Our Suitable Portion

 

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

—Psalm 73:26

I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.”

—Lamentations 3:24

 

I may lose, and lose, and lose—people, place, position, possessions, but not my portion. Sadly, we do tend to take our comfort, our joy, our stability, our sense of well-being and balance from these things.

Back in 1967, a psychological study produced an instrument originally called “The Social Readjustment Rating Scale,” but now commonly known as the “Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory” ¹ identified the top ten stressors found in this research. The list included:

• death of spouse
  
  
• divorce
  
  
• separation
  
  
• jail
  
  
• death of close relative
  
  
• injury or illness
  
  
• marriage
  
  
• being fired from job
  
  
• marriage reconciliation
  
  
• retirement
  
  

Personally, I would tend to add “moving to a new city.” And, from the experience of many Christians, I would also add “strife within the church.”

The human race has never been without stress. Can you imagine how stressed Adam and Eve must have been when God sent them out from the Garden of Eden, their home, into a “big, bad world” they had never known, with sin and death and pain? Stress and loss pretty much sum up the human condition under the rule of Adam’s sin.

The Psalm which inspired Martin Luther to write the hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” speaks the following, as found in Psalm 46:1-3:

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.”

Sometimes we feel like the “earth is giving way.” Everything we have relied on, or everything that helped our sense of stability, can be taken from us. Why does God allow this to happen? I would assert that God uses such losses to drive us to Him, alone. He wants to be our sole portion. He wants to be that uopn which we feed, that which gives us nourishment, and that which delights us.

In the 17th century, Puritan writer Thomas Brooks wrote: ²

Our God is a suitable portion. No object is as suitable to the heart as he is. He is a portion that is exactly suited to the condition of the soul in its desires, needs, wants, longings, and prayers.

Think how awesome is the banquet of God’s love and provision. He who fed the Israelites in the wilderness for forty years on manna can feed us with everything we need. Yes, the manna gave these people a temporary provision while they waited to taste the full bounty of the Promised Land, but God gave them enough to meet their needs, as recorded in Exodus 16:12:

“You will be filled with bread.”

The Apostle Paul writes of contentment in Philippians 4:12b:

“I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”

From this we can see our need to learn contentment and rejoice in the portion God gives us.

Whether your portion today is a wafer of manna, or a feast of the finest foods, praise God that He is your portion, and that He surely is enough.

______________________

1 Holmes, Thomas H. and Rahe, Richard H. “The Social Readjustment Rating Scale.” Journal of Psychosomatic Research, Volume 11, Issue 2, pp. 213-218, 1967.

2 Quotation from the Works of Thomas Brooks, 11:27-28—the entry for 22 February as quoted in Rushing, Richard, editor.Voices from the Past. Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 2009, p. 33.

Please note that, in each case, whenever a citation of any Copyrighted material is made within a post on this blog, such a citation is made strictly for Educational Fair Use illustration purposes only. All Rights Reserved by the original Copyright Holder.

 

 

Uncharted

 

“Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before.”

—Joshua 3:4

Joshua had become the new leader of the Israelite nation, overseeing approximately two million people. Although he had served as Moses’ aide for 40 years, Joshua nevertheless faced many new challenges. No longer did he have to maintain the pattern that these people had followed for all these years of traveling in the desert. He now received from God the directive to move them from their wanderings in the wilderness into the Promised Land. Joshua, sensing the hand of Almighty God upon him for this task, listened carefully to God’s instructions, obeyed the preparations given, and trusted God to lead him and his people along the pathway that God Himself had provided.

The first challenge facing this new leader came on the morning that the whole company set out. He arose early and went to the edge of the Jordan River where he instructed the entire population to camp for three days. We don’t know what they did during those three days, but we can imagine that the leaders prepared themselves and the people with much prayer and waited for God to reveal His miraculous hand upon them.

Following those three days, the leaders gave all the people the instructions for moving forward. They were told to follow their spiritual leaders, the priests and Levites, who were carrying the Ark of the Covenant—God’s sign that He lived among them. This command was followed with the words, recorded in the Book of Joshua 3:4:

Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before.

Next, Joshua asked the people to consecrate themselves in preparation for God doing amazing things for them.

If we study the story, we know that they crossed the Jordan River on dry ground into the land promised to them—a miraculous phenomenon not unlike the crossing of the Red Sea at the beginning of their journey, now so many years ago. They had never been this way before, but neither had Joshua their leader. God had astounding reasons for the way that He had led these people. Instead of traveling on the western side of the Jordan River, as other travelers would do, God led them to the place of impossibility. Yet, God exposed His purpose in Joshua 4:24:

He [God] did this so that all the people of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.

