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A Heat Which Leads to Refreshment

Dear sister,

In the Christian faith the symbol for the Holy Spirit, which is imparted to the believer as a guarantee of their inheritance, is a flame. This is so because the first Pentecost after Jesus’ resurrection was when God poured out His Spirit on the believers in Jerusalem (Acts 2). As the Scriptures tell us; “When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit …”.

 Jesus had promised the disciples who followed him that when He returned to His Father in heaven that a helper (paraclete), would come. (John 17) This helper, who would lead them into God’s Truth, is the third person of the Trinity.  He would sanctify God’s people while on earth, so that when, in God’s appointed time, they were received into heaven they would be just like Jesus (2 Cor. 3:12). The sanctifying process by way of God’s Spirit is meant to make us holy in two ways. First, holy as in the sense of setting us apart from the rest of the world. Second, holy as in the sense of purifying us.

Basically, God’s plan in saving us is to change us, and God being God, the Creator and Sustainer of all things, has decided that this process is the best means to that end.  Very much like the flame of a fire, our sanctification can involve a lot of heat.  I like to call it a Holy Heat.  As with most heat though, depending on the situation, it can make us extremely uncomfortable.  As I write to you, the country I live in is recovering from a deadly heat wave which swept across much of the central to northeastern United States. Temperature wise, things seemed upside down. The upper region of the country was hotter than the lower region. Of course, it is summer right? Some of this is to be expected at this time of year no matter where you live in the States. I live in Florida which is famously known for its unbearable heat. It’s furnace like intensity can literally wear you out, especially if there is not an air- conditioned space to retreat to. There is no mystery to Florida’s heat.  Those of us who live here know to brace ourselves come mid- April and to hang on until mid -November.

However, there is  mystery involved with Holy Heat. I call it that because it is often unexplainable and also many times we cannot see where the heat is coming from until we are completely in it. It is as though we have walked into a furnace that had no caution signs alerting us to it when we entered in.  Other times we enter into a furnace (situation) knowingly, yet we expect to feel no heat at all.  It seems strange doesn’t it, but we humans are really good at rationalizing. In fact, we have been perfecting it since the Garden of Eden. Nonetheless, God in His infinite wisdom knows everything.  He knows the motives of our hearts, He knows the facts surrounding the time and place we will walk into our personal furnace. He knows what will happen in the furnace and what we will be when we walk out of that furnace.  He knows all the same things for those who are in our lives and how it will affect them.  There are times in our sanctification where we might cry out to God in the midst of a personal furnace, “Why Lord? This heat is too much to bear! I can’t do this!”

The beautiful Truth which permeates all of this is that God is Holy, and His holiness and goodness are intricately intertwined (Romans 8:28-29). It may be difficult to see at the time, but God’s goodness is always, always, yes, always involved with our personal furnaces. His goodness and mercy direct the temperature so that it does not consume us, but it preserves us while melting away the dross (garbage) from our souls. Yet, God does not stop there! Holy Heat is meant to refine us and then revive us. Meaning, the end result is refreshment for our souls. Looking back at some of my personal furnaces I am able to see that it was the only way to refine my soul! And that my dear sister is like a refreshing splash of cool water on my red- hot face.

What does your personal furnace look like? When did you notice the temperature rising? Are you looking for God in the midst of the flames or are you just looking for a way out? What dross is God’s Holy Heat melting away? The temptation is to look away or run away from the source of heat. Sweet sister in Christ, don’t do it! Fix your eyes on Him who is the perfecter of your faith. Like the flaming tongues to the first converts of the Christian church were, look at the flame with its Holy Heat as a gift from above with a purpose. When you are delivered from your furnace pause, and be thankful to God who cares for you and directs His goodness and mercy to follow you all the days of your life (Psalm 23:6). Be refreshed by this truth!

Refined by His Holy Heat and Refreshed by His Good Pleasure,

Susan

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Those Dead Old Men (And Women)!

Dear Sister,

I’ll admit it. I don’t know as much as I’d like to know about them nor have I read as much as could be desired from the actual Puritans.  Oh yes, I’ve read lots about them. I’ve read books and posts and articles summarizing various authors and their writings—and I pray right along with them some of their beautiful and insightful prayers. And each quarter a little booklet arrives at our home with various excerpts from the likes of Thomas Watson, John Flavel, or Isaac Ambrose.  I haven’t actually read a lot of John Owen, though two of his well-known books arrived recently from my favorite used-book seller.  Nor have I read much from Richard Sibbes, Stephen Charnock, Anne Hutchinson, or Increase Mather. But John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress”, child’s version for my kids and adult’s version for myself, has been part of my reading repertoire. And who is not familiar with Jonathan Edwards’s sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” from our high school literature textbooks?

