I Am His Son

Here is an older picture of my dad and myself.  This was taken in our backyard, at our house in Salem OR.  Although I don't remember having this photo taken, it looks like I was about 8-10 month's old.

Our backyard was the life of the neighborhood.  As I grew older, all the kids usually ended being in our yard for various games and exercises (not like jumping jacks just fun stuff).

Seeing my dad in this picture brings back a lot of memories of him.  When I was 9 years old, our Heavenly Father thought it best to take my dad to be with Him.  This, because God works all things together for good, was a good thing.  Being 42 years old, I can honestly say that those 9 years of my life being with my dad were absolutely amazing.  Every second counted for something and I enjoyed every part of it.

He was my dad.
I was his son.

A week or so ago I was reading through Matthew 3.  In it is the recording of Jesus' baptism.

"Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him.  John would have prevented Him, saying, 'I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?' But Jesus answered him, 'Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.' Then he consented.  And when Jesus was baptized, immediately He went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on Him; and behold, a voice from heave said, 'This is My Son, with whom I am well pleased.'"

Upon reading this, I remember Paul's words in Colossians 2:12

"having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised Him from the dead." 

 So putting these thoughts verses together, what I believe Scripture is telling us is that when our Father looks at us, He sees His Son, Jesus.  When He sees His Son, His first response is to declare "This is My son..." In other words, when God our Father looks upon us, He declares us to be His sons, with whom He is well pleased with.

What grace!
What unfathomable grace!

The Talent of Doublespeaking

I am so talented.

I have the ability to talk out of both sides of my mouth.

Can you do that too?

As I look within my heart to identify this problem, I am noticing a trend.  I don't really do it out in the general, meaning I feel free to be honest and truthful over "public" issues or items.  The problem is much deeper than that.

I am finding that I doublespeak to and about those closest to me...

my kids

my wife

my Savior

In doing so I make a mockery of both them and myself.  

So on this day, I am thankful for the grace of Christ that covers both the praise and the profane.

Good Advice vs. Good News

When I was just a kid, my parents had purchased some property out in the country from where we lived.  We all had dreams as to what life would be like on these overgrown acres of flowing fields...  all of my siblings and my dad.  My mom on the other hand had nightmares about it.

Regardless, we never ended up moving there.  The property was sold at a later date.

Although while we did own it, my dad had some pretty good plans in his head about what to do with it.  Across the back of it ran a creek with overgrown, wild blackberry's.  I guess the word "overgrown" would be an understatement.  We knew that there was a creek because we could hear the water moving through it, but we couldn't see it because of the overgrowth.  My dad's vision was to clear a path from one side of the overgrowth to the other.  This would be done with a machete and clippers and rakes and saws... well, you get the picture.

On one Saturday, he and I went out there to accomplish this task.  

Did I mention that I was seven years old at the time?  

He told me walk around the neighbors property to get to the other side and then we would start cutting the overgrowth, slowly working ourselves closer to the creek, to each other.

Needless to say, I was not doing my part.  I couldn't.  The blackberry bushes were not bushes - they were trees.  I couldn't manage to cut anything down.  Nothing.

My dad, ambitious as he was, was plugging along and doing great.  Cutting through those blackberry's as if they were spiders webs.  Periodically he would try to show me how to cut them down, but it was no use.  I couldn't do it.  I didn't have the strength.  I was only seven years old.  He did it all for me.

Now he could have given me great advice; 

"John, this is how you cut through this.  Use your forearm strength.  Swing harder.  Make sure the blade is in this direction." 

But the truth is, is that any amount of advice would not have gotten me any closer to the creek.

I needed good news. 

I need him to do it.

Friends, this is how it is with our walk with Christ.  

Good advice would say, "Be holy.  Do not sin.  Worship God alone."

Good news says, "Christ has fulfilled the law for you."

There is a difference between good advice and good news. The first can lead to death, the later to eternal LIFE.

Romans 8:3-4

 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.  By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

What Does Grace Look Like to You?

How To Weaken Pride and Cultivate Humility

C.J. Mahaney:

ALWAYS:
1. Reflect on the wonder of the cross of Christ.

AS EACH DAY BEGINS:
2. Being your day by acknowledging your dependence upon God and your need for God.
3. Begin your day by expressing gratefulness to God.
4. Practice the spiritual disciplines - prayer, study of God's Word, worship. Do this consistently each day and at the day's outset, if possible.
5. Seize your commute time to memorize and meditate on Scripture.
6. Cast your cares upon Him, for He cares for you.

AS EACH DAY ENDS:
7. At the end of the day, transfer the glory to God.
8. Before going to sleep, receive this gift of sleep from God and acknowledge His purpose for sleep.

FOR SPECIAL FOCUS:
9. Study the attributes of God.
10. Study the doctrines of grace.
11. Study the doctrine of sin.
12. Play golf as much as possible - ("I don't think there is a more difficult or humbling sport.")
13. Laugh often, and laugh at yourself.

THROUGHOUT YOUR DAYS AND WEEKS:
14. Identify evidences of grace in others.
15. Encourage and serve others each and every day.
16. Invite and pursue correction.
17. Respond humbly to trials.

