Bigger Than We Can Imagine

From Beth Moore at CT Magazine: When A Big God Escapes Us:

I was the second-youngest child in a family that took up the better part of an entire pew at our Baptist church. My maternal grandmother lived with us, which meant that every Sunday I heard three generations of my own flesh and blood sing from The Broadman Hymnal. We lived in a college town in the green hills of Arkansas, whose denominations in those days were as distinct as the seasons.

Everyone I knew headed somewhere to church on Sunday morning. Whether we were people of faith was not the question. We were people of church. Still, true faith could be found down the heel-scuffed halls of my church.

All who filled the pews had secrets. Though my family’s could have qualified for daytime television, I know now that no one there was what he or she seemed. We all needed Jesus worse than we pretended. We all had wounds that Sunday mornings had not mended. We needed a Savior willing to stuff himself into the crowded car with us after church and venture behind the dark drapes of our homes. Some of us needed a wonder-worker who could wring honest-to-God miracles out of a house doused in madness, a proper Savior for improper people.

The order of our service usually mirrored that of the previous Sunday. After all, people like order, and my people liked bulletins. We liked to know in advance what hymns we’d sing, who’d bring the special music, and whether we were baptizing anyone that day. We could usually tell the latter by the curtain over the baptistery. (If it was open, somebody was going under.)

The church bulletin also served as a checklist through which one could work toward the goal: the benediction. At our church, it always came in the form of a song, and sometimes we would join hands. The lyrics of 18th-century Baptist John Fawcett seemed to sum it up well: “Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love. The fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above.”

The routine didn’t preclude the riches. Sacred songs were sung, the Bible was read and revered, a sermon was preached, an invitation was offered—and joy teemed over the takers.

I was 9 when I walked the aisle to profess my faith in Christ. I understood the basics of my decision: that I was a sinner and needed saving if I wanted to go to heaven. I could summarize many sermons I heard as a child with one thundering question: Do you want to go to hell? No, I did not. I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to go to heaven, either, but it clearly would beat hell.

Those who came forward remained at the front after the service so the other churchgoers could shake their hands until their shoulders nearly popped out of their sockets. The more the people congratulated me, the more I realized something profound had happened—something big people thought was big. And I cried like a baby, hiding my blotchy wet face with my left hand while shaking an assembly line of hands with my right hand. Jesus had come to my church that day and, in the routine, I had not managed to escape him....

There is so much more in this article - a stirring Bible lesson and the pathos of hunger for God's presence. Read it all at the link.

Refuge

Eternal God, the Refuge of All Your Children 

Eternal God,the refuge of all Your children,in our weakness You are our strength,in our darkness our light,in our sorrow our comfort and peace.May we always live in Your presence,and serve You in our daily lives,through Jesus Christ our Lord.

- St. Boniface (675-754 A.D.)

HT Trevin Wax

Never Absent

HT @LisaDHarper @ScottySmith

Draw Near

HT: @KariJobe

See the Beauty

Lord Jesus,
Give me grace
to see the beauty
lying at my feet
in the commonplaces of life,
to feel that You are near,
and to find that life is as wonderful today
as when men and women saw You
in the days when You were on earth.

- F. B. Meyer

HT: Trevin Wax

Approach Path

How dare you approach the mercy-seat of God on the basis of what kind of day you had, as if that were the basis for our entrance into the presence of the sovereign and holy God? No wonder we cannot beat the Devil. This is works theology. It has nothing to do with grace and the exclusive sufficiency of Christ. Nothing. 

Do you not understand that we overcome the accuser on the ground of the blood of Christ? Nothing more, nothing less. That is how we win. It is the only way we win. This is the only ground of our acceptance before God. If you drift far from the cross, you are done. You are defeated. 

We overcome the accuser of our brothers and sisters, we overcome our consciences, we overcome our bad tempers, we overcome our defeats, we overcome our lusts, we overcome our fears, we overcome our pettiness on the basis of the blood of the Lamb.

— D. A. Carson, Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus, 103

Hat Tip: Vitamin Z

Coram Deo

From Not A Fan

Coram Deo is Latin for "Before the Face of God"

The Requirements?

What Makes Heaven Heavenly

"God made you to experience exquisite pleasure for all eternity. Heaven is full of all the Father's stuff, but the thing that makes it heaven is the presence of the Father. A place that would have all the Father's stuff without  the Father would soon become hell."

          - Joe Coffey in Red Like Blood: Confrontations With Grace, page 145
 

Face Time

"Adam worked the Garden of Eden. Before he sinned and something broke in side him, I think he probably really enjoyed the garden. I don't think he used it to try and make himself more attractive to Eve. I don't think he neglected his marriage so he could work longer hours, clear more land, have a bigger and better garden to capture more market share. I see him in my minds eye working the garden until he hear the rustling in the trees and realized the Lord had come to check on him. I think he dropped the hoe and looked into the face of God, and it was that face that filled him to overflowing. We were not made to gain value from our work; we were made for the Face."

