The exhortation? To ascribe glory and strength to the LORD – who alone deserves it.

The challenge – to re-claim and re-direct the glory and strength we ascribe elsewhere – whether consciously or not. The glory and strength we ascribe to ourselves when we carry on in our own strength, the glory and strength we ascribe to God’s enemies when we feel we can’t carry on and today – the glory and strength we ascribe to idols.

Ascribing to idols what is due to God – it is not a new problem is it? It is almost fair to say that it is the story of the whole Old Testament. The story of a faithful God and his adulterous people.  In the New Testament Paul is brimming with thankfulness to God for the Thessalonian Christians who have “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God” (1 Thes 1:9).

Idols: an old problem yes, but not a problem of the past. They are just so hard to spot aren’t they? They are a bit like chameleons taking on the appearance of their surroundings, appearing entirely normal, just part of the furniture – brazenly hiding in plain sight in the day-to-day bit and bobs of the lives they have infiltrated. To the outsider of course the disguise doesn’t seem to work so well. Have you ever watched a murder mystery and shouted at the character alone in the house on a dark and stormy night: “Don’t answer the door!”. It is so obvious that danger lurks on the other side. Similarly as we read through Israel’s history we want to call out: “Don’t do it!” as time and time again they open the door wide to idolatry whether it is Ashtoreth poles, the high places or alters to false gods like Baal and Molech. Israel’s idols are so obvious to us aren’t they – they stand out like a sore thumb, like a hippopotamus hiding behind a pot plant – but when it comes to the idols in my life – well suddenly they are cunning masters of disguise.

Isn’t it obvious that Superman is just Clark Kent without his glasses? Well – apparently not if you see him everyday.

But I’ve got sidetracked! If I have got you thinking about how to spot the idols in your life there are some excellent books on the subject. I can certainly recommend Tim Keller’s: counterfeit Gods for example.

So how do these well hidden idols steal the glory and strength we should be ascribing to God? In what ways do we look to them to do what only God can do? In what ways do we treat them as only God deserves? Where are we ascribing worth,to mere man-made ‘statues’? Worshipping (worth-shipping) them instead of our faithful, loving, sovereign, heavenly Father?

Well, if money is an idol then the big car bill that has just come in out of the blue will cause me to worry and lose sleep. It will distract me and play on my mind, diverting my concentration and energy. I will go over and over again what I could have done better to avoid it or plan for it, struggling to forgive myself or move on. I will fail to be thankful to God that we actually can afford the repairs, that we have a lovely friend who owns a garage and is totally trustworthy and that we have a second car and kind and helpful friends. Basically I am ascribing to money – or more subtly I am ascribing to the control I desire over my money – glory and strength.

If switching off from everything, being numbed to the pain or merely the relentlessness of real life is an idol, then watching ‘just one more’ of a DVD box set will win over getting a goodnight sleep and subsequently getting up well. The time given to crashing will be out of balance with plodding through some of the bits and bobs that need doing, or relating to the people around me. I am giving it a precedence of place in my day that ascribes it glory and strength to make my life livable.

If rest and comfort are my idols then I will sacrifice time and money and even relationships at their alter – thereby ascribing them glory and strength.

If being appreciated for what I do and ‘how brilliant I am’ is an idol then I will struggle to keep going when my days are full of being told by my children that I am mean and horrible and wrong most of the time. I will struggle to keep going in a ministry that is full of shut doors – sometimes shut in my face! In other words I am ascribing glory and strength to the avoidance of failure and uselessness.

Again, I’m not exploring all this to make myself feel guilty, to beat myself up, but to expose my foolishness and the harm it is doing. Because these idols don’t deserve an ascription of glory and strength. Not only can they not deliver what we expect of them, but they entrap us and rob us of joy and rest and unburdened service. When we ascribe to God glory and strength we can enjoy these things rightly, but not be their slaves. God is the one who provides for us all that we need, who give us true rest from our burdens, and who chooses us not to be impressive and wonderful but to wonder at how impressive he is.

When I first read the exhortation to..

“Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength” Psalm 96:7

..my mind immediately went to singing, proclaiming and declaring the greatness of God. And rightly so. Again and again we are commanded to sing a new song, to shout aloud our praises, to speak to each other in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. And, indeed, I need reminding of this again and again.

