I have been reading (off and on) C.S. Lewis' book, The Four Loves. In it, he says:
"For a Christian, there are no chances. A secret Master has been at
work. Christ, who said to the disciples, 'Ye have not chosen me, but I
have chosen you,' can truly say to every group of Christian friends,
'You have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one
another'. Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good
taste in finding one another. It is the instrument by which God
reveals to each the beauties of all the others. They are, like all
beauties, derived from Him, and then - in a good friendship -
increased by Him through the friendship itself, so that it is His
instrument for creating as well as revealing. At this feast it is He
who has spread the board and it is He who has chosen the guests. Let
us not reckon without our Host."
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Personal Testimony
I was recently asked to share a personal testimony on the other blog for which I write (http://livingascalled.blogspot.com/ - the blog for the singles ministry at Riverbend Community Church). With my recent posts here on having a troubled mind and how our sins are often initiated by dark and distressing thoughts, I wanted to share here how God has granted me understanding of this in my own life:
I grew up in a home where I was taught much about God, Jesus and His death on the cross and the work of the Church. I had very caring grandparents who instilled much of God’s Word into my life. My parents were committed to a local church and sent me to a good Christian school. After seeing my sister be saved and hearing her admonishments to me to seek God for repentance, I began to understand my sin in a personal way. As my parents and teachers pointed me to God’s Word, I came to know of God’s provision of sacrifice in His Son. It was then that I confessed my sin and prayed for Christ to be my Savior.
Looking back on my junior high and high school years, I see the fruits of my salvation, both in the actions I had, as well as the desires and motivations of my heart. However, my understanding of God’s authority and sovereignty was very limited. I did not attend a church like the one I attend now. The Christian school I attended was very casual in terms of theology, and focused more on the rigidities of the Law, mostly by having many rules and expectations that were required of students, but lacking the foundation of Christ as the motivation for obedience. I did not understand the character of God or the deep mysteries of His Word.
When I look back on these years of growing up, I see God’s faithfulness in growing me through the limited understanding I had of His Word, as well as through the means of the Christian people around me who encouraged me in my faith. I see now that one of my greatest temptations was failing to maintain a mind that was self-controlled and set upon Christ. My emotions were easily swayed by the circumstances around me, and I know now that this can probably be attributed to a weak understanding of God’s providence and sovereignty over all things. I would cling to Him and His Word in difficult days, but this was always coupled with discouraging thoughts and accusations against God for allowing such trials. In essence, I was conflicted by the emotional fluctuations of a sinful heart.
When I graduated high school, in my immature faith, I chose to follow the ways of this world for a season. I rebelled against most of what I had been taught. It began “innocently,” with a rekindled childhood friendship. I began to spend more and more time with worldly friends. I soon even pursued a dating relationship with a young man who was not a believer. This man had absolutely no interest in things of the Lord, but yet praised me for my “good” behavior. During this time, I slowly began to move away from the church, oftentimes lied to my parents, and further distanced myself from the ways of righteousness I had once engaged in.
There is one distinct thing I remember about this wayward season of my youth: my conscience was deeply troubled. When I would come home from being out with my friends, and after sneaking quietly up to my room, my thoughts were tormented by the knowledge of how I was disobeying all that I knew to be true about God and His Word. I was miserable and filled with guilt. In God’s gracious mercy, He soon caused this young man to break off our relationship – abruptly and painfully. I was devastated! I spent weeks grieving this loss and even sought out ways to win him back. My entire world had become defined by this relationship.
But in God’s sweet providence, He had orchestrated this event as a turning point. He only allows His children to go so far in their sin, and thankfully, He did not leave me to myself. He rescued me from my sin and restored me unto Himself. He left me with nowhere to turn but back to Him. I started attending a new church in the area where I was introduced to God’s sovereignty, the teachings of Calvinism, and began to hear theological teaching like I had never been exposed to before. These truths brought great comfort and assurance to my mind and heart.