And yet, I love them. I love these Puritans from the 16th through 18th centuries, originating in England and then to America, because of what I know about them and what I have read. I love them for their desire to purify the Church of England from vestiges of “popery”. I love them for their depth of knowledge of—and hatred for—sin, for their desire to live pure and holy lives, for their precise articulation of doctrinal truths, for their love of Christ and His majesty, for their love of Jesus’s love and mercy,  for their biblical worship, for the Confessions they magnificently produced…

The more the growth in Christ, the greater impatience is experienced in the slow sanctification process. Change me now, God. Yet, in saner moments, there is much gratitude He does not often use a scalpel and go for the jugular with my sin, but in tender-kindness and mercy and lovely patience He usually wields His gentler instruments of discipline for the conforming of my heart to the image of the Savior. The Puritan’s prayers have been invaluable in getting to the heart of my heart in these matters of impurity, pride, filthiness, and idolatry. As I read, my soul resonates with the words of these  “dead old men”, as some refer to them, men who understood their sin, their frailties, the “odious rooms” of their hearts. In this understanding, they clung to God’s great love and mercy, without which, they and we would be lost forever.

Get a flavor for their prayers in this sample from Valley of Vision:

“Of all hypocrites, Grant that I may
not be an evangelical hypocrite,
Who sins more safely because
grace abounds,
Who tells his lusts that Christ’s
blood cleanses them,
Who reasons that God cannot cast
him into hell, for he is saved…
My will is without power of decision
or resolution.
My heart is without affection, and
full of leaks.
My memory has no retention,
so I forget easily the lessons
learned, and Thy truths seep away.
Give me a broken heart that yet
carries home the water of grace.”

https://banneroftruth.org/us/devotional-series/the-valley-of-vision-devotional/

The Puritans get a bad rap at times—especially from the world. Goody two-shoes. Victorian. No fun. Even unsuspecting Christians buy into the caricature. It’s true. They had much to say about sin and were called Puritans for a reason. They were about purifying the Church and keeping their lives unspotted from the world, but the reason they had much to say about our fallen nature and acts of rebellion against God is because they understood the majesty and holiness and beauty of Christ. They knew that sin and purity must not, cannot exist together. Their failures were never sugar-coated. They fell on their faces in contrition and repentance and worship in the face of the Holy. When they saw their hard and darkened hearts, by the mercy of God, when they understood His unmeasured forgiveness in Christ’s payment for sin, they could do no other but worship. And so, sin was mortified and Majesty was lifted high.  ‘Theology gave way to doxology’, I read recently.

I heard a lecture not long ago about Jonathan Edwards. His most famous sermon, mentioned earlier, is a frightening picture of God’s wrath against sinners. “The bow of God’s wrath is bent and the arrow is ready to be flung”, the teacher quoted. God’s anger is the reputation of this sermon, but I was reminded, as I listened, that “Christ has flung the door of His mercy wide open and stands in the way, crying unto poor sinners, ‘Come in. Come home.’ “ The problem and punishment defined. The remedy revealed. Edwards was not all about God’s anger. The lecturer revealed that his favorite words were joy, pleasure, happiness, and happified-yes, happified, the state of the soul when knowing the loveliness of the Savior.  So much for being a kill-joy.

And then we glimpse their view of the Lord Jesus Christ. These Puritans had much to say about His beauties and the necessity for studying Him. Listen to these words from John Flavel:

The study of Jesus Christ “is the most sweet and comfortable knowledge. What is it to be studying Jesus Christ but to be digging among all the veins and springs of comfort? And the deeper you dig, the more do these springs flow upon you. How are hearts ravished with the discoveries of Christ in the gospel! What ecstasies, meetings, transports do gracious souls meet there?…A believer could sit from morning to night to hear discourses of Christ: ‘His mouth is most sweet.’ “

For these reasons alone, apart from all the other treasures about to be encountered as their writings are delved into, I love them, for they, in an inimitable manner, articulate far better than I, the repinings as well as the longings of my own heart for “not only being chiseled, squared, or fashioned, but separated from the old rock where I have been embedded so long, and lifted from the quarry to the upper air, where I may be built in Christ forever.”

Perhaps your appetite has been whetted. Read the Puritans while you’re young or whatever your age and learn of Christ deeply. I’ve waited far too long.

Learning with you,

Cherry

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Means of Grace… What’s That?

Dear sister,

“Means of grace.”  If you are like me you think, well, grace is unmerited favor, we deserve God’s wrath but get salvation.  The means of that salvation is through Christ’s death on the cross. Done.  Simple. Let’s go have coffee.  But upon further inquiry, I have learned that the “means of grace” is not the way to salvation but rather the continuing grace we receive as we live in the already/not yet tension of our Christian life, the tension of still fighting our sin while God sees us as sanctified saints.