But, what about today? In these uncharted days for America, our spiritual leaders, like Joshua, have never led their people into a place like this. Nor have we, as a people, ever been here before, either. We can decide to criticize and worry over what we should do, or we can do those same things that the Israelites were instructed to do.

Namely, we can spend a time of waiting and pray to God for His direction. In those prayers, we should lift up our spiritual leaders, asking God to direct them toward the specific things they need to do. Secondly, we should follow the suggestions, instructions, and guidance of our spiritual leaders. Then, we should move forward in faith, knowing God will lead us, in order to accomplish the purpose of showing those around us, and the whole world, our Mighty God, His majesty, and His overwhelming power. He desires that the whole world come to search for Him and fear Him. God has said, as recorded in Isaiah 45:22-24:

Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear. They will say of me, “In the Lord alone are righteousness and strength.”

 

 

Bridging the Gaps of Life

 

“Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.”

—Psalm 68:19

“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

—Galatians 6:2

Did you ever stop to think what your life would be like without bridges? People who live near rivers, or even swamp land, would have a nearly impossible time getting to work or reaching common shopping areas without bridges. We can all be grateful for the continual burdens that bridges carry to allow us ease in our daily lives.

Have you ever become a bridge for another person? As such, you became that one’s help in crossing one of life’s gaps, or in traversing a tough spot in life, or in helping someone to move on to the other side of a difficulty.

In considering the subject of bridges, I can’t help but think of Paul Simon’s lyrics from 1969: ¹

When you’re weary, feeling small
When tears are in your eyes, I’ll dry them all
I’m on your side, oh, when times get rough
And friends just can’t be found
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.

Certainly, if people who likely lack an eye to pleasing our Savior can think that way about their friends, how much more should we act as willing bridges for those who need us to help carry them over the gaps to wholeness? After all, we have the example of a God who bears us through this life, and of a Savior who bridged the gap on the cross for our sins.

Sometimes, it even becomes necessary to act as an old-fashioned covered bridge for others: protecting them from the fierce winds of adversity, or from the cruel and bitter sting of sin and shame. Such people need the hospitality and healing of a safe and guarded way to bridge the gap. And, God calls us, from time to time, to offer this solace to His hurting children.

Jesus told us, as recorded in John 15:13:

“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

The next time we drive over an expansive bridge, or stop to view a covered bridge, we should remind ourselves that, just as we sometimes need bridges to arrive at our next destination, so Christ may have need for each one of us to become a bridge to help span the gap for someone else on his or her journey through life!

______________________

1 Simon, Paul. “Bridge Over Troubled Waters.” New York: Sony Music Publishing, 1969.

Please note that, in each case, whenever a citation of any Copyrighted material is made within a post on this blog, such a citation is made strictly for Educational Fair Use illustration purposes only. All Rights Reserved by the original Copyright Holder.

 

 

Sleeping in Church

 

“Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God … If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief.”

—Revelation 3:2, 3

I can remember my father and other farmers who sometimes fell asleep during church services. Most people excused such behavior because these men had arisen at 5:00 a.m. and spent hours milking cows and doing other necessary chores before they rushed in, changed their clothes, and headed out the doors of their homes on the Lord’s Day.

How do you think our God reacts to see His people not only sleeping in church, but unconsciously living each day in a kind of “sleep walk”? What might God have to say to those “sleep walkers”?

The Apostle John wrote the Book of Revelation under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and warned seven prominent churches of deadly habits that would keep God from using them. Most of those churches were pretty useless for the purposes He had created them. In the case of the church at Sardis, He stated that they had a wonderful reputation of wakefulness, of life, and of vigor.

However, like the farmers in my illustration, the Sardis Christians had fallen asleep and displayed only dead works. They were seemingly asleep to what God wanted to do with them. They needed a reawakening.

This letter from John should have stirred them back to their call to effectiveness. John urged them to strengthen what remained of their glorious past and to stop slipping ever closer to a deadly permanent sleep.

I like what the Puritan, William Gurnall, wrote about this condition: ¹

The Christian is seldom worsted by his enemy unless he is negligent in his spiritual business and the enemy is upon him before he is thoroughly awake to draw his sword. The saint’s sleeping time is Satan’s tempting time …

Sampson was asleep, and Delilah cut his locks. Saul was asleep, and his spear was taken from his side. Noah was asleep, and his graceless son had opportunity to discover his father’s nakedness. Eutychus was asleep, and he fell from the third loft.

The Christian asleep in security may soon be surprised and lose much of his spiritual strength …

Sleep creeps upon the soul as it does on the body. Take heed that you do not indulge yourself in a lazy distemper, but stir up yourself to action, and stand up.

