A Perpetual Spring

Posted on October 11, 2022 by Pete

It was quite the claim. Intriguing, in fact. To never be thirsty again would be wonderful. But to never have to come to the well to draw water again? That would be amazing!

No more the daily burden of carrying heavy buckets which bowed the back. No more long treks to replenish what had only yesterday been full. And, as some suggest, no more trying to avoid the crowds and their judging glances and gossip because she seemed to go through men like Kleenex during a cold. If she was picking up what Jesus was laying down (and she wasn’t quite yet), He had water to give that would satisfy every thirst because it would source within her a perpetual spring of water.

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

(John 4:13-14 ESV)

In him a spring of water welling up. As the CSB puts it, a well of water springing up within him. The picture of self-perpetuating water sourced from within is what captures my attention this morning.

Had Jesus just said there was living water to be accessed leading to eternal life and shown us where to get it every day, I’m thinking most of us would be up for putting in the effort to go retrieve some. Instead, He says, I’m going to source the water internally. Drink of it, and the reason you’ll never thirst again is because it will be a forever fountain within you.

No more trying to bear the heavy burden of vessels which can never contain enough. No more the walks of futility to only fill up what will soon be empty. No more the fear of shame for failures we are unable to keep from racking up. No more burden, futility, and shame because no more thirst.

No more thirst because of a perpetual spring of living water welling up. The parched soul with the potential to be a thing of the past, because of a self-regenerating well of water springing up. That’s the promise. How’s it possible? Because the Source of living water takes up residence within those who so desperately need to drink of it.

“Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'” Now this He said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive . . .

(John 7:38-39a ESV)

No thirst because I’m supernaturally piped into an eternal flow of water. The only effort required on my part? To drink of it. To commune by the Spirit given to me with the Source who has said He will always have living water for me.

A perpetual spring. Rivers of living water ever flowing.

In me. Through Him.

What grace. To Him be all the glory.

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Lord Willing (2012 Rerun)

Posted on October 7, 2022 by Pete

This morning I’m hovering over the first part of Ecclesiastes 7 and the last verses of James 4. God has made “the day of prosperity”, says the Preacher, so be joyful. But then immediately Solomon reminds us that God is also the author of “the day of adversity”, and in that day we should “consider.” And of the many things we can be reminded of in the day of adversity, the foremost may be that we don’t know what tomorrow will bring (Eccl. 7:14). Cue James 4 and the warning against the boastful arrogance of talking about tomorrow as if it’s ours to command and direct. Went back 10 years ago in my journal and found these thoughts to chew on again.

Two words. Two words that can be the difference between presumption and proper perspective . . . two words that can ground our earthly lives in the context of heavenly realities . . . two words that can serve to remind us that we are not captains of our own ships but are, in fact, sojourners whose steps are directed by a Sovereign. Two words . . . Lord willing.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”–yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

(James 4:13-15 ESV)

I should be mindful to finish more sentences with the two words, Lord willing. Not to exhibit some mindless piety . . . but to remind myself that I have been created by a God who has already recorded all the days He formed for me (Psalm 139:16) . . . to ground myself in the reality that, though I may plan my way, it is the LORD who directs my steps (Prov. 16:9) . . . to sincerely acknowledge that I have been bought with a price and that I am not my own (1Cor. 6:19-20). If spoken mindfully, there’s a lot of foundation setting with “Lord willing.”

Life’s unpredictable . . . amen? Who doesn’t know that? You can go to bed one night and before morning your life is turned upside down . . . the absolutely unimaginable is now your reality . . . the unplanned is now what you have to plan around. So what folly is it to think we are masters of our own destiny? What arrogance to think we can power our way to where we want to go?

Not to say that we don’t set goals . . . or make plans . . . or embark on paths . . . but, as James reminds me this morning, we do so in the context of a sincere, humble “Lord willing.”

For those of us who, by God’s grace, have received the gift of eternal life by faith . . . who have recognized the depth of our need because of sin’s bondage and have seen the redemption and reconciliation offered through Jesus who, on Calvary’s cruel cross, paid the full price for our transgressions . . . for us, we own Jesus not just as Savior . . . not just as Shepherd . . . but as Lord and Master. And while a master might give his bondservant a range of responsibilities and the freedom to steward those responsibilities, at the end of the day it is the master’s prerogative to direct his servant. Thus, whatever plans we make for tomorrow, we do well to remember they are as “the Lord wills.”

