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A Prayer

 

Praying Psalm 86:5, 15  “You, O Lord, are good and ready to forgive, plenteous in mercy to all  those who call upon you.” “You Lord, are full of compassion, gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy and truth.”

Work in us, Lord, that we may be like you in these qualities:

“good” (may we spot and reject our sinful tendencies);

“ready to forgive” (may we be forgiving to others as you have forgiven us);

“gracious” (giving, blessing and valuing each other);

“full of mercy” (being kind, forgiving and positive to all around us).

May we be, “full of compassion” (thinking good of each other, seeking each other’s best, truly caring for each other);

“gracious” (giving and giving again, helping, thinking of how to support each other);

“slow to anger” (setting our hearts on things above, not on the passing things of earth, giving up our self-centered little, personal, petty goals, letting go of what is temporal, holding on to what is eternal);

“plenteous in mercy and truth” (having that balance of speaking truth with great mercy, keeping these in wonderful balance, in good intent, good method, good words, good attitudes).  Amen.

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The Lord Reigns, We are Glad!

You, O Yahweh, the great I AM, are the perfect balance, the perfect combination of traits: truth and grace, love and wrath, righteousness and forgiveness, wisdom and knowledge, power and tenderness, goodness and impartialness, hatred for sin and love for sinners.

The more we know you, the more reason there is for worship.  You, O God, are wonderful, fear-inspiring, comfort-giving, sin-revealing, grace-providing, heart-healing, attitude-correcting, soul-transforming, love-infusing, life-giving and eternal-living—what more could we want?

Knowing you means that daily we can turn more and more to you, more and more away from the tinsel and trinkets the world has to offer. Every day we can move further into your Kingdom, reveling in your being, rejoicing in your greatness, obeying your truth, joining you in your work. We can, in your power and goodness leave behind the burdens of self-centeredness and pleasure-oriented living to plunge into the river of your goodness and grace, to be swept along in the current of your love.  “The Lord reigns,” we are glad!

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Faithful to Fear God

“The angel of the Lord encamps round about those who fear him and delivers them.” Ps 34:7

You, Lord God, our Triune King, are worthy of fear, for you are awesomely powerful, faithfully holy, persistently just, righteously angry, immensely merciful, eternally right.  To bow before you is good, wise and right; to resist you is utter foolishness, for “no wisdom, no insight, no plan can succeed against the Lord.”

“Splendor and majesty are before you, strength and glory are in your sanctuary.” You are clothed in light, brilliantly shining in your holiness, unapproachable in purity, spreading glory all around you.  You are marvelous in your being: majestic in your might, glorious in your beauty, astounding in your graces, awesome in your wisdom, almighty in your power.  You move with dignity and grace, majestically doing simultaneously the next hundred million things in your plan.

You are glorious, you are strong, you are full of wonders, you are powerful.  We ascribe to you glory and strength, we proclaim your greatness to the nations, we lift up and magnify your marvelous name.  You are supreme, you are superb, You are wonderful.  We come before you with an offering of worship, placing ourselves and all you have given us on the altar of praise, for you are worthy of all honor.

We tremble before you, the Holy God, the great I AM, the righteous Judge, the faithful Father. You are worthy of obedience; we bow before you this day in surrender, we rise up to walk in obedience in the light of your presence. Use us today to bring glory to your name.

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The Most Marvelous Defeat

Today we think again on your great sacrifice, Lord Jesus.  This event was, from the world’s point of view, the devestating defeat of God in the total and twisted triumph of Satan as he killed the author of life.  This was the ultimate example of good being conquered by evil.  Jesus died, he did not save himself, he lost.

However, with your resurrection and following revelations, Lord Jesus, it is clear that in your weakness as a human being, you were able to strike at the most vulnerable point of Satan’s plan. Your obedience, your love, your living in truth rather than what was seen, your living for your Father, not for people—these all struck at Satan’s eager desire to reverse with rebellion the roles God gave.  Satan wanted to be like God and by killing Jesus, seemed to put himself over God.

However,  we praise you, Lord, that Satan’s attack became the means of Jesus’ taking upon himself the guilt of all mankind, of paying the price of pardon that all may have life eternal.  Satan desired to defeat with death the giver of life, and in doing so fell into his own trap of destruction, bringing the final defeat and condemnation upon himself and his followers.

