Resolve to Love God's Word

"I will keep your law continually, forever and ever,

and I shall walk in a wide place, for I have sought your precepts.

I will also speak of your testimonies before kings and shall not be put to shame,

for I find my delight in your commandments, WHICH I LOVE.

I will lift up my hands toward your commandments, WHICH I LOVE,

and I will meditate on your statutes."

Psalm 119:44-48 ESV

At the end of a year so many turn their thoughts toward establishing renewed habits of holiness, a resolve to pursue the reading of the word of God with fresh vigour and newfound zeal.  We have already been presented with a number of suggestions for the logistics of such a pursuit in the form of daily reading plans and devotional materials.  In my experience, establishing a structure for devoting oneself to the daily pursuit of God in His word is a good and essential step in the right direction, but it will only carry one so far.  Plans fail, life interrupts and distracts, and we quickly despair of our daily pursuit when we either find ourselves behind in our plan or reading long sections of scripture from which it is difficult to discern any immediate benefit.  How do we keep our resolve and continue to pursue God in His word when we seem to have so many more apparently relevant things we could be doing?

David gives us the key to this dilemma in this precious Psalm.  He repeats it over and over again throughout Psalm 119 and we would do well to listen.  David loved God's law.  The scripture was precious to him.  He found his delight in God's precepts and promises.  The statutes of God stirred his affections and stimulated his devotion.  Meditating on God's word was not just an empty ritual that he felt obligated to perform daily, but a rich and relevant rendezvous with the living God.  He was a grateful recipient of God's redemptive rules, and he LOVED hearing them and reading them and considering them and writing about them and pondering them and applying them!  We can be sure that he did not do it perfectly - he WAS a sinner after all - but the depths of affection that he expresses in this Psalm is real and relevant to our own pursuit of God.

If we do not LOVE the word of God we will find plenty of excuses not to READ the word of God.  As the year 2011 comes to a close, and you begin to consider ways to pursue God in 2012, take a good long look at Psalm 119 and let it wash over you.  Consider your own affections and see whether they are as specific and sincere as David's.  And ask God to GIVE you a love for His word that is deep and wide and passionate.  And read the word of God BECAUSE you love it, and because you love it's author and the One who is revealed there.  Read it because you want to know EVERYTHING you can about the God who has made such an effort to reveal Himself to you.

May the year 2012 be a year of renewed passion for the pursuit of God in His word! 

Good Friday–A Week Later

“Then they spit in His face and struck Him.  And some slapped Him, saying, ‘Prophesy to us, you Christ!  Who is it that struck you?’”  Matthew 26:67-68

Holy Week has always been a time of deep reflection for me.  Growing up in a liturgical setting – my family was deeply involved in the Episcopal Church as I was growing up – there were a lot of rich symbols and services to remind me each year of the reality of Jesus humanity in a way that only his suffering could.  Every Friday during Lent we were confronted with the stark evidence of Jesus’ frailty as a human.  He was beaten and mocked.  His body was bruised and lacerated.  His brow was pierced by many long thorns as the kingly crown was beaten down on His head.  And His hands and feet were impaled by nails that fastened Him to the wood of the cross.  If Jesus had not been entirely and completely human, none of these things would have been possible, and our salvation would have been an illusion.  I am grateful for the tradition that birthed in me the desire to contemplate the fact that God “emptied Himself”, as Paul declares in Philippians 2.

So this year during Holy Week I jumped forward in my exploration of the Gospel stories of Jesus and read the four gospel accounts of Jesus’ final hours.  As I got to this part of Matthew’s gospel, I was struck by the ferocity of anger in the words that were spoken.  “Prophesy to us, YOU CHRIST!”  It calls to mind those who profane the precious name of Jesus by using it as an expletive in crass conversation.  The irreverence of it is frightening – do they not fear God?

But then I was reminded of my often demanding heart toward God, the way that I often approach my Lord when things do not go the way I wanted them to.  The Jewish counsel had not come to Him to implore Him to act or to stir them up to worship Him, but merely to find some reason to accuse Him, to pin on Him the blame for something to which He was never party.  And this is what I find in my own heart.  When by my discontent I accuse Him of neglect, how am I any different from this mob of angry Jews?  When I demand in my heart that God act according to my expectations, am I not also saying, “Prophesy to me, YOU CHRIST!”  Complaining about God’s ways or His timing or His discipline is nothing more than a demand that God act according to our wishes.

