CONSUMED WITH CHRIST! Meditation 5 on the I.O.U.S.

On November 19th, I began a blog series on John Piper's I.O.U.S. This is the fifth meditation on a series of verses (Psalm 119:36, 18; 86:11; 90:14 respectively) intended to rivet our hearts by faith to an intimate trust in God's Word and ways. The "U" stands for Psalm 86:11,

Teach me your way, O LORD,
that I may walk in your truth;
unite my heart to fear your name.

Obviously, Piper recognizes the "U" as corresponding to the last line, "Unite my heart to fear your name." What does this mean?  

FIRST, a united heart is opposite to a divided heart. A divided heart happens when the mind knows one thing to be true, but the heart yearns for another. And since Scripture rightly affirms, "As a man thinks in his heart so is he" (Prov. 23:7), we all tend to go in the direction of our hearts! Thus, the need to pray, "Unite my heart." In other words, I am praying that I will not only KNOW the truth in my head (through reading, meditation, & prayer) but that I will SO believe it that it will become my life. This is what James so consistently points out in his letter, it is not in the seeing (mind), but in the doing (heart) that we live truly godly lives. This is born out in James--as it said--repeatedly.

SECOND, please grasp the connection between the first and second parts of this verse. Specifically, notice the words "way," "walk," and "unite." They go together inextricably. "Way" and "walk" refer to lifestyle, a whole mindset, or, if you will, one's worldview. It is NOT just a knowledge of the right path to take, but is the actual pathway, the process, one's pattern of living. Better, it is the "default" position, the place they return to automatically in times of trial or joy.

Perhaps I can best explain the difference with two terms: dwell and visit. There's a great difference between dwelling with someone and merely visiting them. It seems that many professing Christians have developed more of a visiting mentality in terms of Christian growth. They seem to be content to, as it were, "drop in on God" once a week, to pay him a visit. They may do this "religiously," but it is still ONLY a visit. That is NOT the brand of Christianity Jesus died to secure! Paul wrote the Corinthians about our being a place for Christ to dwell, "For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, 'I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people'" (2 Cor. 6:16). Wonderful truth! God dwells in us, and we in Him. He is our Owner and Provider. Oh, beautiful love this relationship with Jesus Christ; far, far better is it than visits!

POINT?
The prayer for God to "Unite my heart to fear your name" infers a bringing together of mind and heart in one direction, with one purpose--to know Christ intimately. Or to love him--REALLY love him! This is a lifestyle, not an article of clothing we can don or discard at our leisure. The true Christian's entire life is bound up in Jesus Christ by desire. All other loves fall well behind this "Union." And he loves to have it so.

Excellent prayer: "Unite my heart (into single mindedness) to fear (love, respect, fear) your name (everything about God by which He is known)." The Christian wants to be absorbed with God!

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What Would YOU Do with Fifteen Extra Years?

Nothing quite reveals the tenor of our hearts like our attitude after a trial. When the pressure is off, to what do we turn? Hezekiah, king of Judah learned that his sickness would certainly lead to death (Isaiah 38-39). Plain and simple. He wept bitterly at the prospect of leaving this earth, though he'd been a fairly decent leader. We read how God answered Hezekiah's prayer NOT to die, and sent Isaiah the prophet to deliver the good news. During the subsequent 15 years, the newly healed king showed off Jerusalem's riches to a foreign envoy (Assyria) who were later to return and threaten total destruction. Bad move!

What Do WE Learn From Hezekiah?
Why show off riches like that? Obviously, that was not wise, and it resulted in Jerusalem's destruction. And even when he heard the judgment from Isaiah (Jerusalem would be lost but not on his watch), he said in effect--"Whew! At least it's not going to happen in my day!" How could he be so self-absorbed (remember he was a good king) that he'd be OK with his sons suffering instead of himself? This is horrid! I wonder how much like Hezekiah each of us tends to be?

