MANNA DOESN’T KEEP

In Exodus, when the children of Israel gather up the manna, the “bread from heaven,” Moses cautions them not to gather too much. They are to gather only as much as they need for that day, confident that tomorrow God would provide for them again. Predictably, the people ignored Moses. They gathered more than they needed, then stashed the rest for another day. But the manna resisted that. If you tried to possess more than you needed for that day, it turned rotten. Manna doesn’t keep.

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.” Jesus isn’t offering to give us bread; he is offering to be our bread, to be to us what bread is: the sustainer of life. But just as the Israelites could not hoard a lifetime supply of the bread from heaven, so we cannot hoard a lifetime supply of the bread of life.

Some of us are still trying to live on the strength of a religious awakening that happened when we were teenagers, or a Bible study class we took years ago. But manna doesn’t keep. The Israelites couldn’t live off yesterday’s stored-up manna, and we cannot live off yesterday’s stored-up religion. We need to replenish our supply every day.—Lou Lotz, Words of Hope Devotional, March 10, 2009

ATHEISM MAKES PERFECT SENSE

SEEKING AFTER GOD

John Calvin nails the wrong way to seek after God. Was this what the author of The Shack was doing?

Mingled vanity and pride appear in this, than when miserable men do seek after God, instead of ascending higher than themselves as they ought to do, they measure him by their own carnal stupidity, and neglecting solid inquiry, fly off to indulge their curiosity in vain speculation. Hence, they do not conceive of him in the character in which he is manifested, but imagine him to be whatever their own rashness has devised. This abyss standing open, they cannot move one footstep without rushing headlong to destruction. With such an idea of God, nothing which they may attempt to offer in the way of worship or obedience can have any value in his sight, because it is not him they worship, but, instead of him the dream and figment of their own heart. This corrupt procedure is admirably described by Paul, when he says that “thinking to be wise they became fools” (Rom 1:22).

- John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion; Book 1, Chapter 4, Section 1 (Peabody, Ma: Hendrickson 2008), 12.

THE VALUE OF BOOKS

Being a lover of books, I especially appreciated this quote, compliments of Reformed Renegade:

A poor pedlar came to the door…and my father bought of him Sibb’s Bruised Reed…It suited my state…and gave me a livelier apprehension of the mystery of redemption and how much I was beholden to Jesus Christ…Without any means but books was God pleased to resolve me to himself. – Richard Baxter (emphasis mine.)

A GREAT POST FROM PASTOR CHRIS BRAUNS

Open Our Eyes That We May Behold Wonderful Things in Your Word

Published by Chris on January 26, 2009

Do you realize that we cannot understand and apply the Word of God on our own? If we simply read the Bible and try and apply it by means of our own insight and intellect, we are destined to fail. The only way we can truly comprehend the Scriptures is through the help of the Holy Spirit. This is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2.

The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned (1 Co 2:14).”

We need the Holy Spirit to illuminate the meaning of the Scriptures – - to light it up and show us how it applies to our lives.

That being the case, one of the most important things we can do when reading the Bible and hearing the Word preached is pray and ask the Holy Spirit to graciously light up the truth so that we can see its significance for how we should think and live.

We should pray, Psalm 119:18, “Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.”

So, here is what you do. Go home and get out your Bible. Open it up the Gospel of John or James or a chapter of Proverbs, or wherever God might lead you. And, then, before you read, pray this prayer. God, open my eyes so that I might see wonderful things in your Word.

Here is what you do. When you sit in church next Sunday and get ready to here the Word preached, pray and ask the Holy Spirit to open your eyes so that you can see wonderful things in the Word. We need the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit.

The Pulpit

The pulpit, therefore, (and I name it filled
with solemn awe, that bids me well beware
with what intent I touch that holy thing;)
the pulpit (when the satirist has at last,
strutting and vaporing in an empty school,
spent all his force, and made no proselyte;)
I say the pulpit (in the sober use
of its legitimate, peculiar powers)
must stand acknowledged, while the world shall stand,
the most important and effectual guard,
support, and ornament of virtue’s cause.
There stands the messenger of truth. There stands
the legate of the skies; his theme divine,
his office sacred, his credentials clear.
By him, the violated law speaks out
its thunders, and by him, in strains as sweet
as angels use, the gospel whispers peace.
He ’stablishes the strong, restores the weak,
reclaims the wanderer, binds the broken heart,
and, armed himself in panoply complete
of heavenly temper, furnishes with arms
bright as his own, and trains, by every rule
of holy discipline, to glorious war,
the sacramental host of God’s elect.

William Cowper, 1731-1800.

HT: Christ Is Deeper Still

George Whitefield and Naps In Church

This approach may not be directly transferable to our day and context, but I think more men would do well to have Whitefield’s chutzpah:

He [Whitefield] had complete confidence in the authority of his message, and was determined that it should receive the respect it deserved as God’s Word. Once in a New Jersey meeting-house he “noticed an old man settling down for his accustomed, sermon-time nap”, writes John Pollock, one of his biographers. Whitefield began his sermon quietly, without disturbing the gentleman’s slumbers. But then “in measured, deliberate words” he said:

“If I had come to speak to you in my own name, you might rest your elbows upon your knees and your heads on your hands, and go to sleep!…But I have come to you in the name of the Lord God of hosts, and (he clapped his hands and stamped his foot) I must and I will be heard.” The old man woke up startled.

(John Stott, Between Two Worlds, 32-33)

HT: The Fool’s Gold

After the Election…

“We are people that know politics is important, but not ultimate. We know that politics has its place, an urgent and important place where, in the City of Man, decisions are made that can make the difference between life and death, injustice and justice, mercy and no mercy, commonweal or common disaster.

But we also know that there is in this world at its very best only a hint of the kingdom that is to come, where God’s reign is supreme.

No government will ever be able to say, ‘Every tear has been wiped away.’ No government will ever be able to say, ‘The blind have received sight and the deaf have received hearing and the lame now walk.’…That power is God’s alone.”

—Albert Mohler, “After the Election”

HT: Of First Importance

The Man Upstairs????

By Philip@ReformedVoices

“Worship… rises or falls with our concept of God; that is why I do not believe in these half-converted cowboys who call God the Man Upstairs. I do not think they worship at all because their concept of God is unworthy of God and unworthy of them. And if there is one terrible disease in the Church of Christ, it is that we do not see God as great as He is. We’re too familiar with God.” -A.W. Tozer

HT: Reformed Voices

A Conquest By the Most High God

“Salvation is from our side a choice; from the divine side it is a seizing upon, an apprehending, a conquest by the Most High God. Our ‘accepting’ and ‘willing’ are reactions rather than actions. The right of determination must always remain with God.”
-A.W. Tozer from The Divine Conquest