Nothing to Rectify

“All of us,’’ says Bushnell, “go on into goodness on the principle of rectification.” We judge our past, criticize it, repent of it, rectify it, and thus pass on into goodness… But Jesus rectifies nothing, he recalls no word that he ever spoke, retraces no step that he ever took, undoes no act that he ever did, no prayer for forgiveness was ever upon his lips and no tear of penitence upon his cheek, he never once said, am sorry.” He taught his disciples to pray the prayer, “Our Father …. forgive us our trespasses,” but he never prayed that prayer. He said, “If you then being evil,” but he left himself out of it. His last word was not a prayer for restoration or acceptance, but, “It is finished.”

-E. Stanley Jones,
Christ at the Round Table

Good Friday

“GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD,” John writes, “that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” That is to say that God so loved the world that he gave his only son even to this obscene horror; so loved the world that in some ultimately indescribable way and at some ultimately immeasurable cost he gave the world himself. Out of this terrible death, John says, came eternal life not just in the sense of resurrection to life after death but in the sense of life so precious even this side of death that to live it is to stand with one foot already in eternity.

To participate in the sacrificial life and death of Jesus Christ is to live already in his kingdom. This is the essence of the Christian message, the heart of the Good News, and it is why the cross has become the chief Christian symbol. A cross of all things—a guillotine, a gallows—but the cross at the same time as the crossroads of eternity and time, as the place where such a mighty heart was broken that the healing power of God himself could flow through it into a sick and broken world. It was for this reason that of all the possible words they could have used to describe the day of his death, the word they settled on was “good.” Good Friday.

– Frederick Buechner

Seeing the Goodness

How cautious we need to be about leveling even the smallest criticism against the loved and elect children of God. Do we really think we can get away with grumbling against the friends of Jesus? If we stopped to realize who it is we were attacking, wouldn’t we bite out our tongues? As Glenn Tinder writes, “The Christian universe is peopled exclusively with royalty.” Far from picking on the obvious faults of others, we need to take note of their virtues. We need to see the goodness in them that perhaps no one else (including even themselves) can see, and when this goodness does not seem to be present we need to pray it into them. For this is when love is most loving, most Godlike—when it “calls things that are not as though they were” (Rom. 4:17). This is true Christianity, the faith that believes not only in God but in other people. This is the faith Jesus had when He called out to a dead man, whose body was already rotting, “Lazarus, come out!” (John 11:43). If the Lord had not believed in Lazarus (far more than poor Lazarus had ever believed in himself), He could not have loved him back to life.

– Mike Mason
The Gospel According to Job

Knowing God

What were we made for? To know God. What aim should we set ourselves in life? To know God. What is the “eternal life” that Jesus gives? Knowledge of God. “This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (Jn 17:3).

What is the best thing in life, bringing more joy, delight and contentment than anything else? Knowledge of God. “This is what the LORD says: ‘Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me’” (Jer 9:23-24).

What, of all the states God ever sees man in, gives God most pleasure? Knowledge of himself. “I desired . . . the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings,” says God (Hos 6:6 KJV) . . .

What makes life worthwhile is having a big enough objective, something which catches our imagination and lays hold of our allegiance; and this the Christian has in a way that no other person has. For what higher, more exalted, and more compelling goal can there be than to know God?

J.I. Packer,
Knowing God

Blending Grace and Truth

We have seen his glory . . . full of grace and truth.
– John 1:14

Our Lord is a stunning synthesis of both grace and truth. He attracts children and frightens demons. He is the friend of sinners, and the enemy of hypocrisy. He lifts the lowly, and blasts the lofty. He sheds tears at a tomb, and then speaks a word that brings the occupant back to life. With tender grace He cleanses a leper; with blistering truth He cleanses the temple.

His words not only give life (Jn. 6:69) and heal bodies (Mt. 8:8), they stifle storms (Mk. 4:39), cause demons to panic (Mk. 1:23), and can wreak havoc on fig trees (Mt. 21:19). 

Grace and truth, like the rod and staff of the shepherd, provide protection and correction. The Master, in His wisdom and love, makes optimal use of both. He knows when to prod and when to protect. He knows us, He loves us, and His dealings of grace and truth are exactly what is needed. He’s got the balance just right.

– Jurgen Schulz
What Story Have We Fallen Into?

He Will Not Rest

Why did God create you? He created billions of other people; were they not enough for him? No, they were not. He had to have you. He will not rest until he has you home. Even if you are the one sheep that is lost, he will leave the ninety-nine (or ninety-nine billion) others to seek you wherever you are.