Our freedom is not license to go rogue. Our freedom is not to fuel presumption. God forbid that our freedom would allow seeds of pride to germinate which cause us to think that it’s about “our will be done.”

And so, “Lord willing” just becomes smart thinking. “Lord willing” becomes a real-time temperature check on our priorities and planning. “Lord willing” has a way of keeping our eye to the sky as we are reminded that things could change in the twinkling of an eye.

Ok . . . done. Time to walk . . . time to get ready . . . time to go to work . . . Lord willing.

By His grace. For His glory.

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Greatest Passion, Greatest Pleasure

Posted on October 6, 2022 by Pete

There’s no way you read this and it shouldn’t give pause. No way you encounter James’ emphatic statement and subsequent warning and, for a moment at least, do a quick heart check. Better yet, when it comes to discerning friendship with the world, it seems to me that praying the psalmist’s pray might be a prudent course of action,

Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me”

(Psalm 139:23-24a ESV).

James diagnoses a problem within the band of believers he is addressing. Are there quarrel and fights among you, he asks? Then, at its core, it’s about the “passions” at war within you. Want a second opinion? Check out your prayer life. Your asking for the wrong stuff so that you can “spend it on your passions” (Ja. 4:1-2).

Passions, that’s how the ESV renders it. The NKJV is a bit more literal with desires for pleasure. The original word is hedone from which we get our modern word hedonistic. We’re wired for pleasure. But that wiring can get short-circuited when we live for the pursuit of pleasure. When the cravings of what the flesh wants becomes our driving force in life, it’s going to fracture relationships — both horizontal and vertical.

It’s in that context that James bluntly calls out some of his readers.

You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

(James 4:4 ESV)

It’s an either/or thing. It’s not a both/and thing. You can’t embrace the world and be faithful to God. To be a BFF with the world is to cheat on God. Worse yet, James says to be a friend with the world actually makes us an enemy of God. Whoa! And at the root of friendship with the world is our natural propensity to pursue our passions and desires for pleasure. Hmm . . .

Search me, O God.

I know I like pleasure. I also know that the world has a lot to offer when it comes to pleasure. So, I also need to know that, as long as the flesh continues to war against the Spirit (Gal. 5:17), these passions are gonna vie for top spot on my pursuit chart. They’ll want the biggest piece of my time pie. And so, unchecked, unbridled, and undirected they’re gonna lead me to friendship with the world, aka enmity with God. Hmm, again . . .

Search me, O God, and know my heart.

I want to be the friend of Him who said He has called me His friend (Jn. 15:14-15) and gave His life so that we could commune together. And I want to be a faithful friend.

Oh, that being His friend would be my greatest passion because I believe it is the way of knowing the greatest pleasure.

Only by God’s grace. Only for God’s glory.

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Taming the Untamable

Posted on October 4, 2022 by Pete

Oh, if ever there were an area of my life in which I needed to know the functional reality of “it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20), it’s the area of what comes out of my mouth. Scripture says so. Too often, I show so.

“A small member,” writes James, “yet it boasts of great things” (Ja. 3:5). A fire; a world of unrighteousness; staining the whole body; setting on fire the entire course of life; itself fueled from the depths of Gehenna itself (3:6). A restless evil, full of deadly poison, schizophrenic in nature as it blesses our Lord and Father in one breath and then curses people who are made in His likeness in the next (3:8-9). Heavy sigh!

But here’s what’s grabbed me this morning, in particular. James’ conclusion and James’ command.

For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. . . . From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

(James 3:7-8a, 10 ESV)

No human being can tame the tongue. It is untamable. Yet, these things ought not to be so. Or, as Peterson puts it, “My friends, this can’t go on” (MSG). Tame it, James says.

Talk about your no-win situation. Talk about repeated failure. Talk about frustration. Talk about “the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing”; about “wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7:19, 24). If I’m picking up what James is laying down, I’m no match for the tongue, yet James says, match it! Tame the untamable.

How? Cue my union with Christ.

The question isn’t, “How am I going to tame my tongue?” Rather, in Christ and Christ in me, it’s, “How are we?” For it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me.

No human being can tame the tongue, except for the perfect human being, the Man who is Lord of the tongue, for He is the One in whom “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col. 2:9). In Christ, I am no longer a slave to my tongue. Christ in me means I have the power to live into that reality.

