~ Wendell Berry

The morning watch is essential. You must not face the day until you have faced God, nor look into the face of others until you have looked into His.

You cannot expect to be victorious if the day begins only in your own strength. Face the work of every day with the influence of a few thoughtful, quiet moments with your heart and God. Do not meet with other people, even those of your own home, until you have first met the great Guest and honored Companion of your life – Jesus Christ.

Meet Him alone. Meet Him regularly. Meet Him with His open Book of counsel before you; and face the regular and irregular duties of each day with the influence of His personality definitely controlling your every act.

-from Streams in the Desert

Ninety years without slumbering,

Tick, tock, tick, tock,

His life’s seconds numbering,

Tick, tock, tick, tock,

But it stopped, short,

Never to go again,

When the old man died.

The relentless ticking of the clock reminds us that our time on earth is limited. Despite the joys and pains of life, time always marches on. For the believer, our time on earth is an opportunity for gaining wisdom. The psalmist writes, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Ps. 90:12).

One way of numbering our days is to ask ourselves these kinds of questions: How can I become more like Christ? Am I reading the Word regularly? Am I devoting time to prayer? Am I meeting together with other believers? The way we answer these questions is an indicator of the progress we’re making in gaining wisdom and becoming more like Christ.

No matter the phase of life—childhood, youth, middle age, or our senior years—life always affords us opportunities to grow in faith and wisdom. Numbering our days is the wise response to life’s inevitable progress.

How are you progressing on your journey?

From Our Daily Bread website http://odb.org/2011/09/08/grandfather%E2%80%99s-clock/

Several summer ago while our family was vacationing at the beach, I got up early to meet the Lord for a few moments of quiet before the family awakened. As I sat on the porch, watching the sun come up over the ocean and listening to the gentle crash of the waves on the shore, the Lord seemed to whisper to my heart, "What do you see?" I looked more closely at the scene before me and answered Him in my spirit, "I see little sandpipers running along the edge of the water, making sure they keep out of reach of the waves and don’t even get their feet wet. I see skimmers flying down the beach, skimming the surface of the water with their long beaks. I see seagulls standing in the tide up to their knees. And I see the pelicans that circle, then dive headfirst into the waves, coming up with fish they seem to swallow whole."

Then the Lord seemed to say to me, "The Bible is like the ocean, and the people who read My Word are very much like those birds. Some will dance around the Scriptures, not really wanting to step in and get their feet wet in Bible Study. They are satisfied to just listen to their preacher or Bible teacher to tell them what the Bible says. Others will read their Bibles, just skimming the surface for facts and information. Some will get knee-deep, reading the Bible each day with a devotional or commentary close by for reference. And then there are some, like the pelicans, who dive in over their heads, going deep in Bible study, applying and living out what they learn. Which bird are you most like?"

I answered with wholehearted passion, "Lord, I’m not sure which one I am from Your perspective. But I know which one I want to be. Please take me deeper into Your Word." And He has.

"…you thrill to God’s Word,
you chew on Scripture day and night.
You’re a tree replanted in Eden,
bearing fresh fruit every month,
Never dropping a leaf,
always in blossom."
-from The Message – Psalm 1

Who of us isn’t busted?

On a Sunday, the pastor breaks the loaves, three of them, are broken right down the center. Lays them white faced on silver platters, then takes them in hand and turns to us the congregants — the farmers and grandmothers, the wives and the truck drivers — the beggars waiting to part lips and partake.

“This is my body, broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

What if all we can remember is what a mess we are?

Young Christopher Eelman sits at the piano, his fingertips hardly brushing the ivories. The platters pass from hand to hand, Maika Nagel leaning across her 4 kids to hand the torn bread down to Beryl Martin… My mind forms the words that the piano notes weep.

And there it is too — who I am.

Needing one tall to quickly get into the kitchen this morning, to scrub up another ten potatoes for company coming and calling her name and hollering her name and glancing at the clock and just straight out screaming her name.

The way I snapped at her when she dawdled to the sink. Time running out and her running water, splashing it about, ignoring dirty spuds at the bottom of the sink, and the way I fumed disgust.

Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.

I look down at palms laying open in my lap. I hurt. Long after sin stains, it stings.

And when Joshua Hartung passes me the cold silver plate, I rip off a chunk. There’s no passing nice and neatly sliced and cubed bread. Every Sunday, the loaf goes from one stained hand to the next, and the starved have to do it in front of everyone: rip off a piece of bread. Because that is what I am — desperate and famished for the only Bread that can clean this filthy skin from the inside. We break bread – literally — because we’re messy and we’re torn and it’s my busted-up daily decisions that broke the body of God. A pulled apart piece of bread lies in my open hand.

The wheat died and crushed and placed in the furnace to rise again in the heat — it’s there in my hand and I lay the torn bread on the tongue, and sin within liquefies and I spill repentance. Is it possible that tears can soak stains? Many times the most sincere way to walk with Jesus is to say nothing with the lips, but bend the knee and weep the love.

The Farmer offers me the cup of the scarlet. I drink the warmth of His life laid down, and by faith and trembling hand, I believe the impossible: that my sullied hands and heart and lips are bleached by the salty blood of the hanging Lamb.

