Do not let this ‘Word’ depart from your mouth but meditate on it day and night
February 12, 2015
Christ's work on the Cross, Devotional Bites, Marriage Faith in Future Grace, Forgiveness, God's Wrath, John Piper, Justification, Marriage 3 Comments
I just listened to John Piper’s sermon (the 3rd in a series) about God’s view of marriage. This will enlarge your vision of marriage and inspire you, whether you are single, thriving in your marriage or struggling. You can listen or read at this link.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
February 3, 2015
Ephesians, Forgiveness, Grace Forgiveness, Grace, John Piper, Marriage, Pop Quiz, Remembering, Sin, Trials 2 Comments
Ephesians 4:32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you
Why did he bring up that old sin of mine?
I’m not often caught off guard, but his comment blind-sided me. It definitely related to the movie we were watching, but I hadn’t thought of that shameful chapter from my past for years.
My stunned silence in turn took him back. He hadn’t meant any – it was just a remark. My unexpected reaction so took him back and left him not knowing how to process what was happening.
A chilly distance and awkwardness descended upon us both.
We each felt put upon by the other. We each wanted the other to lay aside their feelings and make the effort to understand our surprise and hurt. It was a Mexican impasse.
Words weren’t adequate to work through the weight of feelings. I sat down to read the paper and he made his way to the ‘man-cave’ to smoke his post-prandial cigar.
Slowly there came over me a sense that I was being offered a pop quiz to plumb the genuineness of my verbal proclamations of love for my husband. Here was an occasion to put my money where my mouth was.
Do I truly love my husband as much as I tell him and others? If so, then aren’t his feelings important to me, even more so than MY own feelings?
And there he was, down in that cold place, next to the propane heater, trying to enjoy a cigar, but feeling UN-loved and MIS-understood and probably maligned.
Soft feelings of compassion replaced my desire first to be understood. A texting conversation began and after a flurry, I knew that offering him grace instead of holding out for what I thought I wanted (to be understood) was more satisfying. I went to bed in peace.
How did I know it was a pop quiz? Because the chapter in my book I picked up after our electronic back and forth addressed GIVING versus TAKING. And John Piper’s devotional for the day was about forgiveness.
June 22, 2014
Christ's work on the Cross, Forgiveness, Grace, Holiness, Psalm 34, Sin, Soul growth Boasting, Christian Growth, Forgiveness, Knowledge, Pride, Repentence, Sin 4 Comments
Voilà my favorite topic – me!
I’ve grown increasingly aware via my lived-out experiences as well as through reading Christian authors of this unpleasant fact: the more we grow in our knowledge of God and His standards of holiness, the more we realize how far short we fall.
So when the desire rises in me to boast, in a fake nonchalant way about myself or my kids, I have to pray to resist this pathetic urge. For that is what it is – sick self-aggrandizement!
Why should I brag about how XYZ I am as though it is a true representation of my value? Because it’s NOT who I really am. Yes, I feel a momentary rush as I bask in my own self-proclaimed glory, whether you admire me or not. But here’s the rub: it’s not the total picture of who I am.
To be honest, if you knew all those thoughts and feelings and actions that I keep from you, you’d laugh to think that I, Maria, even thought highly of herself for one moment.
So there we were last night enjoying supper with some friends on our deck overlooking God’s splendor.
And I was aware of wanting them to be impressed with how well I cooked as well as how smart, hardworking, well-read and fit I was. And at the same time, I knew that to drop hints of my fake-veiled glory was to steal glory form the One who alone deserves to be magnified – Jesus Christ. I even prayed about my tendency ahead of time, knowing that it would far better to do otherwise. Admiring Jesus could be potentially life-giving to them and it certainly would satisfy me more deeply.
I think God allowed me to fall again into this sin and then have the opportunity in church today to repent and long to kill that instinct through His grace – aka HS power. These 2 verses describe the Maria I want to be:
Psalm 34 – 2 to 3
My life makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble and afflicted hear and be glad.
O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together.
November 10, 2013
Uncategorized Expectations, Forgiveness, Hiking, Hope, Marriage, Rangers, Sanctification, Sin, Unmet Expectations Leave a comment
of having something to look forward to.
If you’re like me, you enjoy having something new in which to hope, to anticipate, to savor, or to find relief from pain or the mundane. Something like an event, a trip, stuff or a transition.
We can also place our hope in people – – to meet our needs. The kicker is when they don’t live up to our expectations, when they disappoint.
Among many intermittent friendships with other Christian women, I’ve enjoyed one long and sustained relationship. For over ten years, this gal and I met weekly for coffee and fellowship at Starbucks, until I moved away this past June.
Our weekly hour of spiritual and life catch-up covered both years when we read & discussed books together, to seasons of just plain keeping up with each other’s interests and needs. Twice I betrayed her trust by divulging a confidence. And our friendship endured and strengthened.
