In View Of God's Mercy

Our Christmas Security

2009-12-16T20:14:00.000-05:00

Listen to the implications of Christmas in this prophecy from Micah 5:2,4-

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to be ruler in Israel,
whose coming forth is from of old,
from ancient days...
He shall stand and shepherd His flock in the strength of the LORD,
in the majesty of the name of the LORD His God.
And they shall dwell secure, for now He shall be great to the ends of the earth.
And He shall be their peace.

The King born in Bethlehem will shelter His flock under the majestic refuge of the name of God. And we will be forever secure, temporally and eternally safe in His hands, because He shall be great to the ends of the earth. Think on that for a moment, and be staggered by the connections made right here in the verse. Christ's global greatness is the day-to-day rock-solid foundation for our assurance, peace, comfort, and security. Because He is ascended at the right hand of God, with "all authority in heaven and on earth" given to Him, we can be confident that we are secure. The One who was born for us and lived for us and died for us and rose for us is now reigning for us and interceding for us and guaranteeing our security and entrance to glory by His own blood-bought peace with God.

Hear the apostle Paul's own inspired implications of this Christmas prophecy, echoing Micah's words: "But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace." (Eph. 2:13)

This Christmas, stand in awe once again at the mercy and majesty of our God. And count yourselves secure, immovable on this glorious foundation: "now He shall be great to the ends of the earth."

Thinking Lightly

2009-12-11T14:12:00.000-05:00

I've been slowly getting back into translating Romans from Greek to English, and recently my work in Romans 2 jumped out at me. Here is my literal translation of Romans 2:4-

"Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, being ignorant that the kindness of God leads you into repentance?"

Do you "think lightly" of God's kindness and forbearance and patience? Is it a small thing to you, something that rests lightly on your mind and heart? The truth of God's new-every-morning mercies in Christ is the most massive, weighty reality in the universe, a reality which should be daily, hourly crushing the sin out of our souls, taking our breath away, and bowing our hearts down before the throne of grace.

Yet too often in the church and in my experience, God's grace has been a small, light thing. Too often I reckon "the riches of His kindness" to be more like a $5 bill and less like the inexhaustible, precious treasure that it really is. Too many mornings, the patience of God is a small thing to me. I rise with my alarm clock and go about my day, not stopping to realize in wonder and awe that God again caused the sun to rise this morning on millions of people-- myself included-- who deserved to die in their sleep and yet have another day of divine forbearance and mercy in front of them. Think of it! The sun rose this morning-- a testament to God's love for His enemies. "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For He makes His sun rise on the evil and the good, and He sends rain on the just and the unjust." (Matthew 5:44-45) And the same love for His enemies that the sunrise proclaimed this morning was also demonstrated, in an even more magnificently glorious way, on the cross. "While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son." (Romans 5:10). Every morning, we should be staggered by the sunrise!

O, that the weight of God's kindness and forbearance and patience would fall with sin-shattering, joy-maximizing implications on His people! By His massive mercy, may we today find His kindness to be wealth beyond compare, His forbearance to be an unending fountain of hope, and His patience to be a firm foundation of peace.

Past, Present, and Future

2009-12-01T18:24:00.001-05:00

O the sweetness of these words: "To Him who loves us"- loves us! That He would ever look with even a mere moment of love upon a sinner such as I is earth-shattering. But that He loves me with a present tense, ongoing, ever-present passion is unfathomably staggering. Who am I, that the God who "inhabits eternity" (Is. 57:15) would break into time to pursue me with a present tense love?

And in order to make my experience of His present tense reality eternally sure, He has grounded it in the objective past tense: "and has freed us from our sins by His blood and made us a kingdom." God demonstrates (present tense) His love in that while we were still sinners, Christ died (past tense) for us. O, the marvelous assurance that this truth brings! The foundation of His love is not my present-- my weak, wavering, sin-stained present; the immovable Rock of His affection is His own past-- His unchanging, faithful, eternally accomplished past!

Therefore my heart's deepest longing and desire is this: that every future tense of my life would be suffused with His praise, and an ever-increasing conformity to His precious likeness: "To Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen!"

"To Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood and made us a kingdom, priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen." ~Revelation 1:5-6

Elijah vs. Jesus

2009-11-08T15:17:00.000-05:00

My wife and I are teaching children's Sunday School today, and in the course of planning, I got to thinking. Elijah was one of the greatest Old Testament prophets and miracle workers. At his word, the heavens withheld their rain for 3 1/2 years. He provided a miraculous supply of bread and oil for a widow and raised her son to life, called down fire from heaven, and became one of only two people in history to never die when he was taken away by chariots of fire.

