessed in recognizing the weakness of your strength and your need for Him.  You do all you can and it is not enough.  But dear brother and sister it would never be enough - it could never be enough.  This fact is as critical to the Gospel as any other.  Indeed it is the very furrow in which the seed of the Gospel is planted and grows.  How blessed are we who know our need for Him in all things especially in living for Him.

It fascinates me though that so many books are written about material, physical and even emotional struggles as being indicative of the state of our walks and yet so few books are written about the state of our hearts.  Is not the heart the very core of the matter?  Does not our Lord tell us that it is out of the heart evil comes?  And yet we see so few works addressing the heart.

You are at great loss materially and you question if you are His?  You are ill and wonder about His love?  You are living with some psychological or psychiatric conition and you doubt your usefulness to Him?

The problem is not your money or your helth our your mental condition.  the problem is your heart.  Poor, terminally ill or crazy as a loon, you are His, He loves you forever and is using you to His glory and honor.  You may not see it, you certainly may not feel it but I don't see the air and I don't feel the air and yet air is.  I'll be bold - He can not NOT love you and us you.  He paid too great a price to redeem you to let you sit on the bench.

Everyone of the struggles that make you cry out and reach out to Him is, at least in part, His calling you closer to Himself.  He will do it in His own way according to our need but it is done out of love.

Small tract on Keeping the Heart

Greetings, I have written a small tract based upon a section of John Flavel's book, Keeping the Heart.  It's a little long to post here so I've posted it at the tc2v1 website -
http://www.tc2v1.com/page4.php
Praying it is a blessing!
Michael

Peter's Pen 1 Peter 1:1

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,   (1Pe 1:1)

OK, think about this.  Peter, under the power of the Holy Spirit, wrote this to you and me.  So, in some way his address to them back then must apply to us now (and tomorrow).

We, believers, are “those who are elect exiles of the dispersion.”  Peter uses a phraseology more familiar to Jewish folks than to Gentile so his original audience was probably a mixture of Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus.  Two words are important for us (ok - not just two but I’m focused on two).

Elect and Exiles

What’s up with this “elect” thing?  Well, take a look at this –

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.   (Eph 1:3-6)

Now how that works, I’m not sure.  Can I “explain” it?  Probably not well.  But Paul writes it as fact – not fantasy or fiction, not metaphor or hyperbole, a fact.

So instead of worrying about “how,” what if we just accept it as the truth?  No bells, no whistles, just a truth.

“Us” of course refers to believers and Paul writes that believers were chosen before the foundation of the world.

OK – a little thought on “time.”  With God there is no before or after.  With God there is no yesterday, today or tomorrow.  “Time” is a part of His creation intended to aid us – not Him.  We see time progressively.  God isn’t limited to that – as He says, He Is.  So when Paul refers to, “the foundation of the world,” it is to help us understand God’s sovereignty as well as the assurance we have in Him.

If being “in Him” was dependent upon me – I’d be in real trouble.

Yes, this idea of “the elect,” is a tough one to chew on.  Thousands of books, sermons, lessons, etc. have been produced addressing it, and appropriately so.  But even though I’ve heard them and read them (just some), I still come back to, “God said that through Paul to me.”  What a blessed assurance!

We can struggle in this verse by asking, “Why me?” or “Why not xxxx?”  Well, I may have assurance of my faith but it isn’t for me to have assurance of someone else’s.  Not that the spiritual condition of another is of no consequence but rather that leads me to questions in which I can get lost.  When, in the last chapter of John’s gospel, Peter asks Jesus about John's future, Jesus basically tells Peter that John is not his (Peter’s) concern rather Peter has a calling he is to fulfill as John has his.

“Why” is not a question for which we always find an answer and that can really obsess us.  The danger there is that we become so focused on the whys we get unfocused on our calling and growth. 

A couple of good works to address this issue are:

Chosen By God by R.C. Sproul

Election and Free Will: God's Gracious Choice and Our Responsibility by Robert A. Peterson

Next we will explore the idea of “exiles.”