DESIRING GOD
How could I start a blog about the Sovereignty of God and not at least mention DesiringGod.org.
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CHALLIES.COM
Tim Challies is basically my motivation to start up blogging again altogether. Therefore, he’s not king for a week … not king for a year … he’s king for a blog.
Every believer has asked this question numerous times, “What is the Lord’s will for my life?” Many who have read The Purpose Driven Life have asked, “What is God’s purpose for me?” Who would have thought that the answer would be found in one of the shortest verses in scripture: “Pray continually.”
This verse is found surrounded by a series of instructions at the end of the letter, 1 Thessalonians. Let me give the immediate context.
Rejoice always; pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thess 5:16-18)
This is really a wonderful model of prayer, to rejoice with joy and worship, to bring petitions and promises from the word, and to express thanks every moment and in every circumstance.
But that’s a tall order. All the time? I mean, I’ve got a lot of stuff going on to be praying all the time, don’t you? Well, you asked what God’s will is and now you know. It is God’s will “for you” to “pray without ceasing”.
A while back I was reading a book about the Hebrew practices and traditions by Marvin Wilson. It mentions the biblical practice of hagah, or meditation. Two of the major divisions of the old testament, the prophets and the wisdom literature both begin with an instruction to meditate on the law of the Lord “day and night”. Here comes the part that I find the most helpful. I mean, what does it mean to meditate? Do I sit silently and simply recite over and over in my mind a scripture? Do I just sit silently and try to listen?
Well, not according to scripture. Hagah, or meditation, means “emit a sound”, “murmur”, or “speak in an undertone”. Psalm 19:14 (ESV) says, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”
The Lord’s will for your life is that you would become a mumbler. Having opened the Word in the morning the remainder of your day you are to mumble joy and thanksgiving focused on the Word. It’s like you’ve got a song stuck in your head except it might be a psalm or proverb or parable or promise.
It was a relief to me when I discovered the Old Testament background on this idea of praying at all times. I don’t have to have formalized prayers with a clear beginning and end and specific thoughts and petitions interspersed throughout my day, though these prayers are benefitial for the believer. The idea of scripture, and the Lord’s will for my life, is that I would get His words stuck in my head.
I have just a few practical suggestions. First, find two or three favorite scriptures that are particularly worshipful. For me I mumble often, “Holy, holy, holy is our Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come,” or “Worth is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” You can’t go wrong with words like that under your breath. Second, mumble. Yeah, I mean it, open your mouth and move your lips. It’s what scripture says and it will bring an awareness of prayer or meditation to the front of your mind.
Okay, you know the Lord’s will for your life, now you just need to do it.
Late on Wednesday night, April 16, I called a friend from my church to simply share with him that I was overwhelmed. I had just spent the evening at the Together for the Gospel Conference in Louisville, KY, glorying in the atonement; that “Christ became sin for us; Took the blame, bore the wrath” that we might “stand forgiven at the cross.”
Some have asked how my time was at the conference and I want to respond simply by bringing home a song.
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Oh, to see the dawn
Of the darkest day:
Christ on the road to Calvary.
Tried by sinful men,
Torn and beaten, then
Nailed to a cross of wood.
Oh, to see the pain
Written on Your face,
Bearing the awesome weight of sin.
Ev’ry bitter thought,
Ev’ry evil deed
Crowning Your bloodstained brow.
CHORUS:
This, the pow’r of the cross:
Christ became sin for us;
Took the blame, bore the wrath—
We stand forgiven at the cross.
Now the daylight flees;
Now the ground beneath
Quakes as its Maker bows His head.
Curtain torn in two,
Dead are raised to life;
“Finished!” the vict’ry cry.
Oh, to see my name
Written in the wounds,
For through Your suffering I am free.
Death is crushed to death;
Life is mine to live,
Won through Your selfless love.
FINAL CHORUS:
This, the pow’r of the cross:
Son of God—slain for us.
What a love! What a cost!
We stand forgiven at the cross.
Words and Music by Keith Getty & Stuart Townend
Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. — Matthew 26:10
How awesome to be this woman doing something “beautiful” for the Lord at this particular moment. It seems she is the only one to treat Jesus with humility and love in these last days. It seems this humility flows out of who she is and not out of what she knows. How could she know the full import of the anointing she had bestowed. But her humility moves her to humiliate herself and sacrifice in the worship of her Lord.
And the whole world will hear of this woman; not only that she would be in our memory, but that we would humble ourselves as did she. She leads me to the dirty feet, the beautiful feet, of my Lord. She has become the least; she is the servant of the Lord. She has received grace. Where is she in the kingdom? Does she get to attend to the Lord in the throne room? What is her joy today? It is the same as it was on that day in Bethany in the house of a leper; it is the joy of the Lord.