(HT: Trinity Church Blog)

Behold, I Am Vile - Thoughts from Spurgeon

--Job 40:4

One cheering word, poor lost sinner, for thee! You think you must not come to God because YOU are vile. Now, there is not a saint living on earth but has been made to feel that he is vile. If Job, and Isaiah, and Paul were all obliged to say "I am vile," oh, poor sinner, wilt thou be ashamed to join in the same confession? If divine grace does not eradicate all sin from the believer, how dost thou hope to do it thyself? and if God loves His people while they are yet vile, dost thou think thy vileness will prevent His loving thee? Believe on Jesus, thou outcast of the world's society! Jesus calls thee, and such as thou art.

"Not the righteous, not the righteous;
Sinners, Jesus came to call."

Even now say, "Thou hast died for sinners; I am a sinner, Lord Jesus, sprinkle Thy blood on me"; if thou wilt confess thy sin thou shalt find pardon. If, now, with all thy heart, thou wilt say, "I am vile, wash me," thou shalt be washed now. If the Holy Spirit shall enable thee from thy heart to cry

Just as I am, without one plea
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that thou bidd'st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come!"

thou shalt rise from reading this morning's portion with all thy sins pardoned; and though thou didst wake this morning with every sin that man hath ever committed on thy head, thou shalt rest to-night accepted in the Beloved; though once degraded with the rags of sin, thou shalt be adorned with a robe of righteousness, and appear white as the angels are. For "now," mark it, "Now is the accepted time." If thou "believest on Him who justifieth the ungodly thou art saved." Oh! may the Holy Spirit give thee saving faith in Him who receives the vilest.

The Relentless Love Affair

Oh my. The relentless pursuit of Christ for His Bride. We can look at ourselves all we want. We can dress ourselves all we want. We can spend on ourselves all we want. We can work ourselves all we want. But nothing. Nothing will make us look any better than what we are.

AND YET.

And yet in the midst of all of our contradictions, Jesus, who knows everything about us, says that we are His.

Last night we talked about how God's fierce love for His Bride is often found in discipline. We often will react to God's discipline in a negative way, but it's really His discipline that is also His grace. This is what Hosea was sharing with Gomer, or Israel rather. God was issuing a call of repentance. For He has loved her with an everlasting love. One that could not be shaken or disturbed. This was a promise He made first with Adam, then Abraham, Moses, Jacob, Isaiah, Hosea and culminated in Christ.

In Hosea 2:19, God says to Israel that He will betroth her to Him. Forever. That in Him is found righteousness, justice, steadfast love, mercy and faithfulness. And these attributes are found in the robe of Christ. This very robe that He puts around us. In the midst of our sin, we washes us with His robe. So that now we can walk as Peter tell us in 1 Peter 2.

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received God's mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Praise God for who He is and what He has done for us!

In this video is a great drama of what we read in Hosea 2.

Justified Today - C.H. Spurgeon

I received the email below today. What a great statement that we all need to be reminded of daily.

"All that believe are justified."
--Acts 13:39

The believer in Christ receives a present justification. Faith does not produce this fruit by-and-by, but now. So far as justification is the result of faith, it is given to the soul in the moment when it closes with Christ, and accepts Him as its all in all. Are they who stand before the throne of God justified now?--so are we, as truly and as clearly justified as they who walk in white and sing melodious praises to celestial harps.

The thief upon the cross was justified the moment that he turned the eye of faith to Jesus; and Paul, the aged, after years of service, was not more justified than was the thief with no service at all. We are to-day accepted in the Beloved, to-day absolved from sin, to-day acquitted at the bar of God. Oh! soul-transporting thought! There are some clusters of Eshcol's vine which we shall not be able to gather till we enter heaven; but this is a bough which runneth over the wall.

This is not as the corn of the land, which we can never eat till we cross the Jordan; but this is part of the manna in the wilderness, a portion of our daily nutriment with which God supplies us in our journeying to and fro. We are now--even now pardoned; even now are our sins put away; even now we stand in the sight of God accepted, as though we had never been guilty. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." There is not a sin in the Book of God, even now, against one of His people. Who dareth to lay anything to their charge? There is neither speck, nor spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing remaining upon any one believer in the matter of justification in the sight of the Judge of all the earth.

Let present privilege awaken us to present duty, and now, while life lasts, let us spend and be spent for our sweet Lord Jesus.

God Loves You and He Proved It.

So here’s the story.
God tells you to do something that you believe is wrong.
What would you do?

God tells Hosea to go out and marry a prostitute. Something that neither you or I would ever do – or even think of doing.

But this is in fact exactly what Hosea does.
Why?
Because God was showing Israel (His bride) something far more controversial than marrying a whore. God was showing her that He loved her.

God does something so radical here.
He takes someone, whom by His own laws should be stoned, and shows such love as to call her His bride.

How amazing and beautiful is this story. How wonderful that this story is our story.

Here is a great video from Brennan Manning on God's love.



Isaiah 61:1-3
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
because the Lord has anointed Me
to bring good news to the poor;
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.

Friend, GOD LOVES YOU.
The love that He showed you was fully displayed at Calvary. On the cross and in the empty tomb. Jesus left all that He had for the sake of wretched whores like us.