He Suffers With You

"He suffers with you. He is as tender in his affections to you as ever he was; that he might be moved to pity you, he is willing to suffer, as it were, one place to be left naked, and to be flesh still, on which he may be wounded with your miseries, that so he might be your merciful high priest. 

And whereas it may be objected, that this were a weakness, the apostle affirms that this is his power, and perfection and strength of love surely, in him; that is, that makes him thus able and powerful to take our miseries into his heart, though glorified, and so to be affected with them, as if he suffered with us, and so to relieve us out of that principle out of which he would relieve himself."

-Thomas Goodwin, The Heart of Christ

Big thanks to Dane Ortlund for pointing me to this gem.

He Never Did Deny Himself Yet

“If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.” 2 Timothy 2:13

“I tell you, if he were to shut you out, dear soul, whoever you may be, if you go to him, he would deny himself. He never did deny himself yet. Whenever a sinner comes to him, he becomes his Savior. Whenever he meets a sick soul, he acts as his Physician. . . . If you go to him, you will find him at home and on the look-out for you. He will be more glad to receive you than you will be to be received. . . . I tell you again that he cannot reject you. That would be to alter his whole character and un-Christ himself. To spurn a coming sinner would un-Jesus him and make him to be somebody else and not himself any longer. ‘He cannot deny himself.’ Go and try him; go and try him.”

C. H. Spurgeon, Treasury of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, 1950), III:862.

Excellent Fullness

Edwards:

I have sometimes had a sense of the excellent fullness of Christ, and his meekness and suitableness as a Savior; whereby he has appeared to me, far above all, the chief of ten thousands. His blood and atonement have appeared sweet, and his righteousness sweet; which was always accompanied with ardency of spirit; and inward strugglings and breathings, and groanings that cannot be uttered, to be emptied of myself, and swallowed up in Christ.

Jonathan Edwards, Personal Narrative in the Letters and Personal Writings, WJE Online, vol. 16

Calvary's Anthem

Heavenly Father,
Though hast led me singing to the cross
Where I fling down all my burdens and see them vanish,
Where my mountains of guilt are leveled to a plain,
Where my sins disappear, though they are the greatest that exist,
and are more in number than the grains of fine sand;

For there is power in the blood of Calvary to destroy sins more than can be counted, even by one from the choir of heaven.
Thou hast given me a hill-side spring that washes clear and white, and I go as a sinner to its waters, bathing without hindrance in its crystal streams.
At the cross there is free forgiveness for poor and meek ones,
And ample blessings that last forever;
The blood of the Lamb is like a great river of infinite grace with never any diminishing of its fullness as thirsty ones without number drink of it.

-an excerpt from The Valley of Vision

Rest

"If you try to seize the day, the day will eventually break you. Rather, seize the corner of His garment."

Paul Miller

"You No Longer Have to Spend the Rest of Your Life Chasing Your Tail"

He Refuses to Play That Game

1 Timothy 1:15-- "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief."


Keller comments,

"Not I was chief, but I am chief. Or 'I am the worst.' This is off our maps. We are not used to someone who has incredible confidence volunteering the opinion that they are one of the worst people. We are not used to someone who is totally honest and totally aware of all sorts of moral flaws--yet has incredible poise and confidence.

We cannot do that. Do you know why? Because we are judging ourselves. But Paul will not do that. When he says that he does not let the Corinthians judge him nor will he judge himself, he is saying that he knows about his sins but he does not connect them to himself and his identity. His sins and his identity are not connected. He refuses to play that game. He does not see a sin and let it destroy his sense of identity. He will not make a connection. Neither does he see an accomplishment and congratulate himself...So, although he knows himself to be the chief of sinners, that fact is not going to stop him from doing all the things that he is called to do."


Tim Keller, The Freedom of Self-forgetfulness, p.30 (emphasis added)

Joy

"My sin in the past: forgiven. My current struggles: covered. My future failures: paid in full all by the marvelous, infinite, matchless grace found in the atoning work of the cross of Jesus Christ."


