Strength for the New Year

       The years pass quickly so I'm writing this especially for my old friends and for my young friends who realize that living the Christian life brings an awareness of our absolute dependence upon the Lord for life, breath, strength, and all good graces from Him. Even our trials teach us that: “. . . But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.” 2 Cor. 1:8-9 NIV

     How wonderful it is to rely on Him and see His faithfulness of old. He's always there and He's always there with strength. The very word com -passion means “with strength.” We go from strength to strength in the Lord. And we're blessed as God supplies His strength to us: ^“Blessed are those whose strength is in you. . . . They go from strength to strength.” Psalm 84:5-7

       And supply it He does—with a promise: ^“Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.” Psalm 27:14

       Of course the Psalm for the New Year is Psalm 90, “A prayer of Moses, the man of God,” written 3500 years ago and blessing the lives of countless millions. “O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.” Psalm 90:14 He did bring me to Himself “early”—at the age of 6 in 1940—and I have rejoiced and am glad in Him all my days. There has been a LOT of sorrow, but we are “sorrowful and yet always rejoicing.” 2 Cor. 6:10

       That Psalm speaks of strength, too: ^“The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” 90:10 Reminds me of Moses' blessing of Israel, “as thy days, so shall thy strength be.” Deut. 33:25 because “The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. . . .” Deut. 33:27

        We desperately need physical strength, especially as we enter our 80^th year and God does supply it—day by day, but we need spiritual strength even more. “Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.” 2 Cor. 4:16 It is God who is at work in us and it is God who energizes and motivates us and gives us strength so that we can “rejoice and be glad all our days.” I watched Minnie's strength slip away from her, little by little as the pancreatic cancer destroyed her body. She was almost totally helpless at the end, but her spirit was not diminished! What an example she gave for me and Jeannine and all of us who were with her from time to time. Her testimony every day was the same, “This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24

“Day by day and with each passing moment,

strength I find to meet my trials here.

Trusting in my Father's wise bestowment,

I've no cause for worry or for fear.

He whose heart is kind beyond all measure gives unto

each day what He deems best—lovingly,

its part of pain and pleasure, mingling toil with peace and rest.”

     So our prayer for the New Year is Psalm 19:14 ^“Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.“

The Man Born Blind

The Man Born Blind

John Chapter 9

In the story of the man born blind Jesus gives us one of the major reasons why you and I and all of us in this fallen world have so many afflictions, tribulations, and suffering. He doesn’t answer all the questions. He didn’t intend to. But with this passage and many more in scripture the answer begins to form and take shape. God in His grace has revealed in the pages of scripture many reasons for the suffering that is so much a part of human history and life.

We pick up the story after Jesus has been teaching in the Temple complex during the Feast of Tabernacles and walked away from the hostile Jewish leaders who actually picked up stones and tried to kill Him. But God would not permit them to harm Him because “His hour was not yet come.” It was not yet God’s time for Him to die. So Jesus simply walked through their midst and left the Temple grounds. That account is in John chapter 8. John 9 begins this way: “And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man who was blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, ‘Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”

          The disciples understood from the Old Testament why there exists sickness and suffering and pain and death in the world. It is because of the Fall and the Curse which followed as a result when God pronounced His judgment on the world in Genesis 3. Adam and Eve disobeyed God and chose to do that one thing that God had prohibited: they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and immediately died spiritually and brought into existence physical death. “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” Romans 5:12 “The wages of sin is death. . . .” Rom. 6:23

We all share in the suffering brought on by sin and God’s judgment. The Fall of Man and the curse of God on the world was basic truth that the disciples well knew, but they were confused on the application of the truth that we are fallen creatures in a fallen world. Sin and sorrow, pain and death come as a result of sin in the world, and if a person is sick or infirm, he/she is sharing in the fallenness of this world.

In the situation before us the disciples wanted to know, “Who sinned, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus’ answer is dramatic and sweeping and greatly reassuring to us: “Jesus answered, ‘Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.’” John 9:3

Jesus is obviously NOT saying that they were sinless (for that would contradict scripture such as “All have sinned” “There is none righteous, no, not one,” etc.) His point is very clear: this man’s blindness was NOT the direct result of his own sin or that of his parents. He was born blind; he hadn’t done anything good or bad before he was born while he was in his mother’s womb.

But what was the reason for his blindness, then? Jesus gave us the answer!

“that the works of God might be displayed in him.” That answer gives all of us a very important reason why God sends affliction and suffering our way. To be sure, we must all share in the suffering of this fallen world, but God is doing much more in your affliction. “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” 2 Cor. 4:17 And in the NIV: “for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” So God is doing something, producing something through our sufferings. Elsewhere in scripture we are told many of the things He is doing. Just one example: He is making us more like Christ as we share in His sufferings and He strengthens and comforts us in our sufferings.