And yet this great prophet and miracle worker does not even hold a candle to Jesus Christ. John the Baptist, whom Jesus said fulfilled the promise of the second coming of Elijah's spirit and power, said of Jesus, "He who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie." Clearly someone greater than Elijah was here.

Here are five reasons why Jesus is greater than Elijah:

1) Elijah's faith wavered. Jesus remained faithful.
Despite all that he had seen God do, when Elijah's life was threatened by Jezebel, "he was afraid and he arose and ran for his life." (1 Kings 19:3) Jesus, on the other hand, never wavered in His commitment to Calvary and His Father's will, and thus the author of Hebrews writes, "Christ is faithful over God's house as a son." (Hebrews 3:6)

2) Elijah had to pray to God to affect the weather. Jesus simply said, "Be still," and the storm stopped.
Most of Elijah's miracles actually involve him praying and asking God to act. James says that "Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain." (James 5:17) But Jesus didn't ask for anybody's permission; He simply said, "Be still," and the storm ceased. Thus He proved that He is the God of Psalm 89:9-- "Who is mighty as You are, O Lord? You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, You still them."

3) Elijah raised a widow's son from the dead. Jesus is the resurrection and the life.
Elijah is one of the few people in the Bible through whom God raised the dead. But even though the miracle was spectacular, it is obvious from the account in 1 Kings that it was God who raised the dead, not Elijah. Elijah pleaded with God, and God answered his prayer. Jesus, on the other hand, declared about Himself saying, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live," (John 11:25), and then backed up this claim by commanding life into the decaying corpse of Lazarus with a simple, "Come forth."

4) Elijah was taken to heaven with fire. Jesus will come from heaven with fire.
Elijah was taken up into heaven by "chariots of fire and horses of fire." (2 Kings 2:11) Lest we be too enamored by this spectacle, though, 2 Thessalonians tells us of a greater heavenly fire: a coming day "when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God... when He comes on that day to be glorified in His saints and to be marveled at among all who have believed." The glory of Jesus' heavenly fire will brilliantly outshine Elijah's, as much as the sun outshines a flickering match.

5) Elijah never died. Jesus conquered death.
Elijah is one of only two people in the Bible, along with Enoch, to never taste death. Yet the honor that Jesus has and will receive is infinitely greater, for Jesus is now "crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone." (Hebrews 2:9) And Jesus did not just taste death for everyone; "He Himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death." Elijah the sinner never died, thanks to Jesus tasting death for Him, and now Jesus has definitively conquered Satan and eliminated the power of death for all time for all who trust in Him.

Elijah is surely worthy of much honor among the great saints of the faith. But Jesus is surely worthy of much more. He is a greater miracle worker, greater life-giver, greater sin-conquerer, greater grave-overcomer, greater Savior.

Twitter

2009-10-17T18:38:00.000-04:00

Twitter is something I've been thinking about for a long time. I swore up and down that I would never ever ever be on Twitter. It seems to me to be one of the most self-serving, inane forms of communication in existence. I've always been a believer in Neil Postman's idea of "the medium is the message." Twitter is a communication medium that lends itself to triviality. Therefore, I am wary of it.

But at the same time, I have seen people redeeming Twitter to be a tool of the Gospel. I've marveled at how God can take even the most inane mediums and turn them into something that can glorify Himself. And so, with some trepidation, I have opened a Twitter account. This blog post is my justification of that.

Twitterers like John Piper and The Gospel Coalition have shown me that short does not have to equal trivial. In fact, I believe that there is a potential for great profundity if glorious truth can be packaged into something as small as, say 140 characters. One reason I am using Twitter is that I want to develop a skill in communicating the truth of God's word in an efficient, profound, poetic (read: short) way that honors God for the treasure He is and preserves the weightiness of His Word. I believe that Twitter can help me grow as a preacher and expositor of God's Word.

Twitter is also going to become a tool of my daily devotional times. My goal is, every day, to come away from God's Word with a statement of glorious, gospel truth that can fit in a Tweet.

Thirdly, I hope that by joining those who are seeking to redeem this medium, I can add my voice to the chorus of praise that even now is occurring on Twitter. God desires to be glorified in all things, and I want to see His name and renown spread through this new medium that He, in His sovereignty, has granted to us.

