My Faith Posse

This post was spurred by a comment by David over at A Boomer in the Pew yesterday. Thanks for the inspiration (and he is a great read by the way).

I have just posted a couple of times based on letters by Jonathan Edwards. I have not read him much, but will have to in the future. He has become a member of my faith posse, people I read or listen to as I walk my journey. David's comment made me think about who do I turn to in order to garner deeper reflection on God, deeper meditation of His word, deeper edification. My faith posse as it were, the people who ride hard alongside me as I pursue and hunt down that criminal in the wild and bring him to justice before the divine judge (I am talking about my sinful self).

So who is riding with me currently:

• The Lord (He is the author of the Bible)

• Oswald Chambers
• Jonathan Edwards
• Charles Haddon Spurgeon
• John Calvin
• A W Tozer
• Alistair Begg
• Greg Laurie
• Chuck Swindoll

Quite a collection of guns to shoot at the sin in my life. I am sure I am leaving someone off, who I have not read recently.

A few points:

• It is good to have someone walking or riding alongside of you
• Without the first name on the list, it does not matter how many others you put down
• With the first name on the list, you probably do not need any of the others. Having them is due to your weakness, not His insufficiency
• I did not put a link to the Lord because He is everywhere. You do not need me or the internet to find Him. Just yourself.
  

I am glad I have these with me, because I need help in getting rid of me so I can find Him. WIsh I did not need the help but I do.

Time to saddle up and ride.

Our Own Worst Enemy

That we are, in our unbelief. The foothold we allow the enemy when we doubt our Lord in the least. A brief excerpt from yesterday's The Daily Spurgeon highlights this:

"Faith is the Christian’s strength; he who doubts not staggers not. Unbelief is the source of our chief weakness. As soon as we begin to distrust our feet begin to slide."

Here Spurgeon is talking of the attack of Satan on Jesus, but it has such implications for us. If the enemy chose to attack our Lord first by trying to get Him to doubt His relationship with the Father, why would we expect differently? It didn't work with Jesus but often does with us because of the doubt and guilt our sin brings into our minds.

Doubt, I see the need to fight it off each and every day. Doubt, because I know in my heart I am not worthy of the Father's love, our Lord's sacrifice. Doubt, because it seems unbeleivable at times what He was willing to do, how He was willing to live, and die, for me, for us.

To give Him glory by erasing the doubt about His love for me is the goal I need to strive for. Doubt, which makes me my own worst enemy needs to be overcome each day.

But oh, that I have His love and help to see me through each and every battle.

Washing Feet

Some excerpts from The Daily Spurgeon of a few days ago tie in with a recent lecture at seminary:

If there be any deed of kindness or love that we can do for the very
meanest and most obscure of God’s people, we ought to be willing to do
it - to be servants to God’s servants — to feel like Abigail did, when
she said to David, “Let thine handmaid be a servant to wash the feet of
the servants of my Lord.” Abigail became David’s wife, that is the true
position of every Christian; but yet she felt she was not worthy even
to wash his servants’ feet. That must be our spirit.

Especially let those who are highest among us seek to do the lowest offices.
“Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.”
Recollect that Christ’s way of rising is to go down...Try to
carry out every one of you to your utmost the teaching of your Lord,
that ye should wash one another’s feet.

From a sermon entitled "Jesus Washing His Disciples' Feet," delivered January 29, 1865.

My seminary professor called this attitude "taking up the towel". Being willing to be a servant, to assume a lowly position, the lowest in the room, in order to serve as Christ was willing to serve.

This is not an attitude or position I assume all that willingly. But to serve in a less than joyful manner is not to serve as Jesus would want us to.

I need to do better. Are you willingly and joyfully taking up the towel?

Prayer Time

Some thoughts on a verse I put in my journal two years ago:

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Mark 1:35 (NASB)

Solitary prayer alone with God. Jesus got up early, obviously before anyone else was up to do this. If it was important to Him, to His spiritual life to have the type of time alone praying, His "Table for Two" with the Father, how important is it for us?

A snippet from the 1/28 The Daily Spurgeon ties in nicely with this for me:

The true Christian has a peace which is totally unknown to any
other man; yea, he hath “the peace of God which passeth all
understanding.” There are indeed two kinds of peace into the secret
satisfaction of which no unconverted person can enter — peace with God, and peace in the heart...

From a sermon entitled "The Great Privation: Or, The Great Salvation."

I pray to get nearer to God. I pray to get the peace that is not otherwise available to me. I pray when I struggle with my life (like yesterday) to get the calm, if not all the answers, to go on with things in a way that glorifies my God.

I pray because Jesus did, and how can I go wrong with His behavior to aspire to? If only I could do it more faithfully and consistently (or a little less stubbornly), for when I do I enter His rest and feel His peace.

Search and Read

Here are some great thoughts from The Daily Spurgeon today:

Search the Scriptures. Do not merely read them — search them; look out the parallel passages; collate them; try to get the meaning of the Spirit upon any one truth by looking to all the texts which refer to it.

That is probably my problem, I just read the Bible most of the time, I am not searching it. Searching sound so incredibly active compared to the somewhat passive sounding reading. Searching, seeking God out, mining the nuggets. Searching, I like that.

Read the Bible in a commonsense way. Do not read it on your knees, as I have known some people do, it is an awkward posture: get into an easy chair: read it comfortably. Pray after you have read it as much as you like, but do not make a penance of what ought to be a pleasure.

But before you turn into Bible CSI, make sure you read it as well. Comfortably, leisurely, with joy as well as prayer. I like that too.

What this says to me is that the Bible is there for all aspects of our life: work and study, leisure and play, rest an d prayer. What this says to me is that this book is to be my one constant companion. The one book you would want to be able to have with you on a desert island. The one you would never grow tired of.

Search, read, study enjoy. Grow in the Lord.