the One and the Way

Then I said, “Behold, I have come;

in the scroll of the book it is written of me:

I delight to do your will, O my God;

your law is within my heart.”

Psalm 40:7-8

There is One Who says these words of commitment with perfection. One and only One is the true fulfillment of the prophetic praise of this passage. Jesus is the One that the scroll of the book continually points toward in any place we read the Word of God. He is the One of Whom this is written. Jesus delighted to do God’s will, to give Himself for us because the burnt offering and sacrifices would never be enough (Psalm 40:6). Jesus is the One Who fulfilled the Law as from His heart flowed the true meaning of all God’s Law. Jesus is the One Who could say all this.

There is also a Way explained in these two verses. It is a Way that is better than the sacrifices of the Old Testament. It is a Way that underlies all of scripture. It is a Way to true peace and satisfaction. It is a Way to find joy. It is the Way to do God’s will and always please Him. It is a Way not just to obey God, but to have God’s Will and His Word flow out from a transformed heart. And that Way is also only found in Jesus.

Lord,

I come to You today recognizing that only Jesus can show me how to live. And in the life He lived, and still lives for me, I find the way to pleasing You, It is all in You, Lord Jesus! I have found the One and the Way.

Amen

prayer for today

For I know what they are inclined to do even today, before I have brought them into the land that I swore to give.

Deuteronomy 31:21b

Lord,

I have a day plan in front of me. I believe I’ll talk with broken and hurting men, hoping as You enable me to encourage them to find grace, forgiveness, and peace in You. At least that’s what my calendar tells me I have planned. And I plan to study Your Word, prepare a teaching series to build up Your saints in their most holy faith, helping the flock in my care to grow in faith, in love for Jesus, and in living like Jesus to the people You have put us all around. At least I hope to gain the insight to teach Your truth and show Your ways to Your people.

Yet, my plans, informed as I hope they are by the gospel, are totally outside my control. You know every second of this coming day more than I can possible anticipate. You know what I am inclined to do. And You take that into account in Your sovereign, gracious demonstration of Your love for me.

You know what I need to know today. So teach me in Your Word as I prayerfully seek Your truth.

You know what I need to believe today. So work by Your Holy Spirit to increase my faith.

You know how I need to feel today. Grip my heart with an awestruck awareness of You. Calm these anxious thoughts. Heal my broken, weary sadness. Encourage me where I am discouraged. Strengthen me where I have no power or desire to go on.

You know where I will be tempted today. Guard me with scripture coming to mind. Confront my selfish thoughts which are always with me. Pull me into a love for You and for others that overcomes the drag of my self-centered mess. Forgive my trespasses and help me to forgive others who may hurt me.

My inclinations are Your intimate understandings! And so I commit this day asking You to draw me to You, Lord… to Your ways… Your will… for Your glory alone!

Amen

Grace with you

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.

Galatians 6:18

Any gift I could give you

simply cannot compare

to the grace God gives us

in the life we share

I love this life with you

together we serve

a God Who bestows us

with grace undeserved

We worship a Savior

Who loved us in His death

and gave us all grace

to His very last breath

The Father then raised Him

all sin to erase

now in Jesus forgiven

our spirits know grace

A family now united

in Christ we can stand

with the gospel commission

we share grace in our hands

Our spirits are strengthened

our souls in repair

with the gospel on our lips

this grace we will share

I love what God gave us

as in Jesus we thrive

His grace ever with us

His song in us alive

Until heaven is around us

until His kingdom come

may grace keep us together… forward

as God’s will here is done

Overtaken

And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God.

Deuteronomy 28:2

There is no doubt in my mind that my life is overtaken by blessing. It may not be anyone else’s vision of a perfect life, but looking back over six decades I am humbled by the blessings God daily gives to me. And the fact that blessings also are right with me in difficulties is the greatest blessing I can know. Life is hard. God is so very good. Life is a blessing when those two things are what I know! Bear with this paradoxical language for a moment…

Blessing has overtaken me in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The blessing overflows into all my other experiences. The fact that Jesus died for me, bore my sin, guilt, and sorrow on the cross so that I could know abundant and eternal life through Christ’s forgiveness is my defining center. So much good grace overflows from that truth. It is like a crystal spring of blessing flowing up from the center of my soul. The gospel overtakes everything!

Here is what the blessing of the gospel overtakes:

• My own struggles with sin. I can find grace as I confess, forsake, and obey what Jesus shows me and what the Spirit leads me by the Word of God’s instruction.
• My own sorrows and grief. I’ve had my share, but I do not live in grief and sorrow. Because of God’s blessing I can live beyond loss. And grief still visits me everyday in some way or another, but the loved ones I have been separated from who are with Christ are not lost to me! They are just ahead of me! I remember God’s blessing and know that I will see them all again as surely as their memories are still with me.
• My own challenges and hardships. I live in a broken world. And there are hard things I face personally, and in pastoral ministry. Despite the reality that relationships, following the Lord Jesus, and making a living are all hard work, I am extraordinarily blessed! And that blessing compels me to want to generously pour out God’s grace in me to others in ministry, fellowship, friendship, love, relationships, good neighboring, gospel proclamation, and showing the kindness of Christ.