A couple of years later, the Lord moved my family to Florida very unexpectedly to care for my dying grandfather. This was one of the most pivotal events of my life and has come to be remembered as one of the most precious. It is here where God has taught me what it means to be a Biblical woman. Through the means of Riverbend Community Church, I have learned (and am definitely still learning!) what God’s Word has to say about authority and submission, manhood and womanhood, service in the church, practicing the “one another’s” of the Bible, pursuing Biblically-informed emotions, discipling and mentoring younger believers, caring for the weak, coming to love and value the call to singleness (for however long that may be) and gaining a scripturally sound view of my own sinfulness.
It is here that I have learned to study my heart – to recognize the evil and deceitful machinations that are always at work in it. It has brought many days of discouragement, frustration, sorrow, and confusion. But most importantly, it has brought days of gratitude – for it is God’s proven faithfulness to restore me in the midst of revealed sin and the consequent repentance that comes with it. I have learned things I never would have learned had I stayed in the places I once was.
One of my greatest sinful tendencies is to be controlled and even paralyzed by what others think of me, to the point that my imagination runs uncontrolled. These sinful emotional struggles have been revealed and refined (and continue to be) by the means of the leadership and friendships God has blessed me with throughout my years at Riverbend. It has been God’s particular goodness and mercy upon my life to bring me here for this season. I have done nothing to earn this goodness, and I am amazed by His abundant provisions. My life’s ambition is to please God, and I want to do this by learning how to live out His Word.
“…Set the believers an example if speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching…Practice these things, immerse yourself I them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by doing so you will save both yourself and your hearers.” (I Timothy 4:6-16)
I grew up in a home where I was taught much about God, Jesus and His death on the cross and the work of the Church. I had very caring grandparents who instilled much of God’s Word into my life. My parents were committed to a local church and sent me to a good Christian school. After seeing my sister be saved and hearing her admonishments to me to seek God for repentance, I began to understand my sin in a personal way. As my parents and teachers pointed me to God’s Word, I came to know of God’s provision of sacrifice in His Son. It was then that I confessed my sin and prayed for Christ to be my Savior.
Looking back on my junior high and high school years, I see the fruits of my salvation, both in the actions I had, as well as the desires and motivations of my heart. However, my understanding of God’s authority and sovereignty was very limited. I did not attend a church like the one I attend now. The Christian school I attended was very casual in terms of theology, and focused more on the rigidities of the Law, mostly by having many rules and expectations that were required of students, but lacking the foundation of Christ as the motivation for obedience. I did not understand the character of God or the deep mysteries of His Word.
When I look back on these years of growing up, I see God’s faithfulness in growing me through the limited understanding I had of His Word, as well as through the means of the Christian people around me who encouraged me in my faith. I see now that one of my greatest temptations was failing to maintain a mind that was self-controlled and set upon Christ. My emotions were easily swayed by the circumstances around me, and I know now that this can probably be attributed to a weak understanding of God’s providence and sovereignty over all things. I would cling to Him and His Word in difficult days, but this was always coupled with discouraging thoughts and accusations against God for allowing such trials. In essence, I was conflicted by the emotional fluctuations of a sinful heart.
When I graduated high school, in my immature faith, I chose to follow the ways of this world for a season. I rebelled against most of what I had been taught. It began “innocently,” with a rekindled childhood friendship. I began to spend more and more time with worldly friends. I soon even pursued a dating relationship with a young man who was not a believer. This man had absolutely no interest in things of the Lord, but yet praised me for my “good” behavior. During this time, I slowly began to move away from the church, oftentimes lied to my parents, and further distanced myself from the ways of righteousness I had once engaged in.
There is one distinct thing I remember about this wayward season of my youth: my conscience was deeply troubled. When I would come home from being out with my friends, and after sneaking quietly up to my room, my thoughts were tormented by the knowledge of how I was disobeying all that I knew to be true about God and His Word. I was miserable and filled with guilt. In God’s gracious mercy, He soon caused this young man to break off our relationship – abruptly and painfully. I was devastated! I spent weeks grieving this loss and even sought out ways to win him back. My entire world had become defined by this relationship.