My Twitter address is www.twitter.com/theophilus318. Follow me as I follow Christ!

Back to Blogging

2009-10-17T18:25:00.000-04:00

It's been almost 3 months since I've blogged on here, and in the meantime, a lot has happened. I got married on July 25th (hurray!), I started a very challenging job at the end of August, and I have been struggling to keep all my commitments and priorities straight in the face of an entirely new season of life.

Marriage is, second to salvation, the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me. My wife is a servant and a blessing, more than I deserve. I thank God daily for her. "He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the LORD." ~Proverbs 18:22

But I've also discovered that what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 7 is true. "The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided." How painfully true this is! My most desperate prayer has become, "Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear Your name!"

The constraints of serving a wife, working a full-time job, teaching Sunday school, attending new members' class, and (soon) beginning to be a part of a leadership group at my church, all have left the Daily Verse Online in limbo. I'm still not sure where God wants me to go with this. He has blessed me with that ministry, and the opportunity to serve the Word of God to thousands each day, for nearly 7 years. I don't know yet if He's calling me to other things, or if He's putting the DVO on hold for a season, or if it is my own selfishness that is keeping me from that ministry. Until He shows me where to go, the site will remain up but no Daily Verses will be sent. To those of you who miss receiving daily verses: I'm sorry. I'm thinking of you, and when God lifts the curtain, you'll know.

But I want to come back to blogging. I need an outlet for musings on the Word that doesn't have the same demands as the DVO. I hope those of you who read this will be blessed by this blog as I strive to please God by honoring and cherishing His Word here.

Wedding

2009-07-23T21:51:00.000-04:00

I'm getting married in 41 hours. Oh my gosh. I want to write a profound post on the topic, but right now I'm so frazzle-brained I can hardly think straight. I'm getting married in 2 days. 2 days!

After that, a week in Hawaii.

Then it's back to work, back to the Daily Verse Online, back to blogging... but now I'll have a wife. Sweet.

Pray for me!

Justice

2009-07-18T01:36:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking lately about a question I hear posed a lot: how can God punish our finite sins with an infinite punishment (hell)? How is that fair? Here is an analogy that I have used, that even kids can understand.

If your big brother says to you, "Go and do this for me," and you say, "No! I want to do what I want to do," you'll probably get punched or yelled at. But that's it... because he's just your big brother, and disobeying him isn't that big of a deal.

If your parents say to you, "Go and do this for me," and you say, "No! I want to do what I want to do," you'll probably get sent to your room, or spanked. The punishment is greater, because it's important to obey your parents.

If there was a king, and he called you and said to you, "Go and do this for me," and you said, "No! I want to do what I want to do," what do you think would happen then? You would probably get thrown in the dungeon or beheaded, because it's the KING, and you must never disobey the King!

So what do you think should happen to us when the omnipotent, glorious, eternal Sovereign God, King, and Judge of the entire universe, who is infinitely holy and pure and beautiful, who created us for himself, says to us, "Go and do this for me," and we say, "No! I want to do what I want to do!" Surely, infinite woe must be the portion of any soul who would dare to insult the King of the universe to His face.

The severity of the transgression increases with the glory of the One transgressed against. As J.I. Packer wrote, "There can be no small sins against a great God."

Praise God that we have an atonement great enough to cover the height of our iniquity!

Fatherhood

2009-07-04T17:38:00.001-04:00

"We fathers need to step up, to realize that our job does not end at conception, that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise one." ~Barack Obama

I strongly disagree with our President on many critical issues, but I rejoice at his statements like this one. Thank you, President Obama, for your vocal commitment to supporting fatherhood. Christians: statements like this from our elected leaders deserve your applaud and support and thankful prayers.

Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. ~Romans 13:7

God Didn't Call Us To Be 'Comfy'

2009-06-09T14:41:00.001-04:00

WORLD Magazine has a great article about following Jesus in America called, "God Didn't Call Us To Be Comfy." Here's an excerpt:

"Comfy Christianity is epidemic in America. We encounter a store that won't say Merry Christmas and we think we are persecuted. God help us. We send checks instead of serving. But according to most doing research, we don't even do that very well."

This is a timely, insightful, and convicting article. I commend it to you.

Read it here.

