What is your ‘One Thing’?

September 1, 2013

Maria Acts, Christ's work on the Cross, Galatians, Idols, Prayer, Psalm 27 , , , , 2 Comments

You’ve heard of Double A batteries?  How about Double C Idols?

That would be the twin gods of comfort and certainty.  I was stopped short in my thoughts the other day by a quote attributed to Nancy Leigh DeMoss.  Quoted in the excerpt at the bottom of this essay* she asks her listeners to, “Finish what King David wrote by filling in YOUR one thing: ‘One thing I have asked of the Lord, this one thing I seek_____________________’.”  (Psalm 27:4)

Pausing to reflect, I had to confess that I couldn’t even narrow down all my prayer requests and heart longings to ONE THING. But I remember saying to myself, ‘what a great idea!’

Pretty soon, in less than 24 hours, I realized that ALL my prayers pretty much center around wanting MY comfort and certainty in the details of my life and the lives of those I care about.

In other words it’s all about me. Yet…that is not wrong in and of itself.  God KNOWS that we operate in our own best interests. He wired us that way.  He just KNOWS that which is in our best interests – a life fed, fueled, and instructed by Him.

Even yesterday on our hike up the Art Loeb Trail to Ivestor Gap,

Art Loeb Trail plaque and Mike - 31 Aug

I saw how much we crave certainty. Mike was navigating by topographical map. He is a typical mission-oriented male, just the way God made men to be.  He had scoped out a hike and this was our 3rd attempt to complete it.  The first Saturday, because we weren’t used to how long it takes to hike this kind of hilly terrain, we had taken a wrong turn.  Then last Saturday, I casually mentioned that 4 hours of hiking was probably what I had in mind for a typical Saturday field trip.  That information, shared with my husband for the first time, caused him to change our day’s goals.  We successfully completed half of his planned hike. Yesterday our goal was to finish it.

As we ran into those inevitable decision points (how come THIS trail fork isn’t showing up on the map?), I realized how much we CRAVE certainty and how it eludes our grasp most of the time.  What a futile passion, then, to want to KNOW that things will turn out the way we imagine them in the beginning.  What a waste of emotional energy to angst, to stress, to push to ENSURE those pictured circumstances turn out ‘our way’!

God doesn’t promise us THAT KIND of assurance.  (He DOES assure us of our salvation, if we have trusted in His forgiveness applied to us based on Christ’s work.)

Back to David and Psalm 27: As we hiked in the lush hills of Western NC, I meditated on my ONE THING while…

·         passing locals gathering  blueberries

·         smiling at families tenting for the weekend

·         chatting with a young couple & their daughter the age of our grandson. They were hiking up and down the hills, acclimating her to their lifestyle.

Art Loeb Trail from FR 816

By the time we reached our parked car, I had formulated what I am NOW going to pray to God about and continue to order my life around;

·         that I may KNOW moment by moment  that I ‘live and move and have my being’  (Acts 17:28) IN Christ

·         that I RE-MEMBER that I have a new ontology, a new nature thanks to the Holy Spirit in me

Why that request?

·         I forget….daily..hourly

But if I can stay aware that ‘it is no longer I who live, but Christ in me..’(Gal 2:20), then why stress over ANYthing?  Logic and common sense say that if I don’t have a crystal ball, if I don’t control the universe, than I cannot possibly know exactly what IS BEST for me or my loved ones.  But the One who created the universe and all that is in it DOES know.  And united to Him is the safest place to be.

What is your One Thing?

*

How would you finish [this] sentence?  “One thing have I desired of the Lord; that will I seek after _________.”  What is the greatest desire and longing of your heart? In the answer to that question lies the explanation for much of what we do – our choices, our priorities, our use of time, the way we spend money, the way we respond to pressure, whom or what we love. [King] David’s answer (see Psm. 27:4) reveals why God could say, “This man’s heart beats like mine.”

Nancy Leigh DeMoss  (30 Aug 2013 Quote of the Day, Grace Tabernacle Church) 

Your debt – whom do you owe?

August 11, 2013

Maria Christ's work on the Cross, Debt, Heaven , , , , , , 2 Comments

What do you do with your debt?