Praise be to you, Lord Jesus, for your willingness to suffer on every level: physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, relationally, trinitarily.  We cannot begin to grasp even in a rudimentary way the anguish you endured in becoming sin, being crushed by the wrath of God, being torn out of the fabric of the Trinity, suffering absolute aloneness, as well as the great physical suffering of scourging, beating, and crucifixion.

You, Lord God, are astonishing in your love, for all three of you suffered greatly in the death of Jesus. You also were wounded in the rending of the triune Godhead as He became sin and you had to turn away.  You, too, suffered in pouring out your wrath on Jesus, your only and dearly loved Son.  You, too, presumably suffered in the three days Jesus was buried and was probably in Hell, fighting the final battle for salvation against the devil and death.

And you, too, rejoiced in the resurrection, the final triumph of good over evil, the final and full solution to the problem of evil in a twisted world originally created pure by your good desire.

You, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are to be worshipped, praised, honored and glorified for your incredible, illogical, unfathomable, overwhelming love!  We bow before you this day, giving you honor and praise for your wisdom, commitment, follow-through and grace.  What a wonderful God you are, we rejoice in you, we exalt you, we lift up your name, we glorify you!  May you be continually honored and exalted today in our thoughts, words and actions.

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“He became sin for us.”

 

In Gethsemane, “horror and dismay overcame him, and he said,…“My heart is ready to break with grief.” (Mark 14:4, NEB).  The death of Jesus on the cross was one he shrank back from, so horrendous was the prospect. It was not, I believe,  primarily the intense physical suffering of beating, scourging and crucifixion that brought his dismay. There were three other, far more horrendous things that brought horror to Jesus.

First he was to become sin.  The ugliness, the stench, the squalor, the repulsiveness of sin, these he would become.  Think of being lowered into a pit of liquid manure, its greenish surface roiling with maggots, the stench overwhelming, the prospect utterly repulsive; and as you go down into it, it gets into your eyes, nose, mouth, and then lungs, engulfing you in its terribleness.  This is nothing compared to Christ’s becoming sin for us, the evil of it entering His very being.

Then He was under the righteous wrath of God which had been stored up from the beginning of the world against all the sin ever committed and which would be committed.  The unimaginably immense weight of wrath,  coming from His own Father, crashed down upon Jesus, utterly crushing him.

And third, Jesus was wrenched out of the relationship of the Trinity, the perfect place, the unflawed unity, the beautiful balance, the wonderful warmth that had existed from eternity. As He became sin and had wrath poured upon Him, He could not stay in that intimate relationship where there was no sin.    The fabric of the trinity was ripped, it’s essence smashed, it’s unity destroyed. The pain of rejection, being utterly alone, and having become sin, being utterly unworthy of this relationship, was the worst part of His death. This rending of the trinity brought, I believe,  the greatest suffering of His sacrifice, not only to Jesus, but to the Father and the Spirit also.

The amount of horror for Jesus in this experience was immeasurably great, as it is immeasurably incomprehensible to us.  It was an infinite suffering borne by an infinite heart of love under an infinite wrath.  And it brought about an infinite solution for finite beings.  Only the God who is Love could do this.  Only Jesus could be our Savior, willing to go through suffering which was beyond the comprehension of angels. And He did it to save those who are lower than Angels.  Halleluah!

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Thank you, Jesus, for you mercy!

“…great is Your mercy toward me, And you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.” Psalm 86:13.

Lord Jesus, your great act of humility, self-denial and agape love in embracing unimaginable suffering to deliver your enemies from just punishment is the bright light in all of history. It shines into the past and the future, showing to all the way of life, revealing your great and giving heart.  Your mercy is immeasurable, your kindness is boundless, your love is all compassing.  You are marvelous in your mercy.

I give you honor and praise that I am not in hell as I deserve, that I am no longer in darkness, no longer trapped in the anguish of hoplessness,  no longer alienated from you forever.  No, you have set me in your family, you have made me your dearly loved one, you have chosen me as your child, you have put me in community, you have brought me into your Kingdom of light and love. You are my refuge, my fortress and my God.  You are glorious in goodness, you are majestic in mercy, you are wonderful in your works.  To you be glory in my life today.  I love you!

Help me, Lord Jesus, to live a life worthy of you today, to please you in every way.

