Kootenay Lake Dawn
The Eternal’s purposes will last to the end of time;
the thoughts of His heart will awaken and stir all generations.
The nation whose True God is the Eternal is truly blessed;
fortunate are all whom He chooses to inherit His legacy.
(Psalm 33:11,12 The Voice)
Those who see are often loyal folk who “insist on seeing because they care for the institution and want to see it succeed.” True prophetic voices speak the truth in love for the purpose of building up the body of Christ, not for tearing it apart. I found this TED lecture on willful blindness by Margaret Heffernan, a secular expert on what makes businesses work, an eye-opener.
“18. The limits of our understanding
We must now explain what the power of human reason is, in regard to the kingdom of God, and spiritual discernments which consists chiefly of three things – the knowledge of God, the knowledge of his paternal favour towards us, which constitutes our salvation, and the method of regulating of our conduct in accordance with the Divine Law. With regard to the former two, but more properly the second, men otherwise the most ingenious are blinder than moles. I deny not, indeed, that in the writings of philosophers we meet occasionally with shrewd and apposite remarks on the nature of God, though they invariably savour somewhat of giddy imagination. As observed above, the Lord has bestowed on them some slight perception of his Godhead that they might not plead ignorance as an excuse for their impiety, and has, at times, instigated them to deliver some truths, the confession of which should be their own condemnation. Still, though seeing, they saw not. Their discernment was not such as to direct them to the truth, far less to enable them to attain it, but resembled that of the bewildered traveller, who sees the flash of lightning glance far and wide for a moment, and then vanish into the darkness of the night, before he can advance a single step. So far is such assistance from enabling him to find the right path. Besides, how many monstrous falsehoods intermingle with those minute particles of truth scattered up and down in their writings as if by chance. In short, not one of them even made the least approach to that assurance of the divine favour, without which the mind of man must ever remain a mere chaos of confusion. To the great truths, What God is in himself, and what he is in relation to us, human reason makes not the least approach.
19. Man’s spiritual blindness shown from John 1:4-5
But since we are intoxicated with a false opinion of our own discernment, and can scarcely be persuaded that in divine things it is altogether stupid and blind, I believe the best course will be to establish the fact, not by argument, but by Scripture. Most admirable to this effect is the passage which I lately quoted from John, when he says, “In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not,” (John 1: 4, 5.) He intimates that the human soul is indeed irradiated with a beam of divine light, so that it is never left utterly devoid of some small flame, or rather spark, though not such as to enable it to comprehend God. And why so? Because its acuteness is, in reference to the knowledge of God, mere blindness. When the Spirit describes men under the term “darkness” he declares them void of all power of spiritual intelligence. For this reason, it is said that believers, in embracing Christ, are “born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God,” (John 1: 13;) in other words, that the flesh has no capacity for such sublime wisdom as to apprehend God, and the things of God, unless illumined by His Spirit. In like manner our Saviour, when he was acknowledged by Peter, declared that it was by special revelation from the Father, (Matthew. 16: 17.)”
-John Calvin, Institutes, Book 2, Chapter 2, parts 18 & 19
My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness…
His Oath
His Covenant
His Blood
support me in the whelming flood.
(from Solid Rock by Edward Mote)
God is not a man—He doesn’t lie.
God isn’t the son of a man to want to take back what He’s said,
or say something and not follow through,
or speak and not act on it. (Numbers 23:19)
There must be more than this
O breath of God, come breath within
There must be more than this
Spirit of God we wait for You
Fill us anew we pray
Fill us anew we pray
Consuming fire
Fan into flame
A passion for Your name…
(from Consuming Fire by Tim Hughes)
It’s much easier to pray for God’s consuming fire to come and purify our hearts before we have experienced how intensely uncomfortable that process can be. Isaiah agonized,”Woe is me! I am undone! Everything that has come out of my mouth is filth!” when confronted with the holiness of God.
This is not a prayer for dutiful gatherings of people to sing casually without thought, or for those looking for an easy life.
This is not a prayer for those who only seek God when they want relief from suffering or think following Jesus means he will buy them a colour TV and fill their freezers with microwaveable dinners.
Jesus Christ’s pure love shines a light on our acceptance of ugly unholiness in ourselves as only-human-normality and reveals putrefied only-human-depravity. His Holiness confronts it with the intensity of a burning laser. His relentless kindness and gentleness provide the burning coal that purifies and leads us to change, but it is not a happiness-all-the-time experience. Sometimes the reality of living in the light of pure love that leads to life-changing Godly sorrow (and not merely hopeless self-pity) results in brokenness and bitter weeping before the joy of closer friendship with the Lover of our Souls.
This prayer is only for those who dare to hope that knowing Him is better than life.
“Gentleness is not apathy but is an aggressive expression of how we view people. We see people as so valuable that we deal with them in gentleness, fearing the slightest damage to one for whom Christ died. To be apathetic is to turn people over to mean and destructive elements, to truly love people cause for us to be aggressively gentle.”― Gayle D. Erwin, Spirit Style
I have told my kids to avoid burning bridges. It’s amazing the way people turn up in our lives thirty years after we were sorely tempted to tell them what we thought of them and their stupid job the day we were told to clean out our desk. What is truly amazing is that people can change and thirty years later enemies can become friends.
I am so grateful that the Lord put a guard over my mouth sometimes (although, alas, sometimes I shouted over it.) I’m so glad gentle folk did not curse me when I was so angry and hurt by some folks in the church and walked away in disappointment. (Discussions about which denomination would be the greatest in heaven were as tiresome to me as the disciples squabbles were to Jesus.) I am so thankful the gentle ones not only talked about grace; they practised it.
“Speaking the truth in love” is less about criticizing that part of people’s lives which is dead or rotten and more about pointing out the part of them that God sees – the part of them which, like the water lilies I saw in this pond with its dead wood, yearns to live and grow and blossom.
It also struck me this week, whilst reading the apostle Paul’s qualifications to write the letter to the Galatians, that God knew who Saul was going to be even when he was violently opposed to Jesus Christ and threatened his followers. God saw something in him even then and chose him in advance for a special mission. Unlike many of us would have, given the opportunity, Christ did not curse him. When Jesus spoke the truth to him it was to tell him who he really was.
Today I read another blog publicly condemning some well-known ministers. One commenter was quite willing to call them “accursed” for what he considered to be inaccurate doctrine.
There is a reason why Paul told Timothy and Titus that leaders need to be able to teach, but with gentleness. It could be that God is simply not finished with the people they are charged to serve and love. It could be that people whose understanding of God is not yet complete (and whose is?) are people in process and need, like Apollos, to be taken aside and gently and lovingly taught by someone who actually has a relationship with them, rather than be publicly executed by a stranger.
Decisions to remove those who have become toxic to the body from positions of influence can only be made by those who love deeply and are willing to lay down their lives for another in their care. Poor teaching is best routed by good teaching.
We do not need not be contentious in order to contend for the faith.
Again I say, don’t get involved in foolish, ignorant arguments that only start fights. A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone, be able to teach, and be patient with difficult people. Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people’s hearts, and they will learn the truth. Then they will come to their senses and escape from the devil’s trap. For they have been held captive by him to do whatever he wants. (2 Timothy 2:23-26)
Peace is a Christ-like reaction to troubles, threats and invitations to worry.
-J. I. Packer
Charis: Subject to Change 