Saturday, September 29, 2012

A Joy and a Delight

“Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts.”  Jeremiah 15:16

God commanded Jeremiah to eat his words so that he might speak them to Israel.  God desires his people, and especially his preachers, to consume his Word.  When we read, study, and meditate on God’s Word, his Word becomes our joy and delight.  The meal is not delicious as it sits on the table.  It satisfies our appetites only when we begin to feast on it.  Even so the Bible will never be a joy and a delight to us as it sits on a shelf; it must be taken down from the shelf and consumed.  Too many Christians settle for a superficial reading of the Scriptures, but this is like taking a bite of a delicious meal only to spit it out.  Others may chew the meat of the Scripture for a time, but if it takes too much chewing, they will soon spit it out.  The Word will only delight the soul that consumes it fully.  This speaks of reading, studying, and meditating.  This requires time, prayer, concentration, and use of good resources.  We must seek and find God’s words, and when we find them, we must consume them.  Then and only then will his words become the joy and delight of our hearts.  The Bible is an acquired taste; rarely do people immediately and instinctively find reading it to be a joy.  But when the Spirit of God breathes life into our dead hearts, we receive the spiritual taste buds to enjoy the fine flavor of God’s eternal truth.  Jeremiah was not able to enjoy God’s Word in his natural condition.  He needed to be called by his sovereign God.  He took delight in God’s Word because he was called by God’s name.  The Lord of hosts effectively summoned him out of his dead condition in sin and into a living condition of communion with the living God.  We will never hear the voice of Jesus unless we are his sheep.  We will never come to him unless he first calls to us.  We are completely dependent on the sovereign and effective call of God in order to find his Word to be a delight.  Let us not, however, conclude that we are waiting for God to zap us with a love for his Word.  Our God is a sovereign God who is free to work without means if he chooses to do so, but he is pleased to work ordinarily through means.  We should read his Word and pray for this delight in it.  He will use the means of grace, prayer and the reading of his Word, to awaken within us a desire for and delight in his truth.  Perhaps most important of all is to sit under the pure preaching of God’s Word.  God’s ministers are best suited to preach life into dead hearts.  God loves to stir our affections through those shepherds who feed his people with wisdom and knowledge.  Preachers will work with you for you joy so that you might take delight in God and his Word.  So then let us feast on the Word of God today.  Let us not think that it is a bitter pill.  But let us come expecting to be nourished, strengthened, and satisfied.  Jesus is the joy of man’s desiring, and he walks the pages of the God-breathed book.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Not Looking Back

“Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’” Luke 9:62

Tozer once said that you know three things about a crucified man.  First, he has left the city for crucifixion took place outside the city.  Second, he is facing only one direction for he is nailed to the cross.  Third, he is never returning for he dies on the cross.  What a picture of the Christian disciple!  For we have been crucified with Christ.  Jesus calls his disciples to labor in his kingdom with single-minded devotion.  We must seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.  The plow speaks of the labor of the kingdom; the warning about looking back speaks of the need for devotion to the kingdom.  Jesus receives no half-hearted, partially-committed followers into the school of discipleship.  He calls for a radical decision to part with the things of this present world and to abandon all in following him. 

We need to rediscover the labor of our discipleship.  The Christian life is not effortless.  We are called to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.  We must pursue holiness in the race of our calling.  There is no room for inactive passivity.  How few Christians comprehend the labor of the kingdom!  The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.  Laziness and discipleship do not make good friends.  This labor is so intense that it calls for complete devotion.  We do not have the time or the energy to look anywhere else but forward.  We cannot look around or look back.  We must be fully engaged in the work of our Master.  Our hands must grasp the plow.  Our eyes must look at the field ahead of us.  Forward we must press.  This calls for concentration and focus. 

And mark well that we cannot look back.  The man who looks back is unfit for the kingdom.  Followers of Jesus may be tempted to look back; nevertheless, this means that we must leave anything and everything behind that hinders our work in the kingdom.  We must lay aside all weights and sins that cling so closely and run to Jesus. 

