Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Forgiveness and MacDonald
Recently, I was privileged to hear a powerful message on forgiveness from the pastor of Harvest Bible Fellowship out Chicago. In his sermon, Dr. James MacDonald states that "my capacity for forgiveness is directly related to my comprehension of how much God loves me. When my concept is very small, my capacity to love others is very small as well." As I prepare to teach Ephesians 2:11-22 this week, the concept of remembering just what I was saved and forgiven from draws me to press into Christ and forgive others more freely, even when I don't have their understanding or acknowledgement of my hurt. The blog post touching on the points regarding MacDonald's message is here . Enjoy!
Sunday, September 26, 2010
How would I respond?
A man by the name of George Mueller helped start orphanages and inspired the faith of thousands. I was recently encouraged to read from his diary and in July of 1853, Lydia Mueller, his only daughter, was struck with typhoid and it looked pretty certain that she was going to die. They began to gather around her and pray and ask for her soul and her life, and she was miraculously healed by God. Mueller, ecstatic over the healing of his child writes in his journal about it, and here is what he wrote:
“While I was in this affliction, besides being at peace so far as the Lord’s will was concerned, I also felt perfectly at peace with regard to the cause of the affliction.”
I don’t read him saying, “Woo hoo! Alright, my daughter is ill to the point of death!” Because that is not what he is saying at all. Instead, this is, “My heart is killing me, but I trust you God.” I wanted to be careful as I read this, because I didn't want to read it wrong. There were no “fireworks” in this journal entry. Mueller is not excited by the near death of his child, but continues, “Once on a former occasion, the hand of the Lord was heavily laid on me and my family, and I had not the least hesitation in knowing that it was the Father’s rod applied in infinite wisdom and love for the restoration of my soul from the state of lukewarmness.” Now, what he is saying is that, not at this time with his daughter, but at other times he has felt the
discipline of God, and that discipline has saved him from becoming stagnant in his faith. God whipped him, however He did it, through difficulty, hardship, pain or whatever, to save him from stagnant, lukewarm faith. “Now, at this time however, with my daughter, I have no such feeling, conscious as I am of the manifold weaknesses, failings, and shortcomings of my life, I am ready to say with the apostle Paul, ‘O wretched man that I am!’” So here, Mueller is affirming: “I am in great pain through this. I have peace, but I am not enjoying this.” What does he say next?
“Parents know what an only child, a beloved child is, and what to believing parents an only child, a believing child must be. Well, the Father in Heaven said, as it were, by this His dispensation, ‘Art thou willing to give up this child to me?’ My heart responded, As it seems good to Thee, my Heavenly Father. Thy will be done. But as our hearts were made willing to give back our beloved child to Him who had given her to us, so He was ready to leave her to us, and she lived. ‘Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.’ The desires of my heart were, to retain the beloved daughter if it were the will of God; the means to retain her were to be satisfied with the will of the Lord. Of all the trials of faith that as yet I have had to pass through, this was the greatest; and by God's abundant mercy, I own it to His praise, I was enabled to delight myself in the will of God; for I felt perfectly sure, that, if the Lord took this beloved daughter, it would be best for her parents, best for herself, and more for the glory of God than if she lived: this better part I was satisfied with; and thus my heart had peace, perfect peace, and I had not a moment's anxiety.”
Matt Chandler, a noted pastor said this about the same passage: "There is something spectacular about the love of Jesus Christ that in its fullness a man would say, “Your will be done, even if it’s my daughter’s life. You are so much better and so much more beautiful and so much more spectacular that, if that be your will, then so be it.”
I fight cynicism and being overly critical. having experienced great loss on both sides of my family and gone through personal storms, I found myself reading this and immediately desiring to say, “Yes, you can write it because she lived. You can etch that into your journal, because she lived. But what if she would have died? Would you be so confident in the will and might of God if she died?”
I kept reading intrigued by the ability to snoop into another's soul. On February 6, 1870, George Mueller’s wife Mary died of the same fever his from which his daughter had been healed. They had been married 39 years, and she was 64 years old. Mueller preached his wife's funeral and the text that he preached from at her funeral has three simple points. He chose Psalm 119:68, which says, “You are good, and you do good.” And here were his three points:
1. The Lord was good and did good in giving her to me.
2. The Lord was good and did good in so leaving her with me.
3. The Lord was good and did good in taking her from me.
Hardship and difficulty and pain for good. I love my wife and she brings me such great joy that I didn't even know was possible outside of Christ! I love my daughter and her smile makes my heart dance! We have another child on the way that I cannot wait to meet and love on in person. So, sitting here working my last weekend of 3rd shift, in the quietness of the medical records office, I ask, "Would I respond this way?" Lord, let it be so.
