Today At My House...

The bedclothes got changed out from fall/winter, to spring/summer today. Ahhhhh!

Spring, outside my window...


A carpet of fairy-flowers!


Our Tennessee state flower (the iris) pushing up through the soil



The promise of things to come




Sunshine and poetry





The bluebirds have nested here!







The Standard Has Been Raised Higher...

I understand those in the body of Christ who, through bad past experiences, or their own secret sin, are anxious about the grace message - nervous that suddenly, everyone is going to go around sinning with gleeful abandon. Or even sinning with slightly less guilt. Guilt is one of the best manipulators known to man - a very effective, though temporary, behavior modification tool, is it not?

One of the things I hear is that, "Christ raised the standard - therefore grace raises the standard of behavior, it never lowers it!"

You are exactly right.

Listen. Few people hate sin more than a pastor (and his wife). Few people have seen the ravages of it the way we have. Because of the sacred nature of "clergy confidentiality", we know stuff about people that no one else knows. My husband knows things that I will never know. He will take certain information about people to his grave - it was spoken to him in confidence. We've seen things we can't talk about - so whatever you have heard about from us....it probably isn't the half of it. Rest assured of that. We hate sin.

We'd be the last people to encourage home-wrecking, body- wrecking, relationship- wrecking behavior. But guilting people out of it will only suffice them in going right back to it, eventually. Manipulation and control only go so far, in the human spirit. Though seemingly effective, they are the poorest motivators in existence.

So yes, absolutely. Jesus "raised" the standard.

He made it absolutely unattainable. He made it impossibly high. He preached to those under the law as though they were....those under the law. He put the goal so far out of reach (light years away from their grasp!) that they would need some other recourse than their willpower.

According to Jesus, if a man glances a woman's way, with any inclination towards thinking she's hot....he is an adulterer. If I decide that a brother is an idiot, I am in danger of hellfire. (What's that smell????)

If I detest him, I am a murderer.

Let me tell you....I desperately need an old testament "city of refuge" (where "accidental murderers" could flee for safety) because I find myself detesting certain people - even a few so called Christians I've known. (Uh....no one in my church.) I also have days where I am convinced all the world are idiots except for me and my husband, and he is questionably wise. I have days like that. And don't think I don't mean it. I do. Which means the flames of hell are one-eighth of an inch from my behind.

If you think you can meet the so-called "higher standard of grace"....you are an....idiot.

::cough::

There I go again. See? I need a city of refuge today, I need a saving from hellfire, and I have not even had my lunch yet. This day is not over.

Thank God, Hebrews 6 says this: ...that we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast...

Don't think for one minute that those Hebrews did not know exactly what Paul meant when he talked about fleeing for refuge. Oh...they knew.

Christ - my refuge from my insufficiency. Christ, my substitution. His obedience to that impossible standard has become MY obedience. There simply is no other way to look at it. If that makes some people apply grace incorrectly - that is a reflection of their own unbelieving heart. I refuse to modify the beauty of the gospel to suit fallen, human idiots.

There I go again.

My Other Life...


Okay...so I am not always reading my Bible and scribbling footnotes to almost every verse. In my other life, I am a Scottish Penny Wedding Planner. (Go on...ask me about Scottish Penny Weddings!) Here is a tiny slice of my day (trust me...a very tiny slice...this doesn't show the half of it...the EIGHTH of it...will I make it to May 15th?)

"Where's the Tartan plaid ribbon?"



A pew, or in our case "row" marker...one of six. Made of peonies, in bloom mid-May, hydrangea, and Scottish heather...I made it myself.

::perky sniffff::


The mess that is constantly on my dining room table...



A bridesmaid's dress - the wedding will be "jewel toned"

This "So Great a Salvation"

So let's not even call it "grace". Even though the word "grace" is used more than one hundred twenty times in the New Testament, if it seems like overkill to hear me refer to the term "grace" so often, let's just lay that word aside. Let's call it "the gospel". Let's say that this "gospel" is meant for daily living, from the time I am saved until the day I die, this gospel is the power of God unto salvation...I am saved, I am being saved, and I will be saved, and "so great a salvation" it is!



This power is only as real to you as it is effective in you. Power is not a concept, it is active and living. "Energy" is the ability to do work, and Paul said that God's work was at work in him mightily. This work is that finished work of Christ. You'll have something to show for this work that God does!



