Monday, December 26, 2011

A Prayer for the Day after Christmas

Per Pastor Scotty Smith:
And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. Luke 2:20

Heavenly Father, life just on the other side of Christmas day feels quite different to different people. For some of us, this was the “greatest” Christmas ever—in terms of caring relationships, incredible “eats”, thoughtful gifts, and above all, profound gratitude for the indescribable gift of your Son, Jesus. But for others of us, it was a really difficult day of palpable tensions, dashed hopes, and brokenness abounding. For still others, it was the first Christmas with an empty chair where a loved one used to sit, or a day spent all by ourselves with underscored loneliness.

Father, my prayer today is for all of us, no matter what yesterday was like. For even our best days are in need of the gospel, and none of our worst days are beyond the reach of the gospel. We always have more of your grace than we’re aware of and we need more than we realize.

When the shepherds left Jesus’ manger, they were still shepherds. They still couldn’t worship at the temple; they still couldn’t give testimony in a court of law; they still were stereotyped as thieves by many in their community. A five-star inn in Bethlehem didn’t suddenly open up for Joseph and Mary the day after Jesus was born. She wasn’t spared any of the normal chaos and pain of birthing and afterbirth. Angels didn’t begin showing up as round-the-clock nurses.

Father, thank you that we’re Christians, not Gnostics. We don’t have to pretend about anything. Christmas isn’t a season in which we’re supposed to be transported into a super-spirituality, rising above reality. The gospel isn’t about denial but is about learning to delight in you, no matter what’s going on. We praise you that Jesus came into a real world where everything is broken, but he did come to make all things new, starting with us.

Please give each of us the special and the common grace you gave the shepherds. Let us hear and let us see more of Jesus, even if we remain “shepherds” the rest of our lives. Father, enable us to glorify and praise you in every season and situation of life. We are a people of hope, not hype, and everything you tell us in your Word will come to pass. Our past is forgiven, our present is in your hands, and our future is looking really good. This is good news for shepherds and kings alike. So very Amen we pray, in Jesus’ faithful and loving name.

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Believer, When the Temptation is Great, Keep This in Mind

When the day of evil comes and our temptation is great, we should not say, “Satan cannot touch me because of how truthful, righteous, and faithful I have been.” Rather we should say, “I am protected by the truth that though I feel weak, I am strong; though I may fall, I possess Christ’s righteousness. And though I am not perfect, I have peace with my God who has provided the faith I could not conjure (for faith, too, is a gift of God), the salvation I could not earn, and the Spirit I daily need.”
The spiritual disciplines and godly practices of our lives are not what protect us against Satan; they are the means of grace by which God builds within us greater understanding and confidence in him, so that we will stand on his promises and provisions when the day of battle comes
(Bryan Chapell).

Friday, December 23, 2011

Believers Have Resurrection Power Over Satan's Schemes

Hell and your sins resist your course;
But hell and sin are vanquished foes:
Your Jesus nailed them to the cross
And sang the triumph when he rose
--(Isaac Watts, "Stand Up, My Soul; Shake Off Your Fears," 1707).

Thursday, December 22, 2011

A Testimony of the Effect of Sexual Lust on Marriage

Christian counselor Richard Winter once shared an article with pastors to help them understand how sexual sin can destroy intimacy in marriage. It was an honest autobiography of a minister's struggle with sexual lust and the consequences of it on his marriage:

I have not mentioned the effect of lust on my marriage. It did not destroy my marriage, did not push me out to find more sexual excitation in an adulterous affair, or with prostitutes, did not even impel me to put unrealistic demands on my wife's sexual performance. The effect was far more subtle....
Because I have...gone over every inch of Miss October as well as the throng of beauties that Madison Avenue and Hollywood recruit to tantalize the masses, I start to view my wife in that light....I begin to focus on my wife's minor flaws. I lose sight of the fact that she is a charming, warm, attractive woman and that I am fortunate to have found her....
Lust affected my marriage in...[a] subtle and pernicous way. Sex....We performed okay....But passion, ah, that was something different. Passion I never felt in my marriage....
We never talked about this, yet I am sure that she sensed it. I think she began to view herself as a sex object--not in the feminist sense of being the object of a husband's selfish greed, but in the deprived sense of being only the object of my physical necessity and not of romance and passion
("The War Within," Anonymous, Leadership Magazine, Fall, 1992.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Our Safety is in the Deep!

There are few dangers threatening the religious future more serious than the slow shallowing of the religious mind....Our safety is in the deep. The lazy cry for simplicity is a great danger. It indicates a frame of mind which is only appalled at the great things of God, and a senility of faith which fears that which is high. Men complain that they...cannot rise to such matters. That may mean that the matters of the world absorb all the energies of the great side of the soul, that Divine things are no more than a comfort (P.T. Forsyth).

Monday, December 19, 2011

The Father's Bargain

One of my students (Corey Terry) in an assignment turned into me included this dialogue from a work by John Flavel called “The Father’s Bargain.” I found it to be a provocative way to communicate the necessity of the cross.

Father: My son, there is a company of poor miserable souls, that have utterly undone themselves, and now lie open to my justice! Justice demands satisfaction for them, or will satisfy itself in the eternal ruin of them. What shall be done for these souls?

Son: O my Father, such is my love to, and pity for them, that rather than they perish eternally, I will be responsible for them as their Surety; bring in all they bills, that I may see what they owe thee; Lord bring them all in, that there may be no after-reckoning with them; at my hand shall thou require it. I will rather choose to suffer their wrath than they should suffer it: upon me, my Father, upon me be all their debt.


Father: But, my Son, if thou undertake for them, thou must reckon to pay the last mite, expect no abatements; if I spare them, I will not spare thee.

Son: Content, Father, let it be so; charge it all upon me, I am able to discharge it: and though it prove a kind of undoing to me, though it impoverish all my riches, empty all my treasures, yet I am content to undertake it!

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Why There Is Only One Deathbed Conversion in the Bible

It cannot be too often, or too loudly, or too solemnly repeated, that the Bible, which ranges over a period of four thousand years, records but one instance of a death-bed conversion—one that none may despair, and but one that none may presume.—Thomas Guthrie (1803-1873), a Scottish preacher, in chapter 1 of Early Piety
From Justin Taylor's Between Two Worlds.