He will come into your thickets and your wilderness and your suffering and even, on the Cross, your sin. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21). One of the splinters on the Cross that pierced his flesh was yours alone. And one of the gems in his crown will be yours alone.

– Peter Kreeft

Do you hear what I hear?

What’s up with those crazy shepherds
making a ruckus at this hour of the night
when normal people are trying
to get some sleep?

This should be a silent night
in this little town of Bethlehem
but these merry gentlemen seem
to think it is the season to be jolly.

Those noisy herdsmen should be
taking care of their flocks by night
and not dancing on the street
shouting joy to the world.

Here we are trying to sleep in heavenly peace
But these men strike the harp and join the chorus.
Just when the world should “in solemn stillness lie”
These fellows come all joyful and triumphant!

When asked— Hey, shepherds, why this jubilee?
They talk of angels, and glory and a newborn King.
They speak of tidings of comfort and joy
Which will be to all people.

We are not about to believe these silly shepherds
They should go back to counting sheep.
They should go and tell it on the mountain
And let the rest of us get some sleep.

I had only heard about you before,
but now I have seen you
with my own eyes.

– Job 42:5

By the light of nature,
we see God as a God above us;
by the light of the law, we see
him as a God against us;
but by the light of the gospel,
we see him as Immanuel,
God with us, in our own nature,
and in our favor.
This is God making known
his love for us.

– adapted from Matthew Henry

Christmas is God deciding
to become what He never
had been, so that we can become
what we never could be.
And so, God does the most
improbable thing imaginable.
He orchestrates His own birth.

― Craig D. Lounsbrough

Hope Has Come

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).

The Incarnation refers to the staggering reality that the Almighty became a mortal man. Here we are confronted with the astonishing descent of the Holy One who came to us in our fallenness, weakness and estrangement. He immersed Himself in our humanity. The Most High became the Most Near. 

The Lord of the universe has become a part of our story. And a part of our predicament. He has thrown His lot in with us. Immanuel turns out to mean—we are in this together. He has joined our ranks to such a degree that our dilemma has become His dilemma. Our misfortune has become His.

He got embroiled in our brokenness—more than any self-respecting God ever should have.

Immersed in our mess.

He was not about to abandon His fellow humans to their plight. He embraced our burden. He shouldered our cause.

We are no longer alone in our distress. Hope has come.

We have a Redeemer.

– Jurgen O. Schulz
What Story Have We Fallen Into?

Remember this, that your life is short,
your duties many, your assistance great,
and your reward sure. Therefore, faint not,
hold on and hold up in ways of well-doing,
and heaven shall make amends for all.

— Thomas Brooks (1608-1680)

One More Night with the Frogs

Great was the abundance and boldness of the frogs in Egypt, which went up and came into their bed-chambers, and beds, and kneading-troughs, and very ovens (Ex. 8:3). Strange that those fen-dwellers should approach the fiery region; but stranger that Pharaoh should be so backward to have them removed; and being demanded of Moses when he would have them sent away, answered, Tomorrow (Ex. 8:10). He could be content with their company one night, at bed and at board, reluctant to acknowledge either God’s justice in sending, or power in taking them away, but still hoping that they randomly came, and might randomly depart.

Lest I wonder any longer at Pharaoh, and even admire at myself; what are my sins but so many toads, spitting of venom and spawning of poison; croaking in my judgment, creeping into my will, and crawling into my affections. This I see, and suffer, and say with Pharaoh, Tomorrow, tomorrow I will amend. Thus, as the Hebrew tongue hath no proper present tense, but two future tenses, so all the performances of my reformation are only in promises for the time to come. Grant, Lord, that I may seasonably drown this Pharaoh-like procrastination in the sea of repentance, lest it drown me in the pit of perdition.

–Thomas Fuller (1609-1661)
Good Thoughts in Bad Times

He who finds Jesus finds a rare treasure,
indeed, a good above every good, whereas
he who loses Him loses more than the whole world.
The man who lives without Jesus is the poorest
of the poor, whereas no one is so rich as
the man who lives in His grace.

– Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471)
Of the Imitation of Christ

A Long-Lost Chord

And never did word and work so blend in harmony as they did in him. They blended like the words and music of a song. He taught men, and his words had the ring of reality about them. Others quoted authorities; he taught with the authority of his own insight. Others came seeking truth; he came proclaiming it. Truth gushed forth from his soul like a fountain from a hillside. Others worked their way to truth through the logic of syllogism. He used no syllogisms. He announced self-verifying truths. He did not argue with them, but left them to argue themselves—as light appeals to the eye, as duty fits the conscience, as beauty speaks to the aesthetic nature, as love goes straight to the heart. And men listened to these words as if they were hearing some long-lost chord, something that belonged to them, that belong to the very structure and make-up of their being. They felt that this was the soul’s homeland. His words made sin seem so unnatural, so extraneous, so incapable of fitting into living.