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Is God Fair? Part 3

< read part 2

In answering the question, “Is God fair?”,  does He give everyone the same things? We have looked at the first two parts of the answer: “No” and “Yes.” Here we look at the final part.

The third answer to this question is another, “No. ” In His dealings with us, God is divinely, magnificently and magnanimously unfair, humanly speaking, in what He gives to His creatures in general and His beloved children in specific. God loves diversity and we see it how He works in our lives. He is able to take the negative effects of the Fall, where all creation was twisted, and use them for good in us.  In this scheme of things each gets what he or she needs.

–Some people He creates with great intelligence, others with simple minds.

–Some are born beautiful, others plain, the rest are somewhere in between.

–Some are born healthy , others with birth defects or serious illnesses.

–Some grow up strong and live long, some die as babies, others die between these two ends of the spectrum.

–Some grow up with many opportunities, some with few, others with none.

–Some have wonderful parents, some are totally neglected and abused, most have average ones.

–Some live in wealth, some in poverty, some in middle class income.

–Some have prominent spiritual gifts, like teaching, or leading, while others have gifts used in the background, like mercy or service.

–Some have leading roles, others do not.

Humanly speaking God is unfair in this, but divinely speaking, we know that He is wise and we can trust Him to do what is best. He knows what challenges each person requires to see his or her need for a Savior, and then to grow spiritually.  He does what is best for each, individually tailoring circumstances and events–very “unfair” from the politically correct perspective, but very loving and wise from God’s perspective of truth and wisdom.

God has distributed roles as He sees fit, much to the consternation of many today. This includes roles in the spiritual (gifts), intellectual and physical realms. Here are some very obvious, yet in our society, often rejected examples of the roles He’s given to men and women.

Men are to procreate. Women are to bear and nurse babies.

Men are generally physically stronger than women and are to protect them.

Men are to teach and lead mixed groups in the Kingdom. Women are to teach and lead women and children in the Kingdom.

Men are voluntarily, wholeheartedly to love, be understanding, nurture & protect their wives. Women are to voluntarily respect and follow their husbands.

Men are to lead their families. Wives are to be a helper to their husbands.

In this “unfair” distribution of roles God knows and does what is best.  We can trust Him in His wisdom, love, grace and sovereignty to give to each person what that one needs to come to Him, to live a useful and meaningful life, to develop in a healthy and effective way.

So is God fair? “No,” “Yes,” and “No.”  Does God have the right to be so?  Absolutely: He is the Creator of all, the Most High, the Almighty, the Beginner and Ender of time.  There is no one who can challenge Him (as Job found in chapters 38- 41 of his book), for the Lord God is perfect in every way.

No human could think up such a wonderful God whose character is multifacetedly perfect and beyond comprehension in His Wisdom, Power and Love. He is completely independent from His creation in His triuneness, where perfect community, love and completeness have existed forever.  This the God who knows what He’s doing and I choose to trust Him!

 

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The Majestic Name of God

Psa 9:10 “Those who know your name will trust in you,” [for your name communicates your commitment to constant and complete provision, protection and a place in your Kingdom. Your name, Elohim, means the strong and faithful One, showing your power in creation and your faithfulness in providing salvation.  Your name, Adonai, means the powerful authority who promises complete provision of all we need to live for you. Your name, Yahweh, means the holy One who is utterly independent of your creation, utterly committed to caring for it. You are the hater of sin, judge of evil and lover of your sinful creatures.  You are the great I AM, ever existent, ever powerful, ever present.  You are absolutely, utterly, completely, eternally trustable; to not trust in you is a great sin, denigrating your mighty, majestic, magnificent Names.]

“for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you.” [The record speaks: you have come to the rescue of all who have called upon you: Adam, Able, Abraham, Moses, the Children of Israel (many, many, times), the Judges, David, Jehosaphat, Hezekiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jesus, the Apostles, Paul–and us.]

Psa 9:11 “Sing praises to the LORD, enthroned in Zion; proclaim among the nations what he has done.” [You, Lord God, are worthy of praise, worship, exaltation, honor, glory and thanksgiving, for you have redeemed your people, you have rescued your children, you have released your saints from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the Kingdom of Light, the Kingdom of your son whom you love.

In you we are forgiven, cleansed, transformed, adopted, commissioned to special service, equipped to serve you, delighted in, dearly loved and doted on.  You have glorified your name by millions of instances of doing good to your enemies, being gracious to your rebellious children, being kind to all mankind, being holy in the face of evil, being patient in the face of rejection, being purposeful in bringing history to a conclusion.

