Impressions from the Word- Jeremiah 5 and 6

July 7, 2008

(This post is the next in a series of posts containing my first blush reactions to passages I come across in the reading of Scripture. I am currently going straight through the book of Jeremiah and will be sharing with you which verses the Spirit causes to jump out at me and the unrevised, unpolished feelings which they invoke.)

“Though they say, ‘As the LORD lives,’ yet they swear falsely.” (5.2)

I am becoming increasingly aware of the vanity with which we associate the remembrance and worship of God. It sickens me more each day when I hear someone refer to praise, prayer, forgiveness, sacrifice, etc. in such a flippant manner that their ignorance to the things of God is clear. Let me not be this way!

“Shall I not avenge myself on a nation such as this?” (5.9b)

I hope we never hear this!

“They have spoken falsely of the LORD and have said, ‘He will do nothing; no disaster will come upon us, nor shall we see sword or famine.’ “ (5.12)

A lack of fear in the face of God’s wrath is not a good thing. Do I ever find myself in such a haughty state that I don’t think God will punish my transgressions?

” . . . and your sins have kept good from you.” (5.25b)

What blessings have my sins cost me so far? What blessings do I stand to lose if I stumble along the path of former sins once more? God isn’t playing games. It is not okay for me to think I can just continue in sin. Put to death my sins daily, O Lord!

” . . . but what will you do when the end comes?” (5.31b)

Occasionally I think about what it will look like when Christ returns. It looks scary! There are few things (no things) which seem as frightening to me as to see Christ returned. This is because I know how utterly unworthy of salvation I am. How wonderful is it to know that it won’t be my own works that I am trusting in to preserve me on that day. It’s still scary though. How magnificent!

“Be warned, O Jerusalem, lest I turn from you in disgust, lest I make you a desolation, an uninhabited land.” (6.8 )

I can remember the fears that tortured my soul, knowing I am saved and yet stumbling in unmortified sin. The fear wasn’t of punishment and wrath but of the loss of God’s presence in my life. As the Puritans would say, we can have no assurance if we are still struggling in sin, for God may easily remove his voice from us while in disobedience.

“For from the least to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy for unjust gain.” (6.13a)

The temptation always burns strong in me when something appears attainable without much price. But God knows all and sees all, seeing how idolatrous my heart can be for material things.

“Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush.” (6.15a)

What sins am I unable to “blush” in shame about? What shortcomings have so indwelt me that I no longer feel their evil? I have desire that my conscience won’t be hardened against any iniquity.

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Posted by Todd Burus

My Shame in My Sin- Thoughts on Psalm 51:9-10

July 1, 2008

“Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” -Psalm 51:9-10

While I was reading through Psalm 51 the other day, David’s Psalm of repentance for his sins regarding Bathsheba, this verse really struck me as speaking to exactly what I feel when my own sins are in front of me. Whenever I lose my temper with my wife, whenever I lie to cover something up, whenever I say or think things that are angry or lustful, and afterwards I reflect on what I’ve done, my first desire is that whoever knows what I did would strike it from their mind and never recall it happening again.

And this is even higher when dealing with God, who sees everything that I do, and so knows all the myriad of ways I fail him in one day alone. I think of all the things he has blessed me with, all the wonderful things that he is doing in my life and the amazing ways in which he has been revealing himself to me, and then I think about the way in which I have totally denied everything that he has shown me by behaving in the way I did, and I just want him to forget about it all. I want him to turn his eyes away from the way in which I have dishonored him, to not dwell on the fact that I have just spit in his face when I knew all along what I was commanded to do. And I fear that knowing my sin he will remove himself from me and his glorious presence from my heart (knowing that I can’t lose my salvation, but that I could lose the active voice of his Spirit in my life), so I long that he will cast away my sin while still keeping me close.

Yet I am comforted by his Word that he will. I am comforted that through the sacrifice of Jesus, God has “cancel[ed] the record of debt” against me by “nailing it to the cross” with Christ (Colossians 2:14), that not being in part but in the whole of all sins I will ever commit. It is such a fearful thing to stand knowing that I have willingly disobeyed the God who went to such great lengths to redeem my soul, and so I am thankful that his Word reveals that, by turning in repentance, that he will hide his face from my sins, that through the power of Christ’s blood which flowed from the Cross I can be renewed and restored, like Peter (John 18:17, 21:19) and like David (2 Samuel 12:13), and that by the cleansing of this defilement (2 Corinthians 7:1) I may be grown and strengthened by his grace (2 Timothy 2:1).

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The Purpose Behind Suffering- Thoughts on Psalm 119:71

June 30, 2008

“It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.” -Psalm 119:71

In reflecting back on my testimony which I have shared here over the last two weeks, one recurring theme seems to jump out to me. It is the same idea being expressed here by the psalmist, that all that has happened to me, self-inflicted or not, has served to turn me more and more to the Word of God. Every major frustration or struggle in my life so far has seen as its eventual end a thrusting of myself closer and closer to God. Beginning with my parents divorce, through my multiple bad relationships, and even into the the recent depression at being removed from the comforts of home, every time God has seen me afflicted he has used that as occasion to bring me nearer.

