An extended quote

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.  Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

In my meditation and study of 1 John 3:1-3, I have read some pretty spectacular and thought provoking things. But what I read last night was so good, I just had to share. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones is my new favorite author – I have learned so much from my reading of his works. I am currently reading through his book, Life in Christ: Studies in 1John, which is a collection of sermons he gave on the book of 1 John. I highly commend this book to you! You will be richly blessed by your reading.

I wanted to share one extended passage from his sermon on 1 John 3:3. In this sermon, Lloyd-Jones makes clear how the truth of verses 1 and 2 naturally flow to verse 3. If we believe all that has been presented by John about our blessed hope, the natural, reasonable response will be to purify ourselves, because He Himself is pure.

But I will let him speak, because I cannot say it any better than he has:

[W]e can put the teaching like this: If I really believe what the second verse has told me, if I really know that I am a child of God, with all that this means, if I believe and know that I am destined for eternal glory in the presence of God the Father, if I really believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is going to return again, to be ‘manifested’ as John puts it, in this world as King of kings and Lord of lords, if I believe He is coming to judge the world and to destroy everything that is evil and vile out of the universe as a whole, if I believe that I am going to be with Him in glory, if furthermore I believe that I am going to see Him as He is, if I really believe that I am going to be like Him, that my very body shall be glorified and that I shall be faultless and blameless and spend eternity in His holy presence, if I really believe all that, says John, then of necessity, this must follow.

Amen.

Grace and peace…

Another topic switch…

Okay, back to my thoughts on “passionate pursuit”. I have been revisiting my meditation on 1 John 3:1-3, a passage the Lord has had on my heart for quite some time. I just finished reading D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ commentary about the first verse of chapter three, and a few thoughts come to mind.

 The first would be the distinction between calling us “children of God” versus “sons of God” in this passage. The term “son” refers more to a legal identity, whereas “child” carries a more familial, organic idea. He says, “We cannot be children of God if we are not like God; the child is like the parent, the offspring proclaims the parentage, and God in that way makes us His children. He puts His own nature into us, and we become His children, and that nature which is in God is in us, and it is acting and manifesting and expressing itself.”

 Our vision of salvation, I think, is too small.

 If our salvation means union with God through Christ, in which the very nature of God indwells us and changes us, we become something wholly different. The new creation that Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 5 takes on greater meaning if we truly consider the ramifications of this. What Lloyd-Jones states earlier in this chapter captures this much better than I can: “Let us never again think of the Christian as just someone who is trying to live a good life, trying to be a little better than somebody else, a person with a belief in doing certain things, going through certain forms and ceremonials and keeping certain regulations dictated by the church. Christians do all that, but before all that is this vital fact that they are children of God.”

In other words, what we do comes forth from who we are. Our moral character is not the central point; our union with God in Christ is. This is the basis for everything else – including our character, our behavior, our practices, our deeds. We are like Him because we are born of Him; this is why James advances the idea that faith without works is dead. It is not that my works save me; but my works will show forth to Whom I belong. If I am truly born of God, my life with reflect this new reality. Albeit not perfectly, but the demeanor, the disposition of my heart – and by extension and in increasing measure my actions – will display the reality of this union.

To the extent that this truth becomes reality in my heart and mind, my life will reflect it. To the extent that I see the lavish nature of God’s love toward me, my heart will be melted with love and gratitude in return. We cannot fully understand our salvation until we understand our standing as children before God. And we cannot truly understand the enormity of this reality until we grasp the reality of our sin and the nature we possessed before Christ.

It is at this point where I am acutely aware that my words are too small. No words can capture this in all its richness. I pray the Lord’s help in illuminating my heart and mind that I might see it more clearly so that it will capture my very heart and captivate my soul. It is truly a marvel to consider how deep the Father’s love for us!

More later…

Grace and peace…

The pursuit of happiness…

Okay, here the overarching idea that is flowing through my mind right now: The pursuit of holiness is the ultimate source of happiness in this life. I may tweak the way I word that thesis, but that is the main idea of what I’m working through in my heart right now. Our culture, even in the church, is all about finding what makes us “happy”…and usually it is the pursuit of things. We say to ourselves, “If I only had this”; or “If I could only achieve this goal”. The acquisition of the things we want are what we think will make us happy. But for the most part, even after we have acquired these things, we find that we want more. Whatever it is we are pursuing is never enough. Because it can never be enough.

The quote I shared on Friday from C.S. Lewis is the springboard of this thought. I read through the entire sermon that this quote comes from and his main idea is that we are made for an eternal destiny – we will be with Christ. This is the goal of our lives. To see Christ. All other desires are rivals to this ultimate desire, this ultimate goal to which our entire life should point.

We all want peace and joy in our lives. And the Lord gives us both of these things. But we must be careful to consider the true nature of that peace and joy.  A White Horse Inn program gave me this great insight, something I always knew but somehow forget: The peace given to us is an objective peace. The joy given to us is an objective joy. It is all grounded God’s work on our behalf through Jesus Christ – not something that I feel in my heart. I will not always feel the peace or joy – but it is mine in Christ because it comes from Him and He has given it to me.

The joy and peace that Christ gives us is not in things – it is in Him. He is our joy and our peace. To the extent that we focus on Him, we will see the joy and peace that He provides far surpasses any joy and peace our temporal circumstances can give us. We are changed and transformed – we begin to move toward that for which we were redeemed. To be conformed into His image. If our ultimate destiny as believers is to see Him as He really is, then our pursuit of Him and that holiness without which no one shall see God (Hebrews 12:14) will draw us closer and closer to the one thing that will truly make us “happy”.