Chandler, Explicit Gospel. p.15

The Father's Cup (Good Friday)

The Father's Cup (Good Friday)

If anything scroll to the bottom starting at "The Father speaks..."

Praise Jesus.

Forever Forgiven

From Sam Storms' meditations on Colossians, The Hope of Glory...#20, p.72...

"God has taken your sin and placed it out of sight behind his back. All he sees now when he sees you is the blessed righteousness of his own dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Such is the love of forgiveness.

Still not good enough? Still not convinced? Still afraid that your sins will do you in? Then pay close attention to the word of the prophet Micah...He has something important to say about the kind of God we have:

 "Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities under foot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea" (Mic. 7:18-19).

How much more graphic do you demand God to be before you enter into the joy of his forgiving love? All vestige of condemning guilt is gone. Again, "just as God said he put our sins behind his back, so here he says he will hurl them into the depths of the sea. They will not 'fall overboard' ; God will hurl them into the depths. he wants them to be lost forever, because he has fully dealt with them in his Son, Jesus Christ."

Union

So when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this: "I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where he is there I shall be also!"


-Luther

Jesus: The End to Anxiety

Calvin famously assessed the nature of our human hearts by noting they are "factories of idols." Idolatry is essentially believing in other things to save us, and a functional disbelief in Jesus' salvific accomplishment at the cross. With this disbelief in Christ comes and overwhelming sense of anxiety. Transitively, one could then say, the human heart is a factory of anxiety--functional disbelief.

This manifests itself in so many ways. Those daily, repetitive, pestering questions of the sin-sick soul--"Am I good enough? How do I measure up to everyone around me? What do people think of me? Where the heck is my life going right now? What does the future hold? When am I going to meet the woman/man I will eventually marry? Am I being a good husband? Father? Wife? Mother? Where is my ministry going? Will it be successful? How will my finances ever work themselves out? Am I OK? 

Endless. Tiresome. Frenetic. On edge. Restless. Weary. Frustrated.

The festering angst of our souls finds storm quelling rest and peace in 2 Cor. 1:20 

"For all the promises of God find their Yes in him."

No matter what our past, present, or future holds, we have the approval from the only source that matters. In Jesus, we already have whatever we think we need to be OK. All of our life questions become of little significance in comparison to the soul-satisfying Yes we have in Jesus.

Beauty in Pursuit

From an anthropocentric standpoint, all of life is entirely comprised of man's unending pursuit of beauty. Now whatever one considers beautiful is the object, the goal, the practical fulfillment of the individual's conceptual notion of beauty. This repetitive pattern unswervingly climaxes with dissatisfaction. As descendants of Adam, we have the pestering propensity to satiate our demanding desire with anything and everything worldly.

Our problem is we don't dig deep enough. Our shallow surmisings fall drastically short of the Agent required to fulfill them. The objects we beautify are all but permanent and satisfactory. Nature, as we have recently seen, isn't always stagnant or yearning to be beheld. Love? I think we can all agree on this one. Love is not all you need. Success? hmmm... fill in the blank. The list goes on.

The familiar Lewis quote rings true...

"If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world"

So it seems as if we've been drinking out of sin-tainted stagnant waters, and expecting that algae bacteria ridden cesspool to provide life and fulfillment--when what we really need is the pure, enlivening, sustaining, invigorating, living water from the source. What if the Beauty--the true Beauty--the source of absolute fulfillment and Provider of soul-satisfying rest...pursued us?

From a theocentric standpoint, all of life is entirely comprised of enjoying God's relentless pursuit of rebels who insist on slurping from sediment-saturated streams. This is accomplished through Jesus--The author, very essence, and true satisfier of our deepest longings for beauty. Jesus wakes us from our deadness--lifts our head from the muddied waters--sometimes a tap on the shoulder, sometimes by the nape of the neck, and lovingly whisks us to the Father, the source of living water.

Psalm 42- "As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God."

Galatians 2:11-16

"For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I id not receive it from any man, nor was I thought it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me..."


No explanation needed.

