A few verses popped out at me in our Psalms reading. This entire psalm, of course, is praising the Word of God, desiring to know it and meditate on it and live by it. Very applicable, I think, to Jody's post from yesterday. It is very common for our desire to draw near to God, to read/study the Word, to pray - to fluctuate. We have spiritual ups and downs. There are times we just naturally feel close to God. And there are times when it feels forced and unnatural.
The key is to decide to do it anyway whether we feel like it or not.
It reminds me of love really. Love is a decision and an action. The feeling of love follows the act of love. It doesn't go the other way around.
We cannot allow our emotional state to dictate our dedication to reading the Word. We need to learn to recognize those times of spiritual lowness, and determine especially in those times, to keep at it. We can change things up a bit if we need to - read some encouraging Psalms instead of whatever was originally planned, or just spend some time silent before God, allowing the Holy Spirit to pray what our words cannot express, or spend time intently listening to some worship music. But we need to decide to keep at it. It's a decision, not an emotion.
I loved the quote Jody gave yesterday that talked about the Spirit producing deep anguish over sin. This verse totally jumped out at me in relation to that...
Streams of tears flow from my eyes, for your law is not obeyed. Psalm 119:136
What passion! Passion for the Word and passion for the holiness of God. Passionate about the fact that sin has a temporary hold on this world and that God's holiness is being flagrantly disregarded, even mocked.
May we be consumed by this passion! May the Spirit work in our hearts and lives to produce this passion for the Word and this passion for the holiness of God, that tears stream from our eyes because of the sin we see around us.
It also ties in well to our Thessalonians passage that talks more about the second coming of our Lord.
God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you. 2 Thessalonians 1: 6-10
This passage really packs a punch! MacArthur has a 3 part sermon on this section. (Part 3 summarizes the first two parts well and wraps things up. If you can't read/listen to them all, read that one)
Jesus is coming back. And this time He will not be veiled like He was at the first coming. This time He will come in full glory with His angels and everyone will know He is God! And when He comes people will fall into only one of two categories. Either they will be believers or unbelievers and will experience either relief or retribution.
For unbelievers, this will be the apocolypse.
When Jesus comes in His glory to deal out retribution, the day of grace ends. Judgment sweeps across the world. We asked three questions about that... Question number one is why. Why does Jesus do this? Why does He come and deal out retribution? Verse 6 gives the answer. "After all, it is only just for God to repay with affliction." It is just, we said, it is consistent with the justice of God, God a holy God who must act in a just way, must punish unholiness. It is just. It is equitable. It is right. It is fitting.
Then we asked the question who. Who is going to feel this just retribution? And there in verse 6 it says, "Those who afflict you." That is, those who persecute Christians, those who mock or ridicule, those who in any way, shape or form demean, accuse or persecute Christians. But they're part of a larger group identified over in verse 8. "As those who do not know God and who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus." The Lord Jesus will come dealing out vengeance, dealing out punishment. That punishment will fall on all who have persecuted believers, who are part of a larger group who do not know God and who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
How? Was the third question. How is that vengeance, that retribution and that punishment to be meted out? First of all, in verse 6 it says, "God will repay with affliction." That means with pain. It will be a painful execution of judgment, of justice. Furthermore in verse 9, "This penalty to be paid will be eternal." It will be an eternal pain, eternal destruction, he calls it. The word means ruination. In other words, man as to any value or any purpose or any worthiness will be ruined. It will be the ruination of that individual, eternally ruined and eternally to bear pain. Further that is defined as being away from the presence of the Lord and away from the glory of His power. No evidence of the presence of God. He will not be there. No manifestation of the glory of His power. To be in that place called hell prepared for the devil and his angels is to be utterly apart from any representation of God or any display of His power whatsoever...left only to the underworld of fallen angels in their unmitigated, wickedness and punishment and unrelieved and eternal pain. That's retribution. That's what happens when Jesus comes. (emphasis mine)
For the unbeliever, the second coming of the Lord will be a dreadful day.
But for the believer, the second coming of the Lord will be a most joyous and anticipated occasion beyond our wildest imaginations! And we will experience eternal relief and restoration. No more death, no more pain, no more trials, no more tribulations, no more sadness - ever! Instead, God will be glorified through us and we will all marvel at each other, at what God has done to each one of us, how He has glorified Himself through us perfectly.
Why does God reward us this way? Because that too, is just.
God sets His own standard for justice and He says I will punish the ungodly because it's just and I am the standard of justice, I will reward the righteous and bring them relief because that is just as well....
God's justice said...sin must be paid for. Christ fully paid the penalty. Justice was satisfied. God is merciful now to us and at the same time is just. God says, "I will bring relief to the righteous, relief to those who know Me and love Me and obey My gospel. I will bring relief to My people because it is just. It is right." Why is it right? Because My demand for punishment has been satisfied and now justice allows Me to be merciful. (emphasis mine)
Thank you Lord, for Your justice which has allowed You to be merciful. Instill in us a passion for your holiness, a passion for your Word and a passion to live out that truth, and the strength to make that decision daily. Amen.
Tomorrow's passage: Psalm 120-122, 2 Thessalonians 2
I'd also highly encourage you to read Praying for the Right Things Part 1 and 2. Here's just a snippet to get your toes hurting....
Sadly the prayers of most Christians are directed toward the wrong stuff. Most of the time Christians pray in regard to themselves and those they love for somewhat shallow things. The prayers are often misdirected and very short-sighted, and, in fact, selfish. Christians typically pray for health and happiness and success. They pray for personal benefit. They pray for comfort. They pray for solutions to fix all of the little problems of life. They pray for a healed body or a home or food or a job or a car, a husband, a wife, a promotion, more money. Those things while they certainly make up part of life are very low on Paul's priority list. They're also very low on the priority list of Jesus who said basically take no thought for what you eat or drink or wear, knowing full well that God supplies all of those things. Get on with seeking matters that relate to the Kingdom of God...
True prayer is learning to think God's thoughts after Him, learning to desire God's desires with Him, learning to love what He loves and hate what He hates. And the deeper your prayer life becomes and the more it lines up with God's will and God's longings and God's desires and God's loves and God's hates, the less trivia will occupy it, the less consumable things will be manifest and the more your prayer will be sweeping grasps and affirmations of those spiritual realities that you know are close to the heart of God....
Prayer puts us in closest connection with God, it lifts us to Him. It puts us in the place of keeping company with God and there in that company with an open Bible and an open heart we learn to listen before we talk.
Paul prayed for worthiness, for fulfillment, for power. He prayed for those things so that the name of our Lord would be glorified through us.
2 comments:
ouch. Thanks for sharing these thoughts.
Our theme verse for clubs when when I was growing up was Psalm 119:105
Your word is a lamp for my feet,
a light on my path.
I think that it echoes your thoughts that we need to keep searching and growing close to God even when we don't feel like it because then our paths will become dim and difficult to stay on. Even when we feel it is forced, we need to do it because we need the light.
Amen! That is a super powerful post Tammy. And just when I was finished ready the main body, I read the p.s. So very, very, very true. Humbling and eye-opening indeed.
Post a Comment