Stephanie and I are going to see the Rangers play the Evil Empire today. (For those of you not "in the know," "Evil Empire"=New York Yankees. And that is the only time you will ever see me refer to them by their real name.
Pray for our military and their families throughout this Memorial Day weekend, that God would bring his protection and peace. Intercede that those who serve now, and those who have served in the past, will know the gratitude and appreciation of the nation whose freedom they preserve.
1-2 God, listen to me shout, bend an ear to my prayer.
When I'm far from anywhere,
down to my last gasp,
I call out, "Guide me
up High Rock Mountain!"
3-5 You've always given me breathing room,
a place to get away from it all,
A lifetime pass to your safe-house,
an open invitation as your guest.
You've always taken me seriously, God,
made me welcome among those who know and love you.
6-8 Let the days of the king add up
to years and years of good rule.
Set his throne in the full light of God;
post Steady Love and Good Faith as lookouts,
And I'll be the poet who sings your glory�
and live what I sing every day.
"God never disappoints his servants, but crowns with everlasting happiness the struggles and the distresses which may have exercised their faith. ...inheritance suggests that the people of God enjoy a species of prosperity more solid and enduring; their momentary and short-lived troubles having only the effect of promoting their eternal welfare. The wicked, having no possession by faith of the divine benefits which they may happen to share, live on from day to day, as it were, upon plunder. It is only such as fear the Lord who have the true and legitimate enjoyment of their blessings."
(Commentary from Heart Aflame: Daily Readings from Calvin on the Psalms)
"The Carnal Christian"
1 Corinthians 3:1-4
Uh-oh.
3:1 But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? 4 For when one says, �I follow Paul,� and another, �I follow Apollos,� are you not being merely human?
"Advocates of carnal Christianity teach that people can receive Jesus as Savior without necessarily submitting to Him as Lord." I remember back when I was in Seminary, it became very popular to say "I got saved back in (insert date), but today, I made him Lord." I never accepted that philophy. First of all, you can't "make" Jesus Lord! He IS Lord!! Whether we acknowledge it or not! And I agree with John MacArthur and many others who maintain that you cannot be saved without acknowledging the Lordship of Christ!
We believe that good works are necessary in the Christian life. They do not merit God's favor. They do not save us. But they are evidence of our salvation. If there is no evidence, there is no salvation. Yes, we are justified by faith alone. But "you shall know them by their fruit."
Proponents of "carnal Christianity" seriously misunderstand the doctrine of justification. Scripture teaches us that justifying faith is a living faith (James 2:17-18). "We cannot be saved and utterly fail to follow the way of Jesus." Now hear this: Our obedience will NOT be perfect. This whole teaching is not to say that we never fail. It is speaking of someone who claims to have been justified by faith, and NEVER changed AT ALL! There is NO evidence of this faith.
The battle between the Spirit and the flesh is characteristic of the Christian life. Sometimes, the flesh seems to be winning more than the Spirit. This does not mean we aren't saved. The fact that we desire to serve Jesus and exhibit good works in our lives proves otherwise.
"Iniquity of Holy Things"
The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: �God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
Do we identify with the Pharisee or the tax collector? Do we identify with the prodical son or the older brother?
Hopefully, no one wants to identify with the Pharisee or the ungrateful older brother! But are we, like the tax collector, willing to beat our breast and say, "God be merciful to me, a sinner?" "Are we willing to acknowledge that even our righteous acts are no more than filthy rags in the sight of God (Isaiah 64:6)?"
Read the words of John Owen, known as the prince of Puritan theologians, written in 1657: "Believers obey Christ as the one by whom our obedience is accepted by God. Believers know all their duties are weak, imperfect and unable to abide in God's presence. Therefore they look to Christ as the one who bears the iniquity of their holy things, who adds incense to their prayers, gathers out all the weeds from their duties and makes them acceptable to God."
Another Puritan was reputed to have said, "Even our tears of repentance need to be washed in the blood of the Lamb." Even our "best" works earn us no favor with God. We must turn our attention away from our own performance and look to the gospel of Jesus Christ, "which is God's provision for our sin, not only on the day we trusted Christ for salvation but every day of our Christian lives."
Let's not make the mistake of receiving the Gospel and setting it aside to try to work our way into God's favor for the rest of our lives. The Gospel must go with us for the entire journey. It is a life of faith lived by grace!
