The Music And The Dance

DAY 5
Consider a visual illustration that can help us think about how the gospel has to be the foundation for our relationship with Christ and a life of discipleship. This visual illustration is adapted from the World Harvest Missions book, “The Gospel-Centered Life”.

The starting point of the Christian life (conversion) takes place when you become aware of the issue of your separation from God due to the incredible gap between God’s Holiness and your sinfulness. When you turn to Christ as your Lord and trust in him as your Savior the gospel assures you that your debt of sin is cancelled, you are forgiven everything, you are declared righteous in God’s eyes, you are reconciled to God and at peace with him. This is the foundation for your relationship with him. You do not follow Jesus in order to achieve this. This is where you begin and what you build on. 1 Peter 3:18 says, For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God

Most of the time when we first come to Christ we have a pretty limited view of both God’s holiness and our sin. As time goes on, and we live as followers of Jesus, we come to understand more and more about the holiness of God and at the same time we come to see more clearly than ever how sinful and broken we are. It is important to know that when this happens we are not actually becoming more sinful and God is not becoming more holy we are just coming to sense and see spiritual truths more clearly. We are seeing God as he really is (Isaiah 55:8-9) and ourselves as we really are (Jeremiah 17:9-10, 1 John 1:5-9).

In light of the story of Jesus and the woman who loved much because she had been forgiven much, this growing sense of our sinfulness and God’s holiness can serve to deepen our love for Christ. But this deepening of our love and discipleship will only happen if we have a growing understanding of, and appreciation for, the cross and the gospel. If your understanding of the love of God and his grace revealed in the gospel also grows larger and larger, love for Christ and true discipleship is strengthened.

What we have to fight against in discipleship is the tendency to take a different path. Sometimes instead of magnifying the cross we fall into minimizing our sins or trivializing God’s holiness. We think too lightly of God’s hatred of sin or we think too highly of ourselves. When that happens we sort of “shrink” the cross in terms of its place in our lives and its importance for us. The result is that the powerful dynamic of love that Jesus praised in the woman with the alabaster jar becomes something foreign to us.

What needs to happen is that our view of love for, and faith in, the gospel needs to grow. But what seems to be the tendency of the human heart is that we try to resolve this tension in other ways. Instead of our understanding, love for and faith in the gospel growing we do several things. Sometimes we try to deal with the tension by pretending we are better than we are. Like Simon, we think of ourselves as pretty good and certain others as serious sinners.

Sometimes along with pretending we try performing. We try very hard to live better lives so that we can feel that we are acceptable to God, to others and to ourselves. What’s wrong with that? Well it’s good to live a better life. But Jesus says we are just too broken and sinful to ever live well enough to earn God’s acceptance. Titus 3:5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. If you try to earn your acceptance you will end up anxious and dishonest. And you will never awaken the dynamic of love that could most powerfully change you. So we have to receive the good news that he has done for us what we cannot do. Then we love, follow and obey him, not to earn his acceptance but because we already have it and we love him for it.

Sometimes we get tired of pretending and tired of performing and so we just opt out. We go for numbing or distracting. Maybe that was the path the sinful woman in the story was on until it caught up to her and she came to Jesus. We drink too much or watch too much TV, spend too much time on the internet or try to fill our lives with engaging hobbies or people that keep us occupied. Some of these things are not bad in themselves but they aren’t the answer either.

What is the answer for us? When we come to see more clearly God’s holiness and our sinfulness and feel the tension of the huge gap between who we are and who we ought to be, the only thing that will help us is a larger view of the cross. Our understanding of and dependence on the gospel has to grow with us throughout our lives so that no matter how much we see our sins and short-comings we see the cross as even larger and always sufficient to cover our sins and bring us to God.

If you find yourself like Simon, unhappy with what Jesus is doing or allowing, complaining in your heart, critical and condemning toward others you are not deeply understanding and believing the gospel.

If you find that the devotion in this woman seems very distant from anything you have ever felt or experienced in your heart then you are not deeply understanding and believing the gospel.

This story is in the Bible not so that we can simply know it happened once but so that we can hear in it Jesus speaking to us and calling us to believe more deeply so that we love and follow him. Believe big, believe in a big gospel full of promises and keep growing in your believing.

Continue reading the Bible. Keep reading the gospel of John. Write down your questions, thoughts and insights as you read. Don’t forget to review your memory verse also. ____________________________________________________________________________________
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DAY 4

“To follow Jesus we have to believe the gospel deeply.”