Lyrical Theology

2009-06-08T10:48:00.000-04:00

A great work of God has been brought to my attention over the last couple weeks, and I want to take this opportunity to highlight what God is doing, so that He may rightly receive glory for His grace.

God is doing something big in the inner cities of America, and the evidence of this revival is the complete sea change in Christian rap over the last couple years. Artists like Lecrae, Shai Linne, Trip Lee, Flame, and others are translating deep theology and rich biblical truth into brilliantly produced music that is easily on par with their secular counterparts. As Lecrae explained in an interview with Mark Driscoll last year, hip hop plays a greater part in inner city culture than music does in the wider American culture. Rappers aren't just cultural commentators-- they are the culture definers; hip hop doesn't just describe culture-- it creates culture. The tragedy is that secular rap is probably the darkest genre of music out there today, full of drugs and sex and lies and violence and materialism.

Into this culture-forming crucible, however, the gospel is breaking in. Last year, Shai Linne produced a spectacular album focusing on the atonement. Lecrae's most recent album is a call to rebel against a secular and material culture by taking up the rallying cry of Christian hedonism.

In a very real way, what is happening in the inner cities is a new generation of hymn-writing. Two and three hundred years ago, out of the spiritual power of the first and second Great Awakenings, came a flood of theology set to contemporary music-- hymns like Amazing Grace, And Can It Be, Crown Him With Many Crowns, Be Still My Soul, and others-- that are still with us today. Today's Christian hip hop artists describe what they are doing as "lyrical theology"-- essentially translating biblical truth into lyrical, musical, rhythmical form.

While I don't think that rap is going to replace hymns or congregational worship, what is happening is still staggeringly wonderful. Cities are always the birthplace of culture; as the cities go, so does the culture. To see God moving in such powerful ways in such hard places is a testament to the amazing power of His grace.

Weak

2009-06-02T01:44:00.000-04:00

It's been said that religion is a crutch for weak people. But the more I learn about God and about myself, the more I realize that statement isn't even beginning to scratch the surface of reality.

I'm not an emotional cripple. I'm an emotional and spiritual quadriplegic. I don't need a crutch; I need a Savior who will say to me, "Take up your mat and walk."

The Holy Spirit

2009-05-15T10:28:00.001-04:00

"Every time we say, 'I believe in the Holy Spirit,' we mean that we believe that there is a living God able and willing to enter human personality and change it." ~J.B. Philips

I'm so glad we have the Holy Spirit. My personality is in great need of renovation.

Done!

2009-05-13T15:51:00.003-04:00

I just finished my last college final today. Graduation is on Saturday, but for all intent and purpose, I'm done with college! It's a strange mixture of excitement, sadness, eagerness, and fear. Excitement that I'm finally done with academics (for the time being), sadness that I'm leaving behind lots of good friends, eagerness to move on to the next stage of life (marriage!), and fear about jobs and stuff like that.

This is the place where fear and faith collides. Pray for me.

An Innocent Ministry

2009-05-10T16:01:00.000-04:00

Today was my last day serving as Assistant to the Pastor at Center Presbyterian Church, a position that I've been blessed to minister in for the last two years. In addition to my role as Assistant to the Pastor, I've also been helping to lead the middle- and high-school youth group there for three years. My time working with the youth group has been a stretching experience for me, as I've struggled to help them make connections between the staggering glory of the Gospel and the everyday challenges of adolescence, and to see their desperate need for the saving grace of God.

Since I started working with the youth group, my vision for youth ministry has been encapsulated in Acts 20:18-26. In this passage, Paul addresses the leaders of the Ephesian church where he has ministered and preached for three years. Here are selections from the passage in question:

"You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears... how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance towards God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ... Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God."

My deep desire for the past three years has been to be able to read this passage to the kids today and, because of the way I have lived and taught them, to be taken seriously. I want to be able to say earnestly and truthfully to them and to God, "I am innocent of the blood of all of you. You know that what I've been talking about for the last three years is a life-and-death matter, and I have proclaimed the gospel to you over and over again. I have not shrunk from declaring to you the whole counsel of God; therefore, dear young people, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of your blood. What you do with this is between you and God, but you have heard the truth from me. I am innocent of your blood."

The Old Testament background on which Paul is drawing in making his claim to the Ephesian church is Ezekiel 3:17-19. In this passage, God commissions Ezekiel to preach a message of repentance to Israel.

"Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them a warning from me. If I say to the wicked, 'You shall surely die,' and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die for his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul."