We must lay aside and not look back to our preoccupation with our worldly business.  James and John had to leave their nets and not look back to them in order to follow Jesus.  This does not mean that they never fished again; we know that they did.  But when they decided to follow Jesus, they were willing to leave the nets in order to serve the Savior at a moment's notice.  They were no longer preoccupied with their work.  Jesus told one man that he had no time to bury his father.  He told another that he had no time to sell his field.  He called people to forsake their business today.  They had other work to do.  Christian, you have other work to do; stop spending all your time, energy, and effort in the service of your job in this present life.  Yes, you must work to provide for your family, but do not let your work receive the greatest attention.  Give that to the kingdom of God! 

We must also lay aside and not look back to our excessive love for our family.  Jesus said that our love for our family must look like hatred in comparison to our love for him.  Jesus told one man that he did not even have the time to say farewell to his family before following Jesus.  Our family will tell us to remain in the city of destruction, but we must plug our ears as Bunyan’s pilgrim and cry to ourselves, “Life! Life! Eternal Life!”  We must not allow our family, especially our unbelieving family, to distract us from the plow.  Let us not look back to them and love them more than the work of the kingdom.  I have known Christians to skip church in order to entertain unbelieving family.  I have known others to forgo baptism because an unbelieving parent would be unhappy.  I have known still others who will not speak the words of life to them because it would disrupt a family gathering.  Where are our priorities?  Are our hands to the plow or are we looking back? 

We must also lay aside our love of comfort and convenience.  Foxes have holes and birds their nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.  We cannot expect the life of discipleship to be easy.  Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.  Jesus did not promise us a bed of roses but a cross of nails.  So let us not look back to the life of comfort, pleasure, and convenience that we could have if we were not following Jesus.  Let us not envy those who make a bed on earth only to wake up in hell.  What a plague this is on American Christianity!  We must not pursue the American Dream and the narrow path.  They are mutually exclusive.  We cannot serve God and money.

We must keep our hand to the plow.  We must not look back.  To whom shall we go?  The Lord Jesus alone holds eternal life.  Today recommit yourself to your King and his kingdom.  Remember that King Jesus is worthy of every sacrifice!  Keep your hand to the plow, brother!  Stay focused, sister!  Do not look back!  What is behind you holds no promise for you.  There is only promise in what is ahead of you: Jesus, righteousness, joy, and the kingdom!

Monday, September 24, 2012

Able to Keep You from Stumbling

“Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever.  Amen.”  Jude 24-25

Since we all stumble in many ways, we need our God to keep us from stumbling.  Without this divine keeping our situation would be hopeless.  No Christian is able to walk the narrow path without daily stumbling into sinful words, thoughts, and actions.  The good news is that God is able to keep us from stumbling.  He begins this keeping at our conversion and continues until he presents us “blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy.”  So let us not grow discouraged or weary or fainthearted in our Christian walk! 

Our God will protect us from the dark path set before us.  When we walk the narrow path in the dark, we are bound to stumble along the way.  But God has given us his Word to light the way and keep us from stumbling.  His Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.  We can see the stumbling blocks in the road as we carry the lamp of God’s Word. 

Christ also keeps us from stumbling by walking with us and supporting us.  Christians lean on Christ as old men lean on canes.  Christ places his arm around us when we are weak and provides the necessary support.  Rarely do we stumble and fall when we are leaning on the arms of our omnipotent Savior. 

The Lord protects us from those who cause us to stumble.  The thief may come to steal, kill, and destroy, but he is no match for Jesus.  Perhaps a brother unknowingly places a stumbling block in our way; Christ is there beside us granting us the wisdom to avoid the obstruction in our way.  Sinners run aside from the narrow path and call us to join them as they run across the rough terrain of sin and rebellion.  Christ calls us back to his side by his sovereign Holy Spirit.  His sheep always hear his voice and return. 

Sometimes we stumble because our eyes wander away from the narrow path and focus on the world.  We see the pleasures and possessions of this present life, and, while our eyes wander from the way of holiness, we stumble because we are not looking ahead.  Yet again our God is able to set our eyes on him.  He is able to keep us from stumbling.  We know that we will never be sinless in this life, but we can walk uprightly and free from obstruction when we trust the One who is able to keep us from stumbling and present us before his presence on the last day. 

Let us trust our God’s ability today to keep us from the obstacles in the path of holiness.  Let us seek to walk the narrow way.  If we are weak today, let us lean on the arms of Christ and trust his ability to support us as we journey to heaven.  If the road ahead of us seems dark, let us turn to his Word that reveals the way.  Our God is able!  Our confidence is in him!