At the end of the story in verse 50, Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” It’s through faith that we receive forgiveness and are reconciled to God. That’s part of understanding the gospel, but there’s something else. This story is not just about the facts of the gospel, but deep faith in the gospel. When Jesus says the one who has been forgiven much loves much he doesn’t mean there are only a few people, the really big sinners, who can ever love much. He is challenging all of us to believe more deeply our utter need for the gospel and to believe more deeply in the beauty and power and grace of the gospel for us! Jesus brings the gospel into the center of a situation in which what he is dealing with is a man who is self-righteous, unhappy with Jesus, and judgmental toward others. Jesus brings the gospel into the middle of this situation because deeply believing the gospel solves all of those problems. So much so that you can flip it and say if you are self-righteous, if you are unhappy with Jesus and if you are judgmental toward others you do not deeply understand and believe the gospel.

Jesus isn’t just telling us how forgiveness is received but how love is awakened. Notice the question in verse 42, which will love him more? Look at verse 47 again, Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven — for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” We said one of the problems with this man, Simon, in this story is that what he thought he already knew made him in some sense blind or insensitive to what he needed to deeply see and believe. I wonder if that is what happens to us. We think we do believe in and love Jesus so we don’t go deeper like we could and should.

In the book by Ann Voskamp titled: One Thousand Gifts, she cites some interesting research about gratitude. A couple of university professors and scientific researchers did what is probably the first comprehensive study of the quality of gratitude. What they discovered is that there is a big difference between what people say and what they actually feel. There is a big difference between what they know intellectually and what they actually experience within.

Let me read one quote:

People generally do not make efforts to actively infuse their daily experiences with greater emotional quality. Although most people definitively claim that they love, care, appreciate, it might shock many to realize the degree to which these feelings are merely assumed or acknowledged cognitively, far more than they are actually experienced in their feeling world.

In the absence of conscious efforts to engage, build and sustain positive perceptions and emotions, we all too automatically fall prey to feelings such as irritation, anxiety, worry, frustration, self-doubt and blame. (Rollin McCraty, “The Grateful Heart,” The Psychology of Gratitude, ed. Robert A. Emmons [New York: Oxford University Press 2004], 241, emphasis added.)

What this means is that you can think you are a thankful person, claim to be a thankful person, know that you have a lot to be thankful for, be able to list all the things for which you should be thankful and therefore assume that I am grateful when in fact what I feel is dissatisfied and irritable. What’s true of gratitude is true of this whole dynamic of the gospel and faith and love. We can really believe in a sense and not deeply believe as we should. We can know so much about the gospel that we think we are believing the promises of the gospel more than we actually are in our daily lives.

Stop and ask God to show you how you can deepen your faith in, and appreciation for, the gospel. How can you cultivate a gospel-centered heart of deep love for Christ?
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Continue reading the Bible. Keep reading the gospel of John. Write down your questions, thoughts and insights as you read. Don’t forget to review your memory verse also. ____________________________________________________________________________________
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Week 1 Day 3

In our first study of “The Walk” we saw that it was after Peter affirmed his love for Jesus that Jesus said to Peter: “Follow me”. In the story of the woman at Simon’s house the thing Jesus focuses on is her love for him. True discipleship is always deeply relational. So it is important to understand that the gospel is the good news of what God has done to restore our relationship with him. The result of what he has done is not just that a debt has been paid but that a relationship has been restored.

Take a moment to read 2 Corinthians 5:17-21: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

What key relational or relationship word appears several times in these verses?
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How many positive benefits can you identify from this passage as true for anyone who is “in Christ”?
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According to Ephesians 1:13, how does a person come to be “in Christ”?

Ephesians 1:13  And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit.
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2 Corinthians 5:19 says, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. (That’s forgiveness) But notice that forgiveness is for the purpose of reconciliation. Verse 21 tells us how God reconciles us to himself. It says, God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. God made Jesus, who was himself sinless, to be the one who would be treated as if he had committed every sin ever committed by everyone who would ever believe in Him. God treated Jesus on the cross as if he had lived my life and God condemned him in my place. God then chooses to treat me as if I had lived Jesus’ life. This is much more than my debt cancelled. This means God chooses to see you, in Christ, as just as righteous as Jesus himself.

