VIDEO Worshiping in the Darkness

I will praise You with my whole heart; before the gods I will sing praises to You. Psalm 138:1

The nineteenth-century South African pastor and writer Andrew Murray was feeling unwell one day when he wrote down a few paragraphs in his journal. The last line he wrote was a summary: “I am here (1) by God’s appointment, (2) in His keeping, (3) under His training, (4) for His time.”¹

In short, Andrew Murray wrote down four reasons for worshiping God even in times of trouble. If we are where we are by God’s appointment, in His keeping, under His training, and for His time, what could we possibly have to worry about? Those four points are usually what we think when things are going well, when we really feel like worshiping God. But if they are true all the time, even when things are hard, why wouldn’t we worship God in those times as well? We agree with Job: “Shall we indeed accept good from God and shall we not accept adversity?” (Job 2:10)

We don’t worship God because things are good or otherwise. We worship Him because of His sovereign oversight and care for our life.

Never doubt in the dark what God told you in the light.
V. Raymond Edman

1. Robert J. Morgan, The Red Sea Rules (Nashville, TN: W Publishing, 2014), 13.
   

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Psalm 138 – God’s Promise to Honor His Word and to Complete His Work

Correction with a Kiss

God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. Hebrews 12:10

rable The Wise Woman, George MacDonald tells the story of two girls, whose selfishness brings misery to all, including themselves, until a wise woman puts them through a series of tests to help them become “lovely” again.

After the girls fail each test and suffer shame and isolation, one of them, Rosamond, finally realizes she can’t change herself. “Couldn’t you help me?” she asks the wise woman. “Perhaps I could,” the woman replied, “now that you ask me.” And with the divine help symbolized by the wise woman, Rosamond begins to change. She then asks if the woman would forgive all the trouble she’s caused. “If I had not forgiven you,” the woman says, “I would never have taken the trouble to punish you.”

There are times when God disciplines us. It’s important to understand why. His correction isn’t driven by retribution but by a fatherly concern for our welfare (Hebrews 12:6). He also desires that we may “share in his holiness,” enjoying a harvest of “righteousness and peace” (vv. 10-11). Selfishness brings misery, but holiness makes us whole, joyful, and “lovely” like Him.

Rosamond asks the wise woman how she can love a selfish girl like her. Stooping to kiss her, the woman replies, “I saw what you were going to be.” God’s correction too comes with love and a desire to make us who we’re meant to be.

By:  Sheridan Voysey

Reflect & Pray

How have you understood God’s discipline in the past? How might He have disciplined you recently in order to make you more lovely?

Father God, thank You for Your correction, as painful as it can be. You bring it for my good.

Listening With Humility

Wise people pause to consider advice from others; the foolish ignore warnings of danger ahead 1 Samuel 25:32-35

Let’s return to yesterday’s scene.  When David saw Abigail kneeling in the road, he could have ordered her out of his path. After all, he was powerful. He had been anointed to be the king of Israel and had an entire army behind him. Nothing obligated him to stop and hear what Abigail had to say—but thankfully, he did.

Have you ever been barreling toward a huge mistake, only to hear someone caution you? Did you consider what the person was saying? And would you say things turned out better as a result? Or perhaps the opposite has been the case and you ignored wise advice—if so, it’s highly likely you learned a great deal from that experience!

Abigail’s words were wise and persuasive, and David prudently chose to listen with humility. His decision to heed the woman’s pleas diverted him from a course that would have tainted his future rule.

If you’re facing a decision today, God doesn’t expect you to figure it out on your own. Maybe the Holy Spirit is providing counsel (John 14:26), or it might be that God has sent someone to advise you. Who is the Abigail in your path? May you have the wisdom to listen to those God has placed in front of you.

Evidence of the Spirit’s Filling

“And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.” (Ephesians 5:18)

This classic verse on the filling of the Holy Spirit can be rendered as follows: “And don’t begin to be drunk with wine, which involves profligacy, but be continually being filled with the Spirit.” That is, one cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit (which implies complete control by the Holy Spirit) if he has come to even the slightest degree under the control of wine (or anything else, for that matter).

Being fully controlled and guided by the Spirit is not just a one-time experience. It should be a continual experience—a moment-by-moment control of one’s thoughts and actions by God. In practice, however, it is at best a repeated experience, whereas most Christians experience it quite rarely, if at all.

But how does one have such an experience, and what is the evidence that it is the real thing? To be controlled by the Spirit, one must yield control to Him and not let himself be controlled by anything or anyone else. In practice, this means believing and obeying the Word He inspired, consciously yielding one’s self as often as necessary. Jesus promised that “when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13).