As I abide in Him and He in me (Jn. 15:4), as He increases and I decrease (Jn. 3:30), as I am conformed to the image of the Son (Rom. 8:29), as I’m transformed by the renewal of my mind (Rom. 12:2), I should be experiencing other-worldly victories over this world’s realities. Even those involving the tongue.

In those victories, I know the reality of the abiding Jesus. I know what it is to be yoked with Him, our communion together bearing the fruit of a controlled tongue.

But even in those times when the old man, the old world, or the old devil trip me up, and the tongue goes where I really don’t want it to because of a heart that is not tuned as I wish it were, then too I can know sweet communion with the Christ who lives in me as He meets me at the foot of the cross. I confess my wayward words, I repent of an unbridled tongue, and I trust that “we” will know increasing mastery of this miserable little member.

So, whether in taming or in turning and trying again, I know His amazing grace. And in some way, He says it will bring Him glory.

Taming the untamable. All because it is not longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.

Amen?

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Listen and Do

Posted on September 30, 2022 by Pete

“Listen to my voice, and do all that I command you. So shall you be My people, and I will be your God, that I may confirm the oath that I swore to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as at this day.” Then I answered, “So be it, LORD.”

(Jeremiah 11:4b-5a ESV)

Ears to hear and a willingness to obey. Those are the “franchise requirements” for the people of God. Was under the Old Covenant. So it is with the New.

Can’t help but read this morning within the context of our class last night. We’ve been wading into what Kevin DeYoung has said “may be the most important doctrine you’ve never heard of”, our union with Christ. To be “in Christ” and for Christ to be “in us” is mind-stretching, awe-inspiring, and worship-invoking. To think of the practical implications of what it means that, because I have been crucified with Christ, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20) is to enter into the contemplation of a God-ordained, Son-enabled, Spirit-empowered venture into living out who I am “in Christ.” And a big part of that is being saved by grace through faith so that I might walk in obedience.

It was the Jeremiah passage which first grabbed my attention, this morning. God’s people are those people who listen to His voice and do all that He commands. Sounds pretty “Old Testament.” But the Old Testament isn’t portraying a different God or different economy for being the people of God than does the New Testament. It actually sets us up for the good news of the power revealed in the New Testament to practically live out being the people of God.

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow Me.”

(John 1:43 ESV)

But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

(James 2:18 ESV)

Jesus says to Philip, “Follow Me!” Listen and obey. To follow Jesus, we know, is to deny yourself and take up your cross (Mt. 16:24).

James says that to follow by faith will manifest itself in a walk characterized by works. Obedience being the fruit of faith. Duty being born out of grace.

And, while we might view grace and duty as in holy tension, not so with Jesus. The Son is “full of grace and truth” (Jn. 1:14), “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (Jn. 1:17). And yet, the Son who is grace in essence, would say, “I seek not My own will but the will of Him who sent Me” (Jn. 5:30). In the garden He would pray, “Nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done” (Lk. 22:42). So that as a Son “He learned obedience through what He suffered” (Heb. 5:8).

The perfect Man, representing all those who are “in Him”, brings together grace and duty. He brings to all those who have been saved by grace alone through faith alone, the rest found in His finished work (Jn. 19:3) while enabling all those who obey the call to follow Him with the resources to accomplish the good works prepared in advance by God for them to do (Eph. 2:10). This because of our union with Christ.

Grace and obedience. Not an either/or thing, but a both/and thing. As Rankin Wilbourne puts it in his book, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God, “Because of your union with Christ, these songs of ‘Extravagant Grace’ and ‘Radical Discipleship’ can no more be separated in your life than Christ himself can be torn in two.”

“Listen to my voice, and do all that I command you. So shall you be My people, and I will be your God . . .”

Listen and do. Only as we are in Christ.

His ever-patient grace in us. His perfect obedience living through us.

For our good. For God’s glory.

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He Makes Everything Beautiful, So Fear Him

Posted on September 28, 2022 by Pete

The “fear” filter kicks in again this morning.

Yesterday I briefly shared the difference Michael Reeves’ book, Rejoice and Tremble: The Surprising Good News of the Fear of the Lord, has made in how I’m seeing what it means to fear God. That the fear of God which we are to have is not a fear which recoils before a God who in His holiness will govern by Law, but beckons us into the presence of a God who in His goodness deals with us according to grace. A fear that draws us near in a response of loving adoration towards the God who mercifully and graciously gives us all things, even Himself.

