journal reflection

All that’s needed is free in Jesus

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1 year ago
by Jacob in , ,

I’ll be honest, sometimes I skim in my Bible reading. I don’t know if you’re like me, but I sometimes quickly pass over the powerful intent of statements in the Bible because I’m not immediately being addressed. Often times a letter or passage is written to a large audience with the intent of each person individually meditating upon it for grace and change. I get hung up on the “we” and “us” and forget the implicit “me” and “you” of a passage.

One of those passages if Romans 8:32

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

I can be prone to pass over this passages intent upon me for the sake that it uses “we” language. Thankfully, God stopped me in my tracks this morning. This is my own attempt to get inside this passage as, I think, Paul (and God) intended me to receive it:

Father, you did not spare your own Son, but gave Him up for me. Jesus died for my many sins in my place. How will you not also with him graciously give me all things needed? Therefore:

  • All things I need today are all in Jesus.
  • All things I need today are  free in Jesus.
  • Jesus is already freely pouring upon me the grace I need today.
  • There are no real, substantial needs I have that Jesus will not meet.
  • If a solution today comes that does not directly tether to Jesus, it is not a need, and is probably sin and temptation.

There is, of course, more that could be said to the above. My point here isn’t to excessively qualify remarks, though those could go on ad infinitum. My point is simply this: To meditate on this grand reality that God is for us in Jesus Christ, and to make that personal in my life today. God is for me in helping me be faithful at my job today. God is for Michelle in helping her care for Owen today. And this help is only in Jesus Christ. But it’s not hard to get the help! The point of Romans 8, if anything, is that God is for us and near us. He is not far. God is so close to us that not only did he take on flesh, take on the place of our sin under his wrath, but he also indwells us by his Spirit. God is for us in the most outlandish, staggering, bewilderingly beautiful ways possible.

So, I say it to myself again: All things I need today are free for me to receive, because Jesus, who died for my many sins, is free to me by faith.

How to confess like a legalist

1
2 years ago
by Jacob in , ,
  1. Have no sorrow for sin, only fixation. A man may well see himself as a sinner and only have a metal tablet of law in the room of examination instead of the God of the universe. A true sense of sin must see it in relation to God, the personal Triune God who is offended by his defamation in our sin.
  2. Have no joy hoped for, only the desire for the burden of condemnation lifted. We are called into enjoying God and in sin we turn from that. True sorrow for sin consists of seeing our fellowship with God broken and longs for its restoration. Should one merely desire the weight of condemnation lifted they might as well stop being a Christian.
  3. View confession and agony of sin as atonement. The legalist has no view of the Cross in its finished accomplishments because it would rather view its own agony and confession (to self and others) as satisfying the laws demand of sin. It is a small view pretending to wear big cloths. The legalist here is finally shown for what he is: an atheist. There is no room for the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob; the perfect life and righteousness of Christ; no cross; no death; no resurrection; no victory; no union with Christ. The legalist has no need of God for he is his own god.

Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
~ Romans 5:9-11

——
(These are a few thoughts from earlier this week. I woke up having this weight of condemnation and began to eventually think through what exactly I was wanting in my condemnation. I was acting like a legalist and looking to confess my sin as a legalist. So I started writing down observations to help direct my soul to the Gospel. Surely there is more to be said – and probably better said – so feel free to share thoughts or corrections)

Exploiting God for All Joy

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2 years ago
by Jacob in , , , ,

(A journal meditation from this mornings reading in James 1.)

Count trials of various kinds ‘all joy’ for it produces a faith that is steadfast. For faith to endure, it must be filled with joy. For growth in godliness it must have this deep undertow of joy-filled-persevering faith. Joy (all joy) is the only right response to a God ‘who gives generously to all without reproach.’ Fear or reproach is not love, and is not the perfected ‘all joy’ that grows in persistent confidence before the father in loving requests (1 John 4:18). We must grow in exploiting the generosity of God in a desire for the things of God. That is the only way of truly loving God. This is the right way of counting trials of various kinds ‘all joy’ – more opportunities to exploit God’s generosity to those whom he himself has saved by his power to himself (James 1:18). God saved us that we might exploit his grace continually to have those things that true love for God demands: preserving faith, wisdom, joy, godliness, and steadfastness. Let us exploit God to be like God – filled with ‘all joy’.