Put on your thinking caps sisters!  Once you put your faith in Christ alone for your salvation, nothing or no one can snatch you out of God’s hand (John 10:27-30).  Furthermore, Paul writes to the Ephesians in his first chapter about who they are in Christ.  It is a rich and enriching chapter to read as it claims us as adopted in Christ with all the spiritual rights of a first born son, that we are saints, that we are brought near to God, and so many others!  Yet Paul also writes of himself as the chief of all sinners (1 Tim 1:15) and one who does what he doesn’t want to do and doesn’t do what he should do (Rom 7:15-20).  What? You see, we are sealed Saints, yes! But it won’t be fully realized until heaven.  In the meantime, our hearts battle our dying sin nature.  We get discouraged, hopeless, and even bitter over our sin.  This is where the “means of grace” comes in.

God in His wisdom and kindness has given us ways to be encouraged in the faith to fight sin.  He has given us provisions to reassure us on our sanctification voyage.  This “means of grace” or provision can be scripture, fellowship with other believers, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, the local church, and sermons, just to name a few. These are what the Lord uses to teach us about Himself and about how to grow spiritually.  They seem so simple and common yet if we neglect these provisions we find ourselves tired, having a lack of hope, and empty of encouragement.

I remember taking a job that made me miss Sunday morning church.  I thought to myself, “No big deal, I have other times to meet with people or read my Bible.”  Can I admit something?  I was dry and lonely.  I wasn’t face to face with people who could encourage me to fight my sin another day, or who could look at my face and just pray for me, or who could call me out on my sin.  I needed that!  I also have attended churches who rarely give the Lord’s Supper.  I didn’t realize how much I needed it until I started going to a church where they give it every week.  I’m faced to keep short account of my sin as well as tasting the elements that remind me of what my sin cost Christ.  His forgiveness refreshes my soul now every week!

Oh sisters, don’t neglect these means of grace.  They are a gift of the Lord to help us on this sanctification journey.  This blog is a means of grace!  We encourage each other by reminding us each month of impactful truths.  Yes, God saves us in His grace, but He also provides encouragement to us as we travel this world filled with brokenness that tries to bring us down.  Now let’s go have coffee and discuss what we have learned.

Your Sister,

Colleen

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Starving or Feasting

Dear Sister,

Have you ever helplessly watched as someone starved to death?  For two weeks I stayed by his side and waited. And then he died and we buried him. He had wanted no heroics in those last days and so we simply watched and waited as the sweetest man in the world also waited quietly to see Jesus.

Physical starvation is not unlike spiritual starvation in certain ways. Though physical inability to take in nutrition is usually a medical issue, not a choice, it is similar to spiritual starvation in that life and energy are sapped, the body or soul shrivel, and life is seriously compromised.

Most of us love to eat, some live to eat. Eating is enjoyable. A lovely dinner laid out on a linen cloth accompanied by fresh flowers, good friends or family and conversation feed the body along with many of our senses. But even eating on the run benefits us without our even thinking much about it. We must have food, with or without all the bells and whistles, in order to survive.

Souls must be fed or they too shrivel and languish. Sometimes a meal will be luxurious, sometimes it will be ordinary, sometimes it will taste delicious, sometimes it will be bitter, but every spiritual meal or morsel is important for the health of our souls.

From where does this food come? From a plentiful garden of sorts. A garden with seeds sown from and by the hand of God, watered by His Spirit, brought to harvest in our souls by His means of grace. We resist these means to our great peril, to the endangerment of our souls. We must take and eat. Sometimes the meal is perfectly prepared and shared with others as we worship together on a Sunday morning…God’s Word in a sermon, our hearts and voices united in songs of praise, biblically informed prayers, the works of Christ portrayed in His supper and in the baptism of His children.

Sometimes the emotions are elevated with the food. At times we barely taste the sumptuous fare, our hearts heavy with burdens or sins.  But it is food, nonetheless, whether a sermon, the personal reading of God’s Word and prayers, the symbols, all vital to our souls’ well-being for correction, for discipline, for instruction in righteousness, for encouragement, so that we, as God’s children, as we feed on Christ, grow and mature and become thoroughly equipped to obey Jesus and become like Him.

We can gorge physically, hindering optimal health, but it is difficult to overeat in the things of God unless we fail to use His meat and resulting energy in the exercising of righteousness and love and good works. His food whets our appetite, not only for our own consumption and energy and outworking but for the feeding of others beyond ourselves.

Eat, dear Sister. Eat from His abundant banquet. When you’re hungry. When you think you’re not. The strange thing about His food is that the more one ingests the more it satisfies, simultaneously causing more and more hunger.