Reconciliation is an important part of the gospel to understand because our hearts are made for relationship with God. Our relationship with God was broken through our sin. All our hang-ups, hurts and addictions are tied into this deeper issue of our broken relationship to God that shows up in life as an emptiness that haunts us and a hunger we try to satisfy with all kinds of things that don’t work because your were made for God. At the same time that we are living this futile life trying to fill the emptiness, we are piling up spiritual indebtedness to God for our constant sins. We are forfeiting his strengthening presence while at the same time provoking his righteous judgment. It is into that context that the good news comes. What he offers us in the gospel is not only an escape from his judgment but a way back to him. The promise of the gospel is about more than escaping hell. In fact, in most places where Jesus talks to people and offers the gospel he doesn’t emphasize himself as a ticket out of hell. He offers himself as the water and bread of life and he offers rest for the weary and redemption for the enslaved and he offers reconciliation, oneness and relationship with God and fullness of life. What Christ offers in the gospel is not less than deliverance from damnation but so much more! 1 Peter 3:18 says, For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. On the cross he paid the debt you cannot pay, not so that you would go your own way relieved that you have escaped judgment at the end of history, but so you can be free to live in relationship with him. He sets you free so that you can come to him like the woman in this story, whose burden was lifted and who loved and worshiped Jesus for it.

Continue reading the Bible. Keep reading the gospel of John. Write down your questions, thoughts and insights as you read. Don’t forget to review your memory verses also. ____________________________________________________________________________________
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It’s day two! Take it easy but keep it up…if you miss a day just start back when you can.

The picture above is from Bernardo Strozzi 1629. I’ve added a few notes about the painting that I found online at the end of this post.

WEEK 1 DAY 2
The story that Jesus told in Luke 7:40-43 is a picture of the gospel. The word “gospel” means good news. Jesus spoke of a man who owed five hundred denarii or about two full years wages. In the days of the Bible if you owed a debt like that and couldn’t repay it you could end up with all your possessions seized. You could be thrown into prison or made a slave. If you owed two years wages and had no way to pay it back it and it meant that you could lose all you have and end up in slavery but someone said, “the debt is canceled”, would that be good news? Yes! The idea of a life-threatening debt being freely cancelled is a picture of the good news of what God does for us through Jesus.

The spiritual reality Jesus illustrates here is that we owe God a debt that we can never pay. Part of Simon’s problem in this story is that he sees this woman as sinful but he doesn’t seem to really feel himself to be deeply sinful. If you have ever been frustrated by the judgmental attitudes of self-righteous Christians then you need to see in this story that Jesus shares that frustration. If you have a tendency to look down on others while thinking well of yourself you need to see in this story that you are a lot like Simon! We have all not only dishonored God repeatedly but we have disobeyed the laws of life he has clearly revealed for all of humanity.

Read Romans 3:10-28 and answer the questions that follow.

10 As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”13 “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The poison of vipers is on their lips.”14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” 15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 ruin and misery mark their ways, 17 and the way of peace they do not know.”18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” 19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. 20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement,[i] through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. 27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. 28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.

What stands out the most to you in the Bible’s description of human sinfulness?
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Do you find it harder to believe that we are this sinful or harder to believe that God complete cancels our debt through forgiveness?
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Keep  reading the Bible. The first assignment is to begin reading the gospel of John. Take your time, read at your own pace and don’t worry about what you don’t understand at first. Focus on what you do understand. Listen to the Scripture personally as if you are witnessing what is happening and John and Jesus are speaking to you about these things.  Ask yourself “What am I to make of all of this? What does it mean to follow Jesus? Write down your questions, thoughts and insights as you read.

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Verses to commit to memory

What’s up with the memory verses.

Well, I sort of messed up and gave you two right off the bat. So here they are… Sse if you can do them both. Start with the one I gave out on the card at the class.

John 21:22 b: “…What is that to you?  You must follow me.”

Then if you’ve got that down work on the one I gave in this week’s notes:

John 1:12: Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. 

Notes on the painting.