–E. Stanley Jones,
The Christ of Every Road

Prayer of Gratitude

GOD who so fills all things that they only dimly veil Thy presence; we adore Thee in the beauty of the world, in the goodness of human hearts and in Thy thought within the mind. We praise Thee for the channels through which Thy grace can come to us; sickness and health, joy and pain, freedom and necessity, sunshine and rain, life and death.

We thank Thee for all the gentle and healing ministries of life; the gladness of the morning, the freedom of the wind, the music of the rain, the joy of the sunshine and the deep calm of the night; for trees, and flowers, and clouds, and skies; for the tender ministries of human love, the unselfishness of parents, the love that binds man and woman, the confidence of little children; for the patience of teachers and the encouragement of friends.

We bless Thee for the stirring ministry of the past, for the story of noble deeds, the memory of holy men, the printed book, the painter’s art, the poet’s craft; most of all for the ministry of the Son of Man who taught us the eternal beauty of earthly things, who by His life set us free from fear, and by His death won us from our sins to Thee; for His cradle. His cross, and His crown.

May His Spirit live within us, conquer all the selfishness of man, and take away the sin of the world. Amen.

– W. E. Orchard, D.D.
The Temple: A Book of Prayers

Internal Evidence

A man of subtile reasoning
asked a plowman if he knew
where was the internal evidence
that proved the Bible true.
The rules of disputative art
had never reached his ear.
He laid his hand upon his heart
and quickly answered, Here!

The soul runs its true normal
course back to God its Creator,
who has stamped the destiny
of this return upon it,
and leaves it no peace till
it finds its goal in Him.

– P. T. Forsyth

Inseparable Wings

The Spirit of holiness and love is also the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge about love; and they are in fact one and the same Spirit: “Truth and love are inseparable wings—for truth cannot fly without love—and love cannot hover without truth.”

– Hans Urs von Balthasar
Love Alone is Credible

Anyone without exception

But as many as received Him… (John 1:12)

The phrase “as many as” means: whoever, whosoever, anyone without exception. It throws the door wide open to every person no matter who they are, or what their past might be. John loves to emphasize the inclusiveness of the invitation, and the words “whoever,” “everyone,” “anyone” and “all” crop up all through his Gospel.

There is a glorious “wideness” to this invitation. No one should feel excluded or beyond redemption. You don’t have to be good. You don’t need a good credit rating. You don’t have to be smart. You don’t have to be anything… you just have to be lost. That’s it.

Your sins do not disqualify you. Your lifetime accumulation of lies, lusts and lunacies does not exclude you. All the blunders and badness of humanity were remedied by the One who came “to take away the sin of the world” (Jn. 1:29). It has all been put away, disposed of, carted off, finished, discarded, done with. The whole wretched mess, in the words of Robert Capon, has been dropped down the black hole of God’s forgetfulness. That is the Gospel, the Good News, without which we would all be in the soup.

The only thing that can stand in anyone’s way is their non-acceptance of God’s gift of grace. Nobody misses eternal joy because of his sins, but because of rejecting Christ. And we have yet to find one good reason why such a choice would make any sense.

Jurgen Schulz
What Story Have We Fallen Into?

Beyond Compare

I believe there is no one lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic and more perfect than Jesus – not only is there no one else like him, but there could never be anyone like him. If someone proved to me that Christ is outside the truth and that in reality the truth were outside of Christ, then I should prefer to remain with Christ rather than with the truth.

– Fyodor Dostoevski

Choosing Joy

I have to learn to steal all the joy
there is to steal and lift it up
for others to see…
It means choosing light even
when there is so much darkness…
choosing truth even when
we’re surrounded with lies…
Joy never denies sadness,
but transforms it
to fertile soil for more joy.

–Henri Nouwen

Made For Eternity

Modern man is discovering the emptiness, the hollowness, the meaninglessness of life without an eternal reference. In a culture which caters to the body in every conceivable way, he is discovering that preoccupation with bodily appetites does not satisfy, is not fulfilling. The consummate product of the “liberated” man is a jaded, bored, fed up, exhausted culture, seeking for “kicks” in the most ancient of corrupt life-styles and practices. Modern man is discovering that nothing works right when God is rejected, when man becomes his own god and he finds no sustenance for his indestructible soul. Man is an eternal creature, made for eternity, and he is never satisfied with anything less.