BUT …it would be a shame to just sing louder or more frequently from the same old position of the practical, often unconscious, ascribing that goes on in my day-to-day life. Rather I want to un-ascribe greatness, glory and strength where it has been wrongly directed. It is as though by sending it to the wrong address I am stealing it from our Lord.

Basically friends, we need to remember that we are born worshippers. If we are not ascribing greatness, glory and strength to the Lord, we will be ascribing it elsewhere. What a mighty and patient Father we have that even as he graciously loosens our grip on the false gods we cling to, he is teaching our hearts what it is to ascribe to him what is his due and our delight.

So, let us ascribe glory and strength to the LORD – trusting only in HIS glorious strength and grace to change our wayward hearts.

So we’re talking about the command/exhortation to ascribe to the Lord glory and strength and to help us explore this I have been looking at the ways in which my life betrays my tendency to ascribe glory and strength elsewhere. In the first post I looked at the foolish ways I ascribe glory and strength to myself. Now I turn to the horrible error of ascribing glory and strength to God’s enemy.

We would never praise God’s enemy, so why do we give him so much credit by ascribing such power to him? Of course we must not underestimate him, but it is to God and God alone that we should ascribe glory and strength. C.S. Lewis famously said something along the lines of..

We can make two dreadful errors in dealing with Satan: we can either pay him far too much attention, or far too little.

While I don’t want to cause us to stray into the second error I would like to consider if and when we live as ‘practical ascribers’ of glory and strength to those that oppose the gospel and to the one they serve.

For example:

Am I practically ascribing glory and strength to Satan when I doubt God’s ability to save? When I fail to speak of Jesus to someone because it just wouldn’t make a difference – am I not practically ascribing Satan glory and strength?

Well yes, I think I am. If I were ascribing the glory and strength to God I would cry out to him and keep going. Not perfectly, and not always with any visible fruit, but with confidence in the gospel which is “the power of God for the salvation of all who believe” *. If the person I am speaking to is one of those whom God has chosen in eternity to give to his beloved Son than there is nothing Satan can do to stop him. Similarly, if this is not the time for God to reveal an individual’s final response to Jesus, their reaction is not ultimately Satan’s doing, but God’s.

Ascribe to the LORD glory and strength!

Am I practically ascribing glory and strength to Satan when I can’t quite bring myself to prepare diligently and prayerfully for something because, well, no one will turn up, or if they do – well, they won’t really engage and be changed will they?

Well yes, I think I am. If I were ascribing the glory and strength to God I would do the work he had given me faithfully and with delight while trusting him to do his work perfectly. It is not my job to decide what counts as a ‘successful’ bible study or evangelistic event – but simply to ascribe to him glory and strength as I prayerfully do what he has called me to do. If his is the glory and the strength than the bible or study or the evangelistic event will be just as he pleases whether it seems to soar in ‘success’ or crash and burn!

Ascribe to the LORD glory and strength!

Am I practically ascribing glory and strength to Satan when I fear that our church culture will never change and as a result either sigh in resignation and keep going because I have to, or wonder about giving up?

You know the answer by now! YES!

Whether the visible church in our area lives or dies it will be by God’s strength and to his glory – not Satan’s. I don’t know what our little churches will look like in ten years’ time. Perhaps they will be flourishing, Christ-exalting churches, shining as lights in the darkness in our little corner of the world! Please God may it be so, for only by your mighty and glorious hand can this take place. Imagine how we would sing: “To God be the glory great things he has done!”

But, maybe, God will act in his righteous judgement – giving the church over to its desire for self-rule and self-preservation. If so – it will not be Satan’s mighty hand that has closed the doors, or signed the death warrant – but God’s. And if that is how God chooses to act then we could sing just as heartily: “To God be the glory great things he has done!”

Ascribe to the LORD glory and strength!

Am I practically ascribing glory and strength to Satan when I am paralysed by fear for my children’s salvation?

Short answer: YES!

Ascribe to the LORD glory and strength!

Am I practically ascribing glory and strength to Satan when I just can’t bring myself to pray? When it just seems too tiring to open my heart to the Lord in the face of such mountains.

Of course I am!

Ascribe to the LORD glory and strength!

