Taste and see
Ps 34:8-10
“Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!
Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!
Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints,
for those who fear him have no lack!
The young lions suffer want and hunger;
but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.”
Jer 2:19
“Your evil will chastise you,
and your apostasy will reprove you.
Know and see that it is evil and bitter
for you to forsake the Lord your God;
the fear of me is not in you,
declares the Lord God of hosts.”
Heb 3:13
“But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”
Sin is a lie. With its beckoning appearance of sweet satisfaction, we are lured into the fantasy of a satisfied soul apart from our Maker. Our hearts recoil at the bitter taste left in our mouth as the lie is unveiled and the delusion is shattered by awakening reality. Sin wasn’t what we thought it was.
But oh! taste and see that the Lord is good! Take refuge in Him, fear Him, for those who fear Him have no lack. Seek Him. Our Lord never promises sweet only to deliver bitterness.
Evaluated experiences alight our vision with the fire of understanding. When you compare your experiences with sin and those experiences with God, we shamefully find sin decidedly lacking, and we can then see life with an understanding that sin will not satisfy what our heat longs for. Seek Him.
Enjoy this post? Subscribe to blog updates via email or via RSS
Break up your fallow ground
Sow for yourselves righteousness;
reap steadfast love;
break up your fallow ground,
for it is the time to seek the Lord,
that he may come and rain righteousness upon you
Enjoy this post? Subscribe to blog updates via email or via RSS
Hating every false way
Ps 119:102-104
I do not turn aside from your rules,
for you have taught me.
How sweet are your words to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Through your precepts I get understanding;
therefore I hate every false way.
Am I just trying not to sin because I don’t want to look like a sinner, or am I avoiding sin because I hate it as God hates it? Those are two different motivations for living holy. The first is a motivation to look good before men. This motivation is also ultmately ends in failure because as long as people aren’t look at us, the sin is suddenly ok.
The second motivation drives us to hate sin always because we see it as God sees it. We see sin as a lie.
How do I tell which motivation is pushing me in my spriitual walk? If I find myself weaker to sin’s temptation when I am not being watched, then there’s a good chance I am likely trying to live holy only for the public show.
If we have God’s hatred for sin, then sin loses that appeal.
How do we learn to hate sin? And yes, we must learn it because our flesh is prone to sin. We learn from His Word as He teaches us through the Holy Spirit. I think this goes directly along with, “I have hidden Your word in my heart that I might not sin against You.” We recognize a sin in our life, we declare war on it by memorizing and studying revelevant passages in the Bible, and as we see sin as God does, we hate it.
God please don’t let me simply try to sin because I don’t want to look like a sinner. Please teach me to hate sin so that it is as repulsive to me as it is to You.
Enjoy this post? Subscribe to blog updates via email or via RSS
Update: Busyness
Ealier, I wrote about how busyness sometimes sabotages my quiet time. Here is a great blog post by CJ Mahaney that addresses a similair issue, with great insights.
Mahaney writes:
“I forget now who first brought these points to my attention. But the realization that I could be simultaneously busy and lazy, that I could be a hectic sluggard, that my busyness was no immunity from laziness, became a life-altering and work-altering insight. What I learned is that:
- Busyness does not mean I am diligent
- Busyness does not mean I am faithful
- Busyness does not mean I am fruitful
Recognizing the sin of procrastination, and broadening the definition to include busyness, has made a significant alteration in my life. The sluggard can be busy—busy neglecting the most important work, and busy knocking out a to-do list filled with tasks of secondary importance.”
http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/Blog/post/how-busyness-and-laziness-coexist-cj-mahaney.aspx
http://www.desireforspiritualgrowth.com/2008/11/fighting-busyness-that-sabotages-quiet.html
Enjoy this post? Subscribe to blog updates via email or via RSS
Progression of an Idol
This article, from Ken Sande of Peacemaker Ministries, is very powerful. The Bible instructs us to deal with heart issues, and not just bandaid surface problems. This article contains the best teaching I have read on how to spot and deal with those heart issues.
http://www.peacemaker.net/site/c.aqKFLTOBIpH/b.1172255/apps/s/content.asp?ct=1460037
‘What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.’
This passage describes the root cause of destructive conflict: Conflicts arise from unmet desires in our hearts. When we feel we cannot be satisfied unless we have something we want or think we need, the desire turns into a demand. If someone fails to meet that desire, we condemn him in our heart and quarrel and fight to get our way. In short, conflict arises when desires grow into demands and we judge and punish those who get in our way. Let us look at this progression one step at a time.”
He then goes on to show the progressions of the hearts desires into idols that create conflicts. I highly recommend that you read the rest of the article, it is well worth the time. It changed how I view conflict and my heart.
Enjoy this post? Subscribe to blog updates via email or via RSS
Habits: Moving closer or further from God
J. C. Ryle: “Believe me, you cannot stand still in your souls. Habits of good or evil are daily strengthening in your hearts. Every day you are either getting nearer to God, or further off.”
Discussing this topic tonight at Bible study, and then examing myself, leaves me wanting to stronger comittment to God’s Word. If I am moving closer or further from God every day through my habits, then I want to be committed to God’s Word. His Word is the only way I can sustain spiritual maturation. In Hosea 4:1 and 4:6, it was a lack of knowlege of God’s word that destroyed the kingdom. In 6:3 and 6:6, it was returning to God’s Word that was the path to restoration.
“Bible before breakfast” was what I heard at a Navigator conference. Do I have any justification to refuse to spend a few minutes with God every morning? I don’t. And I think the level of consitency in my devotion to searching the scriptures is directly correclated to the value I ascribe to them.
I want to make a list of as many reasons I can find to read God’s word. I think that list will make my lack of justification for not spending time with my God all the more pathetic.
Enjoy this post? Subscribe to blog updates via email or via RSS
Habits: Replacing the old with the new
Just a quick thought on habits…
Can you stop an old habit without creating a new, positive one? I find it almost impossible.
“But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness 25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.”
Notice: we first take off old, then we put on the new. We don’t try to stop an old habit and then not replace it. That is a recipe for inviting the old habit back! Example from text: Stop lying, and learn to tell the truth.
Identify sin, and replace that behavior with new, God-glorifying behavior. That’s practical, and will probably bring progress where we found failure before in dealing with habits.
Enjoy this post? Subscribe to blog updates via email or via RSS
Fighting busyness that sabotages the quiet time
Why?
Sometimes I think that my struggle comes because I am sitting in my office (which is also my room), and my work surrounds me, and it crowds my mind. I am in the place of work, so my mind thinks of work. That is why I have found going outside to be very beneficial. I find it easier to focus on God when I am in a place I have designated as my meeting place for God. Jesus went to the garden to pray, Daniel went to the window, Moses went to the tent outside of camp, and I see those men as examples. Prayer can be done anywhere, because all of those men were no doubt in communion with God during the rest of the day. But when it came time to earnestly seek God in a one-on-One personal meeting, they did it alone and away from the rest of the busy world.
That model is powerful when applied to my quiet time. I have a tree picked out where I can go, sit with my Bible, and pray in quiet rest. It works as often as I do it. I’m trying to do it more…
Enjoy this post? Subscribe to blog updates via email or via RSS