In Exodus 5, Moses and Aaron make their first appearance before Pharaoh. I believe this took great courage. The first thing they said to him was "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'Let my people go.'" This has kind of become a catch-phrase over the centuries...
Pharaoh's response was, basically, "Who??" The Bible says, "Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD..." I'm not surprised at this response. I didn't exactly expect Pharaoh to cower and fear and immediately give in. But his next response is to make the work load harder for the Israelites, because, if they have time to be thinking about going out to make sacrifices, they must not be busy enough. This causes the Israelites to complain to Moses, which causes Moses to complain to God. Trickle-down effect. Miraculously, God does not kill Moses on the spot.
In chapter 6, God re-affirms his promise of deliverance with this prophecy: "Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land."
Then, for some reason, at the end of chapter 6, we get a genealogy of Moses and Aaron.
In chapter 7:3, we get a very tough truth. In fact, it is so tough that many people (even pastors) can't accept it, even though it's right there in the Bible. God says, "But I will harden Pharaoh's heart and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, pharaoh will not listen to you." God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Yes, he did. And it was for God's glory and purpose that he did it.
After this begins the showdown between Moses and Aaron and the Pharaoh's minions. For a while, every "trick" that Moses and Aaron did, the Pharaoh's minions were able to replicate. The staff turning to a serpent (although Aaron's staff/snake swallowed all of theirs! Hahaha...), water turning to blood, and frogs. But Pharaoh begged Moses to ask God to make the frogs go away, upon promise of letting the people go sacrifice. But after the frogs went away, Pharaoh relented, just as God said he would.
Finally, God produced a plague that the minions could not copy. He turned dust into gnats. Pharaoh still would not listen.
In the fourth plague, the flies, God, for the first time, makes a distinction between Egypt and Goshen, where the Israelites live. There were no flies in Goshen. Pharaoh tries to compromise his concession by saying that Israel could go sacrifice within Egypt, but Moses says, "No. The offerings we shall sacrifice to the LORD our God are an abomination to the Egyptians." After agreeing once again, Pharaoh changes his mind again after the flies are taken away.
The first lesson I see in this reading is pretty important. Right after Moses and Aaron appeared to Pharaoh for the first time, and it was unsuccessful, Moses was ready to give up. "You have not delivered your people at all," he complained to God. Whoa, there! We get SO impatient with God, don't we? When he doesn't answer right away, we want to give up. Or we want to complain to him, or even lash out at him. And if he doesn't answer the way we wanted him to, we are ready to "throw in the towel." We need to have patience with God, because we truly know from Scripture that he will do what he says he will do. Can you find one time in the whole Bible where he doesn't?? We have the history in our hands. We have the proof that God will honor his promises. Moses and company were pretty much winging it! We have the record and the testimony of hundreds of God's people throughout history, and yet we STILL are impatient with God!
Don't get me wrong...I'm part of "we," too.
Have faith and have patience. God will do what he says he will do.
The other big lesson (and it's not over yet, because we aren't finished with this story) is God's hardening of Pharaoh's heart. I realize that several places after the initial proclamation, it says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Don't go throwing that in my face, k? Because, since God had already proclaimed that HE would harden Pharaoh's heart, the only way Pharaoh could have reacted was to harden his heart. He only hardened his own heart, basically because God had already done it.
In Romans 9, Paul makes the proclomation, "So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills." Whatever God does in redemptive history, he does for his own glory and purpose. That is what we must remember. "Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps." (Psalm 135:6) God is in control. He does what he wants, and "who are you, O man, to answer back to God?" (Romans 9:20) We have no recourse but to accept what God deals.
I acknowledge your Lordship over my life, Father. Jesus Christ is my Lord and my Savior, and can never be one without the other. I praise you for this.
I also acknowledge that my "good works" are but filthy rags in your sight, and that it is only through being washed in the blood of Jesus that they are acceptable in your sight. I praise you that I am covered and washed in his blood so that my offerings can be acceptable to you.
I pray, Lord, that my heart will always be softened by you. I pray that my heart would never become heard towards you or your people. I have been guilty of lacking compassion frequently, and I ask for change in that regard. Help me to love your Church, just as you love her. Help me to show more compassion towards other people. Give me more tolerance of people when they fall short, just as you have tolerance and patience with me. Let me never be like the Pharisee or the older brother of the "prodigal son." God, I don't want to be like that!!
Grace and peace, friends!