This was a new experience for me, to have a strong but elastic friendship that neither of us dismissed or dropped at the first encounter with unmet expectations. It would have been easier to drift, to claim a season of ‘busyness’. But we would have missed the blessings.
I am, by my fallen genetic make-up a prideful person. I tend to think I’m pretty good. Of course, once I became a Christian at age 23, God slowly but steadily took my blinders off so I could see more and more of the sin that had been there all along.
By the time I sinned against my friend the second time, I was ‘mature’ enough to confess to her something that went like this:
I hadn’t planned on announcing that fact; I think the Holy Spirit just opened my eyes to that truth at the moment.
You know, it is FREEING to acknowledge that my bent is STILL to sin. What makes me different from the non-Christian, is that Jesus already paid for all my future sins. And I am well loved by God. His grace doesn’t give me license to sin, but it does remove my need to cover up my sins.
I revisited this lesson yesterday on the Appalachian Trail. Mike and I had planned another Saturday hike. Normally these are physically and emotionally restorative. This one turned out to be painfully and spiritually revelatory.
Three times over the course of the 5 hours (should have been only 4 – our normal limit at our age 56), we got side-tracked (aka – lost). Twice it was my fault – due to my strong will, selfish desire to reach a spot on the trail and my distrust of Mike’s Ranger training.
He sinned too and during the drive home, we processed. After reconciling, I remarked:
Mike, as much as I am truly sorry for hurting you today by not trusting you and not thinking about how your ankle must have been hurting, I want you to know how thankful I am that we have a covenant marriage that is both strong and elastic enough to survive our deliberate sins against each other. Most assuredly I will hurt you again and you will wound me. We’re sinners. May we continue to offer one another grace and ready forgiveness.
Now that is liberating. Mike’s hope is NOT in a perfect partner and neither is mine. That releases us to overlook much and chalk it up to God’s sanctification process.
Mike’s face clearly illustrates God’s gritty, sandpapery sanctification process in the midst of our hike yesterday.
But what I see in it …..is the face of my beloved husband, a fellow sinner, committed to me and to God. May God give us BOTH the strength and the desire to love well with plenty of grace when we don’t feel like it.
July 14, 2013
Christ's work on the Cross, Forgiveness, Grace Forgiveness, Gospel, John Piper, Sin, Suffering, The Church 4 Comments
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!”
November 18, 2012
Hebrews, Sanctification, Sin, Thankfulness, Thinking, Uncategorized Christian Growth, Forgiveness, Grace, Logic, Reconciliation, Repentence 2 Comments
Logic won out the other day in our household.
My husband sometimes puts me up on a pedestal by thinking that I am ‘the more Godly’ of the two of us. (imagine THAT kind of argument: “ No, I’m worse than you! Here let me prove it to you….”)
He sometimes indulges in a kind of self-pitying spiral of feeling bad about himself. One evening last week, I nailed him with an undeniable deductive argument that was both valid and true. He had to smile in spite of himself. I was truly Holy-Spirit inspired, because I don’t think I would have come up with the proof myself.
My reasoning was this:
God only gives good and perfect gifts.
God gave me my husband.
Therefore, my husband is a good and perfect gift.
Now I’m not saying my husband is without sin. I’m using the term ‘perfect’ to mean 100 % suited for me in every way, sent to bless me, to aid me in my sanctification. I know, ‘sanctification’ is a fancy Christian-ese word. What it means is the process that is meant to “rub off the rough areas of your personality….train you in humility….give you practice in self-less living…..strengthen your submission muscle to make you teachable to God”
You see, learning to love Michael is helping me grow in holiness for, “….. without holiness no one will see the Lord.” Hebrews 12:14b
So no matter how difficult it gets living with another person, knowing that my heavenly Father picked him out for me, from before the creation of the universe, helps me accept more easily all that happens between us as coming from the hand of God. This reasoning softens my approach and keeps me praying in the midst of a disagreement,
“Thank you, Father, for this painful encounter. You mean this for my good. May I see this as ‘gift’ and respond in the way you want me to. Guide me. And bless my husband. Thank you for him.”
I don’t always reason through like that. In the heat of emotions, I can feel sorry for myself and get a chip on my shoulder with the best of you. Remembering that God is in control of ALL that comes to us keeps my conclusions from veering off into ‘untruth’. It’s also humbling and painful to think that God may be allowing my hurtful, sharp and ‘irrational’ remarks to wound my dearest friend for his own good.
Thankfully I can report, that the Holy Spirit is causing both of us to see and regret more quickly the pain we cause one another. We are learning to repent and ask each other’s forgiveness within the same segment of the day, often within 30 minutes or fewer.