And what was the means–and this is very important!–that God used to bring the man to Jesus? A terrible affliction–he was blind from birth. How many times do you suppose he told others, “Once I was blind but now I see” –and realized what happened to him spiritually as well as being given his physical sight. (Which was unheard of since the creation of the world!) That man surely was thankful that he was born blind because that was the way God gave him his spiritual sight and salvation in Christ and eternal life.

The means God uses to bring countless people to Christ is affliction and problems and troubles so that they will realize their inadequacy and lostness. Then when they hear the gospel, they can repent of their sins and turn to Christ with their empty hands of faith and Christ will receive them.

And once the Lord succeeds in bringing a person to Himself–usually through “much tribulation” and reaping the results of their folly, then the lost sinner falls on his face before a holy God and repents and cries out to Him, “God, be merciful to me a sinner and save me for Jesus’ sake.” When that happens, then God has begun His good work in you. So we are back to the work of God being manifest in us.

"Thou God seest me"

"Thou God seest me"

           Sarah and Abraham wanted to help God out of a dilemma (or what appeared to them to be a dilemma). God had promised to give Abraham a son and make him the father of a great nation that would be as the sand of the sea and the stars in the sky. But they had a problem: Sarah was past child-bearing age. In fact she was at least 65 years of age. Abraham "believed the Lord; and he counted it to him as righteousness." Genesis 15:6 ESV

          But as time passed and Sarah did not conceive a son, she conceived a scheme, a simple one: surrogate motherhood. She gave her Egyptian maid Hagar to her husband as a sort of second-class wife and Hagar became pregnant by Abraham. This was not God’s plan and it was not God’s guiding. This son was Ishmael, the founder of the Arab nation, a son of the flesh rather than a child of the promise as explained later in the book of Galatians.

       Lesson #1: don’t think God is dependent on you or your creative schemes to fulfill His many promises given to you in scripture. You need Him; He doesn’t need you to help Him out. He created the universe by the word of His power; and He can lead you in His providence just as easily. In His grace God has chosen to use you in His service and work through you to minister to others but be sure you are following His Word, His way, and His Holy Spirit and not your own creative ingenuity or clever ideas. Don’t try to manipulate God or other people, just obey Him and be faithful to Him.

      Follow the story in Genesis chapter 16. After Hagar became pregnant by Abraham and Sarah couldn’t, Hagar became proud and arrogant and treated her mistress with disdain. This, of course, angered Sarah who began treating Hagar harshly so much so that Hagar fled from her. She ran away into the desert towards Egypt, her homeland. And scripture tells us, "The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness." 16:7

    So lesson #2: even when you mess up, God will come looking for you. And when God looks for you, He always finds you. Surely you didn’t forget that God is omnipresent, did you? You and I and all of us live in the presence of God–always. We can’t escape from His presence even if we wanted to (which I hope you don’t!)

     The angel of the Lord found Hagar and asked her why she was there. Not that he didn’t know, but he wanted her to admit her situation. Which she did. She said, "I am fleeing from my mistress Sarah." 16:8

      Then the angel of the Lord gave her a promise and a command. The promise was that her son Ishmael would become the father of a great nation also. And the command was simple: change your attitude. Go back and submit to the authority of your mistress. With the clear implication that she should submit willingly and gracefully.

       And Hagar obeyed. She had seen God and God had spoken to her–in human language. The words are recorded in Genesis 16. And Hagar "called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, ‘You are a God of seeing.’" And she understood the implications of that because she also said, "Truly here I have seen Him who looks after me." 16:13 ESV

      So lesson #3: God sees us and seeing us, He takes care of us. Is this not a wonderful truth for us to live by! He has promised to guide us and He does. "He makes me to lie down in green pastures: he leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul: he leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake." Psalm 23:2-3

     "He looks after me." He takes care of us as the shepherd takes care of His sheep. And His sheep we are. The fact that God sees us just as the angel of the Lord saw and followed Hagar to the spring of water in the desert, means that we are never alone and we are never without help and refuge and strength because God supplies all of that for us. In Him we live and move and have our being. But He is not just watching us, He is guiding us, He is talking to us through His word and directly to our hearts by the Holy Spirit. "The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God." Romans 8:16 ESV

       Lesson #4: the name God gave to Hagar’s son: "Ishmael" which means "God hears." Hagar’s mistreatment by Sarah had not gone unnoticed or uncared for by God. "The Lord has listened to your affliction" are the words of the angel to Hagar in v. 11. God listened and responded. He does the same for you and for me and for all of His children. Trust the Providence of God. He is looking after you. He is the God who hears and listens and the God who sees and does something about it. He may ask you to do something as difficult as He told Hagar–return and submit to the authority in your life. Trust Him. He knows what is best. He is your shepherd and your exceeding great reward, as well as your Savior and the strength of your life.

