January 13, 2013

The Wonder and Mystery of our God-directed Lives

        Today is the 3^rd Anniversary of Minnie's Homegoing to be with the Lord. She is with Him now and “in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” Psalm 16:11; 17:15

         Minnie never lost her sense of wonder at the goodness of God and the intriguing fascination of God's works in Creation. She herself was one of God's glorious works. She lived life with a sense of expectancy and joy. And at the end [though it was not the End, but the Beginning] she told Jeannine and me, “I feel that God has given me so much happiness in life! One of her favorite verses that she shared with me often was Ephesians 3:20 “He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. . . .”

         One of the books she delighted in was Ravi Zacharias, Recapture the Wonder—which Minnie never lost! She was always so delighted in babies and little children and their enthusiasm, which she shared. She loved to do things for them and with them. And she laughed a lot as she took pleasure in life. She told one of our granddaughters that even with cancer she tried to take pleasure in the good of that day and enjoy the company of whoever was with her that day.

          Ravi points out that to maintain our sense of wonder we need a thankful spirit guided by truth. And that truth is personal; it is personified in Jesus Himself who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. One of the marvelous names given to Jesus 700 years before He was born was “Wonder” ! It comes from that marvelous Christmas passage in Isaiah 9:6

^“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”

        All those names mean so much. This child who was to be born for us, sent from God Himself, is Wonder.” In Hebrew the word is a noun instead of an adjective, adding even additional strength to the meaning. Isaiah uses the same Hebrew word used to describe the marvelous wonders that God did in bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt. Implied is not only marvel but mystery. It is a personal relationship with the God of Wonder Himself that gives meaning, excitement, and joy to our lives. He is the “Emmanuel,” God Himself with us in the person of Jesus, the Sent One, the Messiah from God the Father.

       “Great God of wonders! All thy ways are worthy of thyself—divine.

And the bright glories of thy grace Among thine other wonders shine.

Who is a pard'ning God like thee? Or who has grace so rich and free?”

         It is in communion with God that we find that sense of wonder, rejoicing in the works of God and always aware of the mystery of knowing Him, “whom to know aright is life eternal.” “Enchantment in life can never be realized in some thing; it must ultimately culminate in a person.” “Just as gratitude requires someone to whom we can be grateful, truth requires someone because of whom truth is possible. In both instances personhood is indispensable to wonder.” p. 104 Ravi Zacharias

       An essential part of wonder is to understand and experience love. And that happens in our relationship with Jesus. Love is “the quiet confidence of belonging to someone other than oneself; a commitment to a cause greater than oneself; a relationship that makes choices apart from the self; it is the root of unending sacrifice. When that love is found, wonder is sustained even in moments of great fear. But the how and why of such a love is a challenge.”

         ^“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the [atoning sacrifice] for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” 1 John 4:10-11

                                                                         --Bill Burnside

The Lord Reigns

         “The Lord reigns, he is clothed with majesty; the Lord is clothed with strength, wherewith he has girded himself: the world also is established, that it cannot be moved.” Psalm 93:1

           It is reassuring to know that as the world orbits in space, it will stay on course and not collide with some other great planet!  Or get too far from the sun that we freeze to death or too close and burn with heat.    “Upholding all things by the word of His power,” Heb. 1:3

through Christ all things “hold together.” Col. 1:17 He created all things in the first place and now He governs and sustains them by His sovereign will. God not only will reign in the future when “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” but He reigns everywhere right now.

          “The conviction that God reigns is the ultimate antidote to doubt and despair.” ESV Study Bible, p. 1056 Despite confusion, despair, and dismay in the general culture all around us, we have the assurance, ^“The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” Deut. 33:27

          We understand that there is a spiritual struggle going on in this world and we're part of it. But the Lord reigns and is bringing all things to the conclusion of history just as He has always done. “In the fullness of time” God sent His Son on that First Christmas morning and also “in the fullness of time” He will return just as He promised. Remember what the angels told the assembled apostles when Jesus ascended back to His throne in heaven, “This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven.” Acts 1:11

         In the meantime, “be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life.” Rev. 2:10 “The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all.”