This morning’s case in point was encountered in Ecclesiastes.

I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil —  this is God’s gift to man. I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before Him.

(Ecclesiastes 3:10-13 ESV)

What is the dynamic that should cause people to revere God? To stand in awe of Him? To honor and respect Him? To fear Him? The fact that He makes everything beautiful in its time.

It’s the reality that He has wired us with a sense that we were made for more than a few decades on this earth. That even in our “toil”, our daily routine, there can be joy as we “eat and drink and take pleasure” in whatever lot the Sovereign Creator has assigned us because we anticipate the beauty of a future time — and there is a time for everything (Eccl. 3:1)

Creation itself gives hint to the fact that “whatever God does endures forever” — and we are something He has done. We too will endure forever.

And why has the God of all things done this for mere mortals? So that people fear before Him.

Awe born out of adoration. Reverence as the fruit of redemption. Honor because of the anticipation of heaven. Respect as a result of His self-revelation.

Far from cowering, we come close. Rather than turning our back, we give Him our face — though bowed to the ground.

He will make everything beautiful in its time. So that people fear before Him.

The fear of the LORD. Such is our response to grace. Such is the response which will bring Him glory.

Amen?

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Fear the LORD Who Gives the Rain

Posted on September 27, 2022 by Pete

A couple of months ago I listened to a book which, at the time, I thought could be life-changing because it had adjusted a paradigm and refined a filter on one of those holy tension areas of being a follower of Christ. It was a book about the fear of God. And I was right about it being life-changing.

Rejoice and Tremble: The Surprising Good News of the Fear of the Lord by Michael Reeves rocked my world. While “reverential awe” is what I’ve had for most of my Christian life as a working definition for the fear of God, Reeves opened up a new filter. One which came into play this morning as I was reading in Jeremiah.

In Jeremiah 5, God’s indictment of Israel and Judah through the prophet is their failure to repent. Their transgressions were many and their apostasies were great (5:6) and yet they “refused to take correction” and instead “made their faces harder than rock” (5:3). And at the heart of the matter was a heart that did not fear God.

“But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart; they have turned aside and gone away. They do not say in their hearts, ‘Let us fear the LORD our God, who gives the rain in its season, the autumn rain and the spring rain, and keeps for us the weeks appointed for the harvest.‘ Your iniquities have turned these away, and your sins have kept good from you.

(Jeremiah 5:23-25 ESV)

They did not say in their hearts, “Let us fear the LORD our God.” Thus, out of their hearts came what Jesus would describe centuries later as “evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Mt. 15:19). But check out what should have been the catalyst for the fear of the Lord. Check out the attributes and actions of God that should have ignited this holy fear.

It wasn’t God’s power to judge. It wasn’t the fire of His holiness that could consume. It was His faithful, gracious, practical, daily provision. The God who gives rain in its season, the God who oversees the appointed harvests, is the God whose actions should evoke the fear of the LORD. Far from highlighting those attributes of God which would make one afraid of the LORD, the prophet’s appeal to fear God is because He is the One, who James would say, is the Giver of every good gift and every perfect gift from above, “the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). The goodness of God is at the heart of that which should evoke the fear of God.

Quoting John Bunyan, Reeves puts it this way, “Godly fear flows from a sense of the love and kindness of God. Nothing can lay a stronger obligation upon the heart of God than a sense of, or hope in, mercy.” Mercy, that’s what the wayward children of Israel had known but failed to recognize.

For generations, despite their wayward, wandering tendencies, God in His mercy provided for their daily needs. Though they had inherited and inhabited a land which they did not build, though they enjoyed the abundance of vineyards they did not plant, they did not recognize God’s great mercy and grace and respond in a manner worthy of such unmerited favor. And so, they did not love with heart-bowing adoration the God who had loved them. They did not fear the LORD.

If I’m picking up on what Reeves is laying down, then the fear of God is not about being afraid of God. Rather, it is a love that trembles before God because His boundless provision, from daily bread through eternal salvation, reveals Him as One who is overwhelmingly holy, good, and glorious. And thus, He is to be feared with a sense of overwhelming love.

Recommend reading Reeves’ book. Thankful for the filter it has provided. Look forward to encountering more of the “fear of God” as read I the Scriptures.

That I might say in my heart, “Let us fear the LORD our God, who gives the rain.”