Sin-dyed hands can only be scrubbed clean by the One who died for our sins.

I can’t do anything and He can and does. I never get over this… the relief and the repentance.

I swallow the gospel right down. The good news: not that the good are rescued, (because what news would that be?), but the bad, the very bad, are loved, bought, redeemed. This is the thing: The only thing that fixes what’s broken is forgiveness.

And Charlie Heimstra and his sister Charlotte sing and we cleaned ones join, some still wet and wrung out:

Your forgiveness and embrace.

Singing, I raise my hand, the scrubbed one, towards His punctured one outstretched and His forgiveness is what never forsakes us.

Christopher plays the song slowly, the space of the sanctuary forgiving our busted tune, the notes breaking into a whole chorus …

"Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much." ~Luke 7:47

By Ann Voskamp

http://www.aholyexperience.com/2011/08/when-youre-broken/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HolyExperience+%28Holy+Experience%29

The very first thing Noah did in the new world was to worship God through sacrifice as it had been proscribed to Adam and Eve when God killed the animals in order to clothe them with skins after they had sinned. And for the first time in the Bible an alter is mentioned as the place of sacrifice. "Then Noah built an alter to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it." (Gen. 8:20)

The clean animals and birds that Noah sacrificed would probably have been the domesticable ones. Therefore, they would have been the ones Noah would need the most in rebuilding his life… But he took one-seventh of all his flocks and herds and offered them in an extravagant sacrifice to the God of his salvation! Surely his sacrifice was one:

• of praise to God for his faithfulness and greatness
• of thanksgiving to God for His grace to save himself and his family
• of repentance from anything that would not be pleasing to God
• of rededication of his life to the One who had saved it…

Years later, there was another extravagant sacrifice of praise offered by a grateful woman to a gracious God. Shortly before his crucifixion, Jesus was the honored guest at a feast held at one of His favorite homes, presumably to celebrate the new life of His friend Lazarus. While Jesus, along with Lazarus and other guests, was reclining at the dinner table, Lazarus’s sister, Mary, entered the room with an alabaster box. The box contained very expensive perfume – equal to a year’s wages – that would have been her dowry. Mary took the box of perfume that represented her future hopes and dreams, broke it, and poured it on the head of Jesus. When she was criticized by those in the room as being exceedingly wasteful, Jesus sharply rebuked them while gently praising her beautiful act of sacrificial worship that filled the house with the fragrance of her perfume…

How extravagant is your sacrifice to God? Do you give God as little as you think you can get by with? A little bit of energy and effort when you’re not too tired? A little bit of money you don’t really need yourself? A little bit of love left over from others?

A sacrifice is not a sacrifice until it’s a sacrifice! Is your sacrifice a real sacrifice? We give to God:

• if we can afford it
• if we feel like it
• if we want to
• if we have nothing better to do
• if it’s comfortable
• if it’s not too convenient
• if it’s not too hard
• if we get some credit

How can you and I think such stingy sacrifices are pleasing to God?! At the least, such sacrifices reveal an ingratitude in our hearts and an ignorance in our understanding of what God has done for us. At worst, He will not accept such sacrifices, just as He rejected Cain’s.

Noah could have rationalized his selfishness by saying he needed every single animal available to begin repopulating the planet or in reworking the fields or in rebuilding a home, And in the view of many today, he would have been commended for his pragmatism and his good business decisions. But Noah knew you can’t outgive God. Instead of being afraid he wouldn’t have enough for himself and his family, instead of laying up treasures on earth, instead of trying to secure his future by hoarding everything for himself, Noah knew that a God who is faithful, great, and gracious deserved nothing less than an extravagant sacrifice! As he kept his focus on who God is, Noah poured out his heart in worship. And God responded by reassuring Noah of His goodness…

God is faithful and great and gracious and good and kind and loving and patient and holy and righteous and just and merciful.

As His creation, we belong to God. He holds us accountable for our actions, our attitudes, and our activities. He has measured us against the perfect standard of His glory and rendered the verdict – we have fallen short. We do not measure up, and the sentence is death, judgment, and eternal hell. The flood of His wrath against our sin is inevitable.

But God is not only our Creator and Judge, He is our Savior. He has provided the Ark as our escape from His judgment. The provision of our means of escape required the most extravagant sacrifice that has ever been or ever will be. Because the Ark is Himself.

God left His throne at the center of the universe. He set aside His glory, and He humbled Himself as He took on human flesh. He confined Himself to a woman’s womb for nine months. He submitted to the human birth process. He lived inside the small body of a toddler. He grew into an adolescent. And He became a Man.

He came to His own – those whom He had created for Himself – but they didn’t receive Him. They contradicted His Word. They challenged His authority. They denied His claims. They questioned His motives. They mocked His power. They rejected His person.

And God in Christ submitted Himself to their slapping, spitting, mocking, taunting, flogging, and stripping, then allowed them to nail Him to a cross where He gave His own life as a sacrifice for their sin. And mine. And yours. His own death satisfied His own judgment for sin, and we are saved. Hallelujah! He has provided the Ark as a means of escape from His own wrath against your sin. Won’t you come in?