“While I was in this affliction, besides being at peace so far as the Lord’s will was concerned, I also felt perfectly at peace with regard to the cause of the affliction.”
I don’t read him saying, “Woo hoo! Alright, my daughter is ill to the point of death!” Because that is not what he is saying at all. Instead, this is, “My heart is killing me, but I trust you God.” I wanted to be careful as I read this, because I didn't want to read it wrong. There were no “fireworks” in this journal entry. Mueller is not excited by the near death of his child, but continues, “Once on a former occasion, the hand of the Lord was heavily laid on me and my family, and I had not the least hesitation in knowing that it was the Father’s rod applied in infinite wisdom and love for the restoration of my soul from the state of lukewarmness.” Now, what he is saying is that, not at this time with his daughter, but at other times he has felt the
discipline of God, and that discipline has saved him from becoming stagnant in his faith. God whipped him, however He did it, through difficulty, hardship, pain or whatever, to save him from stagnant, lukewarm faith. “Now, at this time however, with my daughter, I have no such feeling, conscious as I am of the manifold weaknesses, failings, and shortcomings of my life, I am ready to say with the apostle Paul, ‘O wretched man that I am!’” So here, Mueller is affirming: “I am in great pain through this. I have peace, but I am not enjoying this.” What does he say next?
“Parents know what an only child, a beloved child is, and what to believing parents an only child, a believing child must be. Well, the Father in Heaven said, as it were, by this His dispensation, ‘Art thou willing to give up this child to me?’ My heart responded, As it seems good to Thee, my Heavenly Father. Thy will be done. But as our hearts were made willing to give back our beloved child to Him who had given her to us, so He was ready to leave her to us, and she lived. ‘Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.’ The desires of my heart were, to retain the beloved daughter if it were the will of God; the means to retain her were to be satisfied with the will of the Lord. Of all the trials of faith that as yet I have had to pass through, this was the greatest; and by God's abundant mercy, I own it to His praise, I was enabled to delight myself in the will of God; for I felt perfectly sure, that, if the Lord took this beloved daughter, it would be best for her parents, best for herself, and more for the glory of God than if she lived: this better part I was satisfied with; and thus my heart had peace, perfect peace, and I had not a moment's anxiety.”
Matt Chandler, a noted pastor said this about the same passage: "There is something spectacular about the love of Jesus Christ that in its fullness a man would say, “Your will be done, even if it’s my daughter’s life. You are so much better and so much more beautiful and so much more spectacular that, if that be your will, then so be it.”
I fight cynicism and being overly critical. having experienced great loss on both sides of my family and gone through personal storms, I found myself reading this and immediately desiring to say, “Yes, you can write it because she lived. You can etch that into your journal, because she lived. But what if she would have died? Would you be so confident in the will and might of God if she died?”
I kept reading intrigued by the ability to snoop into another's soul. On February 6, 1870, George Mueller’s wife Mary died of the same fever his from which his daughter had been healed. They had been married 39 years, and she was 64 years old. Mueller preached his wife's funeral and the text that he preached from at her funeral has three simple points. He chose Psalm 119:68, which says, “You are good, and you do good.” And here were his three points:
1. The Lord was good and did good in giving her to me.
2. The Lord was good and did good in so leaving her with me.
3. The Lord was good and did good in taking her from me.
Hardship and difficulty and pain for good. I love my wife and she brings me such great joy that I didn't even know was possible outside of Christ! I love my daughter and her smile makes my heart dance! We have another child on the way that I cannot wait to meet and love on in person. So, sitting here working my last weekend of 3rd shift, in the quietness of the medical records office, I ask, "Would I respond this way?" Lord, let it be so.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Letting Go
In my Biblical Counseling class, we keep coming back to the differences between traditional Biblical counseling and traditional psychology. Sigmund Freud taught that it was combination of our genetics and our environment that we were raised in that make us who we are today. Our professor continues to point us to Isaiah 43:18-19 which states, "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland." As we discuss the meaning of this verse, our professor keeps pointing out that while our genetics do contribute to who we are, as believers in Jesus Christ, we find our identity in who we are today in Christ, not who we were in our sins. So, even when we desire to think back on some of the tragic things that we have done, or even those that were done to us, we remind ourselves of what Christ has done for us and we move on in that. Man, do I ever need to hear that and remind myself of this daily! So...look forward, forget the things of the past, and run towards Him in what he has done for you and will do for you in the future. He is doing new and wonderful things before us!
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