Because of His all-abounding grace. For His all-deserving glory.

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The Same Yesterday and Today and Forever

Posted on September 22, 2022 by Pete

You read it and, while you can’t help but whisper “Amen” ’cause you know it’s true, it does strike you as being kind of out of place.

Starting in on the final chapter of the letter to the Hebrews. And, as is so common in these New Testament letters, after so much time spent on what to believe, the writer is clear on the “so what” and how to behave.

And so, to these believers who were shaken in the faith — those, to quote the hymn writer, who were “tossed about with many a conflict and many a doubt; fightings within and fears without” (Just As I Am, Charlotte Ellliott) — the writer exhorts them with a series of rapid commands as to what it would look like to remain faithful. Because of the rejection from their kinsmen and the persecution of their statesmen, they were to: continue in brotherly love; show hospitality to strangers; remember those in prison; hold marriage in honor; keep their lives free from the love of money being content with what they had; and, they were to remember their leaders (because they had been martyred?) and imitate their faith (Heb. 13:1-7). If I’m doing the math correctly, there’s eight rapid-succession commands to obey in these seven verses.

And then, seemingly out of the blue, there’s this:

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

(Hebrews 13:8 ESV)

True statement! Theologically sound. Christologically accurate. Foundationally necessary. If Jesus isn’t the same yesterday, today, and forever then “the fullness of God” doesn’t dwell within Him. And if He is not the incarnate embodiment of the fullness of God, if He is not in essence God Himself, well then, no reconciliation and no peace made by the cross (Col. 1:18-20). Like I said, true statement. Great theology. But why’s it dropped here?

I’m thinking it has something to do with the fact that these believers were struggling with remaining faithful to their beliefs and behaviors because they were losing their bearings. Their situation was impacting their determination to live for Jesus. Their circumstance was tempting them to rethink their spiritual stance. Their season was an assault to their sanctification. So, when exhorted to behave according to what they believe, the writer anchors these commands with a situation-transcending truth — Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever.

The Jesus who is the better revelation of God, who is better than angels and better than Moses, who is the better high priest and the better sacrifice, and is the guarantor of a better covenant, is better, in large part, because He is eternal and unchanging. We need to believe that, for without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6). But not only do we believe in an eternal, unchanging Savior, we behave according to an eternal, unchanging Lord. Our obedience not about the convenience of the situation, circumstance, or season, but all about our Savior who is the same yesterday and today and forever.

And so we keep on keepin’ on — not ’cause it’s easy but because He is worthy. We obey, not in our own power, but in the power of the risen Christ through the indwelling Holy Spirit. We aim to live in a manner worthy of who we are in Christ — not to show that we are something, but as a response of love conveying that, for us, He is everything.

The same yesterday and today and forever. Such is Jesus. Such is our holy determination, through His enabling, to faithfully walk in obedience.

Only by His grace. Only for His glory.

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Either Way, You’re Gonna Get Burned

Posted on September 21, 2022 by Pete

Okay . . . this is one of those mornings where it’s more like eating from a buffet than chewing on a single verse. Verses from three of my readings running through my head. All to do with fire, burning, and light. Connected, I think. Not sure if I can bring it together in a way that makes sense, but where I’m landing this morning is that either way, you’re gonna get burned.

Here goes . . .

Let’s start in Hebrews 12.

See that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject Him who warns from heaven. . . Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

(Hebrews 12:25, 28-29 ESV)

The writer to the Hebrews is wrapping up his letter. After explaining the “better-ness” of Jesus, after exhorting these weary wanderers to keep on keepin’ on entering the rest, after reminding them that what began by faith will be finished by faith, he says, “Do not refuse Him who is speaking.” How come? Because our God is a consuming fire. The One who tests hearts is a furnace that will one day judge all men. But, in this last part of Hebrews 12, he also reminds these wavering believers that their relationship to the fire is a different relationship than those outside of Christ, and that’s why they can offer “acceptable worship” to God — because they’re receiving a kingdom.

For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest . . . But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering . . .

(Hebrews 12:18, 22 ESV)

Mount Sinai was enveloped by the God who is a consuming fire (Ex. 19:18) and it caused even Moses to “tremble with fear” (Heb. 12:21). Do not touch! Do not come near! Keep your distance! That was the order of the day for those who saw God reveal Himself afire in the Law. You didn’t come to Mount Sinai, you stayed away. BUT — oh, glorious but — those under grace are invited to approach a different mount, Mount Zion. God not overshadowing it with blazing fire holiness, but God in the midst of it as with a holy fire that replaces the sun, so that “the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory” (Isa. 60:19-20, another of this morning’s readings).