Psalm 103:19

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.“

A festal gathering

        How sweet it is for joyful people to gather with their family and friends around a festive table! The preparations are exciting as the feast takes shape and family and friends gather together to a warm welcome among those who love them. We've all experienced those wonderful days at Thanksgiving and Christmas, celebrating God's goodness and bounty and grace and His Presence among us: God with You—Emmanuel. And if our dearest treasures have already gone Home ahead of us, we still have the memories and thankfulness to our Lord.

          We're ending the holiday season now that began with Thanksgiving and ushers in a new and as-yet unlived year ahead of us. Those festive days and weeks remind us of so much of God's pattern in scripture. Six feasts and one fast (Yom Kippur—Day of Atonement) were part of the Mosaic law to celebrate God's continual goodness to His people. At the feasts there was music and dancing and joyful, happy conversation and abundant food carefully prepared.

          When the exiles returned from Babylon to their home in the Promised Land, Ezra the Priest brought out the Book of the Law of God and read it aloud before the great assembly from early morning to midday. When the people realized how they had fallen short of obeying the Lord with all their hearts, they wept and repented and sought the Lord. But after awhile
“Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, . . . said to all the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law.   “Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Be quiet, for this day is holy; do not be grieved.” And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them.” Nehemiah 8:8-12 ESV

         The greatest feast of all still awaits us and surely anticipating the glory that is yet to come will fill our hearts with joy and keep us from being discouraged even in the midst of difficulties and pain. “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” Isaiah 25:6-9 ESV

         Not only so, but even before those days if the Lord takes us Home before He returns, we will immediately see Him in His glory and we will see our loved ones who have gone before us, and we will be participating in a joyful festive assembly. ^“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, [in joyful assembly NIV]. We will know joy and delight in a way we've never experienced before when we see Jesus in His glory.

Distressing news

           Have you had any “distressing news” lately?? Hardly a week ever goes by that we don’t get distressing news from one direction or another—personal, family, friends, church, national, international. Jesus warned of this, “In the world you shall have tribulation. . . .” I keep lingering around Psalm 18 and thinking about 18:6 “In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. . . .”

           Scripture knows a lot about distress. Here are a few examples:

Jacob told his family, “Let us arise and go up to Bethel, [“house of God”] so that I may make there an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.” Genesis 35:3 ESV

           Four times in Psalm 107 They “cried unto the Lord in their troubles” and God delivered them “out of their distresses.”

          The apostles spoke of a whole list of “distresses”! “afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger. . . .” 2 Cor. 6

How then should we live and what should be our attitude??

             ^“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.” 2 Cor. 4:7-11

         Our attitudes and actions speak for themselves: “by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left . . .as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.”

         “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? . . . Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. . . .” Romans 8:31-39 ESV

Whoops! we didn’t finish that verse we started with: “In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.” Psalm 18:6

Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. 107:13
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. 107:19 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. 107:28

“Father of the fatherless”

“Father of the fatherless”

          The other day we were talking about Psalm 10 and how God sometimes seems to “hide” Himself from our view so that the “eyes of our heart” don't sense His Presence as we usually do. He's “there” but we're not strongly aware of it. He's teaching us to walk by faith and not by feelings.

          That Psalm also has one of my wife's favorite verses, one that she told me about many times. You know that her father died when she was only 11 years old. That was in 1949 and he was 39 years old. Minnie's mother was 31 with 5 children and no insurance and no social security and only a rented house to live in.

        When Minnie, age 11, came home from work at the cafe at 10:00 at night, she would sit by her dad's bed and talk to him for awhile every night. They were very close and he had a strong influence on her life. He often told her that the hardest thing about his illness (cancer) was having to leave his wife alone with 5 children to raise and he couldn't be there to help and provide for them. You can well imagine what an intense pain inwardly this would be for a conscientious man such as he was.

           So he told little Minnie that he found great comfort in three verses in the Psalms that promised God's provision for the “fatherless.” One of those verses is Psalm 10:14, “thou art the helper of the fatherless.” And Psalm 68:5 ESV describes “the helper” actually as the Father of orphans and adds provision for the widows: “Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.” The third Psalm is 146:9 NIV “The Lord . . . sustains the fatherless and the widow.”