Bernardo Strozzi the last of the three painters who revitalized Venetian painting at the beginning of the 17th century, came to Venice from Genoa in 1631. In his works the artistic language of Fetti and Liss is developed in a more decorative style influenced by Veronese, with a robust exuberance of colour reminiscent of Rubens. Strozzi’s admiration for Veronese even before leaving Genoa is evident in Banquet at the house of Simon, clearly inspired by the works of the great painter, even if the exuberant style is now clearly Baroque. The banquet table is set diagonally in the wide niche. There are two focal points to the composition: Christ defending Mary Magdalene and Simon leaning incredulously over the table. A dense, rich colour, vibrant with atmospheric luminosity renders the figures physically and spiritually alive. The close observation of detail has a post-Caravaggio realism in the brilliant depiction of the servant interrupting the scuffle between a dog and a cat, or of the page bearing a tray of fruit, silhouetted against the sky.

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DAY 1
“Relationship With Jesus is Rooted in the Gospel.”

Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. 37 When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, 38 and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.
39 When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”
40 Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”
“Tell me, teacher,” he said.
41 “Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”
43 Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.”
“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.
44 Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47 Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”
48 Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
49 The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”
50 Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” – Luke 7:36-50

The story of Simon the Pharisee and the woman with the alabaster jar of perfume in Luke 7:36-50 is one of the classic stories from the life of Jesus. It beautifully reveals the dynamic at work in the heart of someone who follows Christ. It’s not what a lot of people think. Actor Bruce Willis was once quoted in USA Weekend. He said: “They [organized religion] used to hang the whole thing on one hook: If you don’t do these things, if you don’t act morally, you’re going to burn in hell.” I imagine that is close to what a lot of people think Christianity is about.

But what does the Bible actually teach? Look again at the story from Luke 7:36-50. Look at and listen to Jesus as portrayed in this story.

1. What is it that Jesus values most in the woman?

2. What does Jesus reveal about the relationship between love and forgiveness?

Looking at verses 41-42 what was different about the two men in the story Jesus tells? What did they both have in common?

Based on the question of Jesus in verse 42, what is the story really about?

One thing this story shows us is that Jesus wants us to follow him because of our love for him and that love for him comes from the grace he gives us in the gospel. 1 John 4:19 says: We love because he first loved us. Throughout this story what Jesus identifies in this woman is the same source of power or devotion for discipleship that we saw in the life of Peter in John 21. I wonder how well we understand that? How well do we understand the way in which what we call the gospel, the good news, not only gets us into a relationship with Jesus as our Savior but empowers us to live as followers of Jesus who follow him because of our love for him?

Take a moment to pray today that God will help you to grasp the greatness of his forgiving grace so that you will respond to him with authentic love.

If you don’t already have a Bible in a good modern translation buy one. I will mostly be using the New International Version (NIV) for this class but there are other good translations like the English Standard Version (ESV) also. If you can afford a good Study Bible you may find the notes very helpful. If you do not own a bible ask the church or whoever is doing this study with you to help you get one.

This week’s memory verse is John 1:12: Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—

Begin reading the Bible. The first assignment is to begin reading the gospel of John. Take your time, read at your own pace and don’t worry about what you don’t understand at first. Focus on what you do understand. Listen to the Scripture personally as if you are witnessing what is happening and John and Jesus are speaking to you about these things. Ask yourself “What am I to make of all of this? What does it mean to follow Jesus? Write down your questions, thoughts and insights as you read.

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Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. (This was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is going to betray you?”) When Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.”- John 21:20-22

For many years we at Christ Community Church have done sunrise baptisms at the beach and it has always been beautiful. The sunrise itself is like brilliant symbol of God’s grace bringing new life and light into our lives. It reminds me of 2 Corinthians 4:6, which says; For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. When people come to be baptized we always stress that the living of that new life requires us, not only to believe in Jesus but to follow him. When the people come to be baptized we ask them two questions. First, are you confessing that your faith for your salvation is not in your goodness but in Jesus as your Savior? Second, “Do you renounce the devil and his works and promise as a disciple of Jesus to follow Him as your Lord for the rest of your life?”

When we ask people not only to confess belief in Jesus as Savior but commitment to follow him we are reflecting what Jesus himself taught us. Twice in the passage we have read from John 21, Jesus says, “follow me”. First, at the end of verse 19 and then again at the end of verse 22, Jesus says, “Follow me”.

This Wednesday we begin a new class: The Walk”, focused on what it means to follow Jesus in our lives today. This class is offered for twelve weeks on Wednesday evenings from 6:30-8:00 pm beginning January 18th and ending April 4th (just before Easter Sunday). It will look at both the underlying dynamics and the practical disciplines of following Jesus. It will cover what it means to live life with Jesus, find life in Jesus, live life for Jesus, and live life like Jesus. It will also offer practical help developing practices of spiritual growth that are centered on the Word of God, prayer, living in community with other Christians and serving in ministry and on mission. The goal of this course is not only to deepen the spiritual life of the participants but also to equip them to help others to walk the walk and follow Jesus.