We live in a culture in which the interests and desires of the individual take precedence over those of the family, group, or community. As a result, a high percentage of people want to achieve spiritual growth without losing their independence to a church or to any organized institution. This is often the meaning behind the common protestations "I am spiritual, but not religious" and "I like Jesus, but not Christianity." Many people who are spiritually searching have had bad experiences with churches. So they want nothing further to do with them. They are interested in a relationship with God, but not if they have to be a part of an organization.

I have explained in this book why churches – and all religious institutions – are often so unpleasant. They are filled with elder brothers [the morally upright but self-righteous and spiritually blind elder brother of the prodigal son parable from Luke 15]. Yet straying away from them simply because they have elder brothers is just another form of self-righteousness. Besides that, there is no way you will be able to grow spiritually apart from a deep involvement in a community of other believers. You can’t live the Christian life without a band of Christian friends, without a family of believers in which you find a place.

C.S. Lewis was part of a famous circle of friends called the Inklings, which included J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings, and the author Charles Williams, who died unexpectedly after World War II. In his book The Four Loves, Lewis wrote a striking meditation on his death in an entry entitled "Friendship":

"In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets. Now that Charles is dead, I shall never again see Ronald’s [Tolkien's] reaction to a specifically Charles joke. Far from having more of Ronald, having him "to myself" now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald… In this, Friendship exhibits a glorious "nearness by resemblance" to heaven itself where the very multitude of the blessed (which no man can number) increases the fruition which each of us has of God. For every soul, seeing Him in her own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all the rest. That, says an old author, is why the seraphim in Isaiah’s vision are crying "Holy, Holy, Holy" to one another (Is. 6:3). The more we thus share the Heavenly Bread between us, the more we shall have."

Lewis is saying that it took a community to know an individual. How much more would this be true of Jesus Christ? Christians commonly say they want a relationship with Jesus, that they want to "get to know Jesus better." You will never be able to do that by yourself. You must be deeply involved in the church, the Christian community, with strong relationships of love and accountability. Only if you are a part of a community of believers seeking to resemble, serve, and love Jesus will you ever get to know Him and grow into His likeness.

-from The Prodigal God, by Timothy Keller (emphasis mine)

1 I waited patiently for the Lord to help me,
and he turned to me and heard my cry.
2 He lifted me out of the pit of despair,
out of the mud and the mire.
He set my feet on solid ground
and steadied me as I walked along.
3 He has given me a new song to sing,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see what he has done and be amazed.
They will put their trust in the Lord.

It is utterly crucial that in our darkness we affirm the wise, strong hand

of God to hold us, even when we have no strength to hold him. This is

the way Paul thought of his own strivings. He said, “Not that I have

already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my

own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Phil. 3:12). The key

thing to see in this verse is that all Paul’s efforts to grasp the fullness of

joy in Christ are secured by Christ’s grasp of him. Never forget that your

security rests on Christ’s faithfulness first.

Our faith rises and falls. It has degrees. But our security does not

rise and fall. It has no degrees. We must persevere in faith. That’s true.

But there are times when our faith is the size of a mustard seed and

barely visible. In fact the darkest experience for the child of God is when

his faith sinks out of his own sight. Not out of God’s sight, but his. Yes,

it is possible to be so overwhelmed with darkness that you do not know

if you are a Christian—and yet still be one.

All the great doctors of the soul have distinguished between faith

and its full assurance. The reason for this is that we are saved by the

work of God causing us to be born again and bringing us to faith. “The

wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not

know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who

is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). We are not saved by producing faith on

our own and then making that the basis of our new birth. It is the other

way around. Which means that God is at the bottom of my faith, and

when it disappears for a season from my own view, God may yet be

there sustaining its root in the new birth and protecting the seed from

destruction.

… in the times of darkness, we can be safe in Jesus, even when we have lost sight of our own sincerity. The witness of the Holy Spirit that we are the children of God (Rom. 8:16) may be clear or faint. But the reality is unshakable.“God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: ‘The Lord knows

those who are his’” (2 Tim. 2:19). “God is faithful, by whom you were

called” (1 Cor. 1:9). “He who began a good work in you will bring it

to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). Baxter’s words

are crucial counsels if we are to survive the dark night of the soul. And

that night will come for almost every Christian. And when it comes,

we must wait for the Lord, cry to him, and know that our own self-indictment, rendered in the darkness, is not as sure as God’s Word

spoken in the light.

-excerpt from When I Don’t Desire God by John Piper

“So when we sing, ‘Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord,’ we are not thinking of the nearness of place, but of the nearness of relationship.

It is for increasing degrees of awareness that we pray, for a more perfect consciousness of the divine Presence.

We need never shout across the spaces to an absent God.

He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts…”

Right now we are in an age of religious complexity.

The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely among us.

In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention —

but can never satisfy the longing of the heart."

–A.W. Tozer

(from A Holy Experience , by Ann Voskamp)

Two things Jesus did before the cross – Part 1