Am I practically ascribing glory and strength to Satan when I surrender to sin with my hands up in a ‘I just can’t change’ manner or when I go to opposite extreme and despair of forgiveness?

In the words of the nodding dog advertising car insurance: OH YES!
God’s word is clear: The grace of God teaches us to say ‘no’ to ungodliness**, we are no longer slaves to sin, but slaves to righteousness***. Yes, we will go on sinning – as John says: “If we say we have no sin the truth is not in us..”**** but to treat sin as our master is to wrongly ascribe glory and strength to God’s enemy. Don’t despair of God’s work in you to defeat sin – instead ascribe to the LORD glory and strength! And don’t despair when you do sin – John goes on: if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.*****

Ascribe to the LORD glory and strength!

Oh what joy and peace, confidence and endurance there is for those who “Ascribe to the LORD glory and strength!” How our relationship with him could thrive!

Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Psalm 103:1

P.S. What about you? In which ways are you practically ascribing glory and strength to Satan?

* Romans 1:16, ** Titus 2:11-12, *** Romans 6:17-18, **** 1 John 1:8, ***** 1 John: 1:9

In Psalm 96 (as well as at many other points in the bible) we are exhorted to:

“Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength” Psalm 96:7

As I tried to spend some time meditating on that exhortation and asking myself the difference obedience in this area would make, I found myself confronted with the following questions and thoughts:

• What or who do I ascribe glory and strength to instead of the Lord?
• What are the clues that I am ascribing glory and strength where there is in fact neither glory nor strength?
• Is it fair to say that I am wrongly ascribing glory and/or strength to myself when… ..
  • I don’t pray, but go on in my own strength?
  • I am surprised by my failures or my weaknesses?
• Similarly is it fair to say that I am wrongly ascribing glory and/or strength to God’s enemies when…
  • I doubt God’s ability to act?
  • I feel despair and/or want to give up?
  • etc.
• and to say that I am wrongly ascribing glory and/or strength to idols when I
  • run to them to nourish me and refresh me?

I share these queries and observations not to berate myself or to make you feel guilty, but rather to:

a) Help us explore what it is to ascribe greatness, glory and strength to God by seeing how we do it in other areas of our lives
AND..
b) Free us up to delight in ascribing to GOD the glory and strength that is his. To snap us out of the lies that trap us into falsely ascribing glory and strength elsewhere. Lies that leave us feeling empty and exhausted rather than enriched, emboldened and encouraged.

So let’s take a look at each of these foolish and damaging ascriptions of glory and strength one at a time and be delighted by the wisdom of ascribing to the Lord glory and strength and the joy and fruit that it could bring.

If I ascribe glory and strength to myself by “leaning on my own understanding” (see Proverbs 3:5-6), struggling on as if I can or should be able to do it on my own without any help…

Then the wonderfully releasing alternative is:
To ascribe glory and strength to the Lord by choosing ,as the first business of the day, to consciously, joyfully and thankfully shelter in him. To shelter in his love, his mercy and grace, his will, his wisdom, his glory and strength.

What peace and joy could flow from a waking conversation with my inner-self that ascribed glory and strength to the Lord! It is not that the day itself would be any easier in its challenge and content, in the messy relationships that awaited me, in my own inner battle with sin and the general broken-ness of life in this groaning world…..BUT my navigation of the day would be. Why? Because I would take myself out of the starring role and be free to be the treasured servant seeking to be faithful – even if it is a one foot in front of the other day. Indeed, navigation is so much easier when it simply involves following someone who knows where they are going!

Imagine a day in which we ascribed to the Lord glory and strength by automatically turning to him at any and every point of struggle or tricky-ness and at every point of joy and blessing. By our thankfulness and trust we would be ascribing to him glory and strength. By ascribing to the Lord glory and strength the burden of our failures would be lifted, and all the praise of our ‘successes’ would go to him.

“You take too much upon yourself” In my head it sounds like a line from an Austen novel. Although I may be thinking of Elizabeth Bennet declaring that she deserves neither so such praise nor such censure. In any case we do take too much upon ourselves daily. This is not only foolish and dangerously burdensome, it is also appallingly arrogant. In so doing I ascribe to myself what is due the Lord of the universe who so “preserves us that without his will not a hair will fall from our head, indeed that everything must work together for our salvation”.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be YOUR name, YOUR kingdom come, YOUR will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our sins, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power and the glory are YOURS now and for ever, Amen.