God, the First Theologian

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2 years ago
by Jacob in , , , , , ,

A small thought from class has been this simple yet profound truth: God is the first theologian. If we understand (rightly, I think) that “theology” is “words about God”, then in light of God’s trinitarian nature, God is the first theologian. God speaks his glory and his wonder before any human engagement of God. It is, as we might observe, God’s inherent nature to speak about God – “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).

It is in God’s self-contained communication and enjoyment of himself that we find rest then to know God. God sees all that he is and finds it not only good, but delightful and the most worthy thing to speak about. If I might say this, that is why the Son is so massively important to God – it is God’s communication and enjoyment of himself taken on personality. That is a massive thought to me, and one that makes me pause from saying more to give it further thought (though I know it’s how Edward’s formulated the Trinity – here).

But let us dwell on this – when we think about God, when we think true thoughts about him, we are thinking God’s thoughts after him (a phrase Van Til made famous, which actually comes – in my reading – from Bavinck, though certainly it could be older). God thinks clear thoughts about himself. God sees, communicates, and receives clearly and rationally all that he is. That is fundamental to the doctrine of the Trinity; that is what it means for God to be the first theologian. God writes in himself the grandest and deepest theological volume ever – that’s right, before Calvin, Augustine, and Paul even come close to hitting the scene. (Just a thought – his book consists of actual, real time 3D people – ahem, one is reading this right now – who have a manual for understanding him. God doesn’t write fiction.)

God’s thoughts about himself are self-contained. Therefore, all my thoughts about God are an act of mercy. Thus, it is through his Word to me that I see his kindness and mercy – and assurance merely through the presence of the Bible that God wants me to know him. The Bible is itself a beacon of hope that God does not want me to stay how I am – in my sick, twisted, wreck of a life. He wants me to know him, and he loved this wicked life so much that he gave his Son to die for my sin in my place for the wrath I deserved so that I can know this wonderful God who loves and enjoys his glory, and wants me to enjoy it to.

Meditation
For God to be the first theologian means that all aspects of my life are ruled by theology. Why? Because all of God’s thoughts are God-centered, therefore all of my thoughts (being created in his image) are God-centered as well. And yet, I seek to deify myself and reject God as being the source and center of my being. We commonly know this practice as sin (fyi). And now the deep reality – for God to be the first theologian, and for me to be chief plagiarizing theologian, means I need a mediating theologian. I need the theology of mediation – who is the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ (John 1:14). What all of this massive reality of God as first theologian means is this: I NEED the Gospel. I therefore tremble before the Gospel, in desperate need and dependence. How often do you fall on your face before the living, majestic God after reading dense, deep, instructive, important theological works? (You should try it some time – it makes the theology make more sense.)

With God as the first theologian, David’s Psalm makes a little more sense: “in your light do we see light” (Psalm 36:9). Because God thinks about himself clearly, we can think about him clearly. That’s a helpful and deeply comforting truth to battle our relativistic, post-modern doubts. How can we know truth? We can know Truth rightly because Truth knows itself; Truth is self-conscious.

Therefore, when my emotions, depression, doubts, sin, fear all assail my soul, how can I survive? By looking to God’s theologizing about himself – the Bible; a 3D book about God.

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
You, who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?

The Dependent Character of Theology

2
2 years ago
by Jacob in , , , , , ,

Last week in class we started out by doing a general overview of what we’re covering in the course, and set some basic foundations for the content. One of the best things – and main emphasis – of what we talked about was the fundamentally dependent nature of theology. Dr. Garner read the following quote to the class which I found very powerful:

In this sense we speak of a dependent character for Theology. When an absolute stranger falls into the hands of the police, which is no infrequent occurrence anywhere, and steadfastly refuses to utter a single syllable, the police face an enigma which they cannot solve. They are entirely dependent upon the will of that stranger either to reveal or not to reveal knowledge of himself. And this is true in an absolute sense of the Theologian over against his God. He cannot investigate God. There is nothing to analyze. There are no phenomena from which to draw conclusions. Only when that wondrous God will speak, can he listen. And thus the Theologian is absolutely dependent upon the pleasure of God, either to impart or not to impart knowledge of Himself. Even verification is here absolutely excluded. When a man reveals something of himself to me, I can verify this, and if necessary pass criticism upon it. But when the Theologian stands in the presence of God, and God gives him some explanation of His existence as God, every idea of testing this self-communication of God by something else is absurd; hence, in the absence of such a touchstone,. there can be no verification, and consequently no room for criticism. This dependent character, therefore, is not something accidental, but essential to Theology. As soon as this character is lost, there is no more Theology, even though an investigation of an entirely different kind still adorns itself with the theological name. In his entire Theology the Theologian must stand in the presence of God as his God, and as soon as for a single instant he looks away from the living God, in order to engage himself with an idea about God over which he will sit as judge, he is lost in phraseology, because the object of his knowledge has already vanished from his view. As you cannot kneel in prayer before your God as worshipper, in any other way except as dependent upon Him, so also as Theologian you can receive no knowledge of God when you refuse to receive your knowledge of Him in absolute dependence upon Him. (Abraham Kuyper, Encyclopedia of Sacred Theology, 251-52)