Still, the larger question arises: What would you and I do if our impending death were averted, and we were given 15 extra years to live? I suspect another way to ask the same question would be: What have we always wanted to do that if we knew we had a limited amount of time, we'd make sure we accomplished? 1) Take that yearned for European trip? 2) Buy a special house and retire? 3) Perhaps, reconcile with that long-term acquaintance (don't want that on my conscience going into death, right?). What have you always wanted to do if given the chance?

A Proposal
Why not spend our remaining days doing whatever we could to direct ourselves and others into a deeper, more God-honoring frame of mind? Why not be  a zealous laborer for the kingdom? Come to think of it, why not do that anyway? What is more important, after all? Please. Too many so-called Christians rate way too highly the things of this world. Why not give every ounce of our lives (whether we know the day of our death or not) serving the Lord God with gladness of heart?! Why not love the Lord Jesus Christ with every fiber of our being?

Hezekiah missed his chance to make good on fifteen extra years because he had a misguided sense of purpose in the years prior to his sickness. The point is this. In times of restored health, we will default to what really means the most to us. Do we really want to die having learned that for most of our lives we only ever gave God "honorable mention," our lips but not our hearts?! That's catastrophic! Oh, dear believer, where is YOUR heart? What means the most to you? It'll surface when something like what happened to Hezekiah happens to you.

Get ready today. BE ready to love the Lord so much NOW that any chance you get will be spent exalting Him and glorifying Him until such time as he moves us to be with Him!

What WOULD you do?

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Standing Against Satan-Wm. Gurnall

Gurnall's The Christian in Complete Armor is a tremendous resource for all Christians. It is based on Ephesians 6:10-20. 

This describes the Christian's posture in his fight against Satan. It is a military expression, a word of command that a captain would use to his soldier. A coward does not stand, but Christ directs us to stand our ground to stoutly repel the enemy. Uriah stood in the face of death.  He did not dispute with his General; obey he must, though he lost his life. To resist some temptations may cost us dear. The Roman captain said it was necessary to sail, not to live. The soldier carries his prince's honour with him into the field. How unworthy it is to expose the name of God to reproach to avoid the little scorn, temporal loss, or trouble! Truly, God is not careless with the blood of his servants, yet sometimes he tries their loyalty in hard service and sharp temptations, that he may from their faithfulness and holy stoutness in their suffering for him triumph over Satan. God furnishes armour for us to stand. Stand, and the day is ours; flee, and all is lost. There is no armour for the back in God's armoury.  Stand, and the bullets fall; flee, and they enter your heart. He that stands believing, comes off with his life. He that recoils and runs from his colours, God will have no pleasure in him. There is comfort in striving against sin and Satan, though through blood. Would you not rather die in the field for your Prince, than by the axe for cowardice or treachery? Satan is a cowardly enemy. He is discouraged when he finds the soul awake to oppose him. He fears and trembles at your faith. Pray for help against him, and vigorously reject the motions he makes, and he will run (James 4:7). He cannot hurt us without our consent. When we resist, his heart fails and he leaves. If we only weakly resist, he continues his assault. The only way to be rid of him is to shut the door upon him and deny all discourse with him.

William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour, I:275-278
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Marking Your Bible For Assurance

In the classes I teach at church, the question has frequently arisen, "How do we find assurance for our salvation?" Or, its corollary, "How can we help another person who doubts their salvation?" This is a wonderful question which shows a true yearning to help another.

Here's the short answer. Assurance comes from the Holy Spirit. "The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God" (Romans 8:16). I like to mention this first as the foundational truth we need to lay down before moving on to other biblical means. Salvation is of the Lord, and so is assurance OF that salvation.

Next, I direct fellow Christians to do what I had learned to do when I was still in college at Bob Jones University. I can't remember from whom I heard or read this. But for assurance they directed me to 1 John. As most of you may know, the gospel of John was written specifically in order that "you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you might have life through his name" (20:31). John is careful to tell us his purpose in penning his account of Christ's life. Likewise, he reveals his purpose in writing the little letter of 1 John: "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life" (5:13). So, the Gospel was written to help man believe, and 1 John was written to help man KNOW that he has believed. Essentially, then 1 John is a book of assurance.