In addition to the classroom teaching, we will be posting weekly assignments here on “The Music and the Dance”. We are going to invite folks doing “The Walk” with us to join us online, to raise questions, make comments or just check out the weekly assignments.

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Grace and Growth

Richard Lovelace, The Dynamics of Spiritual Life ( Downers Grove, Ill.:IVP, 1979)

1. Justification and sanctification.

In the New Testament… justification (the acceptance of believers as righteous in the sight of God through the righteousness of Jesus Christ accounted to them) and sanctification (progress in actual holiness expressed in their lives) are often closely intertwined… However, they are quite distinct: justification is the perfect righteousness of Christ reckoned to us, covering the remaining imperfections in our lives like a robe of stainless holiness; sanctification is the process of removing those imperfections as we are enabled more and more to put off the bondages of sin and put on new life in Christ…

2. Justification reversed with sanctification.

a. Only a fraction of the present body of professing Christians are solidly appropriating the justifying work of Christ in their lives. Many have so light an apprehension of God’s holiness and of the extent and guilt of their sin that consciously they see little need for justification, although below the surface of their lives they are deeply guilt-ridden and insecure. Many others have a theoretical commitment to this doctrine, but in their day-to-day existence they rely on their sanctification for their justification… drawing their assurance of acceptance with God from their sincerity, their past experience of conversion, their recent religious performance or the relative infrequency of their conscious, willful disobedience. Few know enough to start each day with a thoroughgoing stand upon Luther’s platform: you are accepted, looking outward in faith and claiming the wholly alien righteousness of Christ as the only ground for acceptance, relaxing in that quality of trust which will produce increasing sanctification as faith is active in love and gratitude…

b. A conscience which is not fully enlightened both to the seriousness of its condition before God, and to the grandeur of God’s merciful provision of redemption, will inevitably fall prey to anxiety, pride, sensuality and all the other expressions of that unconscious despair which Kierkegaard called “the sickness unto death.” [So] we start each day with our personal security resting not on…the sacrifice of Christ but on our present feelings or recent achievements… Since these arguments will not quiet the human conscience, we are inevitably moved either to discouragement and apathy or to a self-righteousness which falsifies the record to achieve a sense of peace.

3. Justification as the basis for all sanctification.

a. Much that we have interpreted as a defect of sanctification in church people is really an outgrowth of their loss of bearing with respect to justification. Christians who are no longer sure that God loves and accepts them in Jesus, apart from their present spiritual achievements, are subconsciously radically insecure persons — much less secure than non-Christians, because of the constant bulletins they receive from their Christian environment about the holiness of God and the righteousness they are supposed to have. Their insecurity shows itself in pride, a fierce, defensive assertion of their own righteousness and defensive criticism of others. They come naturally to hate other cultural styles and other races in order to bolster their own security and discharge their suppressed anger. They cling desperately to legal, pharisaical righteousness, but envy, jealousy and other branches on the tree of sin grow out of their fundamental insecurity…

b. It is often said today, in circles which blend popular psychology with Christianity, that we must love ourselves before we can be set free to love others… But no realistic human beings find it easy to love or forgive themselves, and hence their selfacceptance must be grounded in their awareness that God accepts them in Christ… [There is much evidence in our experience against the idea that we are children of God, but] the faith that surmounts the evidence and is able to warm itself at the fire of God’s love, instead of having to steal love and self-acceptance from other sources, is actually the root of holiness…

c. Presented in this context, even the demand for sanctification becomes part of the good news. It offers understanding of the bondage that has distorted our lives and the promise of release into a life of Spirit-empowered freedom and beauty. Ministries that attack only the surface of sin and fail to ground spiritual growth in the believer’s union with Christ produce either self-righteousness or despair…

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I read these thoughts from John Piper this morning.

John Piper from 2001:

It seems to me that we are always falling off the horse on one side or the other in this matter of being tough and tender — wimping out on truth when we ought to be lion-hearted, or wrangling with anger when we ought to be weeping. I know it’s a risk to take up this topic and John Newton in a setting like this, where some of you need a good (tender!) kick in the pants to be more courageous, and others of you confuse courage with what William Cowper called “a furious and abusive zeal.” Oh how rare are the pastors who speak with a tender heart and have a theological backbone of steel.

