God at work

 

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

~ Romans 8:28 (NKJV)

It is hard to tell someone in terrible pain that “all things work out for good” — and really, things work out for the best when we love God. Someone who has just lost a spouse or a child, someone with a terrible, painful, crippling, and/or incurable disease, someone who is clinically depressed. Emotions are powerful.

These ordeals are given to us and they test our faith to the utmost. Even a strong believer may be tempted to slip into the world by severe pain, to be angry at God. But we must hold on, for the darkest tunnel ends in light. And the truth is, the more faith we have grown into, the less pain we feel at such trials.

When we are tried, we must first remind ourselves that trials are always temporary; they may cling to our bodies and minds for the rest of our time on earth, but Christ has promised to remove this pain when He comes again, to take us to live with Him. Furthermore, standing firm for God in difficult situations leads to a great reward; James call this “the crown of life”. (James 1:12)

And if we hold firm and persevere, we grow closer to God as we can never do when life is all roses and moonbeams. We mature and grow. A pearl will not grow in an oyster, unless a sharp stone gets inside its shell.

God is not at work in some things. God is not at work in most things. God is at work in all things.

Heavenly Father, I know I will suffer in this life. Let me always bring my pain to you, in full confidence that you are at work and will bring me a great reward for my suffering. Amen.

Easter Prayers

Prayer of Praise for the Resurrected Christ

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.
The kingdom of this world is become;
the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.
King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
And He shall reign forever and ever.
Hallelujah!

Prayer for Renewal

O God, who for our redemption gave your only-begotten Son to the death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection delivered us from the power of our enemy: Grant me and my fellow saints so to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection. Stir up in your Church that Spirit of adoption which is given to us in Baptism, that all Christendom, being renewed both in body and mind, may worship you in sincerity and truth; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Amen.

Prayer for the Benefit of the Resurrection

Almighty God, who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life: Grant that I, who celebrate with joy the day of the Lord's resurrection, may be raised from the death of sin by your life-giving Spirit. Send me into the world in peace, and grant me strength and courage to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Amen.

The Substitute

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

~ 2 Corinthians 5:21

We always remember that the crucifixion was vicarious: Christ died for our sins. But the substitutional nature of Christ’s death tells only half the story, and satisfies only half the equation. Just as important, Christ did not die for his own sins. Any of us could (and absent Christ, would) die for our own sins, and we could die for the sins of others, I suppose. But God would not accept it as a sacrifice. Simply by dying for the sins of another person, we could not relieve them of their own death. We learn from the Exodus and other legal books of the Pentateuch that God will not accept a blemished sacrifice.

Christ’s blamelessness completes and perfects the sacrifice. We use a lamb as a symbol, not only because it was the Jewish custom, but also because a lamb is the most innocent creature in the world. God would not accept a blemished lamb, however, and Christ was spotless. He was perfect. As the Godhead is infinite, so Christ’s innocence was infinite.

Mathematicians use the term “non-zero” or “not zero” when they speak of even enormously unlikely chances. It is like a Limit in differential calculus, a point to which an equation grows continually closer as a variable becomes larger, but which can never be reached. It is Zeno’s turtle, which always moves halfway to the finish line but can never cross it.

The most devout and pure human being, the greatest saint or most pious nun, still has sin which is “non-zero.” But Christ, and Christ alone, by His nature and by His faith, confounded the laws of the supernatural. He lived as a human being with zero sin. It is thus, by our vicarious participation in His death, that we can also be found perfect when He comes to live in our heart and soul. His righteousness will be imputed to us, though we have it not. God is able to look at us and see Christ.

This enormous power we receive can transform our day-to-day lives. It does not patch our clothes; it restores them to new. For countless instants — a period in time which is like a point, not simply short but without any duration at all — we are forgiven and become perfect, freed of sin, and born anew by God’s forgiveness.

We cannot make perfect amends. As far as the world is concerned, we might try to forgive and forget, and we might get very close, but the memory of the sin remains; the effect lingers on. We cannot completely undo a misdeed.

But we know that God can, and will. God will continually restore and renovate our souls during our lives, and we forge ahead, doing our best. One might think we might become discouraged by our repeated failures to live a perfect life. “Holy Father, I have tried again today, and again I have failed.” But we have a secret: Our victory is assured. We might fail, but Christ will not. The bill has already been paid.

So, let Christ do some of the work. We must not stop trying, because success will be ours. We do not have the power, but the power dwells in us, and it is available to us while we are still alive. Let us live by the Spirit, for by the Spirit who dwells in us right now, we will eventually find perfection and the Kingdom of Heaven.

Lord, let me remember to call upon Your Spirit in my life. Amen.

Certain Victory

All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before You. For the kingdom is the Lord’s, and He rules over the nations.

~ Psalm 22:27-28

Telling the story of Jesus’ final moments from one of the Gospels is so important to celebrate Good Friday takes precedence over all other posts today.

Psalm 22 is one of the most remarkable chapters in the Bible. It was a Psalm of David, which means that it was written 1000 years before the crucifixion. It is remarkable in the specifics, because of its uncanny prophecy of the details of the crucifixion. Psalms are not often directly prophetic, but Psalm 22 not only contains prophecy but also, is more remarkably detailed than any of the so-called “prophetic” books.