Here Jesus is silent.  He does NOT prophesy in response to their taunting demands.  And though He often mercifully responds with comfort, God is often silent when we relate to Him in this way.  That is just.  How could we ever deserve in ourselves any other response from God?  We would do the same – silently ignore the unjust demands, or more likely lash out in disproportionate fury against the accuser.   But God is both just AND merciful, and there is no better proof of that than what we celebrate and remember on Good Friday.  The cross of Jesus Christ is the ultimate expression of both wrath and mercy – wrath poured out on Jesus, and mercy extended to us.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Be gone, Satan

I’ve been engaged in a study of the gospels.  My desire is to refresh my understanding of and relationship to my Saviour over the next year or so.  I’ve moved quickly through scripture over the last few years and I needed some time to slow down and savour the truths that have become perhaps too comfortable for me.

The inauguration of Jesus’ ministry to the people of Israel began with the enigmatic incident of His baptism by John in the Jordan river.  The Holy Spirit comes upon Jesus “like a dove”, and then drives Him into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan.  Presumably, the intention of this was to reenact the temptation of the first Adam and establish the worthiness of Christ to be an appropriate sinless substitute, the spotless “Lamb of God” who would take away the sins of the world.  The ultimate truth here is that Jesus wins, but there were two points about this “melee” with Satan that stood out to me as I considered it.

The first point was that, although Jesus and Satan both used scripture, they used very different parts of it.  When Satan realized that Jesus was fighting back with “it is written”, he tried to fight fire with fire.  But Satan drew his salvos from the Psalms, which, perhaps more than any other scripture, expose the inner struggles of man with God, whereas Jesus responded from the law itself, God’s direct commandments to His people.  Satan is not so foolish as to try to find a loophole in the law.  Instead he attempts to play on the perceived emotional weakness of mankind.  But Jesus shows him that He is not “mankind”, but a different kind of man, and the law is a sure and certain anchor for His soul.

The second point was that this first major melee with the enemy was a decisive victory for Jesus. 

Then Jesus said to him, ‘Be gone, Satan!  For it is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.”’ Matthew 4:10

Satan came at Jesus with all of his subtlety and deception.  However, the same temptations which overcame the first Adam had no effect on the second.  Adam found himself wanting something other than what God had promised.  Jesus had no ambition but His Father’s ambition.  He had no desires except His Father’s desires for Him.  He was so full of the word of God, and had such absolute confidence in it's veracity and sufficiency that His will never faltered.  It was a battle, certainly, but the outcome was never in question.  Jesus was entirely without sin, and He was absolutely determined to remain so.  So much was at stake.  He was not in the world to serve Himself, but for the glory of God and the redemption of a people!  So when Satan came and attempted to tempt Him to turn from His purpose, and take a course of action contrary to the Father’s call on His life, there was nothing else He could say but “BEGONE, SATAN!

I am inspired and deeply convicted by Jesus’ single-mindedness.  It is something that I find absent in my life, but that I pray for every day.  This is the theme of one of my favourite verses from the Psalms:

“Teach me your way, O LORD,
        that I may walk in your truth;
        unite my heart to fear your name.” Psalm 86:11 ESV

This world is filled with distractions – this was true even in the days when Jesus walked the earth.  As Jesus fought with the word of God to say “Be gone, Satan”, so must we if we are to pursue the single-minded firmness of purpose that always drove Jesus throughout His earthly life.  There is no greater call.

More Adventures in the Psalms

I read Psalm 54 today.  There are many psalms that I look forward to reading, that are familiar to me by number.  This Psalm was not one of them, so I was unaware of what to anticipate.  As I read through it, nothing really seemed to accentuate itself to me, so I decided to write it down.  The entire psalm.  Some where between “O God…” and “…in triumph on my enemies”, the psalm captured my attention and reminded me what prayer was all about.