The Person and Work of Jesus (Part 2)

Ok, so there’s a lot going on here in Mark 5. It would be helpful to reread the passage in part 1 to fully grasp this, because I’ll be walking through it step by step. What we ultimately find in this passage is two-fold: who Jesus is and what he came to do. The person and work of Jesus.

At an aerial view we see Jesus interacting in two situations. At first, Jairus, anxious and frenetic, begs Jesus to attend to his young daughter who is at the point of death. Jesus complies, and a great crowd follows him. Now, it is very apparent that Jairus’ daughter is closer to death with every second. At this point, the second interaction interrupts the first. As Jesus is on his way to Jairus’ house, a woman in the crowd reaches out and touches his garment.

As verses 25-26 state, this woman suffered much for 12 years from an unnatural discharge of blood. Here’s where ancient Jewish cultural context comes into play. On account of this woman’s condition, she was considered ceremonially unclean. She was not permitted to enter the temple section reserved for women, nor was she permitted to even be in public without blatantly announcing that she was, indeed, unclean. After all, no one wanted to be associated with a woman like this in fear of becoming unclean themselves. She was the epitome of a social pariah in the time and culture that Jesus entered into.

Sunset over the Sea of Galilee

Why should Jesus even stop?! The little girl is dying! Keep moving right? But no, he stops. At this point the entire crowd would think he’s crazy. He risks the life of Jairus’ little girl to simply find out who touched him within a huge crowd? But that’s exactly it—she touched him, and she was immediately healed. According to law, by touching Jesus’ garment, she technically renders him ceremonially unclean. By stopping, Jesus knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s taking this opportunity, knowing he will eventually save Jairus’ daughter, to completely flip the culture on its head. Jesus is taking the opportunity to send a thunderous message throughout the entire region that he is unlike anyone they had ever seen before.

Jesus turns and asks who touched him. He knew who touched him. It was because of his knowledge of who touched him that he asked! As soon as the woman came forward from the crowd, the rest of the followers were outraged. How could she, a ceremonially unclean woman, touch Jesus, this emerging spiritual leader (as far as they knew)? This was a massive offense! The crowd would expect Jesus to be revolted at this point. But he’s not. He’s unlike anyone they have ever seen before. He’s unlike anyone we have ever seen before.

Instead, Jesus accepts her, welcomes her, interacts with her, something she wouldn’t have experienced from anyone in twelve years. This interaction climaxes with Jesus’ radical statement of, “Daughter, your faith has made you well.” Why’s he bringing faith into it? Well, because Jesus is Immanuel, God with us. By noting the woman’s faith, Jesus is implying that her physical healing was an indication of the much deeper healing of sin.

So, we see now a little more of the person and work of Jesus in this first interaction. By healing the woman of her spiritual disease, we see that Jesus’ offering of grace, forgiveness, mercy, and healing is infinitely greater than our capabilities of sickness through sin. And in a culture that demands perfection, Jesus welcomes us in the midst of our inevitable imperfection.

Immediately after—the text actually says, “while he was still speaking”—it is reported that Jairus’ daughter is already dead. It seems as if Jesus’ pit stop has cost Jairus the life of his little girl. Yet, Jesus, overhearing the news responds, “Do not fear, only believe.” Jesus enters the house. People are weeping and wailing loudly. But Jesus comes in, completely calm and composed, and says, “The child is not dead but sleeping.” Wait, what? I mean dead is dead right? The people crying seem to think so too. They confirmed the child’s death. They laughed at Jesus’ assessment. Why would Jesus say she’s merely asleep? The answer is in what Jesus does next.

He sits beside the girl and says, “Talitha koum.” Talitha can be translated to “little girl,” as you see in the text, but we lose some of the meaning there. As Tim Keller mentions in his book Kings Cross, “talitha” is more of a term of endearment, a pet name. Like a father or mother waking their child up for school in the morning. Another translation for talitha could be “honey.” The second word Jesus says is koum, which means “arise.” Jesus says, “honey, its time to get up.” And she does.