I would urge anyone to read it, slowly and fully, as an appropriate lesson for Good Friday. For in addition to being a detailed prophecy, it is a general one.

Many psalms begin with a person who complains to God and then moves through middle stanzas where the psalmist finds or realizes that his complaint comes from his own lack of understanding, and then ends by praising God. Psalm 22 is in this form.

But unlike other psalms of this form, Psalm 22 deals directly with the crucifixion of Christ. Although it seems to the mocking crowd around the cross that the insane and blasphemous poseur named Jesus of Nazareth has gotten what was coming to him — in the more poetic words of the psalm, “dogs have surrounded me” and “they gape at me with their mouths” — God will not forsake the righteous person who is set upon by the wicked, and did not forsake Christ on the cross. Rather, as the psalm shows in the second half, the purpose of the crucifixion will become apparent in the future, as people bow down to Christ and declare his righteousness to those who have not yet been born.

The Synoptic Gospels contain a moment when Jesus is at the very point of death, where he quotes the first line of this psalm word for word. This cry is not, as some people will say, a cry of abandonment where “God” has turned his face away from “Christ”. (The notion is an absurd fantasy created, not from Scripture, but from the imaginations of men who forget that Christians are monotheists.) It is, rather, an answer to those who are mocking him; that his victory is assured.

Lord, let me always remember the absolute certainty of Your victory. Amen.

A Meal for the Soul

And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body.

~ Mark 14:22

The first thing we need to remember when we take Communion (by whatever name you call it) is that it is a meal. In most churches today, the food is symbolic; we eat a scrap of bread or a wafer, not a tuna hoagie. But to the early Christians, the celebration of the Lord's Supper was . . . supper. (In 1 Corinthians 11, in fact, Paul has to scold members of the church for coming early and eating all the food up.) We call it all sorts of names, but Paul calls it communion in 1 Corinthians 10 and so I'll center on that.

The concept of communion is connection, togetherness, and fellowship: primarily with Christ, but also with one another. When we commune, we take the time to appreciate something or someone else. We commune with nature by walking in the woods, listening to the birds sing, soaking in the beauty and essence of natural reality. And when we commune with Christ, we take Him in, both physically, by eating His symbolic body, and spiritually, by focusing ourselves on who He is and what He has done for us.

In terms of food, though, we get a full meal spiritually, even if our bit of bread is symbolic. We fill ourselves to the brim with the Spirit of God, for this is what Christ bought for us with His suffering and death. But let us always remember that we are, even if only symbolically, eating a meal. It is, again in the words of the early church, a “love feast.” We may actually have a better idea than the early church, because if we were eating our supper, our attention might be pulled this way and that, by the mechanics and physical satisfaction of eating. Instead, we concentrate completely on the hunger in our soul, which only the spiritual food of Christs' body can satisfy. As Martin Luther said, “it is appropriately called the food of the soul since it nourishes and strengthens the new man.”

Lord, when I celebrate your supper, let me always center my mind on the spiritual need that only you can satisfy. Amen.

Failure

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

~ Jeremiah 29:11

Have you failed in anything during the past year? I’m going to guess that the answer is a big “YES.” I certainly have. And in my own case — and I think, in many other peoples’ cases — some of the failures have been in things that I considered selfless, or at least a “good cause.” People fail in their attempts to stop committing a persistent sin, for example.

But we must remember one specific and central thing about God’s plan for us. No matter how many times we may fail, and no matter how huge and spectacular the failure may be, it has a purpose. God’s plan for us is for success so perfect, so large, so eternal, that our eventual success will eclipse all of our failures in life and make them into nothing.

Our memory verse comes from Jeremiah and, in context, specifically concerns the Jews. We know from the Bible that, in one sense, Judaism was a complete failure. It was doomed from the beginning; the Law was actually incapable of bringing salvation to those who followed it. Israel came closest to fulfilling the Law in the reign of David; but the very next king (Solomon) sinned so badly that Israel was torn asunder, conquered, dispersed, and exiled.

Yet, the failure of the Law was not final, for the failure was part of God’s plan. He intended that the Hebrews would fail; the Law was necessary that the Jews, and the world, might understand its sin and be prepared to hear the message of the Messiah. (Galatians 3:19) Christ “accomplished the purpose for which the law was given.” (Romans 10:4)

And so our personal failures and failings can be seen in the light of Jeremiah. Not only is a failure not permanent, but it can be part of God’s plan for our perfection and salvation. No matter how desperate we may feel at our situation in life, God gives us “a future and a hope.” Our plans are made of straw, but God’s plan for us is made of an undefeatable spirit. So we should never feel despair; our future is assured, even in our failures.

There is no reason to wait. Today is the day to put all sense of failure behind us and look to the future. The past is gone forever, and we cannot change it, but the rest of our lives lies ahead. Let us stride in absolute faith and abundant hope, for God’s plan is our welfare, a promise of total victory.

Lord, let me always find hope in your promise to me. Amen.