Yes, My Conscience

As if in response to my previous post, I was given this quote from Pastor John Piper:

 

Occasionally, weep deeply over the life you hoped for.
Grieve the losses.  Feel the pain.

…Then wash your face.  Trust God.  And embrace the life you have.

 

The lapse between the first and last lines is individual, but our trust in our good Lord’s loving Providence must certainly lead us to the latter attitude.

 

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen… And without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:1, 6).

 

Yes, my conscience; He [does] us great good.

 

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Don’t You Believe It

Many of us are mourning the loss of an American era with the passing of a man, I think we won’t soon see the likes of again.  The beloved preacher and evangelist, the Reverend Billy Graham, passed away on Wednesday, February 21, 2018, and was laid to rest in Charlotte, North Carolina, after his March 2nd funeral.  He was 99 years old.  Among other endearing terms, Rev. Graham is being remembered as God’s Ambassador and America’s Pastor, having provided spiritual counsel for every United States president since Harry S. Truman (our 33rd) right on to Barack Obama (our 44th president).

When I think of Dr. Graham, I can’t help think of my Dad who always encouraged us girls to sit and listen whenever a crusade was being televised (on network T.V. no less). I never told dad or mom, but I responded to one of those crusades, back when we lived in town (so prior to 8th grade). I sent for the follow-up material too, writing to “Billy Graham, Minneapolis, MN – that’s all the address you need” as Billy directed us from every crusade.  What came was a summary of his Steps to Peace with God and a study of the book of John.

I attribute that experience to a sensitive period in my life when God was softening my heart and mind to his, eventually leading me to receive the gospel truth.  I would not fully put it all together until my college years when God through his Word in Ephesians 2:8-9 caused me to once and for all lay down my works which I had been trying to offer all my life as an acceptable arrangement; one which I hoped would make God pleased with me and lead me to eternal life.  My plan had been Jesus + me = salvation, never realizing that the only thing I could contribute to Christ’s offering, was the sin that made it necessary.  Using the small faith God gave me for just that moment, I gave all that I knew of myself (my whole sin-saturated self and my inadequate works) to all I knew of Christ (my only rescue).

During college, Dana and I would counsel for a Billy Graham movie or two (World Wide Pictures) at the Cinema Theater in town (now the WDAZ studios).  After one particular movie, The Prodigal, Dana was completely broken and rededicated his life to the Lord.

A highlight for us was counseling for the Billy Graham live crusade in Fargo the summer of 1987 when we were expecting Ashley. We brought my cousin Paul with us one of the days (who was living in Grand Forks at the time, in the restaurant business with my Uncle Warren).  I’m sad to say, though, that I seem to recall my dad was unable to go to Fargo with us to see Billy in person, amounting to a double loss since the entertainment was another of Dad’s favorites, Johnny Cash (and his wife, Rosalind).

Rev. Graham’s gravestone briefly summarizes his life – Preacher of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ – and then makes reference to John 14:6, “Jesus said to [Thomas], ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.'” One of my favorite Billy Graham quotes was printed on his funeral brochure:  “Someday you will read or hear that Billy Graham is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now.”  I pray God will enable me to be faithful and about the King’s work to the end – in whatever capacity I am able – just as the world has observed in the life of God’s good and faithful servant, Billy Graham.

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Work for Night is Coming

On the cusp of the 20th century, William Booth (1829 – 1912), founder of the Salvation Army, wrote of his fears for the turn of the century.  Now looking back on the past 117 years we might see just how prescient he was as he wrote:

“I consider that the chief dangers
which confront the coming century will be:
religion without the Holy Ghost,
Christianity without Christ,
forgiveness without repentance,
salvation without regeneration,
politics without God,
and heaven without hell.”

Happily though, the following famous quote is also attributed to Booth.  With it we need not just wring our hands or flee to the mountaintops to search the skies for Christ’s sure coming.  Jesus said, “We must work the works of Him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work” (John 9:4).  Booth put it this way: “Work as if everything depended upon work and pray as if everything depended upon prayer.”

 

 

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Five Years from Today

“You will be the same person in five years as you are today,
except for the people you meet and the books you read.”

~ Charlie Jones

 

 

 

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Hymn for a New Year

“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the new year:
‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’

“But he replied, ‘Go out into the darkness and
put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.’

“So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.”

~ From “The Gate of the Year” by Minnie Louise Haskins

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I look not back; God knows the fruitless efforts,
The wasted hours, the sinning, the regrets.
I leave them all with Him who blots the record,
And graciously forgives, and then forgets.

I look not forward; God sees all the future,
The road that, short or long, will lead me home,
And He will face with me its every trial,
And bear for me the burdens that may come.

I look not round me; then would fears assail me,
So wild the tumult of earth’s restless seas,
So dark the world, so filled with woe and evil,
So vain the hope of comfort and of ease.

I look not inward; that would make me wretched;
For I have naught on which to stay my trust.
Nothing I see save failures and shortcomings,
And weak endeavors, crumbling into dust.