There are two important things to note from this passage:

Our theology, for it to be true, must be based on God revealing Himself. This is to say that we cannot postulate and speculare up into a true knowledge of God. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7). We must first look for God as God over us before we can know anything further about God (his attributes, character, personality, etc.). God must speak for us to know anything about him. What Kuyper nails in this passage is that if God does not speak about himself, there is no ground for knowing anything about him. We know God because he’s gracious. We know God because he loves revealing himself. And why does he love revealing himself? Because he loves making his glory great, for “from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:36). Because God’s revelation of himself is the only way we can know him, the thought of testing that knowledge against anything else is absolutely absurd, and fundamentally a misstep of faith. Why? Because when we want to test something to see if its true, we test it against things that it is like. You test the testimony of one person on an event against another person on an event; you test the accuracy of a gun against the accuracy of another gun. So how will you test the revelation of God? Against… another god’s revelation? If God speaks, his “Word is truth” (John 17:17), and as such, there is no other truth or word to test it against. We receive – we depend on God to reveal himself, and we believe. It is a joy to know the Word of God and receive him in joy (isn’t that one of the underlying themes of Psalm 119?).

Secondly, When we deviate from looking to God to reveal himself in a dependent character, we commit idolatry. This is a point more for meditation than exposition, but consider: When we say, “God’s Word is not sufficient to know God”, what are we fundamentally doing? Among many things, we are then putting our judgment above God’s, and making an idol after our own image of what we think God should be. This is at least one of the things Paul underlines in Romans 1:18ff – When people reject God on God’s terms, they raise up themselves and an idol to worship like themselves. When we turn from receiving God, dependent on him, longing for his Word and revelation – when we turn from this view of theology, we automatically start creating an image of God that we can control, we commit idolatry.

So, in light of that, I’d encourage you to re-read Kuyper’s quote.

Meditation
What this means for my soul is that it impresses upon me the importance of prayer in theological work as in the rest of life. The Lord says, “But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” (Isaiah 66:2). “You have said, ‘Seek my face.’ My heart says to you, ‘Your face, Lord, do I seek’ (Psalm 27:8). The aim of God in my life is for me to seek his face, to know him in prayer and quietness. To know him for all that he is and all that subsiquently says about me – which should drive me to trembling prayer. The knowledge of God, even in an academic setting, should set me on edge, trembling for how great he is. What a severe glory – I can only know God on his terms. This underlines his sovereignty and puts his grace in Technicolor. The mouth requires the hand atop it, for there is nothing else to do here. Silence and prayer before this God whom I love to know. Does this not put new depths to Jesus saying, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63)? Let us come before this God, who in the fullness of time sent His Son that we might be reconciled from our sin and idolatry by His blood to have fellowship and knowledge of Him.

—————-
What I’m thinking of doing is posting from week to week on what I’m learning in class – at least a part of it. If that’s something you’d like for me to do, please leave a comment, it helps me know if what I’m posting is actually helpful to people.

By His Divine Power: 2 Peter 1:3-4

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2 years ago
by Jacob in , , , , ,

This is a diagram that I drew up in my devotion time this morning. 2 Peter 1:1-11 was on the docket, and after a few reads, verses three through four really stuck out to me as a profoundly God-centered logical flow of thought (surprise, surprise – it’s in the Bible!), so drew what I saw. The verse itself reads:

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

These diagrams help me to unpack what is being said. What Peter is getting at is quite profound. Notice the flow of thought:

  1. God initiates his divine power, he gives it freely. There are not conditions for it – save being a sinner! – and he has given it, as we learn in v. 2, in Jesus Christ to us. This is on God’s initiative. There is no invitation from man, “Hey God, we’re kinda hating you right now. Mind doing something about that?” God initiates his love without any inclination of interest in those he initiates towards. This is the wonder of Free Grace.
  2. It is given so that we might A) Have knowledge of him, Jesus, and B) have something through it. Stop for a moment. God freely gives knowledge of himself (implicitly this is saving knowledge of him), not just to be impressed by God, but to have something. God is giving people who have committed treason against him treasures out of his glory. He is giving traitors that which they should have given him. Do you see the free, amazing, glorious grace involved here? Not only is God initiating something, but he’s initiating with a purpose to bless and give. That’s two givings of grace, if you’re counting, to people who deserved nothing!
  3. God’s power intends life changing effects. This is simply amazing. God doesn’t just send Jesus to give us a ticket out of Hell (to use the phrase), but he saves us to be like him “in life and godliness.” To be a Christian is to grow, and desire to grow, in godliness. Moreover, it is through the knowledge that God gives that we receive “all things that pertain to life and godliness.” It is not through 10 steps, it is not through accountability programs, it is first and primarily about seeing and knowing something that God gives. That something is Jesus Christ in the Gospel – his death for our sin, his taking of the wrath we deserve, his actual death and actual resurrection, his victory and reign over Satan, sin, and death. It is not in participating in some way that we receive “all things that pertain to life and godliness”, it is through seeing and knowing. We don’t do anything to get right with God, thus we don’t do anything to merit the ability to grow in grace. All we do is see Jesus Christ, in all that is and all that he has done, and in that we grow in our love for him, have our minds and hearts changed by that sight, and thus simply by believing in Jesus we receive the power to grow in godliness.
  4. Change comes through God’s promises. Not only are we saved by God’s self-initiated grace and mercy, but God also gave in ages past his promises about his name and goodness to those who repent and believe in him. Thus, when we do repent and believe in Jesus Christ through knowing his Gospel and seeing its goodness, “all the promises of God find their Yes in him” (2 Corinthians 1:20). And it is God’s already existing promises of mercy and goodness that cause change in us. We believe in God’s ability to do what he has said because God fulfilled his great promise of redemption (Genesis 3:15) in Jesus Christ; thus we know that all his subsequent promises are also “Yes!”.
  5. His grace sent to make us partake of him. The aim of God’s divine power (#1) is to bring us near to him and partake of himself. The extent of this “partakers of divine nature” is deep, but I think a part of what is in view is holiness. God brings us, those rebels who once hated him and were full of “sinful desire” are now brought near to God by his own initiative and grace to be “partakers of divine nature”. Stop for a moment and wonder at this! What wondrous grace is this. “My song is love unknown, My Saviour’s love to me; Love to the loveless shown, That they might lovely be. O who am I, that for my sake, My Lord should take frail flesh and die?”
  6. As a final strand, We escaped because he called. Lest we should boast in ourselves in any of this, Peter makes the strand in this verse that we escaped the corruption of the world in its sinful desires (which we freely partook of) only because God “called us to his own glory and excellence.” This call that he gave was effectual. It changed our minds, it set our feet on a path, gave us fuel to walk, and an aim to end in.

What grace from God. Let his name be praised for his amazing grace.

Grieving As Those Who Have Hope

2
2 years ago
by Jacob in , , , , , ,

There is sad new to report here: we lost the baby Monday night. The miscarriage was confirmed yesterday when we went to see the doctor. The sorrow is deep, the miscarriage of answer prayers and the ensuing joy. But we do “not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13), Jesus has overcome the world (John 16:33). This does not dissuade the sorrow or pain. Grieving at the curse of the fall is the godly and right response here (John 11:35), a response born and carried by the Holy Spirit’s work in us, the fruit of Christ’s victory over death. In the simplest of terms, we know that Jesus loves us, for as John tells us, he loved us to the end (John 13:1); that is, we know Jesus loves us now because he loved us to the cross. My Lord has dealt us a heavy blow, but I return this heart, bruised and bleeding, to him.

At the moment, my simple prayer is that as the Lord has given us this turn of events, that I might have more of him. He does what is right, and in my heart of hearts I rebuke any thought that questions his goodness in these events – Who are you, O my soul, to answer back to God (Rom. 9:20)? I shall not. As a weaned child I will sit on my Saviors lap, I will not lift my eyes to high (Psalm 131). This is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, Self-Control with her twin sister, Peace of Christ, and they spread the grace of the joy of God in this valley of the shadow of death (Gal. 5:22; Phil. 4:7). I will weep, but I will not weep as those with no hope, for Christ is my portion. For Michelle and I, this is our prayer and only hope. God has chosen is infinite, holy wisdom to take our child from life. To the Great Redeemer I trust this little one. As for us who still walk this pilgrim’s road, I join the hymn and pray:

Let sorrow do its work, come grief or pain;
Sweet are Thy messengers, sweet their refrain,
When they can sing with me: More love, O Christ, to Thee;
More love to Thee, more love to Thee!