And more broadly speaking, why does God allow such sin? One reason that I can see, is that the reconciliation Mike and I experience after hardness of heart is the sweetest sensation we have ever felt. I think we are meant to taste and see in those moments the wonder of reconciliation with the Creator of all things, our Father and Eternal Logos.
So on this start of Thanksgiving week 2012; I give thanks to God for His gift of Michael Francis Cochrane. “Je t’aime fort, mon petit ours!”
June 22, 2011
Forgiveness, Guilt, Hebrews, Psalm 103 Forgiveness, Guilt, Sacrifices Leave a comment
The other day I saw a distinction that was new to me. The word ‘to forgive’ and the French word ‘pardonner’ both have the root or meaning to GIVE (French – donner, like donate). God gives us a way back to a restored, right relationship with Him after we have violated one of His laws. It’s 100 % from Him. We do nothing on our own. Contrariwise, the sacrificial system of the Hebrews was built on the action of the sinner. You broke God’s law, YOU gave up a valuable, unblemished part of your wealth & sustenance (livestock) and your relationship with God was restored.
Therefore, when God says in the letter to the Hebrews in Chapter 10, “….’their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more’. And when these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin. Therefore brothers, since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus (17-19)….having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience (22b)…”
What does this have to do with how you and I live and what we do with our sin? If you and I are in Christ, that is, if we are part of those called and offered “….the promised eternal inheritance – now that he(Christ) has died as a ransom to set (us) free from the sins committed under the first covenant” (Hebr 9:15), then there is nothing left for us to DO.
If we were still under the rules of the Mosaic Covenant, we would have to give up goods and perform sacrifices to cover our sins. But now, as members of the new covenant, we exercise the privilege of heirs. We still sin, but we claim the covering effect of the paid ransom. More meaningful to me is the freedom from guilt.
If we accept as FACT what God’s word says, then per verse 22b in Hebrews 10, we have been cleansed from a guilty conscience. When did that happen? When the Son was killed as a ransom to set us free from the penalty of all our sins (past, present and future) guilt was also removed.
So how does this work out? My struggle with guilt comes more often from not living up to my standards for myself. Over the years, I have come more and more to bring those standards in line with God’s law. When I overeat, when I break a confidence, when I say something negative about another family member or brother and sister in Christ, when I choose to be selfish instead of following the prompting of the Holy Spirit, I feel guilty. And I can wallow in guilt which turns me in on myself, away from God, away from others. But face to face with the truth that my guilt has been removed, it is getting easier to talk to myself and say,
“Maria, you don’t have to stew in guilty feelings. They are not necessary. Guilt has been removed. So stop it! Remember, there is NOW NO condemnation from God because I am an heir of the eternal inheritance along with my older brother Jesus. In fact He suffered so I don’t have to feel guilty. Are you saying, by wallowing in your self-indulgent guilt, that it wasn’t ENOUGH for your older brother Jesus, son of the Living God, to willingly be punished for you, for THIS sin?”
I do listen to myself. And the other day, it only took about 2 hours of stewing and self-talk for me to release myself from the prison of artificial guilt.
How about you? Are you ignoring such a great benefit? “Oh bless the Lord, O my soul and forget not all His benefits, He forgives all your sins!” (Psalm 103: 1a, 2-3a)
September 28, 2010
Faith, Gospel, Peace, Sanctification, Thinking Christian Growth, Complaining, Forgiveness, Grace, Peace, Sin, Thoughts Leave a comment
Dear Son –
Dad and I were so blessed by your phone call last night. Your transparent accounting of what you struggle with at age 22, both as a newly married man and a recently commissioned Infantry lieutenant, convey trust and love for us and a longing to grow. These two changes in your life are major, in and of themselves. Together they provide a lot of stress; even if they are circumstances you have chosen and for which you have mentally prepared. You’ve faced difficult challenges before, since you’ve been a Christian for 6 or so years and have experienced pruning and growth. But new developments have peeled away a comfort layer and revealed more sin for your Father to address. Your attitude and reaction to some of these feelings raised have caught you by surprise.
The way you described what God has been teaching you was well articulated. It’s not a first-time lesson nor is it unique to you. The choice before all Christians is to walk/abide in our human flesh or to walk/abide in Christ. The first choice is more comfortable because we have developed personal coping mechanisms to deal with daily unpleasantness. The second option works far better, but either doesn’t always occur to us and/or doesn’t appeal. Our pride/stubbornness leads us to default to the shortcut, even if we can accurately predict the outcome. We are used to failure, self-condemnation, our own excuses and concomitant spewing over onto those we love.
Here are some observations from your parents who are 31 years older than you. However, we have really only been growing as Christians for the past 10 years. So you, your brother, Dad and I are really about the same age as God’s Kids.