Ascribe to the LORD glory and strength!

It has all gone a bit wrong! Despite having not watched either Season 1 or 2, the NTV and I now own two copies of Endeavour: Season 3. The really silly thing is that we purchased both of them ourselves!

We picked up the first copy in a charity shop for £1, but before watching it we decided to watch season 4 as it was broadcast. Somehow during this time we got it into our heads that it was Season 1 that we had purchased in the charity shop and looked forward to starting from the beginning at the end of Season 4. As Season 4 drew to an end we had the added satisfaction of finding Season 3 at a table top sale. Now we only needed to get Season 2!

Picture the confusion as we searched in vain for Season 1. What had we done with it? And why did we have two copies of Season 3?

It will probably get even more ridiculous as it may well be cheaper to ask for a box set of Seasons 1-3 for our birthdays rather than 1 and 2 individually – making us the proud owners of three copies of Season 3! Do let me know if you want one!

Have you ever received the same gift twice? Do you remember the time before wedding lists when people received 3 toast racks, but no toaster? Don’t get me wrong – these are very minor ‘problems’ to have! – but there is an embarrassment and an element of waste that comes with the repeated gift isn’t there? Particularly when you by them both yourself!

So why does Paul pray as he does in Ephesians 3:14-19?

Paul has already made it clear in his letter that the Ephesian Christians have the Holy Spirit, that they are united with Christ, that they already have the fulness of God in them and yet he prays here that Christ will live in them. Is he not already living in them? He prays that they would know his love. Don’t they already know his love? Are the Ephesians blushing a little as they read this prayer, embarrassed that Paul is going to all this trouble when they already have every spiritual blessing in Christ?

No – of course not. So what is going on? Let’s go to Tim Keller (and through him to John Calvin and others) for some help. Indeed, these thoughts are entirely prompted by my reading last year of Tim Keller’s book Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God and his thoughts in chapter eleven on “being rich, but living poor”. Of being in possession of princely riches beyond imagination, but living as paupers struggling to get by.

The Prince and The Pauper. It can go both ways of course. There are plenty of times when we, like the pauper who chances upon the prince’s clothes, strut around hoping desperately that no-one will notice our grimy hands and face, the poor fit of the clothes, or the rags underneath. But in the case of the blessings we have in Christ, Keller points out that we are more akin to the prince who chooses to dress like a pauper: walking around in tattered rags despite having all the very finest togs at our disposal.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Ephesians 1:3

Paul needs to pray for the Christians in Ephesus not because they don’t have every spiritual blessing in Christ, but because they are not experiencing every spiritual blessing in Christ.

 

Keller describes prayer as a ‘conversation that leads to an encounter with God’ (pg 165). The Westminster Larger Catechism speaks of a “working and quickening in our hearts”, but it is a “working and quickening in our hearts”  that it acknowledges does not take place “in all persons, nor at all times, in the same measure.” Calvin was convinced that many of Jesus’ people do not experience Jesus’ gifts to them. Do not experience the enjoyment that can only happen through “communion with Christ” and “the secret energy of the Holy Spirit by which we come to enjoy all his benefits.”

In other words we conduct our day-to-day lives as spiritual paupers despite the wealth that has been lavished upon us. We know and yet we do not grasp. We intellectually assent to this state of spiritual abundance being true of us in principle while never “fully appropriating it, using it and living in it” in our inner beings.

Could it even be said that we sometimes speak and act as if to want to experience this wealth in the here and now is a greedy expectation beyond out station? Is there a suggestion in the way we speak and behave that while it may be right for an elite few to inhabit the spiritual penthouses, to experience the spiritual high life, it is certainly not for us common or garden Christians?