I recall that this thought provided great comfort to me as a child, knowing that if my parents had not split then my mother would not have dated that guy, and I would not have gone with his son to the church camp where God granted my salvation. To see the anger and embarrassment and turmoil of my parents divorce and how God used this to redeem me for eternity, it truly embodies for me Genesis 50:20 where Joseph tells his brothers “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” Satan meant it for evil that I would be devastated in heart and spirit by the disintegration of my family, yet God used it for good that I may be saved. And so truly today I can proclaim that it has been good for me that I was afflicted!

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Being Aware of Where You Are- Thoughts on Galatians 5:7

June 13, 2008

“You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?” -Galatians 5:7

We must be constantly evaluating the teachings we receive. It is not enough to rely on others to teach us, but we must have a way of checking ourselves to make sure that what we are taking in is truly God’s Word. The only way to do this is through a personal study of his Word ourselves and going to God in prayer for guidance. There is a lion looking to devour and wolves in our midst, therefore it is necessary to always be armed with the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17) in order to protect our souls from the false teachings of others.

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His Sons Will Suffer- Thoughts on Hebrews 12:7-8

June 12, 2008

“It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.” -Hebrews 12:7-8

All of God’s sons will endure discipline, and this is an assurance of their salvation. If you do not experience discipline then you are not a true son. Wow! This really speaks to me on how one who has truly accepted Christ should live their life. So many people turn to a works based salvation because they cannot rectify the lives of a lot of so-called “Christians” who seem to lack what the Bible teaches on obedience. Yet this passage points to the fact that real believers, those who have believed in faith (which maintains the analogy with the rest of Scripture) should show signs of obedience because they will be disciplined into it by their father. Therefore, yes, some true Christians may continually step outside of the lines of what God would have for them, in the way that some children continually disobey their parents, yet with the great majority they will not take such a masochistic approach to being constantly disciplined but will instead fall in line with the desires of their father.

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The Wisdom of God- Thoughts on Acts 6:10

June 11, 2008

“But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking.” -Acts 6:10

We see Stephen, full of grace and power, engaged in deep theological debate. By the strength of the Spirit, though it was folly to those who he debated, their own wisdom was made foolish (1 Corinthians 1:18-20).

It is acceptable in our society to view Christianity as a weak faith that is easily disprovable by science or history or personal experience, which is what the crowds tried to do with Stephen as they debated his claims of Christ as the Messiah. Yet in this Stephen was submitted to the Spirit and it empowered him to stand firm in the teachings of Christ (and what would now be the Scriptures) and to beat down the attacks of the doubters. In the same way, we must have faith that by preparing ourselves to give a defense for what we believe (1 Peter 3:15) and submitting ourselves to his authority and voice over our own, then the Spirit will strengthen us and give us the ability to hold fast to what has been revealed and to see souls won for Christ away from the “foolish” intellectualism of the world.

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Maintaining Purpose in Persecution- Thoughts on Acts 8:4

June 10, 2008

“Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.” -Acts 8:4

We see here that as the first great persecution of the Church begins, following the martyrdom of Stephen, the people were scattered throughout the region. Yet, short of being scared off from Christ, they instead chose to go about preaching the Word so that more may believe. How often do we face trials or persecution with a spirit of fear instead of with a spirit of power and love (2 Timothy 1:7)? How often do we allow for the preaching of Scripture to be our natural response to opposition faced in the world? Even if I feel scorned by nonbelievers I often just coat my self in a shell of false religiosity and self-righteousness thinking “Okay, I will show them through my Godly patience and piousness,” whereas the biblical precedence is clearly to go forth from that trial and proclaim the Gospel message of the one who gives me the strength to move forward.

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Willingness to Suffer with Christ- Thoughts on Hebrews 13:13-14

June 9, 2008

“Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.” -Hebrews 13:13-14

This is a call for us to take our place as sojourners and exiles (1 Peter 1:1, 2:11), bearing the scorn and disrespect of our community and of the world, as we join in the suffering of our Savior; with which he forgave and cleansed or souls. We can do this with hope because we are not awaiting any reward on this earth, but instead, we endure for the eternal reward which Christ purchased through his death.

We must be cautious however, as this call to willing give ourselves over to the reproach of the world is encouraging, the truth is that most of us are not actual desirous of carrying it out to fruition. So much of our Christianity, mine included, is protected inside the comforts of our Christian community and insulated from actually having to be naked and exposed in front of the mocking crowds in the way that Christ was on the Cross. To truly fulfill this we must pray for a heart to do such a thing, in the way that Christ did in Gethsemane before his death, so that we can be conformed into bearing that burden alongside of him.

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Posted by Todd Burus