I tremble when I read that passage. Every minister and pastor and preacher and teacher of God's Word should tremble at that passage. If we do not fulfill God's call to warn a wicked generation of the just consequences of their rebellion, they will die for their sins, but their blood will be laid at our feet. I think of this text every time I am preparing a sermon and every time I'm working on a youth group message. By desperate reliance on the Holy Spirit, I want to lead an innocent ministry, innocent of their blood, not shrinking from declaring the whole counsel of God which is able to save their souls.

Is your ministry innocent of blood? I pray, by God's power, that it would be.

Alleluia, Sing To Jesus

2009-05-06T12:18:00.000-04:00

We sang "Alleluia, Sing To Jesus" in chapel yesterday, and the third verse was exactly what I needed to hear:

Alleluia! Bread of angels, Thou on earth, our food, our stay
Alleluia! Here the sinful flee to Thee from day to day
Intercessor, Friend of sinners, earth's Redeemer, plead for me
Where the songs of all the sinless sweep across the crystal sea

He is a Rewarder

2009-05-05T11:56:00.000-04:00

I'm translating the book of Hebrews for my 3rd year Greek class, and I started chapter 11-- the "hall of faith"-- today. Verse 6 blew me out of the water.

And without faith it is impossible to please God, for it is necessary for the one who comes to God to believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder to the ones who seek Him. ~Hebrews 11:6, my translation

The ESV translates the last phrase, "and that He rewards those who seek Him." The meaning is the same, but a more literal translation brings out this staggering wonder: "rewarder" is a noun. A noun! God doesn't just reward; He IS a rewarder. He is defined as one who rewards. In the same way that 1 John's statement that "God is love" rings more powerfully than the simple "God loves," a literal translation of Hebrews 11:6 highlights the amazing truth that God is characterized by rewarding.

Those of us who are seeking God are not just seeking somebody who happens to reward people; we are caught up in the hedonistic pursuit of the Great Rewarder.

Wow.

True Romance

2009-05-04T10:21:00.002-04:00

I'm getting married in about 2 1/2 months, and so naturally I've been thinking a lot about love and commitment and faithfulness. Yesterday I was talking to a friend about love and marriage, and about how many girls on this campus are looking for a storybook romance, when the real thing is a little different. After 4 1/2 years in a relationship, I have realized this:

True romance looks a lot less like Prince Charming and happily ever after, and a lot more like a bloodied cross.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. ~Ephesians 5:25

In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ~1 John 4:10-11

"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." ~John 15:12-13

Keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. ~1 Peter 4:8

"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." ~Mark 8:34

Breathtaking and Breathgiving

2009-05-01T23:54:00.001-04:00

My thought for the day:

Lord, May every breath You give me be taken away by the sight of your unparalleled mercy.

Of First Importance

2009-04-23T10:55:00.000-04:00

I will be preaching again, for the last time, at Center Presbyterian Church this Sunday. My text will be 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, asking one basic question: "Why is Paul reminding Christians of the gospel? Don't they already know it?" The title of the sermon will be, "Of First Importance: Remembering the Most Important Thing."

Whenever I have the opportunity to preach on Sunday morning, I am keenly aware of my shortcomings, but never more so when I am preaching directly on the gospel. Please pray for me, that the beauty and glory and truth of the message of salvation would be put clearly on display by the frail words I bring to the congregation this Sunday.

Singing alleluia with our lives

2009-04-18T10:32:00.000-04:00

One of the songs we sang on Easter sunday was the hymn, "Now Let the Vault of Heaven Resound." It's a great hymn to the tune of "All Creatures of our God and King." The third verse in particular has stuck with me all week:

O fill us, Lord, with dauntless love;

Set heart and will on things above

That we conquer through Your triumph

Grant grace sufficient for life's day

That by our lives we ever say,

"Christ has triumphed! He is living!

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!"

Propitiation, and Big Words that Matter

2009-04-17T14:13:00.000-04:00

I'm generally not a fan of big theology words. As someone with a heart for pastoral ministry, I yearn to make theology accessible and applicable and wonderful and glorious to the average person in the pew, and that often means ditching some overly high-falutin' doctrine words in favor of, frankly, fewer syllables.

But I hold a few exceptions to that general rule. There are a couple words whose weight of glory so outweighs the weight of their syllables that they are worth teaching and explaining and treasuring. The two words that most quickly come to mind in that category are "justification" and "propitiation." Both are Bible words, not theologian words. They are hard to pronounce, but are absolutely central to the all-satisfying glory of the Gospel.

