Can This Be Grace?

Can this be grace? A sinner such as I, condemned to Hell,
Should taste of Heaven's glories and await
Not judgment, but a trip through Heaven's gate,
And naught but that bright prospect mine to tell.

Can grace be this? The joys of feasting daily with the King,
To rest upon sweet promises of life,
Though this world full of enemies is rife,
Yet I, exceeding riches now can sing.

And shall this grace, be lost upon a worthless worm defiled?
Or shall I, as a joyous bird, in flight
Within such grace, exploring such delight,
So sing, so very glad to be His child.

So, what is grace? That He who loves me now did love me then,
Before He made the world, or any men.
And sent His Son to pay the awful cost.
And called my name so I should not be lost.

Have you this grace? The Lamb who died can wash you white as snow,
And cast away your sin behind His back,
And in Himself provide your ev'ry lack.
He liveth ever, just to make it so.

Lest Any MAN Should Boast

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2:8,9)

I was greatly impressed by a sermon I listened to today, highlighting God's purpose and sovereign grace in salvation. You can read it or listen here. This reminded me of the Scripture I pasted at the start of this article. I emphasize in the title and in the Scripture quotation above, the word "man". When you read the verse, say it out loud, emphasizing this word. "Lest any "man" should boast." When you emphasize this word in that way, you are also saying that there is someone who should boast. Not man, but God. God's purpose in saving us is that we might be to the praise of His glory, not our own. Every aspect of salvation, yes, every aspect of everything is so that God might boast, and so that we might spend eternity (how can you spend that which is eternal? but what else can you say?) praising the glory of His grace. If salvation were of works, man would boast. He would have the right, since he did it himself. But, since man does nothing for salvation, God gets all the glory. Our salvation started with God's purpose and grace, and His choosing us in Christ before the foundation of the world. We could have had no part in that, for we were not even around. Nor do we have a part in it now, for it is not of works, lest any man should boast. A salvation that rests entirely upon God and His eternal purposes provides great security, for it was all conceived, begun and shall be consummated in and through Him. And how can He fail? "For of Him, and through Him and to Him are all things." To God be the glory!

Make Yourself Remember!

Psalm 42 and 43 issue this rhetorical question 3 times: "Why art thou cast down, o my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me?" I say "rhetorical" because there is no answer required or sought, but only this command to self follows: "Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him."

These psalms remind us, among so much else, that our trust has been misplaced, for why would we have to tell ourselves to hope in God if we were already doing so? Also, when you tell yourself to hope in God, you have to give yourself reason to hope in Him, that is, you have to go to the Scriptures and look at the promises again. But we are not reading pretty promises for encouragement simply because they sound so nice. No, our very life depends upon this. It is not the promise itself that makes it valuable, but the fact that each promise of the Word of God is part of a sketch of our Lord. That is, it describes Him in His character. When we meditate on the promises of God, we are remembering who He is, and what He has said He will do for us because of who He is. So, when we read: "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee," we see a picture of One who is faithful to us even when everyone else and everything else stand impotent to give us any aid whatsoever. We have, by the promise, reason to hope, and as we meditate upon that promise, the hope is rekindled within our hearts until we do finally return to that place of joy and praise, which is what we were longing for from the beginning. So, we must rebuke ourselves for being cast down, and make ourselves remember to hope in God, for there is no hope otherwise.

Thy Kingdom Come!

Jesus taught us to pray for His coming kingdom. Among many other things, this prayer can remind us that His kingdom, while it is here in our hearts, is not here on this earth in all of its fulness, nor is it in our hearts the way it ought to be. Thinking of the coming kingdom reminds us also of our Saviour's instruction to store up our treasures in Heaven, and not on earth. The point is that to depart and be with Christ is far better than where we are now, no matter how closely we are able to walk with Him here. We have "an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled and that fadeth not away," reserved in Heaven for us. The desire for Christ's coming kingdom also speaks of our future reward with Him, beholding His glory.

As we look for His coming, we need to see that we are holding on to this world, and loving it, when we should be letting go of everything temporal and reaching for that which is eternal, instead. It seems to me that I am like the child at the mall whose fingers have to be pried off of the handles of the plastic pony, who is carried out, screaming for just one more ride, tearfully looking back, as if by looking he could hold on to that which is quickly vanishing from view. When I die, will it be like that, a dragging away with a desperate last cry at being separated from that which I love too much? And if it is so, where can I hope to end up, if my treasures are indeed here on earth in such great measure? But will not the gracious Lord instead grant me the heart of a child who, longing for His presence, and desiring to behold His beauty, cannot find any place of comfort in this world? Will He not give me a heart that has me looking upward, waiting for His coming with great joy and anticipation, so that might find death a welcome thing, that brings me at once to the One Who is my joy, my life and my all? Then, I will not be as Lot's wife, looking back with desire at this perishing Sodom, but looking to Jesus, with my arms open wide to embrace Him, the Lover of my soul, at Whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore. I would be as the child who is only too glad to leave the mall, because he is not impressed with its vain show. Instead, he looks eagerly toward home, where he belongs, and he just can't wait to get there. Lord, give me such a heart; make me such a child.

God is Still There!

I have found that my Saviour is present in my life even when I have not seen Him working. My problem, mostly, is that I too often think that He is working according to my plan. He is on my side, "If God be for us, who can be against us," but it is not according to my plans and will, but according to His.

It Is Just That!

Over the years, as a Christian, I have heard warnings about many of the old Puritan writers. They always go something like this: "Well, Spurgeon was good, but you have to be careful. After all, he was a hyper-calvinist." This caveat is repeated for virtually all of the old guys that wrote such deep, mighty works for God. "You can use their stuff, but don't buy what they are selling!"
And in sermon after sermon, you hear quotes from Spurgeon, Bunyan, Luther, Calvin (him too?) and other of the good old writers. But there is always the caveat. " They were good, but . . . " or "They were good in spite of their Calvinism and their treatment of the sovereignty of God."

Here is the big deal, though. The real thing. They were not good in spite of their teaching on God's sovereignty. It was precisely the fact that they believed what they believed that makes their works live on today. They wrestled with these deep things of God, and bowed to His sovereign grace, sometimes after much struggle. But it is out of these struggles that we have such giants of the faith (though they would never have called themselves such). So, it is not "in spite of their doctrine" that they are so good. It is just that very doctrine that makes them good. Divorce them from what they believed, and they will become unbelievable.

Perhaps if we wrestled with these things ourselves, instead of rejecting them out of hand whenever the Spirit comes to teach them to us, we would finally find them sweet to the taste and health to our Christian lives.