We are so complete, in Him! More than a theoretical completeness, it is a completeness that makes you so rich in God, so fulfilled, you become an easy person to live with or be with.



We'll never outgrow our need to study this gospel, apply it, savor it, allowing it to come alive in us. This gospel is only as powerful in you, as it systematically touches your every insecurity, meets you at your most gaping inadequacy, and informs your daily decisions. It is active in you, to the direct proportion that you find yourself enabled to love the brethren, and I do not mean the ability to be patronizing - I mean actually seeing others, in some real way, as being better than yourself.



If you find yourself stuck in the same old insecurities, still struggling with an overwhelming sense of being inadequate as a wife, mother, daughter, or friend; if you find that God can change your eternal destiny, but He can rarely change your DAY, if you find yourself passionless in your marriage - or if you are someone who kicks people to the curb who disagree with you on incidentals...your heart becoming guarded and cold and distant....ah. That is not the gospel. The gospel is better than that, happier than that, fuller than that. Others can have their issues, but you don't have to have them. There is no need for such angst. You need a good gospel foundation, still.



I need it. I want it, I need it, and since I hunger and thirst for it, I am, over time, being filled.

Our good friend and mentor Neil Silverberg (http://www.ezraproject.org/ wrote a beautiful song, long ago, that encapsules this whole thing:

In the gospel
I have found all that I need!
Oh, in the gospel
If I only would believe,
Mercy flowing down from heaven
Oceans of His love!
I can't believe that the gospel's for free!
I can't believe what He started in me!
If I had ten thousand years to proclaim the gospel
Praise His name!

Regardless of how many years I have walked with the Lord, I stand in need of a Savior. I have areas of my life that deeply need to be touched by the power of the gospel.

Now. Let's go back to the word, first used in the New Testament by John, the disciple whom Jesus loved....the disciple closest to His heart (this is no coincidence!). Let's return to the word used by the great Apostle Paul:

Grace.

Desiring God

I've not had time to read blogs lately. In fact, for many weeks, I have only skimmed them. No time to do what I call "lolly-blogging". Thankfully, I have good friends who send choice bits directly to my email box, and that is how I've recently spent any computer-research time I might have. I've been checking out the choice bits, already pre-screened for me by friends who know what I like!


I salivate and weep over the thought that some teachers have paid research staff. I rely on a few Dear Ones who keep an eye out for me. They are the best, and I want to thank them...they know who they are.


Far, far more than anything, in recent weeks (ask my man!) I've had my face buried in my Bible. I'm telling you, I almost don't come up for air! When I do come up for air, I am furiously scribbing with a pen, or I am blogging about what I've seen in the pages of Scripture. I'd be so excited to blog the pages and pages of hand written notes I have - nothing but thoughts and revelation as I've poured over Isaiah, Zechariah, Psalms and the Epistles. But two or three blog-articles, sent to my email of recent weeks, have piqued my interest. I try to save them for later, and hope to read them. One such article, was the piece I already posted in its entirety, by Blake Coffee on Earning the Privilege of Healing Each Other.


Here is another, by the enduring John Piper. I share a part of it here, it comes from his blog "Desiring God". I am smiling in utter satisfaction, because it matches many of my own thoughts regarding the same passage in Romans - want to see my notes??

::smile::


If you have lucked out like me today, and have a window of time to read this whole message, it is well worth the investment. Entitled "All Things for Good, Part III", you'll find it at desiringgod.org. I have actually had time this evening to read the whole thing, every word.


Love. It.


Here is a portion:


"All things work together for good to those who love God and to those who are called according to his purpose."


So there are two things that must be true of us if this promise is to be ours. It does not come true for everybody. It comes true for those who love God and are called according to God’s purpose.


These are not two groups of people. This is one group of people with two things true of them: 1) they love God; 2) they are called according to his purpose. Why does Paul mention these two things instead of just one of them? Here is my suggestion.


If he had only said that all things work together for good for those who love God, it would have sounded like the promise rests on pretty flimsy ground. My love for God is a flimsy ground for this promise. It is an experience in my heart. And my heart is notoriously fickle and variable and weak. To make such a massive promise rest on such a fragile human experience alone would be to make a mountain rest on a marshmallow.