         Need I tell you that God, in fact, did those things? He provided and sustained and strengthened that little family. The young widow and all the children worked at whatever jobs they could find and God provided in a whole host of ways. Including the men of the town who, with their wives, had several money-raising projects and then with volunteer labor built that little family a simple house for them to live in and own. 

      They “gathered” and worked with and prepared what God had provided, but it was God who made the provision. As in Psalm 104 where God is providing for the animals and birds: ^“These all look to you, to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.” 104:27-28 ESV

       Psalm 10 starts with a lament, “Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” But it ends with a praise: “O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will listen carefully, doing justice for the fatherless and the oppressed.” 10:17 ESV & HCSB

The God Who Hides Himself

              One of the most gracious things God does is to reveal Himself to human beings. The heavens above reveal the glory of God and the sky above shows His creative power. ^“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” Romans 1:20 Everyone knows that God exists because of what He has created. That's called “General Revelation.” But God in His grace gave us details about His attributes, His character, and His purposes in life by means of words. God spoke words! Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Matthew 4:4

           How thankful we are that “the word of the Lord” came to [the prophets] in ancient times so that we have God's verbal revelation in scripture. And in the incarnation of Christ when God became Man, He spoke even more clearly. ^“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.” Heb. 1:1-2 How wonderful it is that we have the written revelation of God in narrative, in poetry and song, and in propositional truth. And especially we are thankful for the revelation of God in Christ who came not only to redeem and save us, but to show us what God is like. “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” John 1:18 ESV

             What is this, then, about God hiding Himself?? Well, that's what scripture says: “Truly, you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Savior.” Isaiah 45:15 ESV 3000 years ago the Psalmist had a similar lament, ^“Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” Psalm 10:1 ESV

             There's more to this question than appears immediately on the surface. One of the reasons God “hides” from man—but only one of several reasons—is His hiding when man “regards iniquity in his heart.” Then the Lord will not hear. ^“If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.” Psalm 66:18 (ESV) That's the picture given in Isaiah earlier in the book where God is hiding Himself because of man's sin and refuses to listen to him. God is speaking and tells His people, “ . . . When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.” Isa. 1:14-20 ESV

          There's more! God hides Himself from those who are not willing to listen, but He also hides the understanding of the truth from those who seek to come to God arrogantly and in pride and self-sufficiency. Jesus thanked God for that. He prayed, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.” Mt. 11:25 ESV God humbles the proud and gives grace to the humble.

            And later in His ministry, quoting the Old Testament, Jesus answered the critics, “Have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?” Matthew 21:16 ESV He was quoting, Psalm 8:2, “Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.”

          Scripture tells of a third type of the “hidden God” and that is in the mystery, either undisclosed or undisclosable answers to our questions and curiosity. Isaiah speaks of them, too, in 48:6 “From this time forth I announce to you new things, hidden things that you have not known.” The Apostle Paul spoke of ^“the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Col. 1:26-27

            Mystery in the New Testament means “that which, being outside the range of unassisted natural apprehension, can be made known only by Divine revelation, and is made known in a manner and at a time appointed by God, and to those only who are illumined by His Spirit.” Vines, p. 769 We are privileged to live “this side of the cross” and after the resurrection of Jesus so much more has been revealed than in Old Testament times. But there is still much that we don't know. We will never fully understand the infinite God, but we do have substantial knowledge that is growing and increasing by God's mercy and illumination. We thank Him for what is seen and trust Him for what is unseen.

           Jesus spoke to the disciples in parables and told them, “It is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.” Mt. 13:11

When Jesus asked Peter, “Who do you say that I am,” and Peter replied with such profound understanding, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” Jesus told him,

“Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” Mt. 16:15-17

            Some things are not given unto us to know. Jesus explicitly said those words to the disciples: “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.” Acts 1:7 Be thankful for what is not hidden from us. For example:

”We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers.” 1 Jn. 3:14 “We know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” 1 Jn. 3:2

^“And we know that all things work together for good to them who love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28

          “The hidden things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our children forever. . . .” Deut.29:29 HCSB    Thank Him for what is revealed and trust Him for what is hidden.