I dream of such pastors. I would like to be one someday. A pastor whose might in the truth is matched by his meekness. Whose theological acumen is matched by his manifest contrition. Whose heights of intellect are matched by his depths of humility. Yes, and the other way around! A pastor whose relational warmth is matched by his rigor of study, whose bent toward mercy is matched by the vigilance of his biblical discernment, and whose sense of humor is exceeded by the seriousness of his calling.

I dream of great defenders of true doctrine who are mainly known for the delight they have in God and the joy in God that they bring to the people of God — who enter controversy, when necessary, not because they love ideas and arguments, but because they love Christ and the church.

I think all of this applies, not only to pastors, but to all leaders and really all Christians.

One of my favorite verses (one that often convicts me) is 2 Timothy 2:24-26.

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I was thinking about this issue through the week after talking about the presence of Christ last Sunday.

Here’s something helpful C.S. Lewis wrote about this issue.

“The presence of God is not the same as the sense of the presence of God. The latter may be due to imagination; the former may be attended with no “sensible consolation.” The act which engenders a child ought to be, and usually is, attended by pleasure. But it is not the pleasure that produces the child. Where there is pleasure there may be sterility: where there is no pleasure the act may be fertile. And in the spiritual marriage of God and the soul it is the same. It is the actual presence, not the sensation of the presence, of the Holy Ghost which begets Christ in us. The sense of the presence is a super-added gift for which we give thanks when it comes.

CS Lewis in Letters to An American Lady quoted in “The Healing Presence” by Leanne Payne, p. 26

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Tags: presence

Connie and went on a long hike through old growth forest at Cataloochie in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Deep in the woods we came across the ruins of an old settlement. The Pioneers had built this stone wall by hand, without mortar and it still stands strong over 100 years later when the rest of the cabins and outbuildings have long disappeared. I remembered what Peter wrote.

1 Peter 2:5: you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

We are living stones, personally chosen and graciously, artfully, carefully placed in the building of God’s own temple by the Holy Spirit. The idea of living stones suggests the paradox of something solid and strong and yet at the same time alive and vital.

This morning marks the day of Pentecost. The word “Pentecost” was the Greek word for a Jewish holiday ordained by God. It was written of in Exodus and was sometimes called the feasts of weeks, or the feasts of harvest or first fruits (Exodus 23:16). It was a harvest celebration in which the first fruits of the harvest would be offered to God in worship. It was called “Pentecost”, which means “fiftieth” in Greek, because it fell on the fiftieth day after the first day following the Passover Sabbath. It was on the day of Pentecost, some 2,000 years ago that God fulfilled His promise, first given in the Old Testament and then reiterated by Jesus, that He would pour out His Spirit on all of His people in a new and powerful way. Romans 8:23 calls the gift of the Holy Spirit in the life of a Christian the first fruits of the fuller harvest of salvation blessings that are yet to come when God restores all of creation.

With respect to our present relationship to the Holy Spirit a number of verses come to mind.

Galatians 5:16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

Galatians 5:25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

Ephesians 4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Ephesians 5:18-20 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. 19 Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, 20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Thessalonians 5:19 Do not put out (quench) the Spirit’s fire

The Holy Spirit is alive and He is the means by which God mysteriously interpenetrates your own thoughts, feelings, convictions and choices. It only makes sense that He would be constantly stimulating your own mind, to good thoughts, your own heart to good emotions, your own conscience to right convictions, and your own will to godly choices. You don’t hear voices you just find yourself being encouraged, stimulated, impelled, motivated, moved and urged from within to think, believe, feel and do what is right and true. To respond to the Spirit and walk by the Spirit means that when those impressions come we say; “yes”. Say; “yes, I’ll do that. Lord, you will have to give me the strength I need, I’ll have to depend on your power but I’m willing. I will believe, walk, continue, wait obey rejoice…” Say, “yes”, to the Holy Spirit. It really is that simple sometimes.

“The checks of the Spirit come in the most extraordinarily gentle ways, and if you are not sensitive enough to detect His voice you will quench it and your personal spiritual life will be impaired.” Oswald Chambers , My Utmost For His Highest

Through the Holy Spirit we are enabled  to be solid as stone wall but very much alive; in fact full of life. But we have to listen to and depend on Him to be fully alive and trully strong.

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