I’ve been reading and journaling on the book of Romans for a little bit now. Maybe I should have done better to choose a different book. In spite of the fact that I’ve read the book many a time and spent … 20 hours in Bible school studying it, when I take the time to read and understand it, I feel that I only get to see a tiny bit more of the treasure that can be found in this epistle. I was reading W. Graham Scroggie’s  ”The Unfolding Drama of Redemption” (that I got for 4$ at Value Village!) as I was walking my way through the book of Romans and last night, commenting on Romans 14, where Paul speaks of the great freedom one can enjoy in Christ and the reality that those who are strong in faith cannot destroy the faith of their fellow brothers and sisters who have different beliefs when it comes to food and special days to observe, Scroggie writes:

There is something greater than liberty, and that is love.

That’s all that needed to be said. I’ve known people who (and I myself do at times) find it difficult to reconcile our freedom in Christ and the fact that we’re called to not be stumbling blocks for our brothers and sisters who don’t have the same thinking. Our freedom is constrained to what other believers think, as if we’d be free to live outside the box but had to live inside it in certain circumstances for the sake of our brothers and sisters’ faith.

Well, Scroggie’s words are quite appropriate here and what’s neat about it is that it reminds us that love indeed is greater than liberty. We would naturally think the other way around, but no, love is indeed greater than liberty and so we’re called to think of loving before thinking of personal freedom.

“He scarce had said, when the bare Earth, till then Desert and bare, unsightly, unadorn’d, Brought forth the tender Grass, whose verdure clad Her universal Face with pleasant green, Then herbs of every leaf, that sudden flour’d Op’ning thir various colours, and made gay Her bosom smelling sweet…”

John Milton’s Paradise Lost – Book 7, lines 313-319a

I was at the banq (Bibliothèque des Archives Nationales du Québec) today in between my translation and psychology class, reading a book I started two years ago in my English literature course. I only had to read the first two books of John Milton’s Paradise Lost for the course, now I’m working my way through the 12 books that make up the whole book. I was sitting in a comfy banq chair by the large windows facing the bus depot on the third floor and those lines (313-319ff) really struck me.

I don’t know about you but my life can most of the time be defined by Robert Coles’ words: “… the only consistency in my life is my inconsistency”. I know that from the outside I’m a pretty boring and stable person, but inside, my relationship with God and this “new creation” that I am, is more a constant struggle of flesh against Holy Spirit, lots of ups and downs and redefining what I think I believe and being confused and not trusting God enough and not expecting great things from God and wanting to be 24/7 in God’s Word for a few days and then just totally waste my time and not caring about giving Him more than my 25-minute reading and praying a day. I don’t know, that’s just me right now, and it’s been me for … several years. So that’s me, reading those lines of Milton’s book.

At the same time, I think of people around me who are going through some tough times, waiting for God to act on their behalf or freeing them from A, B, C or D, crying over their sins, needing liberation, or bearing some health problem burden when it just seems to get worse or having to deal with some emotionally heavy issue in their lives or having to bear that with someone else. Life’s full of ups and downs and sometimes those downs and struggles, whether they be on a spiritual, relational, emotional or physical level, just seem to be never-ending and impossible to get through, seeing some light just seems impossible, we just don’t see how things could change, how springtime could come.

Milton reminded me that when the earth was still formless and as a “Desert and bare”, God, out of nothing, “Brought forth the tender Grass”. There was nothing to make the earth produce grass and trees and vegetation of its own. Nothing. It was bare like a desert, dry and cold. On its own, the earth was just a mass of I don’t know what without life. But when God simply spoke the word, grass appeared. Life appeared.

I know this sounds cheesy, but I really think that cheesy’s good a lot of the time: No matter the inconsistency I’m going through or the burdens I’m bearing, there’s always, always hope. God speaks and the earth lives. God only needs to will it and springtime appears wherever He desires and that can be in my life, at any level, because of Jesus who became sin for me and covered me with His righteousness so that God’s justice could be satisfied in Him and I, become an heir, a daughter of God. Crazy. That’s why I can’t give up clinging to Him and seeking after Him, because He gives life, He gives healing, even in the most barren of worlds.

R. Baxter writes, “When your desires are over eager, bethink you of the mercies which you have received already and do possess. Hath God done so much for you, and are you still calling for more, even of that which is unnecessary, when you should be giving thanks for what you have? This is unthankful greediness is an odious sin. Think what you have already for your soul and body, estate and friends; and will not all this quiet you, (even this with Christ and heaven,) unless you have other lust or fancy satisfied, and unless God humor you in your sick desires?”

I remember that when I was an adolescent I had a bike I really didn’t like. It worked well but I wanted a new one, one that would look good, no this red one I had painted over its former pink color that I was tired of. There was no reason for me to want a new bike so passionately, I really wanted it to break. I can’t remember what happened, but I got a new one at one point (my parents were serious bike buyers, so I didn’t get a cheap one…).

We always seem to  be wanting more and better stuff. And it’s not just about stuff, it’s about things like more time, better friends, better school, more pleasures. Even if these things can be alright to have, shouldn’t we desire above all to thank God for what He’s already given us and not be looking for more and better whatever? I think that I look quite stupid sometimes when I long for something in particular, totally forgetting that God in Christ,  purchased me for His Son, from among a world going to hell. Doesn’t it look foolish for such a redeemed child of God to be wanting more things of the world and longing to fulfill his fleshly desires, when there is so much in God we have and can receive? We really need a renewed and transformed mind.

Thanks for those who prayed about the conference in Sherbrooke. They had to find a different place to do it, but the church they used was full. TV was there for a little bit and people stayed long after the conference to talk with the Christians there. The GEE seems to have new contacts, so it’s great.