No Fruit ∴ New Fruit

1
2 years ago
by Jacob in , , ,

As I mentioned last time, Michelle and I have been trying for a while with no “fruit of the loins” (I can’t help but laugh on the inside when that phrase is used). Frustrating? Yes. Disappointing? Especially.

When Michelle and I started dating back in high school, she was an ultra-focused young women who hardly wanted to get married, and especially didn’t want any children. Me. Well, I played too much Tony Hawk, dreamed of “making it” in a punk-rock band, and was rather apathetic to most things. (I actually had a mohawk when we started dating – that should immediately spell “mercy” as a major attribute of Michelle’s character!) About half way through college, Michelle and I had a simultaneous “awakening” of sorts to a love for the Scriptures. I’ve talked about that elsewhere, so I’ll move ahead here. In that process, God began to teach us about biblical manhood and womanhood, and for Michelle this began to awaken a transforming desire to be a mother. Instead of “children five to ten years down the road”, we were looking on the earlier side of things.

So, when I say that barrenness was slightly frustrating, it’s on that background that I speak. Here God had raised up godly desires in a rebellious couple to desire the blessing of children and yet withheld that desires fruition. But we serve a God who, as the first commandment teaches, is God alone – not Jacob. Not only this, but in his grace, he is a God who promises to work all things for our good in his plan. What’s his plan? Big families? No. Satisfied stomachs? No. Safe bank-accounts? No. Conformity to Christ. Those other things may come, and indeed the Bible blesses those things, but they aren’t essential. God blesses and gives gifts for the sake of magnifying Christ in our lives. So, instead of the fruit we desired – children – God has worked this time for the fruit he desires – conformity to Christ.

When Michelle and I talked about this a few weeks ago, the first fruit that came to mind was: Satisfaction in Christ. As we haven’t gotten what we set out to get, God has drawn us to himself more and more through repentance. Repenting of the idolization of the blessing of children, repenting of the jealously of other pregnancies; repenting of not really being happy for other people’s joy of new children; repenting of making sex about making babies; repenting of not romancing each other; repenting of defining our season by barrenness rather than by what Christ is doing. As Michelle said to me, “This has been the kindness of God that he will not let me be satisfied with lesser things.”

Through this time, the scriptures that have been pivotal in teaching us joy in Christ amidst the sorrow of barrenness have been Psalms 16 and 84.

The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot.
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

The Lord alone is my portion, and because I have him – children or no children – I have a beautiful inheritance. The road with the Lord is a beautiful road only because it’s painted with grace and it rests in Jesus.

For a day in your courts is better
than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
the Lord bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does he withhold
from those who walk uprightly.
O Lord of hosts,
blessed is the one who trusts in you!

To be with the Lord – in prayer and in his Word – is better than all the trivial temptations in the world, and it is better than having children. I haven’t had children yet, but I know because of who God is that he’s better than all the perfect children in the world clumped into one perfect little family. Moreover, I do believe that God will give us children – one way or another – because “No good thing does he withhold”. But that giving of children isn’t the aim, it can’t or shouldn’t be. The aim is the Lord Jesus – to know him more deeply in the depths of the soul. The the object of our souls the ideal family, or the Lord Jesus himself, who incidentally gives and closes families? If Christ, he is the measure of our souls, and the only source to fill it.

God has with held one thing so that he might form a deeper, better thing. What a joy it has been to walk next to my wife in this – feeling the truly godly sorrow about this season of barrenness – and at the same time see her grow so as to kiss the rod of our affliction and bless it as having been good for us. This is what Paul means at the end of Romans 8 – the power of the fall, Satan, sin, and death have all been subverted by the power of Jesus’ Gospel to be for our good now. Barrenness exposes sin, which invites grace, which produces conformity.

More to come. If you think of it, please pray for us, there are still very difficult times to walk through. Also, we will be in Disney World this coming week, so it’s highly unlikely that I’ll post anything for another week and a half, though I might get an itch that will need scratching.