Here it is:

O God, save me by your name,
        and vindicate me by your might.
O God, hear my prayer;
        give ear to the words of my mouth.
For strangers have risen against me;
        ruthless men seek my life;
        they do not set God before themselves.
Behold, God is my helper;
        the Lord is the upholder of my life.
He will return the evil to my enemies;
        in your faithfulness put an end to them.
With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to you;
        I will give thanks to your name, O LORD, for it is good.
For he has delivered me from every trouble,
        and my eye has looked in triumph on my enemies. (Psalm 54 ESV)

By the time I was done writing it down, I was captivated by the progression from despair and uncertainty to trust and thanksgiving.  Almost all of my daily prayer times are shaped like this.  We begin in bewilderment – we have no idea what the day holds.  We may even have carried over some of yesterday’s discomfort into the morning.  But as we purpose in our minds and hearts to turn our thoughts to God a remarkable transformation takes place. 

This psalm is a microcosm of the daily struggle of godly men and women to find their rest in the God who is.  We tend to myopically perceive our circumstances as too overwhelming, the obstacles before us as insurmountable, the sins that so easily entangle us as too powerful and insistent, and we are prone to despondency and despair.  But if we are believers in God who have trusted in Christ and His atoning sacrifice, He has provided a helper who is in us and is always with us.  The Holy Spirit causes us to cry out to God, in the same way this psalmist did so many years ago, and not turn in on ourselves.  And here is where the transformation of our perception begins.  We tell God about our circumstances and acknowledge to Him that we have no power in ourselves to change them - or ourselves in the midst of them.  The Spirit uses this  to awaken in us the remembrance of WHO GOD IS and what He in His grace has promised.  HE is our helper.  We are not left to fend for ourselves in the barren wasteland of this corrupted world.  He will deal with all that stands against us.  Our part is to be faithful to give Him the worship He alone deserves, to give our selves to Him wholeheartedly, to thank Him for His deliverance – which is ever present whether we perceive it or not – and to declare this deliverance wherever we go and to whomever we encounter.

So a day that began with “O God, save me!” ends with “He has delivered me from EVERY trouble…”  A day that began in fear and uncertainty ends in peace and contentment, and with confidence in God’s ability to cover every situation with grace. 

Many are the Afflictions…

The psalms are full of opportunities to experience the complexities of being in relationship with the “infinite personal” God.  I have read through the book of Psalms many, many times and I still find myself marveling at the vastness of experience that a very small number of human persons have written about within them.  If one would slow down and consider carefully each expression of relationship one finds, what richness would be found there!

Here is one of my experiences with the Psalms.  I was reading Psalm 34 a short time ago and I came across this verse:

“Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” Psalm 34;19

I am in the habit of sharing a scripture as my status on Facebook, and this day I set this particular verse as my status.  After having explored it a bit in my journal, I was curious about what comments I might receive, so I encouraged those who might come across this verse to comment.  The first comment I received was “I’m not in favour of having many afflictions.”  I could not have asked for a better opener, because that is the sentiment that seems most logical, most human.  But in fact, it misses the point of this verse – in fact, of the whole book of Psalms.  The key is in the second part of the verse, but we almost always miss it because we are too busy trying to avoid, evade or deny afflictions.  Experiencing the deliverance of God out can make even the most severe affliction bearable, even an occasion for joy and celebration.  How can we experience deliverance if we have never faced affliction?

If the result of affliction is a deeper understanding of God’s kind disposition toward unworthy sinners, a more profound experience of His sustaining grace, a more intimate encounter with the Living God, then we who love God and are pursuing Him should welcome affliction.  I don’t mean we should actively seek out affliction, try to make it happen in our lives, cause our own difficulties and heartache, intentionally put ourselves in the way of affliction.  But I do mean that we should set our minds to see afflictions that we encounter or experience as an expression of God’s abundant and omnipotent care for us.  Our “infinite personal” God is also infinitely loving, and He knows better how to care for us than we ourselves know.  When these occasions of affliction come, we can look for His deliverance and encounter His love – and love is always a good thing!

Why We Adopt – Part Two

This past week was an emotional whirlwind with a very important adoption-related event right in the middle.  We received word on Wednesday afternoon, January 26th, 2011, that we had our “matching approval”.  Someone in Hong Kong had finally ruled that Man Yu Chen of Hong Kong would soon become our youngest son.  The months of uneasy confidence and trembling faith had given way to certainty.  Something concrete had finally happened.