Here we see another action that would render Jesus ceremonially unclean in that culture—touching a dead person. Yet, instead of the death of the girl being transmitted to Jesus, the life of Jesus is transmitted to the girl. Ultimately, Jesus conquering death over this little girl foreshadows his own experience with death at the cross.

 Keller comments on Jesus’ own experience overcoming death. “Jesus is saying by his actions, ‘if I have you by the hand, death is nothing but sleep.’ There’s nothing more frightening for a little child than to lose the hand of the parent in a crowd or in the dark, but that is nothing compared to Jesus’ loss. He lost his Father’s hand to the cross. He went into the tomb so that we could be raised out of it. He lost hold of his Father’s hand so we could know that once he has us by the hand, he will never, ever, forsake us.”

Through Mark 5, we see the grace-laden picture of the person and work of Jesus. We see his person—the Son of God, patient, sovereign, confident, healing, sacrificial. And we see glimpses of his work—staring the most dominant, relentless, inexorable enemy of the human race—death—in the face, and overcoming it. This is ultimately displayed at the cross, where Jesus, perfectly clean and acceptable in the eyes of the Father, absorbed our ultimate uncleanliness—death, so that his perfection may be imputed to the filthiest of sinners. You and me. Because of Jesus, we are perfect in the sight of our gracious Father, and welcomed into eternal, everlasting peace in his presence. Arise, for you are merely asleep.

Complete

"Nothing either great or small,
      Nothing, sinner, no;
Jesus did it, did it all,
      Long, long ago.
"It is finished!" yes, indeed,
      Finished every jot;
Sinner, this is all you need;
      Tell me, is it not?
Cast your deadly doing down,
      Down at Jesus' feet;
Stand in Him, in Him alone,
      Gloriously complete."

-James Proctor

Freedom

Tullian Tchividjian:

The gospel frees us from this pressure to perform, this slavish demand to “become.” The gospel liberatingly declares that in Christ “we already are.” If you’re a Christian, here’s the good news: Who you really are has nothing to do with you—how much you can accomplish, who you can become, your behavior (good or bad), your strengths, your weaknesses, your sordid past, your family background, your education, your looks, and so on.

Your identity is firmly anchored in Christ’s accomplishment, not yours; his strength, not yours; his performance, not yours; his victory, not yours. Your identity is steadfastly established in his substitution, not your sin.

What Tullian Tchividjian Learned In Jonah

"I learned that God’s capacity to clean things up is infinitely greater than our human capacity to mess things up"

Still My Own

Jesus, I my cross have taken,
All to leave and follow Thee.
Destitute, despised, forsaken,
Thou from hence my all shall be.
Perish ev'ry fond ambition, 
All I've sought or hoped or known--
Yet how rich is my condition,
God and heav'n are still my own.

--Henry Lyte (1793-1847)

Too Good Not To Repost

King's Cross. Chapter 5. The Power.

Keller, commenting on Mark 4:35-41


"Jesus says, 'One greater than Jonah is here,' and he's referring to himself: I'm the true Jonah. He meant this: Someday I'm going to calm all storms, still all waves. I'm going to destroy destruction, break brokenness, kill death. how can he do that? He can do it only because when he was on the cross he was thrown--willingly, like Jonah--into the ultimate storm, under the ultimate waves, the waves of sin and death. Jesus was thrown into the only storm that can actually sink us--the storm of eternal justice, of what we owe for our wrongdoing. that storm wasn't calmed--not until it swept him away.

If the sight of Jesus bowing his head into that ultimate storm is burned into the core of your being, you will never say, 'God, don't you care?' And if you know that he did not abandon you in that ultimate storm, what makes you think he would abandon you in the much smaller storms you're experiencing right now? And, someday, of course, he will return and still all storms for eternity. 


If you let that penetrate to the very center of your being, you will know he loves you. You will know he cares. And then you will have the power to handle anything in life with poise." (p. 57-58, my emphasis)


In the middle of any storm, even the most tempestuous hurricane, he is infinitely more powerful. He can, has, and will subdue the storm like a compliant child. In the midst of my storms, I have him, and he is more than enough.