While it is not OUR calling to GIVE others assurance (that belongs to the Holy Spirit); it is our privilege to direct them to the Scriptures whose purpose is to do just that. An important note here. Please do not tell your children or anyone else that YOU know that they are saved! That is neither biblical nor wise. You cannot give them assurance, that belongs to the Spirit. And you can be deceived while the Spirit and the Scriptures cannot. What I like to say to folks if they come to me looking for assurance is this, "Let me show you how you can discover where you stand with God." Then I tell them of Romans 8:16 and of 1 John. Obviously, 1 John is not the only place to turn. The entire Bible can be used for assurance. But for one concentrated location, 1 John is excellent. 

Next, in order to to make 1 John more useful as a tool, do this. Read through the letter slowly and mark in the margins next to verses that are positive aspects of Christianity a "plus" sign and a "minus" next to negative aspects. For example, 1:3 says that John writes so that Christians may have fellowship with one another and with the Father. There are two positive characteristics right there. An example of a negative is verse 6, "If we say that we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth." If you read through the entire letter this way, your faith will be strengthened and you'll have a quick and useful tool to encourage others. 

One further tool for the slightly ambitious. Mark doctrines as well. For instance, 2:22, "Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ?" So, to mark this, I'd put a "minus" sign in the margin and then to denote that it's a doctrine, circle the minus sign. In doing this, you'll have a compendium of positive and negative signs along with doctrines that true Christians believe or practice.

I trust that this little tool will greatly benefit your Christian walk . . . or, perhaps reveal to you if you ARE a believer! May you prosper in assurance and thus find joy in Jesus' name!

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The True Meaning of Christmas & Easter!

Q. If God asked you, "Why should I let you into my heaven?" What would you say? 

Your experience of salvation is wonderful, but do you have any "hard evidence" which you can site that qualifies you for heaven? This is a serious question and one which every Christian should answer well. The following helpful explanation of our salvation comes from James Montgomery Boice:

If the death of Christ on the cross is the true meaning of the Incarnation, then there is no gospel without the cross. Christmas by itself is no gospel. The life of Christ is no gospel. Even the resurrection, important as it is in the total scheme of things, is no gospel by itself. For the good news is not just that God became man, nor that God has spoken to reveal a proper way of life for us, or even that death, the great enemy, is conquered. Rather, the good news is that sin has been dealt with (of which the resurrection is a proof); that Jesus has suffered its penalty for us as our representative, so that we might never have to suffer it; and that therefore all who believe in him can look forward to heaven. . . . 

Emulation of Christ’s life and teaching is possible only to those who enter into a new relationship with God through faith in Jesus as their substitute. The resurrection is not merely a victory over death (though it is that) but a proof that the atonement was a satisfactory atonement in the sight of the Father (Rom 4:25); and that death, the result of sin, is abolished on that basis. Any gospel that talks merely of the Christ-event, meaning the Incarnation without the atonement, is a false gospel. Any gospel that talks about the love of God without pointing out that his love led him to pay the ultimate price for sin in the person of his Son on the cross is a false gospel. The only true gospel is of the one mediator (1 Tim. 2:5-6), who gave himself for us. Finally, just as there can be no gospel without the atonement as the reason for the Incarnation, so also there can be no Christian life without it. Without the atonement the Incarnation theme easily becomes a kind of deification of the human and leads to arrogance and self advancement. With the atonement the true message of the life of Christ, and therefore also of the life of the Christian man or woman, is humility and self sacrifice for the obvious needs of others. 

The Christian life is not indifference to those who are hungry or sick or suffering from some other lack. It is not contentment with our own abundance, neither the abundance of middle class living with home and cars and clothes and vacations, nor the abundance of education or even the spiritual abundance of good churches, Bibles, Bible teaching or Christian friends and acquaintances. Rather, it is the awareness that others lack these things and that we must therefore sacrifice many of our own interests in order to identify with them and thus bring them increasingly into the abundance we enjoy...We will live for Christ fully only when we are willing to be impoverished, if necessary, in order that others might be helped. (Foundations of the Christian Faith)

God WILL Supply Every Need of Ours!