When we adopted Eliot, we completed all the paperwork up front and sent the “dossier” – all the information intended to convince the government of Guatemala that Thom and Jill Inglin were the best choice for taking over the parenthood of one of their orphans – to Guatemala BEFORE we even set our eyes upon him.  In fact, he had not even been born.  We sent our paperwork knowing that we would eventually have a son, but with no idea who it would be.  We were fortunate – blessed, in fact – to receive a “referral” in a very short time.  We are convinced that God made our process with Eliot’s adoption nearly effortless so that we would not shrink from doing it a second time.

In Hong Kong, all of the children are considered “waiting children” – children who for whatever reason are no longer in the care of their birth parents.  Most if not all of these children have some sort of physical, medical or mental “imperfection” that in many cases makes it difficult to find adoptive parents for them.  Thus their classification as “waiting children”.  This is one of the things that made this second adoption different – we have gone through the “paperwork stage” of the adoption process with an actual picture of a real little boy before our eyes.  It has made it seem longer and more emotionally taxing than our previous adoption.  Moreover, this little boy is older and more aware than Eliot was.  Every day that went by was a day that WE were not holding our son, WE were not caring for his needs, WE were not reading him stories and playing games with him.  Every day was a day that this little boy, who through a face in a photograph had become an object of our affection, was unaware that he NEEDED a family and that he HAD a family that already loved him.

Which in a way brings me to the explanation of what I asserted to be the second reason why people adopt.  There are SO MANY MORE children who are waiting than this one to whom our family has been drawn.  And the gospel of Jesus Christ has a tendency to act on people in such a way that causes them to look beyond themselves to care for others, whether they be widows or orphans or your next door neighbor who is battling cancer or the family member whose marriage is falling apart or the guy on the street who just lost his job and his home and doesn’t know where his next meal is coming from.  ONE orphan is one too many.  1,000 orphans is an epidemic.  There are a number of estimates of how many orphans there are in the world, and it is difficult if not impossible to determine which statistic is the accurate one.  BUT, I submit it is safe to say that whether there is one, or one thousand, or one million, or 147 million, there are TOO MANY ORPHANS in the world for ANY of us to turn a blind or indifferent eye.  Thank God for the people who are willing to welcome these least into their lives and families – I know personally that it is only God’s grace that provokes such empathy and compassion.  And this is true whether adoption is impelled by the gospel or by some other motivation.  The compassionate grace of God must be behind it no matter what.  Only God loves like that.

So through this process of adopting a little boy who has been “waiting” our family has not only fallen in love with Man Yu Chen - “Peter Inglin” – but we have fallen in love with adoption.  For when we were unaware of our orphaned state, God adopted us and welcomed us into HIS family.  And through being part of our family, Peter will have an opportunity to become part of God’s family.  And there is nothing that compares with that!

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’”
(Galatians 4:4-6 ESV)

Why We Adopt – Part One

I just re-read my second blog post from April and realized that I promised to elucidate our reasons for adopting.  As we have explored the world of adoption, from inside and out, I’ve come to see that there are two primary reasons that people adopt.  There are many sub-categories below these two main reasons, and there may not always be a hard line of division between them, but most if not all of them fall into these two categories:

1.  Growing a family.

2. Caring for orphans.

It has been walking through this process of adopting a little boy with Down Syndrome that has brought this to light.  When we adopted Eliot, our reasons were much more oriented to reason one.  We desired to have a son.  We had raised two daughters and were beginning to think we were in the home stretch.  God had a wonderful surprise for us, and we are every day more delighted to have added Eliot to our family.

I must say that the gospel was at the center of WHO we chose to adopt, but not so much in the center of WHY we adopted.  This is not necessarily a bad thing.  We wanted to adopt cross-culturally because we wanted it to be very clear that our son was not ethnically identical to us.  This reason was gospel-centered because of the conversations about how adoption relates to the gospel that having an obviously adopted son would provoke.  But the reason we adopted in the first place was because we wanted a son – plain and simple.

One of the things I have thought about, and I will elaborate on this in part two, is that Eliot was not an orphan in the same sense that Peter is.  What I mean is that Eliot was not an abandoned or unwanted child in the same way that Peter is.  And this is one of the things that sets the reasons for adoption apart from one another.  Adoption and orphan care are related but not identical.  They are intertwined but not inseparable.  Adopting Peter, though it certainly is much more than simply caring for an orphan who needs a home, leans more in that direction because of the nature of his state of abandonment.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Stay tuned for part two.