       - Joe Coffey in Red Like Blood: Confrontations With Grace, pages 118-119

Holy Spirit, You Are Welcome Here

Sang this song at our church this morning - I absolutely love this song!

Not Always Spectacular, But Always Supernatural

"Worship gatherings are not always spectacular, but they are always supernatural. And if a church looks for or works for the spectacular, she may miss the supernatural. If a person enters a gathering to be wowed with something impressive, with a style that fits him just right, with an order of service and song selection designed just the right way, that person may miss the supernatural presence of God. Worship is supernatural whenever people come hungry to respond, react, and receive from God for who He is and what He has done. A church worshipping as a Creature of the Word doesn’t show up to perform or be entertained; she comes desperate and needy, thirsty for grace, receiving from the Lord and the body of Christ, and then gratefully receiving what she needs as she offers her praise— the only proper response to the God who saves us. "

- Geiger, Eric; Chandler, Matt; Patterson, Josh . Creature of the Word: The Jesus-Centered Church 

Another book on my wish list!

Hat Tip: Vitamin Z

Too Small?

"A gospel which is only about the moment of conversion but does not extend to every moment of life in Christ is too small. A gospel that gets your sins forgiven but offers no power for transformation is too small. A gospel that isolates one of the benefits of union with Christ and ignores all the others is too small. A gospel that must be measured by your own moral conduct, social conscience, or religious experience is too small. A gospel that rearranges the components of your life but does not put you personally in the presence of God is too small."

                          - Fred Sanders, The Deep Things of God

Hat Tip: Vitamin Z

We Have It Better Than We can Imagine

Christian, you and I have it better than we realize, and even better than we can imagine.  Consider these words from Kyle Idleman (italics in the original).

Sometimes I hear people talk about the different men and women in the Old Testament, and there is a hint of jealousy.  They may say it, or just insinuate it, but here's what they communicate.

What would it have been like to hear God's voice and see him move in such powerful ways? I wish it was the same for us as it was for those whose stories we read about in Scripture. When I get to heaven I can't wait to ask David, Elijah, or Moses what it was like.

But I think it will be just the opposite in heaven. Before we can ask David what it was like to slay the giant, to win the battles, he'll say, Tell me what it was like on earth to have the Holy Spirit living inside of you, giving you strength when you are weak.  We might say to Elijah, What was it like to call down fire from heaven before the prophets of Baal and to raise that boy from the dead? And I think Elijah might say, Yeah, he actually ended up dying again.  You tell me what it's like to have God living inside of you. What was it like to live life on earth with the Holy Spirit giving you joy when you are depressed or giving you the power to overcome sin in your life? We might say to Moses, What was it like to follow the cloud by day and fire by night? What was it like to meet with God on that mountain? And  Moses might say, I had to climb that mountain to meet with God. You tell me what it was like to have him dwell within you every day.  What was it like to have the Holy Spirit giving you directions whne you didn't know what to do or where to go?

               ( From Not A Fan, Kyle Idleman, page 91)

If we really realized that we have it better than the Old Testament heros, if we really believed that Jesus meant what he said about it being better for the disciples if he went away so he could send the Holy Spirit, wouldn't our lives be radically different?

Think about it.  I know I am.

You Can Have Your Way

I have always loved the song DWELL, and echo its words as my great desire in corporate worship.

Dwell in the midst of us
Come and dwell in this place
Dwell in the midst of us
Come and have Your way

Dwell in the midst of us
Wipe all the tears from our faces
Dwell in the midst of us
You can have Your way

Not our will, but Yours be done
Come and change us
Not our will, but Yours be done
Come sustain us

More lyrics: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/v/vineyard/#share

I hope you all can experience this in your worship services this Sunday!

What If He Shows Up?

"Much of the time when Christians come together they don't usually expect God to do much, but God is like an anxious bridegroom outside the brides door, waiting to be invited in..."

                        - John Wimber

Think about this word when you go to church tomorrow.  Why not invite Him in?

  

 

 

Theosis

Here's some more insight on prayer and spiritual formation from Frederica Mathewes-Green's The Jesus Prayer:

"...in the Eastern Christian tradition, union with God is the goal for everyone. It is God's will for every Christian, and, through their preaching of the gospel, for every human being. The Purpose of this earthly life is to be saturated with the life of Christ. Everything flows from that, every theological insight, and every effort to help the poor. The idea is that God will fill people with his Son's life, and then they will accomplish his work in the world. It works better that way, actually. The other way round, when people set out to do things for God under their own steam, leads to disappointment, conflict, and wasted effort.

This process of assimilating the presence of God is called theosis (pronounced 'THEH-o-sis"). Theos means "God," and as a cloth soaks up water by osmosis, we are saturated with God through theosis. This indwelling presence heals, restores, and completes us, preparing each of us to take up the role in his kingdom that we alone can fill."

-The Jesus Prayer, page 12.

Oh Lord, I need some more Theosis!