The following is an example of the kind of Puritan devotions you could own, found HERE. I love the Puritans. But don't feel bad if you have to read them more than once (especially until you get used to them). Remember, often that which comes too easily is ill fit to help us. Hard mining discovers riches from God. Enjoy!

My God will supply every need of yours.
Philippians 4:19

The ways of God's providence direct us into the calling and employment that is ordered for us in this world. To have an honest, lawful employment in which you do not dishonour God is no small mercy. If it is suited also to your genius and strength, this is a double mercy. If you have less toil than others and more time for heavenly exercises, ascribe this benefit to the special care of providence for you.  How strangely are things wheeled about by providence! David followed the sheep and likely never raised his thoughts to higher things, but God made him the royal shepherd. Some have work, but not enough strength. Others have strength, but no employment. If God blesses your labour and gives you and yours necessary support and comfort in the world, it is a choice providence and should be acknowledged with all thankfulness. If you find yourself scarcely able to provide for the necessities of life, consider: though you have a small portion of the world, if you are godly, he has promised never to forsake you (Heb. 13:5). Providence has ordered the condition that is really best for your eternal good. If you had more of the world you might not be able to manage it to your advantage. We are directed to be content with food and clothing, and the little that the righteous has is better than the riches of many wicked (Psa. 37:16). If providence has so disposed you that you cannot only eat your own bread but have enough for works of mercy upon others, and all this is brought to pass in a way you did not expect, let God be honoured in this providence. Remember that the success of your callings and earthly employments is by divine blessing and not human diligence alone. Be well satisfied in the station and employment where you have been placed. God is wise and seeks your eternal good.

 John Flavel, Works, IV:387-391

Stand Firm For the Faith!

A Principled Defense

One need only look at the history of the church within the last generation or so, to see that our resolve has been weakened, and is almost nonexistent when it comes to defending the truth, or standing up for what we know to be just and right. For most people, silence and retreat is more acceptable than the defense of truth, because chances are very slim that one will get wounded while retreating. We weigh the matter judiciously, conclude that it’s too small a thing to get worked up about, and back away slowly as to not stir the attention of the enemy. We don’t like making waves and the enemy knows this. We have an aversion to being marginalized, to being mocked, to being ridiculed, to being persecuted, and so we would rather slink away in the middle of the night than confront the enemy. We have taken it upon ourselves to become negotiators, when we have been called to be messengers, to be spectators when we have been called to be soldiers. We have become passionately passionless, and purposefully purposeless for fear of offending the unregenerate and unrepentant. 

With every retreat the enemy gains more ground, with every omission, with every act of cowardice on our part the enemy gets that much bolder, and continues his steady march.

For some reason we’ve come to believe that the enemy will simply stop short of our citadels, that he will stop short of besieging the towers if we just give up enough ground. Surely the enemy will be content with a partial victory, surely his desire is not to overrun the entire house of God. If this is what you believe, if you believe that the enemy will stop short, than you don’t really know the enemy we face. His desire is the utter destruction of God’s house, and he will not stop short of his goal. This is why we must stand, this is why we must boldly proclaim the truth and defend even those things we consider as insignificant or of little importance.  

There is a passage in first Chronicles that details what I’m attempting to convey. At the beginning of David’s reign, the Chronicler of the time took a census of David’s mighty men, and among them was a man named Eleazar the son of Dodo the Ahohite.  

1 Chronicles 11:13-14, “He was with David at Pasdammim. Now there the Philistines were gathered for battle and there was a piece of ground full of barley. And the people fled from the Philistines. But they stationed themselves in the midst of that field, defended it, and killed the Philistines. And the Lord saved them by a great deliverance.”  