And yet Paul’s prayer is for each and every one of his Ephesian readers, and by extension for all those in Christ.  Paul wants God to answer his prayer in Ephesians 3 for all Christians throughout their lives. He is certainly not asking our generous Father – who is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine – for “a nearly unattainably high, rare occurrence.” No! Paul is praying that “by the Spirit’s power we may have our hearts and affections engaged and shaped by the truths of the faith we hold in mind.”Keller continues: “Such a sense of heart can come in many degrees, from a mild and gentle warming to an explosive epiphany.” Whatever the particulars – whether it is a moment you remember for the rest of your life, or simply a particularly beautiful time of prayer on the way to collect a child from school – God longs to give us “a sense of the power of what [we] have been given in Christ so that [our] attitudes, feelings, and behaviour are altered.

Friends, we who are in Jesus have everything that is good and wonderful – kept in the heavenly realms yes – but for the purposes of security not obscurity. In the heavenly realms our blessings enjoy a protection better than that of the most secure facility on earth while at the same time remaining as available to us as the loose change in our pockets.

Thanks to Adrian Reynolds of the Proclamation Trust for drawing this out in his recent talks on Ephesians 1 at the Spring Wives Conference.

Some of us may need a reminder that the blessings are indeed ours in Christ. What news to receive – like Harry Potter when he first discovers the wealth that waits for him in his parents’ vault in Gringotts Bank.

But I suspect that many of us know of the wealth, we receive the bank statements as it were and believe them, but we file them away under sound doctrine and simply do not act on them.

What would it look like I wonder to live as who we are? What impression do we give people of the resources available to us from the way we walk through this world? I fear when they look at me they may see something of a pauper trying to scrape an existence out of nothing, bowed down with care and fearful of what tomorrow will bring – or not bring.

If only I had a wealth of blessings and a loving heavenly Father to patiently help me change! Oh yes, I already do – along with at least two copies of Endeavour Season 3!

A prayer:

Lord, you love me. You love me as you love your Son Jesus. You are showing this to me not to berate me, but to bless me. Help me to hold the whole truth of scripture together as I explore this idea of living as rich as we are.

To live as both a soldier in a very real battle and a princess who lacks absolutely nothing. To expect and even rejoice in persecution, and yet to walk through my days with a joyful confidence in your lavish provision.

Please give me a heart of gut wrenching compassion for the lost, a relentless readiness to serve and build up your people and a passionate desire for your glory and yet teach me to so cast my cares on you that I can walk through each day of unfinished to-do lists and opportunities spoilt or missed with a carefree spring in my step.

Help me to live rich in godliness and poor in complaints, grumbling and fear. Lord, in Jesus, you have removed the pressure of spiritual poverty and debt – please forgive me for continuing to struggle as one who is still under that burden. Help my days to be saturated with the freedom and generosity that should accompany spiritual wealth. Help me to use that freedom to love and serve your people in complete trust in your lavish goodness to me. In the name of Jesus, my faithful saviour, Amen.

Another post-it from The Glories of God’s Love by Milton Vincent: A Gospel Primer for Christians.

Reason 21: Chosen for Prayer.

Have you ever noticed that in  Ephesians 1:4 we are told that those in Jesus have not only been chosen to be holy and blameless (WOW!), but to be holy and blameless BEFORE HIM?

I must have read it a thousand times, but I’m not sure that I have given the words ‘Before Him’ due consideration.

Vincent points out that while we are always in God’s presence on earth, and will be more fully than ever after our earthly life is over, that we are “especially before Him in love when [we] come before Him in prayer and worship.

“Serve the LORD with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!”    Psalm 100:2

He infers from this that prayer is not just something we are privileged to be allowed to do as Christian, but that:

“prayer is actually one of the great purposes for which God chose to save me.”
The Glories of god’s Love, Milton Vincent, Reason 21.

Vincent points out that prayer is right there in John 15:16 as Jesus talks about choosing his disciples and so he states that when a chosen one of God comes into God’s presence “to behold Him, worship Him, or make a request of Him, [he/she is] arriving at the pinnacle of God’s saving purposes for [him/her].”

God wants me to pray! He paid a price beyond my comprehension so that I can pray! Jesus shed his blood so that I could draw near with faith, the curtain was torn in two so that I could come into his presence.

And how do I react when God’s Spirit within me graciously prompts me to pray? My self-will huffs and puffs and roll its eyes with all the finesse of a resentful adolescent.

Just this morning, the One and Only Daughter pointed out that by the very act of asking her to do something I had rendered it completely unpalatable to her.

O.K. so she didn’t use the words rendered or unpalatable, but that was the sense.