So Paul says, this promise does not just rest on your marshmallow heart, it rests on God’s calling and purpose. "All things work together for good . . . for those who are called according to his purpose." Here we have God’s work, not my experience. God’s call, not my consciousness. This is solid. This is divine. This is powerful and deep and strong.


But what if Paul had only said, "All things work together for good for those who are called"? Then we would want to ask, How do I know if I am called? We would want some sign that God has in fact done this great and powerful and wonderful thing: he has called me.

So Paul gives both. He tells us the objective, solid, divine work of God that makes the promise unshakeable: he called us according to his purpose. And he tells us what happened in us when God called us so that we can know it has happened: we love God and all that he is for us in Jesus Christ. So we have two things that must be true of us if this promise is to be ours. Our love is subjective, and God’s call is objective. Our love is our act, and God’s call is his act. Our love is an effect, and God’s love is the cause.


In other words, the call of God according to his purpose is part of the massive, deep, unshakeable foundation Paul is laying in
Romans 8 that keeps this promise from falling and makes it believable. You are not the key here. God is the key here. His work will keep this promise true for you, or it won’t be true for you. Because your love is too fragile and uncertain. But God’s call is not fragile and not uncertain. And it not only brought your love into being but will keep it in being so that the promise of Romans 8:28 will be true for you forever.

New Testament Letters

My husband and I talk of doctrine and proper Biblical interpretation. We dialogue issues of healing, Holy Spirit, predestination, grace, and the crying need in the church for teachers (and all saints) to read the Word of God in expository fashion. I learn a great deal from these discussions (he does too, I think...) and some of what Tim says, sends me headlong into Scripture, to "search out whether these things be true." I've been far too conditioned to believe that "if it sounds too good to be true, it IS too good to be true."

Not so, our God.

This week alone, I've determined not to even begin a book in the Bible, if I could not finish it at one sitting. I began in Romans last Sunday. Each day after that, I made my way through I and II Cor., Gal., Eph., Phil.,Col., I and II Timothy, I and II Thessalonians, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, I and II Peter, I, II, and III John and Jude.


My desire is to grasp the whole panoramic scope of the God-inspired epistles, written to ordinary Christians. I closed my Bible on Jude today, and after hours of reading these Epistles as whole bodies of work, I have come to the conclusion that the Holy Spirit spent a great deal of time - most of the Epistles - grounding people in grace, in one form or another. (Peter talks of the "manifold" grace of God....many, many various expressions. You'll never exhaust your study of it.) Much effort was poured out to see to it that God's people would find a place of rest, with enlightened eyes and boundless hope.



Two things I know after looking at the New Testament epistles as a whole: you cannot separate the finished work of Christ from the body of Christ. You don't walk this stuff out alone - too much of the New Testament is dedicated to describing the effect of such Amazing Grace. Much of the New Testament speaks to the sort of living that "becometh" saints; rooted NOT in doing right for the sake of doing right, but all of it rooted in relationship and unfeigned love.



The other thing I know is that these things are not instantly understood. Putting a right foundation under people doesn't just happen, and it won't happen unless someone, on purpose, lays a foundation, or rebuilds it, or shores it up, depending on the need.

Peter even made the point in his epistle, and I paraphrase, that "Paul says things in his letters that are weighty and hard to be understood. But it isn't Paul's fault. The untaught and the unstable wrestle over ALL the Scripture, not just Paul's material"....and then Peter boldly says that all the wrestling some folks do, isn't healthy for them.



In the words of AW Tozer, and in my own experience (both of years past, and today), "We do not understand in order to believe. We believe in order to understand." God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.



Peter is all the proof text you need to assert that grace doctrines are not kiddie Christianity. These truths are basic to our faith, yes, but not at all are they some sort of "easy believe-ism". Our mind needs constant renewing with this Word of the all sufficiency of Christ, and we need to be taught how to walk in such a way that is becoming to "growth in grace". Little children in the faith, experience the removal of sin-consciousness. Little children.

Our spiritually "young men" have grown in grace to the point that they experience, in a very personal way, victory after victory over the evil one.

