The Human Element of Scripture

When we read through the gospels, perhaps if you like me, one element of the story that we can overlook is the human element at work.
I was reminded of this recently, reading Mark 7:24-30. There we see the historical account of a woman coming to Jesus to ask for healing for her daughter, and as JC Ryle describes,

"The woman who came to our Lord, in the history now before us, must doubtless have been in deep affliction. She saw a beloved child possessed by an unclean spirit. She saw her in a condition in which no teaching could reach the mind, and no medicine could heal the body, - a condition only one degree better than death itself...She prays for one who could not pray for herself, and never rests till her prayer is granted." JC Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Mark, 145

Imagine being this mother, at the end of her rope, with nowhere else to turn for help.

The Scriptures are full of these accounts of real people, facing real struggles and how God cares for them and loves them in the midst. So let us not forget that element as we read the Bible and see real people facing real struggles and take heart that we are not alone in the trials and hardships we face, others have walked before us, and God continues to walk with us.

Holiness is Hard Work

"Deep within the American psyche is the 1960's Romantic idea, originally from Emerson and Rousseau, that if something doesn't feel natural, it isn't real. We think spiritual things - if done right - should just flow. But if you have a disability, nothing flows, especially in the beginning."

Paul A Miller, A Praying Life, 222

As we set out our deliberate prayers for the year, there can be this temptation to think that these things should just come naturally or that this work of change and growth is just too hard and too much work. As Miller describes in the context of using prayer tools, the disability we have as Christians is sin and thus everything related to holiness will come with work as we battle against the sin that remains in us.

But as we set out to grow in areas of prayer, encouragement, service and evangelism in the year ahead, remember two things

1. The battle is proof that God is working in you as the Spirit wars against our sin in the pursuit of holiness
2. Jesus through His death and resurrection gives us access to His strength and wisdom that will help us grow

But as we go forward, let us not think that this pursuit will be a a cakewalk and let's not give up when the opposition comes and might that form one of our encouragements for each other as we walk through this year together.

Figuring out Prayer Paralyzes Prayer

Lord willing come the fall we are going to do a book club starting with this book and I hope through these quotes, that I am wetting your appetite.

Paul Miller again in his book, A Praying Life says that one of the reasons that we don't pray more is because we try to figure out prayer and the result is that in trying to figure out how prayer works, we don't pray,

"Prayer is strikingly intimate. As soon as you take a specific answer to prayer and try to figure out what caused it, you lose God. We simply cannot see the casual connections between our prayer and what happens."

He goes on to say,

"The only way to know how prayer works is to have complete knowledge and control of the past, present, and future. In other words, you can figure out how prayer works if you are God."

So today, let us know not try and figure out how prayer works, instead let's pray and trust and rejoice as He answers.

Real Conversations with God

Wow! I could just fill the blog today with quotes from this amazing, yet wonderfully simple book on prayer, Paul Miller's, The Praying Life. I will roll out a few today but start with this one on how we ask God for things.

" Christians rush to 'not my will, but yours be done' without first expressing their hearts [Luke 22:42]. They submit so quickly that they disappear. Overspiritualizing prayer suppresses our natural desire that our house not be burned. When we stop being ourselves with God, we are no longer in real conversations with God." Paul Miller, The Praying Life, 122

He then wraps up this discussion on asking by stating, "Desire and surrender are the perfect balance to praying."

Believing in the sovereignty of God can sometimes squash our desires in our prayer lives and as Miller points out, the result is that we don't have real conversations about what we want with God. Desire and surrender are the perfect balance, but let us not forget desire in the equation. Let us not think that if we honestly bring our needs and wants to God that we are being selfish. Because when we bring desires to God we are laying them down, placing them as His feet and then trusting that His way, His plan will be better than ours.

So today, what is something you want?

When you think of that, then think and act, how can I have a real conversation with God about that want, laying it down before Him, surrendering that real, honest want knowing that talking to Him is the act of surrender.

Our Sympathetic Saviour

The heart and mind and will of our Lord has been moulded - shall we not say forged? - in the furnace of temptation and suffering. And it was in virtue of what he had learned in that experience of temptation and suffering that he was able, at the climactic point fixed by the arrangements of infallible wisdom and everlasting love, to be obedient unto death, even the death on a cross. It was only as having learned obedience in the path of inerrant and sinless discharge of the Father's will that his heart and mind and will were framed to the point of being able freely and voluntarily to yield up his life in death upon the accursed tree." 

John Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied

Murray beautifully points out in explaining Hebrews 2:10-18 and 5:8-10, that as Jesus walked this earth in obedience to His father, withstanding temptations, He became more aware of in fact why He was called to die. In other words, when He saw our sinful state first hand, He embraced the call to the cross.
As Jesus walked this earth, He saw the temptations and suffering we face and the many sins we fall into and it was His perfect obedience in the midst of this that made Him the "all-sufficient and perfect Saviour."

Immanent in Suffering

Recently, in talking with some pastor friends about how to care for people in suffering. Particularly, we were discussing from a book one of them was reading about how to appropriately comfort people who are suffering with God's sovereignty and providence.
Though I agree that both of those provide comfort to those struggling and in trials, I can't explain it any other way other than saying it was perhaps a revelation of knowledge in the moment that the great help and support to the suffering saints around us first is God's immanence.
Yes it is comforting to know that God is in control and that all things happen for a reason and we can get to those things, but to know that God walks with us through every pain and in fact as Christians we can know that God walks in us by His diving presence of the Holy Spirit.
His promise to not leave us or forsake us [Deut. 31:6 and Heb. 13:5] is a great promise to cling to when cares, sins and pain can sometimes leave us wondering where God is in the midst of it all.
If you are struggling today, I pray this truth pours grace and help into your life and if we know of those around us in the midst of agony and hurt, may God use us to remind them of our immanent God.

The Remedy of Hope

"Neighbors ought to tell neighbors, if they have found an unfailing remedy in time of plague. Christians out to tell others that they have found medicine for their souls, if they see them ignorant and dying for want of it." JC Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Mark - from Mark 4:21-25

No matter how hard this life gets, no matter what trials we face, those who have come to trust in the good news of Jesus Christ's death and resurrection have the sure hope of heaven that awaits them. This is the only real medicine for the soul because everything in this life will leave us empty in the end. Jobs, money and even earthly relationships will let us down. But to know that one day, we can stand face to face with the one who has purchased the blessing of eternal life, receiving bodies that never get sick and never die and to know that we can hope and trust in that day as a certain promise is news that can revive us in the midst of every struggle in this life.
Let us then listen and be aware of how and where we can administer this remedy to those around us. If I love those around me, sharing this medicine will be a demonstration of that love.