But in God’s sweet providence, He had orchestrated this event as a turning point. He only allows His children to go so far in their sin, and thankfully, He did not leave me to myself. He rescued me from my sin and restored me unto Himself. He left me with nowhere to turn but back to Him. I started attending a new church in the area where I was introduced to God’s sovereignty, the teachings of Calvinism, and began to hear theological teaching like I had never been exposed to before. These truths brought great comfort and assurance to my mind and heart.
A couple of years later, the Lord moved my family to Florida very unexpectedly to care for my dying grandfather. This was one of the most pivotal events of my life and has come to be remembered as one of the most precious. It is here where God has taught me what it means to be a Biblical woman. Through the means of Riverbend Community Church, I have learned (and am definitely still learning!) what God’s Word has to say about authority and submission, manhood and womanhood, service in the church, practicing the “one another’s” of the Bible, pursuing Biblically-informed emotions, discipling and mentoring younger believers, caring for the weak, coming to love and value the call to singleness (for however long that may be) and gaining a scripturally sound view of my own sinfulness.
It is here that I have learned to study my heart – to recognize the evil and deceitful machinations that are always at work in it. It has brought many days of discouragement, frustration, sorrow, and confusion. But most importantly, it has brought days of gratitude – for it is God’s proven faithfulness to restore me in the midst of revealed sin and the consequent repentance that comes with it. I have learned things I never would have learned had I stayed in the places I once was.
One of my greatest sinful tendencies is to be controlled and even paralyzed by what others think of me, to the point that my imagination runs uncontrolled. These sinful emotional struggles have been revealed and refined (and continue to be) by the means of the leadership and friendships God has blessed me with throughout my years at Riverbend. It has been God’s particular goodness and mercy upon my life to bring me here for this season. I have done nothing to earn this goodness, and I am amazed by His abundant provisions. My life’s ambition is to please God, and I want to do this by learning how to live out His Word.
“…Set the believers an example if speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching…Practice these things, immerse yourself I them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by doing so you will save both yourself and your hearers.” (I Timothy 4:6-16)
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
A Troubled Mind (continued)...
In my previous post, I shared some helpful words from Timothy Rogers (from his book, Trouble of Mind and the Disease of Melancholy). He has much to say regarding the purposes and designs of our great God in afflicting us. And when we speak of affliction, it is not merely physical ailments or even weighty life circumstances. We actually should think of the deep and sometimes tormenting afflictions of the soul, whether as a result of sin, or a predatory influence of the enemy on our inner man. Whatever the cause of our affliction, God's purposes and intended outcomes are what we should be looking toward, instead of our own personal reprieve and temporary comfort. By turning to HIm in all things, we will be comforted and sustained, even if our afflictions are not removed or lightened in severity.
So, let's look again at the divine purposes that build on the four mentioned a few days ago:
5. Another end that God may have in the continuance of long and sore affliction, and great inward troubles, is to reveal more clearly to us the corruption and defilement of our nature. In a calm, the waters of the sea appear to be clear enough; but when the storm comes, it throws up the mire and the dirt. In prosperity and health, we think we have very good hearts and considerable degrees of sanctification; but when sin is set upon us, the spiritual law of God begins to show its purity. And oh, what multitudes of iniquities then appear! What unbelief, what impatience, what murmuring, what unbecoming thoughts of God, such hideous and strange thoughts we have as we have never had before! And oh, what a ghastly sight this is, to see such a numerous brood of transgressions, when we imagined that all had been very well with us!