Far from the consuming fire of God repelling us from a mount shaken by the tempest of His unfathomable holiness, it actually invites us to draw near and receive a kingdom that cannot be shaken because of His sacrificial love. Made holy through the finished work of Christ, we are beckoned to boldly approach the holy (Heb. 4:16).

But if we draw near, we’re still gonna get burned.

When [Jesus] was at table with [those He met on the road to Emmaus], He took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him. And He vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked to us on the road, while He opened to us the Scriptures?”

(Luke 24:30-32 ESV)

If we heed His voice and draw near, we should expect that our God, the consuming fire, will burn us. Not with flames that bring death, but with a fire that stirs us to life. His blazing fire no longer a feared flame, but a friendly fire which brings light and ignites the heart. Ready to hear His voice without the fear which sends us fleeing is to be ready to be consumed by His fire with an attracting and responsive fear fueled from knowing His overflowing, steadfast love. Try to run from Him, or purpose to run to Him; either way you’re gonna get burned.

Oh, to know the heartburn of being at the table with Jesus. To hear the voice of the consuming fire of Sinai now say with the faithful fire of Zion, “Come dine with Me.”

By His grace. For His glory.

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I Need an Interpreter

Posted on September 20, 2022 by Pete

I read in Proverbs how a culture would rejoice when the righteous increase but groan when the wicked rule (Prov. 29:2) and think to myself, really? Then I read in Isaiah 58 the LORD God’s take on the difference between fake fasting and real fasting. And it sounds a lot like you gotta perform before God will hear your prayers. So, I sit back and scratch my head. And then Hebrews tells me that my “struggle against sin” is for discipline and I need to endure because “God is treating you as sons”, so buck up and “lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees” (Heb. 12:4-7, 12). And I’m like, “What’s that about?”

This voice in my head, which is trying to process the hard things of Scripture, needs another voice to speak to my heart to provide understanding. And it’s something I read in Luke 24 this morning that reminds me I need an interpreter.

And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.

(Luke 24:27 ESV)

It’s a story made for the imagination (Lk. 24:13-35). Two dejected followers of Jesus heading out of Jerusalem and home to Emmaus. The One who they thought might be the Messiah, “a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people”, had been delivered up by their religious leaders to be condemned to death and crucified. And though there were reports of an empty tomb and a risen Christ as they left Jerusalem that day, their hope is all but gone that He would be “the one to redeem Israel.” Then Jesus Himself joins them on the road and walks with them. Though, writes Luke, “their eyes were kept from recognizing Him.” And so, they chat.

These disciples try and make sense of what has happened over the past several days in Jerusalem, He patiently waits to make Himself known to them. And the pre-work for opening their eyes and hearts to see Him? “All the Scriptures.” He begins at the beginning and ends at the end and shows them that Christ had to suffer before entering into His glory. He interpreted to them . . . the things concerning Himself.

I read this, pause, and think to myself, “Self, He did it then; He’s still doing it now.”

No. He’s not here in the room beside me. But He’s here in the room within me. And, just like those confused disciples traveling the road to Emmaus, I need Him to reveal Himself and His ways through the Scriptures.

I need Him to make sense of a culture which calls good evil and evil good and seems to care less when the wicked rule. I need Him to reconcile saving grace with required works before prayers are heard. I need Him to help my heart understand how my struggle against sin is not to add to my shame but is evidence of His on-going salvation, as a loving Father disciplines me through all-manner of hardship to produce in me the everlasting fruit of righteousness. I need an Interpreter.

This morning, I’m reminded that I have an Interpreter.

“Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you. . . . When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

(John 16:7, 13-14 ESV)

He will take what is mine and declare it to you. The Spirit of God will open your understanding of the word of God which is about the Son of God and give insight to those who are the children of God.

Every morning I open my Bible, I’m on the road to Emmaus. Whatever questions, concerns, confusions I have, He engages in the conversation. Not saying that every morning there’s always clarity, or clear-cut answers, but there is an awareness of communion.

And so, we continue the conversation. A pondering pilgrim listening for the voice of His patient Lord. The heart hearing Him by His ever-present Spirit.

By His grace. For His glory.

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