A pastor for Redeemer Presbyterian in NYC told a story that connected with many listeners who held advanced degrees.  As the story goes, a man owed $150,000 in college loans.  ‘Out of nowhere’ appeared an anonymous benefactor who paid it off in one fell swoop!!  That good news has been part of this man’s story ever since.

I actually have a friend who experienced a similar blessing.  While working as a librarian and going to school part-time to earn a bachelors’ degree, Joanne took an interest in one of the library patrons.  She would greet him by name, ask about his life and help him.  One day he handed her a check and paid off all her college loans!  The man whom she thought was ‘down & out’ dressed shabbily because he was thrifty by choice!   His unexpected gift is now part of Joanne’s story.

We are often taken back by über-generosity.  But if we’re Christians, why do we act so blasé about what God has done for us, in cancelling our ‘GI-NOR-MOUS’ debt? 

I was reading a helpful explanation of why our sin deserves death. We have committed 2 capital crimes:

  • blashphemy – we have usurped God who deserves our worship and proclaimed, “No – I’m my own God/ final authority in my life!”
  •  treason – we have been disloyal to this King and disobeyed his rules, ‘kinda’ like Snowden who gave away state secrets.

Since GUILTY is the correct assessment of our crimes and as much as we deserve the automatic sentence death, we should be stunned by the mercy offered.

And lest you complain that God is UNFAIR to treat us so well, punishment is meted out and served by our divine substitute.  On top of that, our bank account of righteous deeds IS filled to the brim; we come to God with a record of ‘perfection’.

Why ‘perfection’?  Because that is the only standard that gets you in the door of heaven.  Removal of guilt + a perfect record of righteous deeds are the requirements for entry in God’s presence.  We get both if we accept Jesus’ mind-boggling offer to act as our sin-bearer-away and also our righteous-deed proxy.

But then what? What is so good about:

  • Forgiveness
  • Sufficient saving faith
  • Justification
  • Eternal life with God and not separation?

I realize now that we stop short.  We think that they are the end in themselves.

Pastor John Piper offered a new thought this morning.  He said that the ultimate good news is that BECAUSE of forgiveness and justification, we get to be face-to-face with God, in His presence. His presence will be the source of joy and delight.

Physical pleasures like sex and food and reading and massage are one dimensional.  The pleasures we will be capable of experiencing when we can see God face to face are categorically different.

Think of what God says via the psalmists:

  • Psalm 16:11 ….In your presence is fullness of joy, at your right side are pleasures ever more.
  • Psalm 36:8  …You let them drink from your river of delights.   
  • Psalm 37:4 ….the Lord will give you the desires of your heart.

I can’t end this rumination without mentioning the classic quote CS Lewis:

“It would seem that 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.” (The Weight of Glory, and Other Addresses)

And PS:  why not brag about that big debt that SomeOne paid off for you!!

When a fellow Christian hurts you

July 14, 2013

Maria Christ's work on the Cross, Forgiveness, Grace , , , , , 4 Comments

“She’s gonna pay!”

Have you ever been THAT kind of mad at a sister/brother in Christ?  I have!

You could have caught me ‘speechless’ the other night, after reading John Piper’s daily reflection on my iphone app called “Piper Devotional” (excerpted from his book Future Grace).

What stopped me in my tracks and made me reconsider the times when I’ve been mad at others was reading Piper’s thoughts on Romans 8:1

There is, therefore, now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

What that means is that when someone else in the Church hurts me and they rightly deserve to pay for that offense, the payment has already been made – in the past – on the cross by none other than Jesus.   It HAS to be that way for them NOT to be condemned by God.  The other alternative would be for God to say, “Susie has hurt you?  Just forgive her – ‘cause she’s your sister-in- Christ.  Period!”

That, actually, would NOT be fair!  And God is the God of justice, or else he is NOT God!  Someone WILL pay or HAS paid or DOES pay.  One of the privileges of being in the King of the Universe’s family is having Big Brother Jesus cover our deliberate AND inadvertent mean or thoughtless words/ actions toward one another.  How?- in his flesh, on the cross.

When I want to make Christian sister Susie pay, I’m actually saying that I want Jesus to suffer STILL MORE for the harm done me.