                                                                          –Pastor Burnside

How did your day dawn?

                                              How did your day dawn?
        Many years ago when we were living in Puebla, Mexico for a semester, a lady there often would ask me the first thing in the morning, "¿Cómo amaneció?" meaning, "How did your day dawn?" I was just learning Spanish and seldom knew what to say so I would just tell her, "Bien, bien." meaning "Well, well–or ‘fine.’" And of course that is always accurate for a Christian, "All is well. All is well." 
     
        But I’m thinking this morning, "What are your very first thoughts in the morning?" Is it a day you are anticipating because of something you’re planning to do? Or perhaps dreading because you don’t want to take that examination or do some unpleasant chore or talk to someone about some responsibility that is not being met? Is the weather bad and you have to go somewhere? A lot of good thoughts are possible as you rejoice in the fact that you know the Lord and so do others in the family. Do you have food and clothing and shelter for today? Are you thankful for those gifts?

        What if you have terminal cancer or some other dread disease? [And we’re ALL "terminal cases" if you stop to think about it! . . . .]You’ve been asleep and all of that is out of your mind. And then when you wake up, the remembrance suddenly hits you again, "This cancer is literally killing me and I’m dying" and the consciousness of the pain and the somber reality floods back into your mind. How do you handle that??

         In my research for the book I’m writing I came across a letter from one person dying of cancer to a friend whom she was trying to comfort and help him live his last days with peace from the Lord and rejoicing in Him despite what was happening to his body. For those of you who know them, my wife Minnie wrote an e-mail to Billy Bennett on October 23, 2008. We didn’t know it at the time but Billy had less than two months left to live here on this earth (though he continues to live, of course, with the Lord in heaven.) But how was he going to make those last few weeks?

        Minnie told him. He must live it day by day, one day at a time, constantly looking to the Lord and rejoicing in Him. Here is how she concluded her letter, "My Daily verse is ‘This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.’ I try to live that way, not worrying about the future, but enjoying Him and the ones he has put in my life each day. This is my prayer for your sweet family. Love, Minnie"

         ". . . enjoying Him and the ones he has put in my life each day." People were more important to her than the outward circumstances. Jesus often told His disciples to love one another and to serve one another, doing even mundane things when necessary, including washing one another’s feet. And I can tell you as my testimony that being my wife’s care giver for three years was almost the greatest task God ever gave me in my life. And He poured His love into our hearts just as He promised, "God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us." Romans 5:5 Minnie said several times in her last few months, "I love him more now than even when we first got married." She wrote to our granddaughter Julie on September 25, 2008, "Tomorrow will be our 53rd anniversary. How wonderful to grow old with the love of your youth--and I love him more today than then. It just gets better and better." And we both knew where that love came from. God gave it to us and we were thankful for it.

         But don’t miss the first part of her statement, "enjoying Him . . . each day." It was in fellowship with the Lord that she found her strength. She went "from strength to strength in the Lord" "Wait on the Lord and He shall strengthen your heart." "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint." Isaiah 40:31

          Take your focus off what's causing you anxiety and worry and put your focus on the One who will either 1) bring a solution or 2) give you the grace to endure and go through the trial. As your day dawns with the Lord, so He goes with you through each valley, and in the end you know His promise, "Lo, I am with you always. . . even unto the end of the world." Mt. 28:20
                                                                   –Pastor Burnside

Parable of an Azalea Bush

Parable of an Azalea Bush

         We've all been amazed at the devastation wrought by the wind in Alabama and elsewhere in the South.  This followed soon after the earthquakes and tsunami in Japan and the earthquake and aftershocks in Christchurch, New Zealand.  Destruction came so suddenly. 

    
         How do you prepare for the disasters of life in this fallen world?  In one sense you can't really "prepare" for them in the sense that you can take preparations like sandbagging a flooding river because you don't know what is going to hit you nor when.  But in another sense God prepares us for the traumas of life by building our strength little by little as He causes us to go through hardships and difficulties.  And He teaches us that He is in sovereign control not only of the weather but of every detail in life so that not a sparrow falls without the Father.  And thus we learn to rely on Him and not on ourselves or on other people.  We're thankful that God in His providence uses many human means to help us but when they fail, we know God is still there and still in control of everything.