But I look up–into the face of Jesus,
For there my heart can rest, my fears are stilled;
And there is joy, and love, and light for darkness,
And perfect peace, and every hope fulfilled.

Amen.

~ Annie Johnson Flint

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Geeks

“Geeks are people who love something so much that all the details matter.”

~Marissa Mayer, Yahoo CEO

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The God-Shaped Hole

There are actually two God-designed holes which the soul longs to have filled –
one, a God-shaped hole; the second, an eternity-shaped hole.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless,
until they can find rest in you.” ~ Augustine

– – – – –
The God-Shaped Hole:

“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, …though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.”

~ Blaise Pascal, Pensées VII (425)

“That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you… may be able to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:17-19).

– – – – –
An Eternity-Shaped Hole:

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

~ C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, New York, Macmillan, 1960), p. 119

“…He has put eternity into man’s heart…” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

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They Would Die, but They Cannot

Last night (and into the wee hours of this morning) Dana and I attended Secret Church 2016.  David Platt stressed the eternal urgency of our gospel message.  He called our attention to two realities – (1) heaven is a glorious reality for everyone who believes the gospel (Philippians 3:20-21); and (2) hell is a dreadful reality for everyone who does not believe the gospel (2 Thessalonians 1:5-10; Revelation 14:11).  As Kevin DeYoung reminds us, “The coming of the Kingdom is not good news for sinners. It is good news for sinners who repent.”

Thus it is in hell; they would die, but they cannot. The wicked shall be always dying but never dead; the smoke of the furnace ascends for ever and ever. Oh! who can endure thus to be ever upon the rack? This word ‘ever’ breaks the heart… The torments of hell abide for ever… If all the earth and sea were sand, and every thousandth year a bird should come, and take away one grain of this sand, it would be a long time ere that vast heap of sand were emptied; yet, if after all that time the damned may come out of hell, there were some hope; but this word ‘ever’ breaks the heart.

~ Thomas Watson, Puritan minister

 

There will be no end to this exquisite, horrible misery. When you look forward, you shall see along forever a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts, and amaze your soul. And you will absolutely despair of ever having any deliverance, any end, any mitigation, any rest at all. You will know certainly that you must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages in wrestling with this Almighty, merciless vengeance. And then when you have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this manner, you will know that all is but a point to what remains… How dreadful is the state of those that are daily and hourly in danger of this great wrath and infinite misery! But this is the dismal case of every soul in this congregation that has not been born again, however moral and strict, sober and religious, they may otherwise be. Oh! that you would consider it, whether you be young or old!

~ Jonathan Edwards, Colonial minister and theologian.
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, 1741.

 

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Spot-Finding

As I sat confessing my sins today, I was humbled by the black and whiteness of my world and how easy it is for me to see the speck in my brother’s eye. This was brought home for me in two ways recently, one in the Spurgeon quote which Pastor Ray Ortlund (the son) posted and which follows. The other came in a discussion with a dear saint who may have similar tendencies but who decided, “I don’t want to be that person.” That phrase has hit its mark and I hope, too, to amend my discernment to bring life, when possible, and not just find fault.

“We should be merciful to one another in seeking never to look at the worst side of a brother’s character. Oh, how quick some are to spy out other people’s faults! They hear that Mr. So-and-so is very useful in the church, and they say, ‘Yes, he is, but he has a very curious way of going to work, has he not? And he is so eccentric.’ Well, did you ever know a good man who was very successful, who was not a little eccentric? . . .

Do you go out when the sun is shining brightly and say, ‘Yes, this sun is a very good illuminator, but I remark that it has spots’? If you do, you had better keep your remark to yourself, for it gives more light than you do, whatever spots you may have or may not have. And many excellent persons in the world have spots, but yet they do good service to God and to their age.

So let us not always be the spot-finders, but let us look at the bright side of the brother’s character rather than the dark one, and feel that we rise in repute when other Christians rise in repute, and that, as they have honor through their holiness, our Lord has the glory of it, and we share in some of the comfort of it.”

Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
Treasury of the New Testament
(Grand Rapids, n.d.), I:65.

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Untitled Post

Chris Rice’s Untitled Hymn has been on my mind a lot lately.  It’s such a simple song, but I cannot sing it without getting choked up.

By the way, family, any of the songs I’ve posted would be good to use at my funeral someday… when I fly to Jesus.

___________________
Weak and wounded sinner,
Lost and left to die,
Raise your head for love is passing by.
Come to Jesus and live.

Now your burden’s lifted
And carried far away,
And precious blood has washed away the stain,
Sing to Jesus and live.

Like a newborn baby,
Don’t be afraid to crawl,
And remember when you walk sometimes we fall.
So fall on Jesus and live.

Sometime the way is lonely
And steep and filled with pain,
So if your sky is dark and pours the sky like rain,
Then cry to Jesus and live.

Oh, and when the love spills over
And music fills the night,
And when you can’t contain your joy inside,
Then dance for Jesus and live.

And with your final heartbeat
Kiss the world good-bye,
Then go in peace and laugh on glory’s side,
And fly to Jesus and live.

[Video credit to 2emilyl]

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