It should be noted that the filling of the Spirit is not necessarily marked by any particular feeling or ecstatic experience. The real proof is in the life, manifested by such characteristics as are described in the context of the passages referring to the Spirit’s filling. In our text, it is obvious that such a filling is accompanied by redeeming one’s time (v. 16), understanding God’s will (v. 17), a happy and Bible-centered conversation (v. 19), a continuously thankful heart (v. 20), and a right attitude and relationship with one’s spouse (vv. 22-25). It is also evidenced by boldness in witnessing and in standing up for God’s truth (Acts 4:31; 13:9-10). HMM

Two Kingdoms

GOD’S

SATAN’s

One represents the spiritual, the other the material.

TWO CHOICES:

Between the eternal, and the temporal

One choice offers a life of peace and purpose.

The other choice leads to a life of self-centeredness and emptiness.

God’s Word makes the choice clear:

• “I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live.“(Deuteronomy 30:19)
• “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.“(Matthew 6:24)

Indecision is not an option:

“The person who vacillates [between faith and unbelief] is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; for let not that individual be supposing that he will receive anything from the… Lord, [being] a dubious, undecided man, vacillating in all his ways.“ (James 1:6b-9 – Wuest Translation)

Actually, you and I have already made our choice — either by:

Design, or

Default

TWO CONSEQUENCES:

Eternal life leading to heaven, or eternal death leading to hell.

In making decisions of a spiritual nature, the battlefield is not the intellect, but the will.

“Go, and sin no more.”

John 8:2-11

John 8:1

By a night of prayer he had prepared himself for a day of labour and opposition. It is wise, whenever we expect double work or conflict, to gird up our loins by special devotion. He who has overcome heaven by prayer has no cause to dread the face of his enemies. Calmly did our Lord begin his teaching, though he knew that his enemies were planning his destruction.

John 8:3-5

See the cunning of these foxes. If the Lord condemned the woman to die, they would then tax him with going beyond his province, and setting up for a ruler; and if he let her go, they would charge him with being the friend of vice.

John 8:6

These last words are added by the translators, and are not needed. He wrote on the ground to show his unwillingness to meddle with the matter, and to give time for their consciences to work. He did not at once unmask them, but gave them time to retreat if they were wise, or to invite a crushing defeat by their persevering folly.

John 8:8

He stooped this second time to allow the accusers time to slink away unobserved by him, and they quietly availed themselves of the opportunity.

John 8:9

beginning at the eldest, or at the elders, or chief elders

John 8:9

The trap had failed to secure the victim, but it caught those who had prepared it. Stunned by the blow which Jesus laid home upon them, the vile hypocrites took to their heels, feeling themselves to have been grossly foolish to have provoked such a disclosure.

John 8:11

Dr. Brown well observes: “What inimitable tenderness and grace! Conscious of her own guilt, and till now in the hands of men who had talked of stoning her, wondering at the skill with which her accusers had been dispersed, and the grace of the few words addressed to herself, she would be disposed to listen, with a reverence and teachableness before unknown, to our Lord’s admonition.

John 8:11

He pronounces no pardon upon the woman, like ‘Thy sins are forgiven thee; Go in peace.’ Much less does he say that she had done nothing condemnable: he simply leaves the matter where it was. He meddles not with the magistrate’s office, nor acts the judge in any sense: but in saying, ‘Go, and sin no more,’ which had been before said to one who undoubtedly believed (ch. 5:14), more is probably implied than expressed. If brought suddenly to conviction of sin, to admiration of her Deliverer, and to a willingness to be admonished and guided by him, this call to begin a new life may have carried with it what would ensure and naturally bring about a permanent change.”)

Thine advocate in Jesus see!

‘Tis he that speaks the word; ’tis he

That takes the prisoner’s part:

Not to condemn the world he came;

Believing now in Jesus’ name,

E’en now absolved thou art.

Who shall accuse th’ elect of God,

Protected by th’ atoning blood?

‘Tis God that justifies,

That bids thee go and sin no more—

Go in thy Saviour’s peace and power,

And trace him to the skies.

Unholy, Unrighteous, Unhappy

And so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. (Romans 5:12)

All of history and the daily newspaper testify that the human race lies in ruin—spiritually, morally and physically.

The long parade of gods, both virtuous and obscene, and a thousand varieties of vain and meaningless religious practices declare our spiritual degeneration, while disease, old age and death testify sadly to the completeness of our physical decay.

By nature, men and women are unholy; and by practice we are unrighteous. That we are also unhappy is of small consequence.

But it is of overwhelming importance to us that we should seek the favor of God while it is possible to find it, and that we should bring ourselves under the plenary authority of Jesus Christ in complete and voluntary obedience.

To do this is to invite trouble from a hostile world and to incur such unhappiness as may naturally follow. Add the temptation of the devil and a life-long struggle with the flesh and it will be obvious that we will need to defer most of our enjoyments to more appropriate time!