– Richard Halverson
The Timelessness of Jesus Christ

Turning to God

THE river finds its way, however slowly, to the sea.
The birds of the heaven know their appointed seasons,
but how slow our feet to turn to Thee.

When we turn to seek Thee, it is often late,
so late; our feet failing, the storm driving us,
and only when we have tried all other ways,
drunk of every broken cistern, consulted
many physicians and found ourselves nothing
better but rather worse, do we turn to Thee.
O the mercy that Thou receivest us even then.

Yet some of us must travel farther ere we turn again,
Not yet are we sure that some fruit of pleasure,
some drug of sin, may not be the medicine we need.
We have not yet lost all hope in ourselves.
In all our folly do not Thou forget us, nor release
the hidden thread that binds us to our home.

But some of us want to come while the day
is young and life is full; to come, not because
we must, but because we may; to choose Thee
with all the kingdoms of the world in sight;
to count Thee better than all the treasures
of knowledge or the pleasures of sin.
Give us the grace to come even now.
Amen.

– W. E. Orchard
The Temple: A Book of Prayers

Out of the Depths

OUT of the depths have we cried unto Thee,
O God ; O God hear our prayer. Our desperate need
of Thee is mocked by our faint and feeble petitions.
Hearken not to the words of our lips disciplined by
such fatal habit to conceal ourselves, but consider
our travail of soul and listen to the groanings
that cannot be uttered.

When we have dared to descend within,
fathomless deeps make us afraid, and we dread to
know ourselves; passions sleep within which any
wandering breeze might stir to storm, and we be
overwhelmed beneath its waves. Surely this
cannot be ourselves, for of this we are afraid.

Deep within we have caught a glimpse of
smiling seas which mirror the beauty of the
sky, while they themselves are dark and foul;
strange self-deceptions make us crave for comfort,
while we sing of sacrifice; we pretend to love Thee,
but love better still ambition, praise, the hollow word.
If this should be ourselves, all hope for us is gone.
Thou canst not love what we can only hate.

Yet, deeper still, O God, lies hunger for Thyself,
and this must be of Thee, yet we fear this most of all.
If this should pass our power to bear, we might be
swept beyond our studied selfishness, our calculating
prudence, and never be the same again.

Out of such depths we cry unto Thee, O God.
Amen.

– W. E. Orchard
The Temple: A Book of Prayers

When Everything Changed

The New Testament writers speak as if Christ’s achievement in rising from the dead was the first event of its kind in the whole history of the universe. He is the ‘first fruits’, the ‘pioneer of life’. He has forced open a door that has been locked since the death of the first man. He has met, fought, and beaten the King of Death. Everything is different because He has done so. This is the beginning of the New Creation: a new chapter in cosmic history has opened.

– C. S. Lewis
Miracles

Good Friday

Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy blood’s slow loss,
And yet not weep?

Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter, weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;

Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon –
I, only I.

Yet give not o’er,
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.

– Christina Rossetti

Anchored in God

For a spiritual life is simply a life
in which all that we do comes from the centre,
where we are anchored in God:
a life soaked through and through by a sense
of His reality and claim, and self-given
to the great movement of His will.

– Evelyn Underhill
(1875-1941)

Waiting for the Dawn

THOU Desire of nations, by whom the prophets spake, of whom the poets dream, for whom the people long; when wilt Thou dawn upon our waiting vision? Age after age the heavens are scanned for the sign of Thine appearing. We watch for Thee more than they that watch for the morning. Yet all things continue as they have been from the beginning.

Man labours still for wrong, sees the fruit of honest toil torn from him, and mingles tears with hopeless tasks. Still men sell their souls for a price and women are forced to a traffic of shame. The poor cry for bread and are offered a stone. Not yet do we see the mighty cast down from their seat; not yet hast Thou exalted the humble and meek; die race is still to the swift and the battle to the strong. Where is the promise of Thy coming?

Forgive the impatience, O our God, that would fling itself upon Thy slowly turning chariot wheels. Thou Thyself hast bid us watch and pray for the coming of Thy kingdom. The promise was it should be soon.

Perhaps Thou hast come, and the earth has rejected Thee; come like a thief in the night — and gone; come disguised as a child seeking love, a woman seeking justice, a man seeking souls, and we found no room for Thee. Then, O come back to us again.

Or dost Thou wait till we are ready? Dost Thou tarry till we turn from the trifles that now hold our hearts? Must we ourselves prepare the way?

O help us to understand.
Amen.

– W. E. Orchard,
A Book of Prayers