I’m reading a small sermon by Richard Baxter entitled, “Directions Against Sinful Desires and Discontent”, here’s part of “Direction #1″

“And methinks a man that is going to heaven or hell, should have somewhat greater than worldly things to long for. Oh what a vain and doting thing is a carnal mind; that hath pardon, and grace, and Christ and heaven, and God, to think of, and that with speed before it be too late; and can forget them all, or not regard them, and eagerly long for some little inconsiderable trifle; as if they said, I must needs taste of such a dish before I die; I must needs have such a house, or a child, or friend, before I go to another world O study what need thy distressed soul hath of a Christ, and of peace with God, and preparation for eternity, and what need thy darkened mind hath of more knowledge, and thy dead and carnal heart of more life, and tenderness, and love to God, and communion with him; feel these as thou hast cause, and the eagerness of thy carnal desires will be gone.”

“Sin is naturally exceeding dear to us; to part with it is compared to plucking out our right eyes. Men may refrain from wonted ways of sin for a little while, and may deny their lusts in a partial degree, with less difficulty; but it is heart-rending work, finally to part with all sin, and to give our dearest lusts a bill of divorce, utterly to send them away. But this we must do, if we would follow those that are truly turning to God: yea, we must not only forsake sin, but must, in a sense, forsake all the world, Luke xiv.33 ‘Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.”

“You all have by you a large treasure of divine knowledge, in that you have the Bible in your hands; therefore be not contented in possessing but little of this treasure. God hath spoken much to you in the Scripture; labor to understand as much of what he saith as you can. God hath made you all reasonable creatures; therefore let not the noble faculty of reason or understanding lie neglected. Content not yourselves with having so much knowledge as is thrown in your way, and as you receive in some sense unavoidably by the frequent inculcation of divine truth in the preaching of the word, of which you are obliged to be hearers, or as you accidentally gain in conversation; but let it be very much your business to search for it, and that with the same diligence and labor with which men are wont to dig in mines of silver and gold.”

The alternative to discipline is disaster.

Vance Havner

I just finished John MacArthur’s book “Hard to Believe”, here are a few quotes…

“The true Gospel is a call to self-denial. It is not a call to self-fulfillment.”

“Christianity, in the hands of some seeker-sensitive church leaders, has become a ‘get what you want’ rather than a ‘give up everything’ movement.”

“Nothing is wrong with the message. Nothing can be. It is God’s Word! How could we be so brash as to change it? If they don’t hear the truth, cool music won’t help. If they don’t see the light, PowerPoint won’t help. If they don’t like the messgae, drama and video won’t help. They’re blind and dead. Our task is to go on preaching not ourselves, not our manipulated message, but repentance and submission to Christ Jesus as Lord.  The message never changes.”

“Faith’s fruit is seen in actions, not in intentions. There’s no room for passive spectators: words without actions are empty and futile.”

“The goal of Christian preaching – the goal of presenting the gospel, the goal of the church – is not just to open the door so wide that we can suck everybody in and make them feel comfortable. The goal is to preach the truth to as many people as possible, so that we can sort out the true from the false.”

“Christianity would be much easier to sell if only it had a good dose of twenty-first-century inclusivism. On one level, the message of the Bible sounds so attractive and comforting: God is love! Jesus forgives your sins! That’s terrific. The same gospel that tells us those things, though, also tells us to worship Jesus as Lord, that we can’t earn our way to heaven, and that the only way to eternal life is through Christ.”

“If you don’t believe the gospel, you don’t know God. If you don’t know God, you’re going to be judged without regard for your human morality.”

If I were lost in misery,

What was it to your heaven and thee?

what was it to your precious blood,

If my foul heart call’d for a flood?

What of my faithless soul and I

would needs fall in

With guilt and sin,

What did the Lamb that he should die?

What did the Lamb that he should need,

When the wolf sins, himself to bleed?

If my base lust

Bargain’d with death and well-beseeming dust,

Why should the white

Lamb’s bosom write

The purple name

Of my sin’s shame?

Why should his unstain’d breast make good

My blushes with his own heart-blood?

O my Savior! make me see

How dearly you have paid for me;

That lost again, my life may prove

As then in death, so now in love.

Before the Throne of God

Charitie L. Bancroft

Before the throne of God above,
I have a strong, a perfect plea,
A great High Priest whose name is Love,
Who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart;
I know that while in heav’n He stands
no tongue can bid me thence depart.
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair,
and tells me of the guilt within,
upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end to all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died,
my sinful soul is counted free;
For God, the Just, is satisfied
to look on him and pardon me.
to look on him and pardon me.

Halleluiah, Halleluiah
Praise the one, risen Son of God

Behold him there! the risen Lamb,
my perfect, spotless Righteousness,
the great unchangeable I AM,
the King of glory and of grace!
One with Himself I cannot die,
My soul is purchased by His blood;
My life is hid with Christ on high,
with Christ, my Savior and my God
with Christ, my Savior and my God

“No man would find it difficult to die who died every day. He would have practised it so often, that he would only have to die but once more; like the singer who has been through his rehearsals, and is perfect in his part, and has but to pour forth the notes once for all, and have done. Happy are they who every morning go down to Jordan’s brink, and wade into the stream in fellowship with Christ, dying in the Lord’s death, being crucified on his cross, and raised in his resurrection. They, when they shall climb their Pisgah, shall behold nothing but what has been long familiar to them, as they have studied the map of death… God teach us this art, and he shall have the glory of it. Amen.” C.H. Spurgeon (in a sermon on 1 Cor. 15:31 “I die daily”)

How interesting.