6. Another end that God has in the continuance of spiritual troubles and afflictions, and the sense of His wrath long upon us, is that from our experience Christ may be forever precious to us. When we are at ease and think ourselves whole, we seldom think of Him. But our pain, our smart, our guilt and our fears, the sight of our present danger and of approaching wrath, all cause us to run to this Physician and beg His help when we are sinking. They will make us stretch out our hands and say, 'Master, save us or else we perish!' Having fallen among lions, having been the slaves of fear and having been held in captivity by the temptations of Satan, we shall most gladly shake off our chains and embrace liberty and salvation when our Lord comes to set us free. Oh, how our hearts will melt with love when we remember that, as we have been distressed for our sins against Him, so He was in greater agonies for us! Surely, such a Friend, such a Physician, as He has been to us, we must be ever valued.
7. God also does this so that we may put a high value on the Scriptures, that we may search and look into them with more earnestness and frequency, to see if there are any promises in them that are reviving, and place in them that may afford hope and comfort to souls so miserable and so guilty. For when our consciences are awakened and pierced with the sense of wrath from God, if His Word would speak to us, we could have ease.
8. Another end of God in continuing afflictions and a long, remaining sense of His wrath upon us is that we may be everlasting admirers of the freeness of His grace when we are delivered. Oh, with what wonder should we behold His condescension and His care for us, that when our wounds were very deep, He poured in wine and oil; when we were inwardly bleeding, and no creature or friend on earth could help us, He did not allow us to bleed to death. The hand of God is so strong, and His wisdom is so admirable, that He turns to our profit and advantage not only the evils which are caused by cross events, or by the world, but those which we commit ourselves, and that seem contrary to our salvation, even those sins which we are guilty of. He changes these poisons into medicine, these scandals into edification, and from the thickest darkness He brings out light.
9. Another end why God suffers His servants so long to remain under the impressions of His wrath is that they may learn to be merciful and helpful to such as are in the same case, and to such as are sinning, and have not yet felt the displeasure of God for their sins. We must not grieve others by a sharp or unseasobale discourse; when they are in the furnace, we must not make it hotter by imprudent bitterness. They are wounded in their souls, and those wounds require a gentle, skillful, and tender hand. Every one of us should say, 'They are troubled on every side, and so was I. They are afraid that He has departed, and so was I. Those arrows of the Almighty that stick in them only a little while ago stuck in me. When others have fallen into the same pit that we have just gotten out of, let us strive to draw them up. Let us put on the bowels of compassion; let us patiently hear what they say, and not rebuke them for complaining; let us not be weary of their discourse because it is doleful and troublesome. Let us remember all that speech and usage that made us worse when we were ill and avoid all such with them. Let us remember what it was that gave us some support, and let us minister the same to them.
When any of our friends are very sick, if we know anything that has been beneficial to us under the like case, we make all the speed we can to fetch it, and we cannot see them faint without finding at the same time a very sensible commotion in our own hearts. No outward affliction, though never so painful, is as terrible as these spiritual troubles are. Let us therefore be more affectionately concerned for such distressed persons than for any others when we see the anger of God beginning to kindle in their consciences. Let us use all the methods that are most likely to quench the beginning flame, let us be very kind and pitiful to all who are in distress, since we have been so ourselves. Let us take all opportunities to visit, to exhort, and to direct them. Let us wrestle with the God of Jacob on their behalf; let them see that we sympathize most heartily with them, and that, though the grace of God has wiped away our tears, we can still weep with those who weep. Let us take all the ways we can to make them believe that we are afflicted with their affliction and are sincerely concerned for the sadness of their case.
Oh, how I have personally benefited from the ministry of a dear friend when going through similar afflictions of soul! Be encouraged, my friends, and let us all use such careful means with one another, that we may persevere together!
So, let's look again at the divine purposes that build on the four mentioned a few days ago:
5. Another end that God may have in the continuance of long and sore affliction, and great inward troubles, is to reveal more clearly to us the corruption and defilement of our nature. In a calm, the waters of the sea appear to be clear enough; but when the storm comes, it throws up the mire and the dirt. In prosperity and health, we think we have very good hearts and considerable degrees of sanctification; but when sin is set upon us, the spiritual law of God begins to show its purity. And oh, what multitudes of iniquities then appear! What unbelief, what impatience, what murmuring, what unbecoming thoughts of God, such hideous and strange thoughts we have as we have never had before! And oh, what a ghastly sight this is, to see such a numerous brood of transgressions, when we imagined that all had been very well with us!