We must worship you, Lord God,  we must exalt you, we must praise you, for there is no other possible response for those who know your name.  May you be honored in my life today, may obedience flow may praises flow, may trust reign, may glory rise to you each moment, for you are worthy, O triune, glorious, eternal LORD!

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Is God Fair? Part 2

< read part 1

As stated in part one, fairness, as defined in our age of tolerance, is that everyone should to get the same thing.  In light of this, we have to answer the question, “Is God fair” with “No,” “Yes” and “No.” We looked at the first “No” in part 1, now we will look at the answer “Yes.”

“Yes,” God is fair.  As you know, He has provided a way of salvation for all, and in this we see His “fairness.” He gives the same potential to everyone.  Here are several points of this fairness.

–In creating all human beings in His image, God bequeathed to all the same worth (Gen. 1:26,27).

–Jesus confirmed this when He died and provided the potential for salvation for all who have ever lived and will live. (1John 2:2, Heb. 2:9, 1 Tim 2:6, 4:10)

–We can only be saved by faith; this is true for everyone no matter what his or her age, intelligence, education, religion, status, wealth, health, strength, home or family.  It’s the same for all.  (Eph 2:8,  Rom. 1:17)

–The Holy Spirit works in the life of every person in the whole world to convince each one of his or her need for Jesus as Savior. (John 16:7-11)

–God watches over each person, is aware of the heart condition of each, and loves each with the same great love. ( Psalm 33:13-15, Psalm 145:10-16,)

–God has the same desire for everyone:  that all be saved, although all will not come to be saved.   (1 Tim 2:4,  2 Peter 3:9, John 1:7)

–God will condemn all sin, and anyone who clings to it rather than accepting His offer of grace and protection, will be condemned along with the sin they chose and loved. (John 3:18,

In this non-exhaustive list of  Scriptural examples, God offers to all the same possibility of becoming His child, the same gifts and privileges–the way to accept them is the same for all: by faith. In His mercy God is fair, and I am thankful for it!

continue reading part 3 >

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Is God Fair? Part 1

Fairness, as defined in our age of tolerance, is that everyone should get the same thing, be given “what we deserve.”  In light of this, when we ask the question, “Is God fair?” we have to answer the question, with “No,” “Yes” and “No.”

So, is God fair? First, “No.”  If God were fully fair and gave us what we actually and naturally deserved all people, as sin-twisted rebels would all be sent to Hell immediately.  As the Word says, we are by nature children of wrath (Eph. 2:3), and that in our natural selves there dwells no good thing (Rom 7:18).  Since God is righteous, He must punish sin–if He did not punish sin, there would be no justice, no hope of change for the good, no solution to the problem of evil.  Before a just God, we would naturally all go to Hell right now–if He acted only from fairness.

However, praise God, His character is not limited to the low and simplistic standard of being fair. He is also merciful, loving and full of grace.  Therefore, in this area, He chooses to not be fair; that is, He does not give us what we deserve, but instead offers the possibility of pardon.

An entry in my worship journal expands on this.

You, Lord Jesus are faithful–faithful to Your righteousness, to your holiness, to your justice, to perfect judgment of evil.  You will always follow through on who you are.  And you, Heavenly Father, being love itself, are faithful in your hatred of sin, of evil, of anything contrary to your character.  In your love you judge sin, rebellion, and anything that does not measure up to your righteousness; if you didn’t judge, you would not be love, for righteous, pure and perfect love cannot abide with anything that is tainted by unlove: selfishness,  pride and evil.

I praise you, O Lord God,that you rise far above our ability to comprehend.  How could One who hates sin so profoundly, provide, against all logic we know, a pardon for your creatures who are so thoroughly sinful, selfish, evil and rebellious–so contrary to you?

Yet, in your wonderful, rich grace, you opened the way, at great personal expense, providing reconciliation through crushing your  Son without mercy that mercy might flow to all your enemies (us), giving us the potential for redemption, reconciliation, transformation, and eternal life with you.  You are faithful to your character:  you are Light, your are Love, you are Life itself and you are altogether lovely. You have not been fair, but have given us the opposite of what we deserve, and we praise you for it!

continue reading part 2 >