This is a food that is vital to consume whether or not we feel the pangs of hunger. Don’t neglect the things God deems beneficial to spiritual health, things which sometimes taste as sweet as honey, things which sometimes can be bitter in the swallowing but all things which nourish every cell of our spiritual selves.  Eat from His Word, pray, worship by yourself and with others, feed on Christ in the Lord’s Supper, be baptized, watch baptisms, fellowship with God’s people. When you feel like it. When you don’t feel like it. Your spirit will imperceptibly grow stronger, more mature, more robust, more like Jesus. You were made for this. And someday He will take us home where we will see the Bread of Life face-to-face, whole and safe and fully satisfied.

Until then, eat heartily and often.

Cherry

“My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness…”
Psalm 63:5a

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Bold From Broken

Simon Peter must have had red hair.  His loud, obnoxious, and no filter personality fits with what I know about red heads…probably because I am one. The gospel of Luke was influenced mostly by Peter as Luke travelled with Peter a lot after the resurrection and I can only imagine the history that Peter poured out to this detail oriented doctor.  What we are told is that Peter was a fisherman that left his full nets of fish to follow a stranger that called him.  He was so sure of this man being the Messiah that he trusted him with his life and sustenance.  Yet throughout the gospel, we read how he would confess his faith in Jesus…and then waiver a few verses later.  “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered, “The Christ of God (Lk 9:20).” Yet we find out in Matt 16:22-23, this same confessor told this Christ that he cannot die and be raised again a few moments after his amazing confession. Jesus then rebuked him strongly.

Then the time came for Jesus to die.  Despite the fact he told Peter over and over again that it must happen, Peter missed it. Peter proudly told Jesus in Luke 22:33-34 that he was ready to go both to prison and to death for Jesus even though Jesus had told him that Peter will deny Him three times. Jesus then called him to stay with him in the garden while he prayed but Peter fell asleep. He tried two more times and still, he could not keep his eyes open to comfort his master.  Then Jesus was taken.  Peter followed him to the courtyard and this great confessor melted under the boast of a little girl saying that he was with Jesus.  He answered her by cursing himself!  Then the rooster crowed.  Worse than that, Luke declares that Jesus turned and looked at Peter at the final echoes of the crow (Lk 22:61).  Oh my heart!  Yes!  I have done that too!  Boldly claimed my trust in Christ yet fold in the painful throws of adversary.  I balk at Peter, yet then realize how my faith wanes when circumstances don’t play out like I thought they would.

Will Peter ever get it? Will his faith remain in this Messiah despite what he sees or thinks will happen?

Jesus dies.  The earth shakes.  The skies darken.  The curtain is torn in two.  Dead people are now alive again and walking around Jerusalem.  Peter hides with the other disciples. What is going on!?!?! Friday ends, Saturday ends, then Sunday begins.

Suddenly a gate rattles and the disciples hear Mary yelling at them to open it!  They go to the women at the gate and listen as they hysterically proclaim that the tomb is empty!  They went to prepare the body, but now it isn’t there!  Peter ran to the tomb (Lk 24:12).  I’m sure he stood amazed in wonder.  What happened?  Could it be? Can he believe it to be true?  He went back to the other disciples to tell them what he saw.

Then suddenly, Jesus appeared!  He spoke to them! They freaked out and thought he was a ghost (Lk 24:36-43)! These men who walked with him for three years and heard him say he had to die and be raised, were in shock when it actually happened.  Jesus showed his hands, his side, and even ate to prove to them he was alive!  I can see Peter standing with his mouth open and heart full!  I can imagine him falling at his feet in sorrow for his disbelief yet shaking in the excitement of his presence!  He’s ALIVE! Death had been conquered! Forgiveness had been gifted to him, to Peter!  To all that trust in Christ!  The final sacrifice had been made!  Jesus walked them again through scripture, from the fall, through the prophets, that this must happen for man to be restored to God (Lk 24:44-49).  Then they watched Him ascend back to heaven to his rightful place next to the Father.

Peter changed.  He no longer doubted.  He travelled the world to tell everyone about this Christ.  He died by hanging on a cross…yet he did not want to die like his Savior, so he asked to be crucified upside down!  Who does that for a lie?  The resurrection changed everything for Peter!

How about you and me sister? Have you thought about how powerful this resurrection is?  How life changing it is?  It changed the calendar.  It changed the day we worship to Sunday. No other god out there has made this resurrection claim.  They can’t! They are all still in the grave! Our faith means nothing if this resurrection did not happen. We have no hope of being restored to our creator without it.  This brash, bold Peter who flipped his alliances so easily in the beginning never doubted again.  I want my red-headed personality to be like that!  To never doubt in the dark again what I have seen in the light!  The resurrection has changed me too!

Blessings and Grace,

Colleen