Thank You Lord for the real experience of the promise of Your blessing overtaking me! I am indeed carried by the current of Your grace! Amen

In step

If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

Galatians 5:25

When we follow the Word of God (as Paul taught here) we will also follow the Spirit of God as He leads us. The ESV rightly translates the last phrase of this verse as “keep in step with the Spirit.” it means so much more than just “walk in the Spirit” as other English translations have read. The Greek word is used to describe following in line, marching in step, like a precision march of soldiers, or if we want a more modern image, a marching band or drill team. The Spirit sets our cadence and direction. The Lord wants us to embrace and understand this powerful image.

All my life I have heard sincere Christians give vague, fuzzy, touchy-freely descriptions of the Holy Spirit’s “leading”. It is common for Christians to say “I just felt led”, or “I feel this is what God wants me to do”. But that sort of “out of focus” thinking is not at all how the New Testament describes how the Holy Spirit of God leads us. I mean right here in Galatians five there is crystal clear description with specific wording on how God’s Holy Spirit keeps us from gratifying the flesh (Galatians 5:16-17). There is a specific list of fifteen selfish, feelings-based desires (bookended interestingly enough by actions of sexuality outside the bounds of God’s design: and we think we post-moderns are so sexually expressive!), that would never be evidence of the Spirit’s leading. It is clear their is fleshly, sinful evidence of a heart not led by the Spirit of God.

Instead, the Holy Spirit makes it possible for a new internal character to come into visible display as fruit in our lives. It is this nine-fold fruit that lines out our marching steps. We keep in step with the Holy Spirit as we exhibit Christ-like character: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Those are the steps He leads us to follow. That’s the line we follow. That’s the cadence we hear. Those are the steps that set our pace, rhythm, and direction.

slave / son / heir

So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

Galatians 4:7

What I was:

born enslaved

caught in sin

mastered by selfish choices

unable to break free

bound to wrong

dead to God

a miserable slave

who could not know God or please Him

What Christ did:

born in the right time

sent by the Father

to become my new Master

Jesus broke me free

He defeated sin

made me alive through Jesus

no longer a slave but a son

I can know God and please Him

What soon will be:

reborn an heir

bound for glory

serving my Master… my Father

set free to represent Jesus

clothed in righteousness not my own

alive like I’ve never known

a praise-singing son

I will be with God

and His people — pleasing Him and pleased in Him — FOREVER!

It is good that the Bible says I’m bad.

But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

Galatians 3:22

So does the Bible talk about sin so much to fill us with a sense of guilt? Is God just trying to bash us into depression? In other words, is it a bad thing that scripture has so much to say about the bad things humans do… things that displease a holy God? Not really. It is a good thing. But there needs to be some explanation, which Paul masterfully teaches in Galatians three, despite faithless attempts to paint Paul as some sort of warped, puritanical killjoy. You see, when the Bible shows us sin, it is NOT to make us holier-than-thou or judgmental of others. Self-righteousness is one of the worst symptoms of faulty biblical interpretation. Sadly, many get it wrong and so those outside of Christianity and some within it suffer with the delusion that Christians are always prudish, unyielding, and finger-pointing hypocrites. We are not to become self-righteous when reading what the Bible says about human evil.

But it is also a horrendous hermeneutic to internalize guilt over sin and fill my self with self-loathing when God confronts sin as we read the scripture. That self-loathing is just another type of judgmentalism and legalism that twists the gospel and corrupts the truth. God never meant for us to beat ourselves up over our sin. It would change nothing, Yes, I should feel guilt, but I also have hope in God. He had to change it all, but His grace!

Paul insists here that Scripture makes strong, declarative pronouncements against our sin, not because God is a stern judge wanting to throw the book at us, but instead, it highlights the beauty of the sweet offer of forgiveness He brought us in our Savior. We have to have bad news (we are powerless and locked-up in our sin) before we can embrace the good news (there is deliverance from the penalty of sin, the pervasiveness of sin, and the power of sin in Jesus! In eternity He removes us from the presence of sin forever). 

And that really is a good thing. The way the Bible shows the enormity of my offense against God magnifies the greater glory of the amazing grace that lasts forever in my great eternal salvation brought about by the atoning death of Christ and the declarative, authoritative, delivering resurrection of Jesus from the dead! The promise is now given to those who believe: Sin is forgiven! We are no longer imprisoned because Jesus is the Risen Savior! Amen!