Propitiation means "a sacrifice to satisfy wrath." Two of the main texts for this word are Romans 3:25 and 1 John 2:2--

"...Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith."

"He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world."

There is an eternity of weighty, glorious meaning in this word, for all our redemption and salvation is wrapped up in its mystery. My exhortation to you is: become a student of this word! Spend your time and your mental energies in unpacking and exploring and applying all that this word holds for your soul. It will be time and energy well spent as you come to know more of the heart of our great Savior, Jesus Christ.

It's okay to pray for joy

2009-04-16T22:09:00.000-04:00

Is it okay to pray for joy, or is that a selfish prayer? Asking for God to make you happy, even happy in Him, seems sort of "off" somehow. Though I freely label myself as a "Christian hedonist," it's still something I feel funny praying for sometimes. But the Holy Spirit gave me a clear answer today when I was reading Psalm 85-86. Here are 3 examples from the Psalms of praying for joy, all of them with God-centered motivation.

Psalm 51:12-- "Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners will return to You."
Apparently there is a direct connection between deeply feeling the joy of knowing God's great salvation, and being a good evangelist. Here, David's prayer for joy is directly connected to his desire that God's salvation would be felt more deeply by him and extended to others.

Psalm 85:6-7,9-- "Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You? Show us Your steadfast love, O LORD, and grant us Your salvation... Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him, that glory may dwell in our land."
The main connection to draw here is between "Your people rejoice in You" and "that glory may dwell in our land." The glory of God is put on brightest display when His people rejoice, delight in, and treasure Him above all else. Therefore, our desire for joy is (or should be) deeply caught up in our desire for God to be glorified, because those desires are biblically synonymous.

Psalm 86:4-5-- "Gladden the soul of Your servant, for to You, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. For You, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon You."
This has got to be one of the most overtly hedonistic prayers in the Bible. "Gladden the soul of Your servant," the Psalmist prays. In other words: "Make me happy, God!" And the foundation for His prayer: the character of God. God is good, forgiving, and loving-- and this is the ground for both the Psalmist's request and His expectation. Because God is all of these things, there is hope and reason for joy, even in the darkest of times.

And finally, not needing any explanation, are the precious words of our Savior from John 16: "Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full."

He lives to plead for me above

2009-04-15T17:01:00.000-04:00

I've been translating the book of Hebrews from the Greek this semester, and this week I'm on chapter 7. Verse 25 in particular is especially powerful during this Easter season, reminding me of why the resurrection is such good news:

Therefore He is also able to save completely the ones who come near to God through Him, because He always lives to plead for them. ~Hebrews 7:25 (my translation)

The good news of Easter is three-fold: because of the resurrection, we who trust in Christ are "saved completely," can draw near to God, and can know that Jesus always stands before the Father pleading on our behalf. We have an ever-living Advocate and Savior in the courtroom of heaven.

Hebrews 7-10 unpacks all of this, and ends with the application of what this Easter gospel should mean in our lives every day: "Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that He opened for us through the curtain... let us draw near to God with a true heart in full assurance of faith." Amen!

One of my favorite Easter hymns is "I Know that My Redeemer Lives." The third verse in particular stood out to me today, in light of Hebrews 7:25--

He lives to bless me with His love

He lives to plead for me above

He lives my hungry soul to feed

He lives to help in time of need

He Is Risen!

2009-04-12T12:34:00.003-04:00

A new hymn I had never heard before, from the new LCMS hymnbook:

All the earth with joy is sounding:
Christ has risen from the dead!
He, the greater Jonah, bounding
From the grave, His three-day bed.
Wins the prize:
Death's demise--
Songs of triumph fill the skies

Christ, the devil's might unwinding,
Leaves behind His borrowed tomb.
Stronger He, the strong man binding,
Takes, disarms his house of doom;
In the rout
Casting out
Pow'rs of darkness, sin, and doubt

Jesus, author of salvation,
Shared in our humanity;
Crowned with radiant exaltation,
Now He shares His victory!
From His face
Shines the grace
Meant for this, our fallen race

Praise the Lord, His reign commences,
Reign of life and liberty-
Paschal Lamb, for our offenses,
Slain and raised to set us free!
Evermore
Bow before
Christ, the Lord of Life adore!

He is risen indeed! Alleluia!