My reaction to her attitude? “How ridiculous!”. Well – yes, but am I that different? My self-will is equally resistant to prompts and suggestions and to being led. And the really ridiculous thing is that for me the prompt is actually coming from within my own heart. As Galatians 5:16 tells us: the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit.

We set the early morning alarm and then switch if off in annoyance when it dares to go off. We plan to exercise, we want to exercise, and then resent the interruption to our comfort when the diary tells us to go to the gym. We love to pray, we love to be with our Lord in his presence – we are amazed that he chose us before the world began to be holy and blameless before him – and yet our flesh whines like a child to a parent: Do I have to? Don’t make me! Why should you get to tell me what to do? I don’t have to..

The apostle Paul puts it so much better in Romans 7!

“21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you that you are a perfect, patient, and loving Father. Thank you that I am delivered from this body that is subject to death through Jesus Christ my Lord. Thank you that one day soon I will be fully in your presence and my will will be totally in line with your will. I long for that day when I will truly delight in your Fatherhood, completely submitting to your beautiful authority. I long for this wretchedness to be over! Thank you that right now – sitting in a cafe and typing – I am before you because Jesus is at your right hand interceding with you and your Holy Spirit is within me marking me and helping me. Lord thank you that I don’t ‘have to’ – all that had to be done has been done by Jesus. I don’t have to, but I do want to, and I want to listen to the ‘want to’ that you are growing in my heart. Please fill my heart and will with joyful submission to the work of ‘want to’ that the Spirit is doing in my life so that I cannot but obey you and long to be with you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Question: What is your only comfort in life and in death?

Answer: That I, with body and soul, both in life and in death, am not my own, but belong to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ, who by with His precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins, and has redeemed me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head, indeed that all things must work together for my salvation. Wherefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live unto Him.

The Heidelberg Catechism, Introduction (qq.1-2) Lord’s Day 1

What a comfort to have lodged in our memories!

Before last week I had not thought about catechisms for some while – how things have changed. One of the speakers at the conference I was on last week mentioned that he was using his sabbatical (in part) to memorise The Heidelberg Catechism and he quoted this section. I found it so beautiful that I decided to look into memorising it myself.

To help me, and share these wonderful truths with you I thought I would try typing it from memory. The crossed-out words and the bold words are for my benefit to see which bits I am stumbling over.

But don’t worry about all that – just enjoy the amazing truths contained in it – comfort indeed for all those who call on the name of our faithful Saviour Jesus Christ and trust in His precious blood.

With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith. We pray this so that the name of the Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12

In my last post: Saved by Good Works I quoted John 4:32-34.

“My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish His work.”

As I contemplated this verse it led me to think about the line in the Lord’s prayer: give us this day our daily bread.

I don’t want to take away from the main meaning of this request. We can and should consciously entrust our our physical sustenance to Our Father in Heaven…

However, I can’t now help finding it a prompt to ask God for all that I need to do his will today, to serve him joyfully in the works he has prepared for me to do in advance.

As some of you may remember – last year I spent quite a lot of time pondering what Jesus said about the woman who annointed him at the home of Simon the Leper in Bethany.

“She did what she could.” Mark 14: 8

It is not our job to get everything done every day. To extravagantly love everyone we know and everyone else as well. We might never reach the bottom of the laundry basket or the end of the to do list. We may have forgotten things and left to tomorrow what could have been done today. And yet we may have done what we could.

I’m not sure how helpful it is to constantly ask ourselves if we have done what we could, but I do think it is a wonderful thing to entrust to the Lord each day. In one sense God’s to-do list for us is only ever a day long!

As I have written of previously – prayer for my daily bread has also become a prompt to ask God to help me to do what I can each day. To ask him to help me spot the jar of nard that needs to be smashed extravagantly today, and not to hesitate when the moment comes. To ask him to lead me in the best way to love Jesus with a costly passionate love today. I ask him to help me to faithfully carry out the works he has prepared for me today with the resources he has given me today, to spot the important and not neglect it, while carrying out the necessary cheerfully.

In God’s kindness I have found that these thoughts have taken really taken root in my daily habits over the past year and I am excited by the addition of this ‘John 4’ facet to further enrich them:

“My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish His work.”