We get so comfortable that sleep comes easily. Yet, the “thief” is upon us. We need the wakeful, vigilant pose of Christians ready to act on behalf of the Savior in this world. God help us all, as we humbly pray:

Lord, Your church appears asleep, or at best, very drowsy. We have allowed our eyelids to get heavy, rather than standing tall to move at Your command.

Send us watchmen to warn us. Sound “Reveille” and reawaken Your church. Alert us to dangers that have intruded into our bed chambers and wait to kill us in our sleep.

Stir us up. As You awoke our churches in times past, come again and reawaken Your people for Your glory, through the power of Christ our Lord. Amen.

______________________

1 Gurnall, William (author) and Richard Rushing (editor). Voices from the Past: Puritan Devotional Reading. Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2009. p. 358.

Please note that, in each case, whenever a citation of any Copyrighted material is made within a post on this blog, such a citation is made strictly for Educational Fair Use illustration purposes only. All Rights Reserved by the original Copyright Holder.

 

 

The Hide-Out

 

He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

—Psalm 91:1 NKJ

As a child I always cast jealous eyes on other children’s playhouses or clubhouses. In fact, I remember my sister and I studying one of the chicken brooder houses on our farm to see if we might “remodel” it. Inside the farmhouse, we often made tents out of laundry racks and blankets. Under the warm light of a flashlight, we tucked ourselves away in our safe fantasy place.

Other secret places captivated me, too. I remember seeing movies of houses with bookcases that turned and revealed either a secret passage or a little room. When I read the autobiography of Corrie TenBoom, The Hiding Place, it was fascinating to read where her family hid the Jews within their small house during World War II. Clever hiding rooms were also built for slaves escaping north before and during the Civil War—all designed to be kept secret, except to those who knew the codes of the Underground Railroad.

But here, in this Scripture verse at the beginning of this blog post, we read that the Most High God has a secret place for those who would go to Him for hiding. And what are these escapees hiding from? We read of snares, deadly pestilences, terrors, arrows, plagues, armies, disasters of all kinds.

No matter what our personal worlds throw against us, those things are on the outside of that secret place in which we can go. Often times, there are others who hide with us against the same outside forces. I envision a light, maybe a lantern, filling the small space with light and warmth, because the Holy Spirit of God provides this place of light for us.

I am comforted by this reminder, and the mental picture of a place that says:

“All is well. Rest. Enjoy the fellowship of this small space until the danger is past. The Most High has provided for you.”

 

 

The Bride Awaits

 

Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” And he added, “These are the true words of God.”

—Revelation 19:6-9

Recently, I received a “Thank-You Note” from a young bride, for whose wedding I played the organ. She commented that everyone kept saying what a dramatic entrance she had made at the wedding. Truthfully, I did nothing out of the ordinary for her. I always prepare the “Bridal Processional” with a fanfare and with loud flourishes.

Yet, her “Thank-You Note” has me thinking about the great Wedding Supper of the Lamb mentioned in Revelation 19:6-9, which is the Scripture passage I quoted at the beginning of this blog post.

Many times in Scripture, the Bride is regarded as the Body of Christ—the Church—prepared for her Groom, Christ Himself. Such a fuss over the Bride! It would seem that with Christ as the Groom, the focus should be on Him. Yet here, Scripture tells us that the Bride has made herself ready in fine linen, ¹ bright and clean. Nothing is spoken here about the Groom.

Psalm 45 is a wedding song. In verse 15, the bride is described as wearing gold and embroidered garments. She and her companions are:

… led in with joy and gladness; they enter the palace of the king.

The Prophet Isaiah refers to the Bride in Isaiah 62:5:

As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.

Something that reflects on the symbolism of Christ and His Church seems to have become lost in most modern wedding ceremonies. In fact, like in the wedding ceremony I referred to earlier, there was neither any prayer, nor any mention of Christ. No wonder this young bride was a bit surprised at her role in the wedding drama.

Oh yes, people spend the money and time to assure that the dreams young girls expend on that perfect setting, perfect flowers, perfect decorations, perfect food and drink, and perfect bridal dress do still exist. But, the real meaning of such a wedding dress, and all the related wedding accoutrements, seems to have been lost.

Not long ago, I read about the Greek Orthodox wedding tradition that calls for the use of crowns for the bride and groom. One of the elements of the service involves the “crowning” of the bridal couple. During this portion of the wedding ceremony, the bride and groom receive crowns united by a ribbon. This represents their union in Christ. The priest says aloud:

“Crown them with Glory and Honor.”