Our spiritual fathers have walked many years in these truths, they have experienced the very heart of God, and reproduced it. Fathers are able to see and to teach the grace of God in Scripture, from Genesis onward. They know Him who is who He says He is, and has always been this way from the beginning. Fathers have experienced the God of Eden ("He who was from the beginning") and the God of Mt. Zion and of Calvary's hill. They don't camp on Mt. Sinai.

Your human understanding can see glimmers of the truth, here and there, but without revelation, nothing of any substance is retained. You don't get this stuff with your human understanding. Without revelation, you will still be describing grace in very generic terms, with no radical shift in your experience, no affect on your relationships. You need a pastor, who teaches and preaches the finished work of Christ - a pastor who prays for you that : The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints...


Here is a final thought...I want to ask this question: Who are the overcomers?


I've entertained many lofty ideas about what an overcomer would look like. If the truth be told (leave it to me to tell the truth on myself - that is "no nevermind" to me), my concept was mostly based on religious, charismatic traditions of men.

Oh, I could put a nice "spin" on it. I could even convince myself that my foundation has always been perfect. But that would not be dealing in reality - and God only deals in reality. I want God, therefore I must deal in reality.


Hear the words of the Jesus-lover, John. This was the man who made this Christian life all about relationship to God and the brethren. He said, "Who is he that overcometh, but he who believes Jesus Christ is the son of God?"

"This is the victory that overcomes the world...even our faith."


Whoever believes that Jesus Christ is the express image of God - that Jesus came to reveal the heart of God for His children - and successfully offered Himself, His own body, on the cross, so that we could be dead to sin, and then He rose again so that we could live lives clearly stamped by the righteousness of God....whoever believes all this, THAT PERSON is "he who overcometh."


Not he that attaineth or performeth, not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord. The race is not for he who wills or he who runs...it's all God. I could go on and on.



I am seeing the big picture in a fresh perspective....honestly, the panoramic view. It is breathtaking.

Walking This Stuff Out

"As you've received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him..."

If it was okay for me to be saved by grace through faith, then I have decided that it is okay for me to LIVE by grace through faith...day by day...today, and tomorrow, and the next day. I will walk in this grace of God in practical terms, as well as positional reality.

What this does, is make me child-like and sincere once again. What this grace-reality does, is inspire me to love people without ulterior motives of manipulation or control. What this does to me, is it makes me Christ-conscious, not sin- conscious...both towards myself and others. What a fresh understanding of grace does, is to make my faith real, as opposed to word-play.

I Timothy 1: 5 ~ Now the goal of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:

It is my choice - this decision to walk in Christ, the exact same way I received Him. Sounds suspiciously like realizing I have been naked, blind, and poor, when I thought I was better than that. Sounds suspiciously like a return to First Love.

I can live with that. Oh...I can live with that!

(Written by Haldor Lillenas in 1917, this next hymn, "Wonderful Grace of Jesus" came under some degree of criticism...because of its lilting, joyful melody! "We can handle the lyrics...but the happy way this song is sung...why, that just can't be right!" )



Wonderful grace of Jesus,
Greater than all my sin;
How shall my tongue describe it,
Where shall its praise begin?
Taking away my burden,
Setting my spirit free;
For the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me.


Wonderful the matchless grace of Jesus,
Deeper than the mighty rolling sea;
Wonderful grace, all sufficient for me, for even me.
Broader than the scope of my transgressions,
Greater far than all my sin and shame,
O magnify the precious Name of Jesus.
Praise His Name!


Wonderful grace of Jesus,
Reaching to all the lost,
By it I have been pardoned,
Saved to the uttermost,
Chains have been torn asunder,
Giving me liberty;
For the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me.


Wonderful the matchless grace of Jesus,
Deeper than the mighty rolling sea;
Wonderful grace, all sufficient for me, for even me.
Broader than the scope of my transgressions,
Greater far than all my sin and shame,
O magnify the precious Name of Jesus.
Praise His Name!


Wonderful grace of Jesus,
Reaching the most defiled,
By its transforming power,
Making him God’s dear child,
Purchasing peace and heaven,
For all eternity;
And the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me.


Wonderful the matchless grace of Jesus,
Deeper than the mighty rolling sea;
Wonderful grace, all sufficient for me, for even me.
Broader than the scope of my transgressions,
Greater far than all my sin and shame,
O magnify the precious Name of Jesus.
Praise His Name!