He has Visited and Redeemed - NOW

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people…
that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.”
Luke 1:68;74-75 ESV

We so easily overlook stunning truths in our zeal to devour more of the word of God.  I love these times when God SLOWS ME DOWN and causes me to look more closely and intimately at what He has promised, and how that relates to what He is doing and has done.

There are number of remarkable things about this passage.  For one, the present tense is breathtaking.  John is just born, Mary is likely still 3 months away from giving birth to Jesus.  And yet, in a very real sense, He HAS visited His people.  Furthermore, Jesus is 33 years from the atoning act that would be the final source of our redemption, but He HAS redeemed His people.  Not just then and there.  Not just when the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary and caused the Holy Son to be conceived in her.  Not when the prophets announced again and again God’s intention to atone for the transgressions of His people, whether Jew or Gentile.  Not when God promised that the head of the serpent would be crushed and He shed the blood of animals to cover the nakedness of His disobedient children before He drove them out of Eden.  No, God HAS visited and redeemed His people from eternity past, before His word created a single atom that would become the matter of this world.  He CREATED with the intention of visiting and redeeming His people.

This present tense declaration of God’s salvation is everywhere in the scriptures.  One of the most meaningful for me is Psalm 65:3 - “When iniquities prevail against me, You atone for our transgressions.”  Do you see it there?  At the very moment when my sins are getting the better of me, God HIMSELF is right there with His redeeming visitation.  I need this every day, because every day I sin.  I need this every day, because every day I forget the reality and the GOODness of His visitation.

But why?  Why would THE Holy God choose to visit and redeem such a rebellious and useless bunch of ingrates?  Wretches, apostates, murderers and blasphemers, liars and thieves.  The best of us have fallen infinitely and irreversibly short of God’s perfect standard for His people.  Why bother?  Zechariah gives us a hint here in his profound prophetic declaration.  We’ve been delivered from the hand of our enemies to serve God’s purpose “without fear” – not out of duty or necessity, but out of the gratefulness of a heart that has been made holy and righteous by His redeeming sacrifice.  Because serving Him means being before Him, and not away from Him, ALL OUR DAYS – now and throughout all eternity!  What a joyful place to live!

How shall I know this?

"And Zechariah said to the angel, 'How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.'" (Luke 1:18 ESV)

"They take a narrow and disparaging view of the works of God, who believe that He will do no more than nature holds out to be probable, as His hand were limited to our senses or confined to earthly means. But it belongs to FAITH to believe that more can be done than carnal reason admits." John Calvin

As a new year begins, this is exactly the challenge that God has levelled to me: Will my faith waver and will doubt crush my confidence in Him when I cannot reason through the MEANS that He will use to complete His purposes? Will I trust in God when reason and nature fails, seeing that He is the author of and stands above both reason AND nature? "How shall I know this?" For we have no savings and do not make enough money to cover the cost of adoption over and above our monthly expenses. So goes my unbelief.

But God!

God has taken the last 4 months to dash to pieces any pretense of provision that I may have imagined that was not based in faith. We needed $6000 in 4 months to pay our agency fees - God provided nearly $7000! And He did it with nickles and dimes, with widows mites and coin jars - not the big flashy grants that we expected were going to be the foundation of our adoption funding. He did it the way He wanted to do it, not the way we thought it should or could be done. He turned our expectations on thier heads - and He taught us something about ourselves and about faith.

Calvin later goes on to point out that while Zechariah is struck dumb as a result of his unbelief, God does not withhold His promise. He fulfills the purpose in spite of the unbelief of the recipient of the promise. This is our gracious God. I am certain that the love that Zechariah had for his God was deepened by his experience of grace. I know this because that is how I have been affected by grace.

We have not been visited by the angel Gabriel who stands in the presence of God. But we have been visited by a conviction that God has equipped us with love and patience and a comfortable home - and a conviction that there are too many orphans in the world to let the rich resources of an affluent culture be squandered on leisure and inactivity. The directive to spend and be spent for the sake of the gospel daily rings in our ears. God's word has spoken clearly that caring for "the least of these" equals caring for Christ, and these blessings have been provided as a means to do so. So we trust that beyond reason and nature God will continue to provide what we need to rescue and nurture these little ones who are in need.