Happiness is not in things; it is in a Person. Christ Jesus our Lord. May we dwell on the richness of His grace and find joy and peace in His love this day.

More later…

Grace and peace…

Passionate pursuit…

This quote from D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones seems to sum up what I am thinking about this morning:

This is surely the most amazing thing that has ever been said to man, that you and I, such as we are, pressed with all the problems and troubles of this modern world, are going to see Him face to face. If we but grasped this, it would revolutionize our lives. You and I are meant for the audience chamber of God; you and I are being prepared to enter into the presence of the King of kings. Do you believe it, do you know it as true of you?” (p. 97, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount)

The passage of scripture the Lord has led me to consider is 1 John 3:2-3: “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see Him as He is. Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”

This seems to be the bookend to the theme verse of my blog, and by extension, my life: “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)

Truly, to grasp this would turn my world upside down, which in truth is right side up.

C.S. Lewis wrote in his essay, The Weight of Glory:

Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

We are pleased with the temporal things that we can see and touch and smell – and yet it is the eternal that brings lasting joy. Those things we can attain in this life mean nothing when compared to the glories that we shall see and experience in the life to come. And yet we toil and spin, press and pray for those things that cannot satisfy, and wonder in the end why we are still empty.

But if we were to indeed grasp the beauty of the promise that John has held out for us, would we care so much for these earthly treasures? Would they hold the same appeal to our hearts? If I could but grasp even the shadow of this promise, perhaps my heart would be more willing to rest in hopeful anticipation, instead of pining and spinning in constant anxiety of what I want and think I need right now. How glorious is the promise of seeing Him as He is; if my heart were to take it in, I would not be able to utter a word.

Oh how this would change the way I see life, how I live life…

More later…

Grace and peace…

Are we there yet………?

I have drifted back into silence again…mainly because the things I have been pondering lately as it pertains to this journey through my True Woman meditations has been deeply personal. And, my golden rule: I never get too personal on my blog, unless directed by the Lord. He has not so directed me; thus, my silence.

But I did have a thought today as I was reading and praying that I wanted to share. How do you “wait” well? Because, let’s face it: one constant in the Christian life is the notion of “waiting”. We wait on the Lord – and it is always inevitiably because He works much “slower” than we anticipate or most of the time would want Him to. He rarely works on the same timetable as we do - although, as I heard many times over growing up in the church, “He may not come when we want Him to, but He’s always on time!” How true that is – and how I appreciate that more and more as I grow in my relationship with the Lord.

When I consider this idea of waiting, one word comes to mind: patience. Let me state the obvious for those who know me well: patience is not a strength for me. And when I pray for it, I’m always in for a bumpy ride – because God always answers our prayers for patience with something that will try us. Patience does not grow in times of ease – patience must be tested and tried in the fire to be refined. And so, you are asking for it in spades when you pray for patience! But, it is indeed a characteristic of the fruit of the Spirit, and so it is in there – we must cooperate with the Lord as He seeks to bring it to full bloom in our lives.

Back to this question of waiting well…the fruit of patience must be allowed to grow in my life if I am to wait well. This hearkens back to what I wrote about meekness and humility – patience and waiting imply bowing the knee. Accepting God’s will, God’s timing, and God’s ways as good – as best actually – for the given situation in which I find myself waiting. Because He can see much more clearly than I – He has the totality of the situation in view, whereas I can only see the moment in which I am existing. And from His view He knows better than I what I need and when I need it. He also knows the purposes for which He is calling me to wait.

This is all well and good, but how do I go about being patient, meek and humble in those times of silence and waiting? What I finally rested on is that it is a simple matter of trust. Trusting the Lord’s heart; trusting His goodness; trusting His will. Trusting that He is sovereign, He is holy, He is righteous, He is pure…and He will withhold no good thing from me as His child. Also knowing that His purpose for me is holiness, not happiness (although, it is in that pursuit of holiness that I will find true, lasting happiness; but that’s a topic for another day…)…and He will do what He knows will bring about that result.

And hasn’t He done so for me so many times before? Remembering and meditating on the goodness of God will help me wait well…

So, when I find myself in those moments of impatience; when I’m throwing a temper tantrum and wagging my finger at the Lord saying, “Father, when…Father, why…”; I must ask myself if I am trusting Him in that moment. The answer is always no! I want what I want and I want it NOW! And really, if I were honest, now is not soon enough for me because my impatience is born of the idea that I should have gotten my way ages ago! How grateful I am that the Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. How grateful I am that the Lord is long-suffering (the KJV phrase for patience – I love that!) – because He certainly suffers long with me!

And when I have finished, and I’m sitting on the edge of my bed, exhausted and nearly hyperventilating from crying so hard, eyes puffy and make up gone, I am usually amazed by the Lord’s response. He doesn’t point out to me how ridiculous I look (because most of the time, it’s quite a pitiful sight!). He gently and lovingly reminds me that if I wait on Him, it will be okay. He gently calls to my mind those times and those ways He has done so before, and assures me that He will do so again.

Now, there is a certain element of melodrama to that description, but it is true that I can indeed throw “temper tantrums” with the Father. And one of the things I love so much about the Lord is how gently He restores me when I get to this place. He picks me back up, and reminds me that He is Lord and Father, and I can trust Him. His way is best; He loves me, and is working all things for my good. He is working, even though I cannot see it. And I just have to…………wait.

More later…

Grace and peace…