        I saw an example of that principle a couple of weeks ago when I planted an azalea bush the day the winds started.  And they kept getting harder and more fierce and more persistent for many days.  And I looked out at the azalea bush, wondering how those flowers kept clinging  to the bush.  And I noticed how the wind bent the branches and behind the azalea bush the slender young maple tree bowed in front of the wind.

        And what was happening to that tree and that bush while they were being pushed and pushed by the wind? Well, below the ground, their root structure was developing  and in the formative months those roots grow stronger when they are subjected to strong winds because they have to hold tighter to the place where they're planted.  Look at the rugged hardy trees on a windswept coastal plane.  They bend in the wind but they hold their place.  So we, too, must have strength and stability as we endure the storms of life.  And we get that strength  from the Lord.  We go "from strength to strength" as we learn to depend on Him and cling to Him.  "Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them.  Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools.  They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God." Psalm 84:5-7

        Yesterday Timothy sent me an article by Charles Spurgeon that says much the same thing though he wrote it 150 years ago.  Read it and be strengthened for the storms of life.

Thinking of  Jeremiah 17:17 "Thou art my hope in the day of evil," Spurgeon wrote,

       "The path of the Christian is not always bright with sunshine; he has his seasons of darkness and of storm. True, it is written in God's Word, "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace;" and it is a great truth, that religion is calculated to give a man happiness below as well as bliss above; but experience tells us that if the course of the just be "As the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day," yet sometimes that light is eclipsed. At certain periods clouds cover the believer's sun, and he walks in darkness and sees no light. There are many who have rejoiced in the presence of God for a season; they have basked in the sunshine in the earlier stages of their Christian career; they have walked along the "green pastures" by the side of the "still waters," but suddenly they find the glorious sky is clouded; instead of the Land of Goshen they have to tread the sandy desert; in the place of sweet waters, they find troubled streams, bitter to their taste, and they say, "Surely, if I were a child of God, this would not happen." Oh! say not so, thou who art walking in darkness. The best of God's saints must drink the wormwood; the dearest of His children must bear the cross. No Christian has enjoyed perpetual prosperity; no believer can always keep his harp from the willows. Perhaps the Lord allotted you at first a smooth and unclouded path, because you were weak and timid. He tempered the wind to the shorn lamb, but now that you are stronger in the spiritual life, you must enter upon the riper and rougher experience of God's full-grown children. We need winds and tempests to exercise our faith, to tear off the rotten bough of self-dependence, and to root us more firmly in Christ. The day of evil reveals to us the value of our glorious hope." (emphasis added)        
                                                                       --Charles Spurgeon, 1834-1892

                                                                                                                                                           

       

"In all their affliction he was afflicted"

         If you’ve ever watched someone you love suffer, you know what pain it is in your own heart. Especially when God gives you particularly deep love for the person suffering--your child or grandchild or for your husband or wife. We call this "vicarious suffering" and it is very real and brings "inward pain." But did you ever stop to think that He who created human emotions also has emotions and feels sorrow and grief and compassion for His children. "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust." 

          Tucked away in a brief paragraph towards the end of the book of Isaiah is an amazing statement about how God suffers with His people.   Here’s that verse in Isaiah 63:9 "In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them: in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bare them, and carried them all the days of old." We don’t go through these afflictions alone and God is not just a "disinterested observer." He shares in our sufferings and we are to share in His. Isn’t that what the apostle called "the fellowship of His sufferings"? 

 2 Cor. 1:3 He brings comfort to our souls in the midst of sorrow with a peace that passes understanding. "Surely, He has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows." Isaiah 53:4 That’s why we can "Cast [our] burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee." Psalm 55:22

        The context is God’s compassion and mercy to His people: "I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the Lord, and the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which he hath bestowed on them according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his lovingkindnesses. For He said, ‘Surely they are my people, children that will not lie: so he was their Saviour.’ In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old."

        "The angel of His presence" that "saved them" stood between the advancing Egyptian army and the children of Israel to protect His people and to prevent the army from attacking them. The story is in Exodus 14:19-20 "And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them. And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the night."

        The marvelous truth for us to hold in our hearts always is that God bears our burdens and carries our sorrows and feels the grief and sorrow that we feel. He participates in our lives with us and He is able to enable us by His grace to go through the trials He sends our way. He is there and He is not unfeeling. He is "the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort." 

         That same God of compassion became "one of us", born of the Virgin Mary. He experienced the privations of life: hunger and thirst, tiredness and rejection by those He came to save. Physical violence against Him. Surely He understands experientially as well as omnisciently what it means to suffer! "For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." Hebrews 4:15-16                                                                                                    –Pastor Burnside