Month: March 2016

I am not asking how you feel about the resurrection, but rather, what difference the resurrection of Jesus Christ has on your life. According to Ephesians 2:4-7, Christ’s resurrection lies at the core of your existence as a Christian.

God has made you alive in Christ. The resurrection is important—for you. Each of the four authors of the Gospels believed that the resurrection of Jesus was crucial to their account. Early on even enemies of the cross sensed that a risen Christ posed a threat. Matthew describes the leaders of Israel bribing the guards to tell of falling asleep while the disciples stole the body of Jesus. But the resurrection is important, not just as an abstract, isolated historical event. In that case you might think simply that something unprecedented, truly unique had happened—but so what? God not only confronted the first witnesses with the empty tomb, he also provided angelic messengers to explain that the Lord was not there, but was risen. Similarly, God gives you, not just the bare fact of the resurrection, but gives his Word, the Old and New Testaments, to explain what the resurrection means. Continue reading “What Does the Resurrection Mean to You?”

Against a background of deep frustration by the people, who were filled with anger against establishment authority, Jesus was welcomed into Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday. But the week led to a crown of thorns and a cross. In what do you hope? In what do you boast? In Galatians 6:14-15 Paul points you to the one thing worth boasting about: paradoxically, he boasts in the cross.

Be careful where you put your trust. Paul’s “May I never boast” looks to various other things in which people boast or trust. The crowds on Palm Sunday were looking for a political or military messiah who would deliver them from Rome. But when Jesus proved not be that, they turned against him by the end of the week. The teachers in Galatia, threatening the well-being of the churches with another gospel, were promoting a compromise between faith in Christ and a religion by works. While they would not overtly deny Christ, the saw what they did (in their case keeping the details of the ceremonial law) as crucial to salvation. One of their motives, according to the Apostle, was to escape persecution. Christ plus what I do is a common religion in North America among those who consider themselves religious. Paul pushes you to ask yourself where your trust is. Continue reading “Palms, a Crown, and the Cross”

We are told, both by politicians and by some TV preachers, that we ought to feel good about ourselves. But according to God’s Word, there are times when we don’t feel good, times when weeping is an appropriate response. Psalm 6 is one of those instances.

Ask, “How long, O Lord?” Pray in the midst of suffering. In this penitential psalm David is conscious that he is enduring suffering as the result of God’s disfavor to him. The suffering is so severe that cries out, fearful that he will not survive. Be thankful that God does chastize his children, Hebrews 12:4-11. We need to look critically at ourselves as we go through suffering, asking if we have offended our God. “Repentance is a practical thing. It is not enough to bemoan the desecration of the temple of the heart, we must scourge out the buyers and sellers, and overturn the tables of the money changers. . . . A pardoned sinner will hate the sins which cost the Saviour his blood. Grace and sin are quarrelsome neighbours, and one or the other must go to the wall. . . . Weeping is the eloquence of sorrow. . . . . My God, I will ‘weep’ when I cannot plead, for thou hearest the voice of my weeping.” (C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, on Psalm 6:8). With David, recognize the justice of God’s wrath and anger. A God without those characteristics is far less than the God of Scripture. As you experience chastisement, cry out to God. Recognize that sin is an offense against the nature and character of God. Continue reading “Who Listens When You Weep?”

Words can be powerful weapons, as David recognizes in Psalm 5.

Pray for deliverance from evil speaking. The arrogant cannot stand in God’s presence. The Psalm is an urgent cry for help. When you think of David’s enemies, you might focus on Goliath, Philistine armies, and other violent enemies. But the danger of which David speaks is largely the power of words: “bloodthirsty” in verse 5 parallels “deceit.” The Psalms are, as a friend commented this week, pan-historical. These sinners cannot stand in the presence of a holy God. God does judge, and the ungodly lack permanence. David is echoing the warning of Psalm 1:4-5. The Lord abhors sins of the tongue.

Beware of sins of the tongue. Notice where the New Testament uses a quote from this Psalm. Romans 1 describes the sinfulness of the Gentiles, those who did not have the law of God, but nevertheless were accountable because the invisible God reveals himself in the visible creation. Romans 2 points out that Israel, the covenant people who prided themselves on having the law, were also guilty of breaking that law. Romans 3 concludes that everyone, Jew and Gentile alike, everyone is a sinner and thus under God’s condemnation. In a series of quotes from Old Testament passages, Paul in Romans 3 quotes Psalm 5:9, with its graphic description of the sin of speech, comparing the throat to an open grave. Feel the pinch of that text as you realize that Paul is not just describing sinners out there somewhere—rather, he addresses his readers, including you and me. Appreciate the power of words, both to tear down and destroy, as well as to be a barometer of the state of the heart. Paul has to show you the depth of your sin and corruption so that he can point you outside of yourself to the righteousness of another, a divine righteousness that you find in Christ alone. “Closely connected with these warnings against what I have called ‘connivance’ are the protests of the Psalter against other sins of the tongue. I think that when I began to read it these surprised me a little; I had half expected that in a simpler and more violent age when more evil was done with the knife, the big stick, and the firebrand, less would be done by talk. But in reality the Psalmists mention hardly any kind of evil more often than this one, which the most civilized societies share. ‘Their throat is an open sepulcher, they flatter’ (5, 10), ‘under his tongue is ungodliness and vanity’, or ‘perjury’ . . . (10, 7), ‘deceitful lips’ (12, 3), ‘lying lips’ (31, 20), ‘words full of deceit’ (36, 3), the ‘whispering’ of evil men (41, 2), cruel lies that ‘cut like a razor’ (52, 3), talk that sounds ‘smooth as oil’ and will wound like a sword (55, 22), pitiless jeering (102, 8). It is all over the Psalter. One almost hears the incessant whispering, tattling, lying, scolding, flattery, and circulation of rumours. No historical readjustments are here required, we are in the world we know. We even detect in that muttering and wheedling chorus voices which are familiar. One of them may be too familiar for recognition.” (C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, pages 64-65). Continue reading “Joy in the Morning”