Our daily soul bread is to do the will of the Father – how wonderful to daily entrust our souls and bodies to his provision of all that we need to sustain is.

For the kingdom, the power and the glory are his, for ever and ever Amen!

You may be glad to hear that this is in fact a post-it not a corner! (See previous post if you’re puzzled)

This one is from The Glories of God’s Love: A Gospel Primer for Christians, by Milton Vincent. This is a great book about the benefits of constantly rehearsing the gospel to yourself. The main section of the book is made up of 31 (one for each day of the month) reasons to preach the gospel to yourself each day. Each reason is only about a page, but they are so rich it is good to know that you will be reminded of them monthly (or in my case at some point in the future as I slowly make my way through them).

The particular reason that prompted a post-it was Reason 22: Saved for Good Works.

Vincent starts reason 22 by referencing the New Testament and establishing the biblical basis for saying that we are saved for good works. He points us to: Titus 2:14; Phil 2:12-13; and Eph 2:10. He then goes on to say the following:

“Being naturally lazy, I do not normally thrill at the prospect of work; but the more I embrace the saving work of God on my behalf, the more I find myself embracing the works for which God saved me. And as  I “am working hard” at doing these works for the good of others, I experience the truth of Jesus’ words: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Acts 20:34035. I also find myself saying with Christ, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish His work.” John 4:32-34. Indeed, gospel-motivated works do for the soul what food does for the body: They bring refreshment, enjoyment, blessing, and strengthening to the doer of the deeds, even more so than to the receiver. Hence the fact that God has prepared such works for me to do becomes a part of what makes the gospel such good news to me.”

Vincent goes on to say that as we look to the cross we see not only the love of God for us, but the love of God for the works he saved us to perform.

“When I see the Cross, I see the premium that God places on the works that He has prepared for me. How valuable all of these works must be if Christ would die so that I might perform them! And how precious are those for whom the works are done if Christ would die that they might be served.”

Dearest Father, I am floored by your love for me. Your burden is easy, your yoke is light – you carry the weight – and yet it is beautiful. How can it be that these are works that you would have ME do for you? Please forgive me my attitude of drudgery, and give me fresh eyes to see what you have got for me to do today. In the name of the one who died to save me for the delight of good works in your family business, Amen.

 

As some of you will know I tend to turn down the corner of the page of the book I am reading…

(sorry again to those of you who find this rough treatment of books painful – perhaps I should try to change my habit to mini post-it notes)

..if something particularly strikes me and gives me the urge to revisit it and savour it further another time. Today I am intending to take a trip around my corners.

Corner number one is all about mercy. I have mentioned the book of devotionals by Paul Tripp: New Morning Mercies. This morning he pointed us yet again to more refreshing truths about God’s generous mercy and the difference those truths could be making in our lives. I’ll let him speak for himself:

“We all forget. In the busyness and self-centredness of our live, we sadly forget how much our lives have been blessed by and radically redirected by mercy.”

If you are like me you may hear a note of rebuke here and not let the joy of that sentence soak in. If so we are forgetting God’s mercy even as we read about it! Something beautiful is being offered to us – experiencing God’s mercy to us in Jesus. If there is challenge to us there – it is the challenge not to rob ourselves of what is freely ours in Him.

“The reality that on every morning brand-new mercies greet us is not the thing that grips our minds as we frenetically prepare for our day. When we lay our exhausted bodies down at the end of the day for much-needed sleep, we often fail to look back on the many mercies that dripped from God’s hands onto our little lives.”

As for the difference this gripping the drip will make:

“Humility is the soil in which mercy for others grows. Gratitude for mercy given is what motivates mercy extended.”

Taken from the reading for March 1st – New Morning Mercies: A Daily Gospel Devotional, by Paul Tripp. 

 My merciful Father, please may I be daily gripped by your mercies! As I wake may I be strengthened by their greeting and as I end each day please prompt me to name the mercies that have dripped from your hands into my life. In your mercy Lord, help me to go to sleep under a blanket of today’s mercies and so to wake with an ear open to the greetings of your new mercies – mercies perfectly fitted for the day ahead. Mercies that will carry me through each and every ‘today’ until That Day. In the name of my saviour, the Lord Jesus, I ask this, Amen.