Seeznak

Our Calling

I Peter is the letter in which we, the “elect exiles” for Christ, are given such grand distinctions as being a “chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for [God's] own possession.” So when Peter says, in 2:21, “to this you have been called”, it is interesting to note that he is not referring to our status as a holy nation or our new vocation as kingly priests. Those are our privileges, but our calling is far more pride-stripping:

For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. - I Peter 2:19-21

Our calling is to mirror Christ. These words are addressed specifically to servants, but the context suggests that all Christians bear the same responsibility to properly submit when submission is due, making all of us servants in some sense. This ludicrous servitude is what we have been called to do. Just as our Creator, the highest authority in the universe, submitted Himself to the mocking of His creation, so we are to follow in His steps. Jesus showed the world His theology (i.e., His understanding of the Father) by submitting to scorn, beatings, and death, since His understanding of the Father caused Him to treasure the Father’s will. If we are to be faithful theologians, then we are called to show our hearts’ treasure by doing good and gladly enduring unjust suffering for it.

This is the highest calling.

Are You A Babe?

When I read the following quote from Edmund Clowney, in his commentary on I Peter, I readily connected to his point: “The wonder of a mother at the birth of a child becomes delight at the readiness of her infant to feed. Any delay at feeding-time brings a powerful reaction from the tiny person. For an infant, milk is not a fringe benefit.” I have seen this image played out in my own little family many times in the past seven weeks:

Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation. -I Peter 2:2

“Peter writes to young churches; he has in view many who have only recently confessed their faith in Christ and been baptized. Some were no doubt senior citizens; they are nevertheless newborn in Christ. They must have an infant’s desperate desire for basic nourishment.”

O that we could learn to be childlike in our hunger for the deep things of God’s Word!

Why It Is Good To Read Christian Poetry Devotionally

• 1. Because Scripture gives us examples.

Much of the Bible (especially the Old Testament) was given to us in poetic form, for our benefit. These passages do not prescribe forms or styles, but show us that God’s people remember and communicate God’s character and works through poetry.

• 2. Because the Church has always done so.

This is careful ground to tread, but I cite the use of devotional poetry by the church not as a reason for but a validation of using poetry- Christians in nearly every age have found hope in the “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” of Scripture and of their brethren, whether past or contemporary.

• 3. Because poetry expresses what statements and exhortations cannot.

It is a common occurrence in Scripture for God’s people to break into poetry when tasting of the Divine. Adam, Jacob, Moses, Deborah and Barak, Hannah, David, Mary, Zechariah, Paul, John… these are a representation of humanity’s God-given desire to express joy, love, hope, and sadness through poetic utterance.

• 4. Because poetry gives us breadth of learning.

The poetry of others gives our understanding of God a breadth of language and imagery which is difficult to obtain solely through Scripture, because the historical and geographical distance between ourselves and Scripture is often difficult to overcome in a morning devotion intended for communion with Christ (though the Holy Spirit’s work of enlightening our hearts and minds is not to be underestimated!).

• 5. Because poetry gives us breadth in our prayer language.

The poetry of others gives our prayers to God the breadth of language and imagery which we long for, since we, as creatures of habit, tend to retreat to familiar words and phrases in our prayers.

• 6. Because poetry gives us breadth in our imagination.

“Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!”

“You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy.”

“You crown the year with your bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.”

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”

Desideratum

Why do we explore? Why do we have a fascination with the undiscovered, the unexplained, and the unexpected?

We have left Earth, we have cast our electronic eyes out into the unknown, we have harnessed the human genome, and yet, for any who take a walk in the woods or catch a brief sunset, the possibility for wonder does not end. The heavens do declare the glory of God. His presence is unavoidable, yet unfathomable.

And we want to know all about it. This is why

Humanity’s quest for knowledge is the God-given seed of the only truly fulfilling quest:

The search for knowledge of God’s creation is good and valid, but this other, spiritual pursuit will end in a far better place than we can now perceive.

Faith

Is it all about peace,
Stars magically aligned?
When it seems like a cancer,
Is it always benign?
Why do we struggle alone,
When the battle’s already won?
We’re promised suffering here,
Until this weary walk’s done.
Why do we lament the furnace,
When it draws us to God?
Kicking against refining,
Remaining soft as the sod.
When everything is easy,
Doesn’t pride become our balm?
Not thanking the one,
Who holds our soul in His palm.
But when the storm clouds are raging,
Where are we seeking repose?
In the God of the storm,
Who says by trial our faith grows.

Have you ever thought about a clay water pot going through the furnace? It is put through the fire so that it can be a worthy vessel and be put to use doing the thing it was designed for. Imagine what would happen if that lump of clay decided not to go through the fire, remaining instead a soft lump of clay. Try putting water in a soft clay pot and see what happens. The water leaks out as the clay becomes soggy. But going through the fire proves the character of the pot whether it be genuine and true.