6. Another end that God has in the continuance of spiritual troubles and afflictions, and the sense of His wrath long upon us, is that from our experience Christ may be forever precious to us. When we are at ease and think ourselves whole, we seldom think of Him. But our pain, our smart, our guilt and our fears, the sight of our present danger and of approaching wrath, all cause us to run to this Physician and beg His help when we are sinking. They will make us stretch out our hands and say, 'Master, save us or else we perish!' Having fallen among lions, having been the slaves of fear and having been held in captivity by the temptations of Satan, we shall most gladly shake off our chains and embrace liberty and salvation when our Lord comes to set us free. Oh, how our hearts will melt with love when we remember that, as we have been distressed for our sins against Him, so He was in greater agonies for us! Surely, such a Friend, such a Physician, as He has been to us, we must be ever valued.
7. God also does this so that we may put a high value on the Scriptures, that we may search and look into them with more earnestness and frequency, to see if there are any promises in them that are reviving, and place in them that may afford hope and comfort to souls so miserable and so guilty. For when our consciences are awakened and pierced with the sense of wrath from God, if His Word would speak to us, we could have ease.
8. Another end of God in continuing afflictions and a long, remaining sense of His wrath upon us is that we may be everlasting admirers of the freeness of His grace when we are delivered. Oh, with what wonder should we behold His condescension and His care for us, that when our wounds were very deep, He poured in wine and oil; when we were inwardly bleeding, and no creature or friend on earth could help us, He did not allow us to bleed to death. The hand of God is so strong, and His wisdom is so admirable, that He turns to our profit and advantage not only the evils which are caused by cross events, or by the world, but those which we commit ourselves, and that seem contrary to our salvation, even those sins which we are guilty of. He changes these poisons into medicine, these scandals into edification, and from the thickest darkness He brings out light.
9. Another end why God suffers His servants so long to remain under the impressions of His wrath is that they may learn to be merciful and helpful to such as are in the same case, and to such as are sinning, and have not yet felt the displeasure of God for their sins. We must not grieve others by a sharp or unseasobale discourse; when they are in the furnace, we must not make it hotter by imprudent bitterness. They are wounded in their souls, and those wounds require a gentle, skillful, and tender hand. Every one of us should say, 'They are troubled on every side, and so was I. They are afraid that He has departed, and so was I. Those arrows of the Almighty that stick in them only a little while ago stuck in me. When others have fallen into the same pit that we have just gotten out of, let us strive to draw them up. Let us put on the bowels of compassion; let us patiently hear what they say, and not rebuke them for complaining; let us not be weary of their discourse because it is doleful and troublesome. Let us remember all that speech and usage that made us worse when we were ill and avoid all such with them. Let us remember what it was that gave us some support, and let us minister the same to them.
When any of our friends are very sick, if we know anything that has been beneficial to us under the like case, we make all the speed we can to fetch it, and we cannot see them faint without finding at the same time a very sensible commotion in our own hearts. No outward affliction, though never so painful, is as terrible as these spiritual troubles are. Let us therefore be more affectionately concerned for such distressed persons than for any others when we see the anger of God beginning to kindle in their consciences. Let us use all the methods that are most likely to quench the beginning flame, let us be very kind and pitiful to all who are in distress, since we have been so ourselves. Let us take all opportunities to visit, to exhort, and to direct them. Let us wrestle with the God of Jacob on their behalf; let them see that we sympathize most heartily with them, and that, though the grace of God has wiped away our tears, we can still weep with those who weep. Let us take all the ways we can to make them believe that we are afflicted with their affliction and are sincerely concerned for the sadness of their case.
Oh, how I have personally benefited from the ministry of a dear friend when going through similar afflictions of soul! Be encouraged, my friends, and let us all use such careful means with one another, that we may persevere together!
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