Here was David and Eleazar, defending what amounted to a piece of ground full of barley. It wasn’t like they were defending a city, it wasn’t like they were defending Jerusalem, it was just some barley in a field. All of the people had fled, the Philistines were on their way, and they came to the conclusion that it was easier to let the Philistines have the piece of ground full of barley, than to risk their lives in order to defend it. David and Eleazar however, decided to stay and fight, they decided to make their stand for a piece of ground full of barley, and even risk their lives in order to defend it. 

What we must understand, is that it wasn’t the barley they were defending and risking their lives for, it was the principle of giving up ground to the enemy. David’s principle was simple. We leave nothing to the Philistines. Whether a patch of earth or a handful of barley, David and Eleazar decided and purposed in their hearts, that they would give nothing to the enemy.  

The spiritual principle that we learn from this exchange is as simple as it is profound. We must not be willing to leave anything for the enemy. If it comes to it, we must be ready and willing to go to war with Satan himself, even over something small, something that the world would look at and mock us for defending. Leave nothing for the enemy to exploit! 

The sad and lamentable truth, is that the church in our modern age has given up a lot of ground. Those who ought to have been mighty men, those who ought to have been warriors, decided it wasn’t worth fighting over a patch of earth, it wasn’t worth defending a handful of barley, so they simply retreated, and gave up ground. We refused to defend the small things because we thought them unworthy of our efforts, and the more ground we gave up, the bolder the enemy became. Soon enough, here the enemy stood at the castle walls, and now the church has gotten so used to running it has gotten so used to giving up ground, that it is having a difficult time mustering up the courage to defend the city itself. Those of you with spiritual eyes and ears know exactly what I am talking about! 

The last part of the verse we read is also worth repeating, because it reveals a second essential spiritual truth. When we stand our ground, when we defend the truth of God’s word, when we are willing to put our reputations on the line for the sake of Christ, and suffer the mocking and scorn that will surely come from the godless, it is the Lord that will fight alongside us; it is the Lord who will ensure our victory.  

All they had to do was stand and fight, all they had to do was be determined that they would not retreat, that they would not back down, that they would not give up ground to the Philistines.  

The Word is very clear as to who gave David and Eleazar the victory.  

“And the Lord saved them by a great deliverance.” 

It’s not that the church is continually suffering defeat; it’s that it hasn’t even made its stand yet. Between those who prefer to be mere spectators, and consider that taking a stand for the truth isn’t really for them, because well, they just want to preach a positive message, and be positive and create an atmosphere of positivity, and those who surrender to the enemy before the first sword is drawn or the first bow is strung, the number of true warriors, the number of those who are willing to defend the truth and make their stand is small indeed.  

I’ve said it before and I will say it again, I do not trust men who call themselves warriors yet have no scars. I do not trust men who call themselves warriors yet their armor is in pristine condition, as though they had it pressed for a military funeral rather than scarred and worn as though they were standing on the front lines.  

Make no mistake, we are at war, and this spiritual war is one in which there can be no spectators. There are only three options. We either flee from before the enemy, surrender to the enemy, or make our stand against the enemy.  

I realize full well that some continue to be under the misconception that they can strike a truce with the enemy and somehow coexist. The only problem is that the enemy never honors your terms of surrender, and you will be a slave, and subject to his whims. Knowing that the enemy is merciless, ruthless, vile and heartless, his whims will always gravitate toward creating an environment of pain, sorrow and heartache for those who surrender and give up the fight.

When we are faithful, when we honor God in the little things, when we look upon a patch of land and a handful of barley as David and Eleazar did and say in our hearts it is not dispensable, it is not expendable, it is worth defending and worth standing our ground over, we know that God stands with us, and though the enemy might outnumber us, it is the Lord who will save us by a great deliverance.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea Jr. 

(With thanks to my son, Dave, Jr., for alerting me to this post from InJesus.com. Mr. Boldea's grandfather was Dimitri Duduman, a Romanian Christian who defected to America in the 1980's)