In this Greek Orthodix wedding ceremony, the crowns also symbolize the heavenly crowns we will receive when we enter Paradise. The crowns serve as a reminder that marriage involves “dying to self”—in the same way that we die to self, so that Christ can live fully in us.

After the marriage ceremony, the crowns are typically displayed in a glass case mounted above the couple’s bed. This serves as a constant reminder of the holy state of their marriage.

The Apostle Paul also speaks of the symbolism found in marriage. In his letter to the Christians gathered at Ephesus, Paul writes in Ephesians 5:25-28:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.

Yes, Christ has chosen to put the emphasis on the Bride—His Church. He chose her, bought her with His own blood, brought her to a relationship with Himself, and waits to present her to the Heavenly Hosts and all creation.

I wonder what the music will sound like when we are presented to Christ in the Heavenly Kingdom? Will it be a dramatic processional? I would imagine it will!

Indeed, God is preparing to meet us. Have we prepared to meet Him?

______________________

1 Note: Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.

 

 

Teamwork

 

I have given skill to all the craftsmen to make everything I have commanded you: the Tent of Meeting, the ark of the Testimony with the atonement cover on it, and all the other furnishings of the tent—the table and its articles, the pure gold lampstand and all its accessories, the altar of incense, the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, the basin with its stand— and also the woven garments, both the sacred garments for Aaron the priest and the garments for his sons when they serve as priests, and the anointing oil and fragrant incense for the Holy Place. They are to make them just as I commanded you.

—Exodus 31:6-11

You’ve probably heard this definition of a camel:

“A camel is a horse built by a committee!”

In some sense, that can aptly describe the way some churches function through their committees. However, from the beginning, God had plans to use many people—with different personalities, different skill sets, different talents and abilities, different perspectives, and different passions—to do His work within His Church. We all have intensely different roles, even as we retain our individuality.

In reading the account of the 1936 American Olympic crew team, I came across this quote: ¹

Even as rowers must subsume their often fierce sense of independence and self-reliance, at the same time they must hold true to their individuality, their unique capabilities as oarsmen or oarswomen or, for that matter, as human beings.

Just as His chosen people, whom God called together to use their gifts for the building of the Tent of Meeting (the Tabernacle) in the wilderness, He has called us and our fellow church members to work together for the building up of His Kingdom here on earth. God must have realized how difficult we would find that intention. The more individual our gifts, the harder time we have in setting aside our selfish impulses and obediently offering those gifts up to Him for the benefit of all.

The Olympic crew learned this as they practiced and rowed together. ²

But the demands of rowing are such that every man or woman in a racing shell depends on his or her crewmates to perform almost flawlessly with each and every pull of the oar. The movements of each rower are so intimately intertwined, so precisely synchronized with the movements of all the others, that any one rower’s mistake or subpar performance can throw off the tempo of the stroke, the balance of the boat, and ultimately the success of the whole crew.

In rowing, as well as in giving our service to the church, we soon learn that pride, jealousy, selfishness, self-righteousness, and a host of other negative qualities simply must have no place in what we think, say, or do. To have the success that our “Captain” desires, we must put aside our selfishness for the greater good—the good of showing forth the glory of God in our teamwork.

In the New Testament, this concept uses the illustrations of a well-constructed building “fit together” and of a body with various functions of that body working together. In 1 Corinthians 12:4-11, the Apostle Paul writes about this, as follows:

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of languages, and to still another the interpretation of languages. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.

We see here that God hasn’t gifted us for our own benefit, and also for His purposes and for His glory. He gave gifts to us for the good and benefit of the whole church.

We must ask ourselves these questions:

• Have we prepared ourselves to serve God in our churches with others who might have strong opinions that are different from ours, with immature believers who have outrageous ideas, and with possibilities of misunderstandings and slights galore?
  
  
• Have we given ourselves so completely to God that we can obediently give our gifts to Him for His use as He desires to use them?
  
  
• Are we willing, if God so desires, to have Him put us on a shelf for a time, where we will not be able to exercise our best gifts?
  
  

Let us prepare ourselves, in prayer and in sincere humility, solely for the purposes that God has planned for us. And, let us open our eyes to see new ways He wishes to use the unique gifts He has given us to serve Him and glorify His holy name.

______________________

1 Brown, Daniel James. The Boys in the Boat. New York: Penguin Books, 2013. p. 179.

2 Ibid. p. 89.

Please note that, in each case, whenever a citation of any Copyrighted material is made within a post on this blog, such a citation is made strictly for Educational Fair Use illustration purposes only. All Rights Reserved by the original Copyright Holder.