Dad and I DID NOT teach you the following: (we have been learning these realities ourselves in recent years, since you left for college)
First – the purpose of life is to glorify God. Relentlessly, the world tells us that life is all about us. Hear the constant litany – “our comfort, our desires, our bodies, our accomplishments, our purposes, our stuff, and our rights.” We have to intentionally choose to live moment by moment, breath by breath for what magnifies and makes most of God, not what exalts us. John Piper exhorts us not to waste our lives on ourselves, no matter how much we beguile ourselves with our own self-worth. Self, self, self!
Second – because of the Fall, life is hard. Because of Satan, we are in a war. John Piper calls us to adopt a warfare mentality. That’s not bad. You were mentioning that a good soldier always has a plan and is prepared to fight. Our enemy is not just terrorists from another land, fellow humans. All they can do is kill us. Our real enemy is far worse. He can deceive us into believing that God doesn’t exist, or in inventing our own version of God, made in our image.
So even though we Christians know how the story ends, we have to be alert and on guard. The American dream in both the active working years and in retirement is a major ploy of Satan’s. He has lulled us into thinking that this life is all there is and we had better enjoy it. Meanwhile, he is behind our lines as a 5th column, beguiling the ‘innocent’. Be mad! Get righteously angry, but not at fellow humans, but at the Father of Lies.
My 3rd point is worth more discussion than I have time right now. But I don’t think you need convincing of the possibility of lasting joy and purpose in Christ. We are comforted and assured by God’s Word that, even now on Earth, we have eternal life. Furthermore, God be praised, we are blessed with brief glimpses of joy even while wearing these perishable bodies.
Yet, as your chronologically older sister and brother in Christ, KNOW that this painful lesson of choosing to abide in Christ, rather than working out of your flesh/ your dominant side is a lesson you will have to RELEARN, time and time again. I’m sorry to tell you that. Were it otherwise! But that’s reality here on Earth. I still struggle with complaining and a poor attitude. I have to be pulled up short, daily. I’m even doing what I love, teaching French. Still I grumble, because of lack of perceived comfort, time, and choice circumstances, all the ME- desires. Your father is blessed to sing with a quality chorus as a hobby. He still struggles with the insidious temptation to work alone out of his own strength, thus experiencing frustration or to be yoked with Christ and enjoy rest. How simple the choice seems with distance. How blind we are.
So be prepared to fall again and again. We thank God for your wife, a godly woman who loves you and will hold you accountable. And you will do the same for her, when she fails to remember the way life is. Repentance is a blessing and the Father’s arms are never shut. Fly to him frequently.
Love,
Mom & Dad
February 15, 2010
Forgiveness, Romans, Sin Forgiveness, Sin 3 Comments
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it- the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. Romans 3:21-25
Why couldn’t God just keep on passing over our sins, i.e. FORGIVE our sins, without Jesus having to die? I was thinking about the nature of sin the other day during a Chapel talk at my school. I suddenly realized that we have to accept that a property or feature of sin committed in God’s world is that it automatically incurs God’s wrath. We can’t get away from that aspect. It’s incontrovertible – not open to being challenged. God set up the world and is the final authority on what everything means and what the rules of the ‘game’ are. And since He says that sin has to be paid for – ultimately, then He can’t just forgive it. The whole package of sin includes this wrath-incurring aspect.
When a friend fails to do what she says and lets you down, you experience at the very least the pain of disappointment. Even if you forgive her, you still suffer. Suffering can’t be separated from sin. God’s active, avenging anger is the same way. It is part of the nature of sin.
So when Paul tells us that God is righteous, it means that He acts consistently with the nature and consequences of sin. He doesn’t go against the system He established – there is actual wrath to be dealt with. We normally would absorb that wrath as a consequence of being the instigators of the sin. But the amazing, outside of the box, reality is that Jesus in covenantal agreement with the other two members of the Trinity, absorbs that wrath in our place. That is what ‘propitiation’ means. God the Father accepts the work of his Son in absorbing the entire wrath due us for our sin.
It’s not that we are declared not guilty. We ARE guilty. It’s that our debt or penalty to God has been paid for and we get to walk out of jail free. It is incorrect to say that it is though we never sinned. We DID sin. Appropriate punishment was meted out and paid for/absorbed by Jesus. And now we are welcomed back into society.
But our reentry into the community is far better than going back to ‘normal’. Think about a man charged with being a sex offender who spends time in jail and then when his sentence has been completed, he is released. The problem for him is that no one wants him living in the community near them. He lives with shame the rest of his life.
Our crimes against God are FAR WORSE than the sex offender. We rebelled against the very One who created us in the first place. But God does not leave us to stew in our shame. He invites us to a NEW normal. We are actually given a place of honor, the opposite of shame. God, the Father, invites us to share in the privileges of children of the King with full inheritance rights.
May we meditate on this unexpected grace. May we revel in thoughts of the inheritance waiting for us. May we frequently daydream about the full fellowship we will enjoy when we are face to face with the One we sinned against and the One who absorbed the punishment due us.
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