Reading Piper’s piece, I actually pictured Jesus softly saying, “That’s okay, Maria, I can take it.  If that brother-in-Christ needs to pay for what he did to you, then I’ll pay for him.  Lay his iniquity on me.  I’m here to suffer the rightful punishment for what he did to you!”

In my scenario, I found myself saying almost with tears:

‘No, Lord, I don’t want You to suffer any more; I will let my brother go, I won’t hold IT against him anymore.”

Talk about injustice!  If my twisted desire, to see him or her PAY, means Jesus has to suffer more, then I don’t want that, especially not just to make me feel better.

Now THAT’s a sure, quick way to drain off self-righteous anger!

So what am I saying?  That they should get off, just because they are Christian?

–      Well, you and I have ‘gotten off’, haven’t we?

–      Are we aware of all the ways we have hurt someone else, another family member of God?

–      And what about all the many ways we have ignored God or rebelled against Him?

Jesus HAS paid it all.  And it did cost Him.

I HOPE that the next time I start to feed some righteous indignation due to wounds from a fellow member of the household of Christ that I can PICTURE Jesus asking me, “How much do you want them to squirm…however much you think they deserve, I’m ready, in their place. Your call, Maria!”    

Reflections on marriage – both kinds.

April 14, 2013

Maria Christ's work on the Cross, Ephesians, Marriage , 2 Comments

"I know what I'm getting into, Mother!"

“I know what I’m getting into, Mother!”

 

It was our anniversary last week. Mike and I have been laughing and smiling through memories, all of them bathed in deep gratitude to the One who has kept us faithful to our covenant.  Holy Spirit super glue comes highly recommended.

There was that 20th anniversary cruise to which months earlier we had blithely invited MY dad, our boys Graham & Wes and Graham’s classmate & good  friend Rob. By the time we set sail in April of 2000, deep fissures in our marriage had surfaced. Walled-up tight, we barely talking to one another.  We slept in separate bunks in our cabin, keeping up the charade of a happy anniversary celebratory cruise.  It was awful.

But thanks be to the God who can heal marriages and who preserves the best for the 2nd half! (Here’s to 33 more years!)

While cleaning yesterday, I gained a deeper insight into marriage and the church.  Following my routine for manual labor, my ears were glued to a podcast.  Two Christians were ironing out the actual significance of Christ’s work on the cross.  Between dusting and scrubbing,   I caught a new understanding of something called ‘penal substitutionary attonement’.  That’s the doctrine that holds to Christ dying in our place, submitting to the legal punishment due us and absorbing God’s justifiable wrath toward sin.

The Christian opposed to ‘PSA’ advocated ‘Christus Victor’ as the label for what Jesus accomplished.  This view holds that Christ defeated the evil powers of darkness arrayed against God, but that no punishment was meted out.  He explained further that far from holy justice, actual INJUSTICE would be done were an innocent man punished for something he didn’t do.

The orthodox Christian explained that it was FITTING and APPROPRIATE for Christ as both head & husband of the Church (the called-out believers are the bride of Christ) to die and pay the penalty for her sins.  We are one with Christ if we are IN CHRIST.  No innocent 3rd party was pulled in off the street and made to suffer this sentence.

All of a sudden I SAW why Christian marriage is such a big deal.  It is the down-to-earth illustration of Christ’s relationship to us as Church. I had always known Paul to say that explicitly, but never understood it.

          Eph 5:31-33 – “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

New realizations flooded me as I saw more clearly what Mike does for me as my husband. HE actually is responsible for me.  If I err in any way, in one sense, he takes the blame.  We are one; what I do affects him and vice versa.  Only God holds HIM accountable.

What woman wouldn’t want to tuck herself safely under that kind of God-appointed covering?  If God describes that as submission, I happily submit and will pray all the more for my dear husband.

Jeff, our pastor, preached on the role of husbands today, taken from 1 Peter 3:1-7.  I love his quote attributed to Matthew Henry:

          Eve was not taken out of Adam’s head to top him, neither out of his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected by him, and near his heart to be loved by him.

Since husbands are called to serve & die for their wives as Paul explains, it seems a little thing to respect and honor them in return. Thank you, Father, for your planned protection.  I DO plan & carry out silly, stupid things occasionally.

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