Tag: Abiding

Satisfied With All of God’s Ends

A few summers ago I wrote this post after the weather in Pittsburgh had seesawed back and forth for several days between drenching rains and bright sunny skies. I have been often reminded of the lesson in it these past few weeks. Yes, we’ve had our seasonal stutter start to spring, but we’re also experiencing on a grander scale uncertainty and confusion as a result of pandemic, economic instability, and the loss of what we’ve always considered normal. Now more than ever we need the exhortation that we not, as Bridges says, “deprive ourselves of the peace” of knowing that the hand that sends it is good, wise, sovereign and perfect.

Can I say, “I can be satisfied in all things because God’s ends are my ends”?

Sheepdogs, Sheep, and a Shepherd

Even though there may be many shepherds and many herds, there is only one shepherd for each herd. And only the true Shepherd—only Jesus Christ—can call sinners to repentance and faith. Despite all the good intentions of faithful and clever sheepdogs, all they are able to accomplish is an interpretation of the shepherd’s commands. Dogs can’t save souls. They are, after all, just dogs.

Enemies, Straw Men, and Imperfect People

No good can come from calling fellow believers enemies. These are people we fellowship with at the table of the Lord, meet with in corporate worship, lay our burdens down together before the throne. To determine that they are enemies when God Himself has declared them His friends at the expense of the blood of His Son is to pronounce that relationships operate on your rules and terms, regardless of what God has done. And because it’s possible that those you suspect are behaving badly are not believers, it’s still not grounds for alienation if all they’ve done is give the appearances of enmity. They are without the spiritual tools needed to do conflict well. Witness to them of the greatest work of reconciliation done in all of history and rightly inform them they are enemies to God—as you once were—and that they can be bought and washed and made new—as you are now.

Eyes Cast Down, Soul Drawn Heavenward

The tax collector is beyond caring about how he feels. Whether he has been treated unfairly, whether he has honed just the right tone to signal his repentance, whether he was a victim of discrimination by the masses is inconsequential to his ability to enter heaven. He knows his own perceptions are untrustworthy (Jeremiah 17:9); the masses follow culture’s rules and culture’s rules are capricious and arbitrary. Neither change the reality. “God, be merciful to me—a sinner” is what he said.

The Otherworldliness of Biblical Joy

Here is the shared experience of those who travel Christian’s road, whether new or old in the faith: wrestling with “right” decisions, fighting doubts, putting off behavior and thoughts of the old man that do not honor Christ, grappling with understanding theology and God’s commands. These struggles threaten to steal any joy from living this life, and they don’t even come close to the battles that thousands upon thousands of worthy Pilgrims fight every single day for the sake of the gospel.

Ground Zero in the Holy War

Imagine how equipped an army hospital would have to be to deal with the tribulations that Christian experienced. Consider how ill-equipped many of us are to minister to the wounds and trauma inflicted in Apollyon’s battle against the church. But according to verse 17 of John 15, we do have one balm and solace to offer our stricken comrades: These things I command you so that you will love one another.

Ctrl + Fear

As I contemplate this new year, I pray that, along with changing out batteries and light bulbs and stinky old dishrags, I’ll switch out my thinking and my habits. That I will no longer fear being out of control, but that I will bend the knee and rejoice because HE is in control. That I will meditate on the glorious bounty of God’s sovereignty and His goodness and His kindness, and put on faithfulness and trust and submission as the new creature in Christ that He has made me to be.