Isn’t it in the good times that suddenly God is on the back burner. Oh, He’s still there, but things are going so good that we just do our own thing. But when things are going rough, suddenly we are on our faces again seeking His face, and then things go smoothly again and we forget Him again…Yet we long for there to never be trials…O, give us peace all the time! But when do we grow the most, during trials or peace? When is our faith put to the test? When do we see God’s hand taking us through things?

Not to say we don’t feel blessed when things are going well, but that I wonder- why we are so apt to blame God or complain when things aren’t going as we please? Why do we expect everything to just be peachy and not to struggle on this earth?

I am the first to cry about what I am going through or how I am feeling, but who am I to scream against the storm when it is trying me as gold is tried? “My prayer is to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

God the Borrower Repays As Is Fitting

Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord. - Proverbs 19:17

A humbling notion, this! That our God, to whom we cannot give a gift worth paying back, considers our gifts to each other as a loan to Himself! Everything we have was made by God and given to us; what a weighty consideration is here put before us, that we can lend to God (and that with relative ease) as we give to the hungry and the needy and the neglected!

Be in awe of the awesome power we hold, by God’s grace alone, to choose to do evil, or to choose to do good.

A Guarantee to Abound

God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.   -II Corinthians 9:8

First, a statement about God’s uncontainable power: God is able.

Next, the details of this abiblity: to make all grace abound.

Then, the object: to you.

Last, the consequence or end: so that…

Thus, because of God’s immutable sovereignty, we therefore have all sufficiency in all things at all times. God’s ability (which has no end) gives us all sufficiency (which therefore also has no end). It is by this sufficiency (in all things, at all times, secured by the All in All Himself) that we can and shall move forward to do good works; and not just to accompish some things, but to abound in every good work. What a promise, what a hope.

We Would Be Poets; Or, Wondering Why Psalm 114 Exists

Psalm 114

When Israel went out from Egypt,
the house of Jacob from a people of strange language,
2 Judah became his sanctuary,
Israel his dominion.

3 The sea looked and fled;
Jordan turned back.
4 The mountains skipped like rams,
the hills like lambs.

5 What ails you, O sea, that you flee?
O Jordan, that you turn back?
6 O mountains, that you skip like rams?
O hills, like lambs?

7 Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord,
at the presence of the God of Jacob,
8 who turns the rock into a pool of water,
the flint into a spring of water.

Have you ever wondered why a particular passage is in the Bible? When I read Psalm 114 a few days ago, I had to wonder why it even exists. It’s ‘plot’ is simply another retelling of the exodus, which has already been versified in previous Psalms (take 78, 105, 106, and others) and that more thoroughly. The Psalm’s only exhortation is for the earth to ‘tremble’ in verse 8, which, again, has been amply covered elsewhere. So Psalm 114 does not exist to tell us history we didn’t know, and it doesn’t exist to tell us to do something we don’t already know we should do.

So why this little song? I can see two attributes of Psalm 114 that I think may point us to an answer:

1. The Psalm is telling us about what God has done, and

2. It is telling us about what God has done in the form of poetry.

From the first point, I conclude that theology (the study of who God is and what He has done) is application.That is to say, to learn about God is to glory in who God is. So when we read and learn and talk about what God has done, that is enough; He is pleased. And this is exactly why the second point is important: reading and learning and talking about God is not the stuff of dusty textbooks and pretentious classrooms and the recitation of rote words and phrases. It (that is to say, theologizing) is the stuff of poets. Learning about God should make me think about skipping mountains and how the ocean might look if it was terrified and, more importantly, why the ocean might be terrified. I should wonder why such a big God would choose to display His might by bringing the water of life out of a dead, dry rock. I should think about God in terms of an exuberant song. I should learn to be a poet.

Atlas Had It Easy

“This slight, momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”  - II Corinthians 4:17

We look forward to bliss in heaven. However, this Scripture informs us that standing in the unmitigated presence of our God is so excessively blissful as to be weighty. And we, as athletes, need to be trained by God in this life to bear the backbreaking glory of God. This is why we go through trials; we are being prepared, according to the gentle wisdom of God, to step into His presence as a snail might step into the shoes of Atlas.

So let us thank God for our trials, for, weighty as they now seem, they cannot compare to the insoluble majesty we will one day, happily, never escape from.

Pwned by God

9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. -I Corinthians 6:9-11a

And such was I. So what is the difference now- am I no longer immoral, or idolatrous? No way. But what is the difference? Here the Word informs me in the next sentence:

But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. - I Corinthians 6:11b

The only difference between myself and the ‘unrighteous’ is not the good or religiousy things I do; it is the grace of God in Christ.

This grace is the basis for all subsequent good works, though we (I, at least) are oft tempted to think of our goodness as a sort of booster shot for us to continue in God’s grace. That is clearly not the case in this passage, where Paul argues for our unquenchable pursuit of righteousness because we’ve already been irrevocably owned by our Lord.

You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. -I Corinthians 6:19b-20