(PS – Yes, that’s a logical sign in the tittle. It means, Therefore)

Barrenness and God’s Story

0
2 years ago
by Jacob in , , ,

It is something strange to note that one of the ominous features of the first book of the Bible is barrenness. Or, to be more precise: Is it not a strangely divine script to see a story begin about a God who promises lots of offspring and makes a big deal about children all the while leading his first three main characters through barrenness? In the past I have heard the emphasis laid on Abraham and Sarah’s barrenness (and rightly so – he is the father of the children of grace, and gets specific mention on this issue in Romans 4). But if we look broadly, Abraham and Sarah struggle with barrenness until the ripe age of 100, Isaac prays for his wife’s barrenness for 20 years (until he’s 60 years old) until she conceives, and Jacob’s favorite wife Rachel is barren for a number of years before she contributes to his posterity.

It strikes me as strange, and yet, divinely written so as to underline one of God’s basic story lines in the Bible: I, God, do this fulfilling the promise thing – not you. And moreover, amidst the rest of the Jerry-Springer-like fiascos filling the pages of Genesis, this presence of barrenness makes the Bible all too much like real life to discredit it as fanciful stories.

Barrenness is something I’ve thought a lot about over the last several months. My wife and I have been “trying” for a while now, with no fulfillments of our desires. While we haven’t been trying for years, it has still produced a struggle for us, especially for my wife Michelle.

And yet one of the peculiar things we have learned in this season is that it’s ok, or better yet, it is a godly reaction to be sorrowful about barrenness. Now there could be a few qualifications put in here, but it should be plainly noted that it is ok to morn the effects of sin in the common world order. Couples should naturally just get pregnant – by the original design, it shouldn’t be delayed fulfillment to desire (queue “The Birds and the Bees” lesson here). It is a general curse from the fall for couples to wait a long time to get pregnant (or never get pregnant at all!), and in many ways morning over this reality is only the God-centered response to have.

This is how Jesus responds to death. Take a look at John 11. Here you have the story of Jesus saying, on one hand “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him” (v. 12) and then upon arriving “he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled” (v. 33). What we have here is a situation where Jesus says two things: 1) Sin is deeply disturbing, and 2) This is still my story. You see, God’s sovereignty doesn’t gut the moral sorrow from those things that he writes into his story that are sin and pain. In the death of Lazarus, we have to remember that it was Jesus who ordained his death, and at the same time it is Jesus who is deeply disturbed in his spirit by the effects of sin in the world. If this isn’t a category in our heads, I think we should just close up shop on being Christians.

God writes difficult things into his story, but we have to remember and enjoy this great truth: This is God’s story. For us, God has written a season of barrenness into our lives, yet through this time we have begun to learn some of what Paul meant when he said that we are “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Cor. 6:10). Why do we rejoice? We have a hope that the Patriarchs only hoped for: Jesus Christ has overcome the world (John 16:33). He has turned the sting of death and sin into our tutors for godliness. Therefore, these struggles about barrenness have produced a reaping of godly fruit in our lives that we simply would not have otherwise.

So at this point I leave the post hanging. I will be posting in the days ahead about the lessons we have learned (and are learning!) through this time, and the fruit we have seen because of God’s story for our lives. But here, we start with God because God start’s with God. In the end, God is what matters, and the enjoyment of his glory most central. This is why, very aptly, the chief end of man is not to have lots of babies and change diapers forever, but to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.

Jesus Wins Despite Myself

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2 years ago
by Jacob in , ,

This is a meditation I did this morning in my devotion time. I’ve tend towards “spiritual depression” a lot lately. So, the following is a meditation I did while in one of those states that helped move my view towards a hopeful look to Christ.

I feel a tempest of condemnation over my soul, one dark and think, a molasses of guilt and joylessness. Why O sou, does this happen? It is a flood of memories of sins willfully done that creates a sea of uncertainty within, constantly turning and waking. I read, “Praise the Lord!” (Ps. 148:1) and I cry to experience that over the sorrow and dismay of my soul. So I will look to Him, the mighty and strong one, filled with compassion and love, who’s mercy engulfs the universe, who’s holiness seals his covenants with surety. He is King Jesus, Lord of my soul. He sets down a crashing foot of certain victory in my landscape, and claims the whole his own. He is my love my life, my blood, my certain breath of gasping, convulsing birth. His light pierces through the fog of despond, and scouring away all the hounds of heaping, muddled dubiety. This is he who looked on me in love when i was a contemptuous rebel, should he refuse to crescendo love when I am now his own? Oh with free grace alone is his symphony composed, a grace that creates the ears to hear in my soul. So, my soul, as you are sieged this morn, look upon him whose love has brought you love, whose light is hope and certainty in the storm of depression. My soul, if this is true and nothing else, Jesus wins despite myself.

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