Christ empties Himself to fill my emptiness with His eternal fullness

In this Advent season, we do well to ponder this Christ who has come, is come, and is coming again.
On such point to ponder, I offer you from Ephesians 1:23 “… the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”

Bound in sin, I have no fullness, I am bound in emptiness. Christ empties Himself to fill my emptiness with His eternal fullness. What is my part in this? Repentance and faith! Repentance through which I am emptied of myself and faith that I might receive His filling and fullness. Emptiness and fullness is the echo of Christ’s journey in my salvation and my journey in His salvation.

CHRIST WAS:
Emptied of heaven to fill earth,
Emptied of pure divinity to fill humanity,
Emptied by divine justice to fill us by divine justification,
Emptied of God’s presence to fill us with God’s presence,
Emptied in death to fill us with eternal life,
Emptied from a tomb to fill us with resurrection,
Emptied physically from us to be fully in us spiritually through His Spirit.

WHERE WE ARE:
Emptied by sin, He fills us with His forgiveness.
Emptied by despair, He fills us with His hope.
Emptied by fear, He fills us with His courage.
Emptied by rejection, He fills us with His invitation.
Emptied by pride, He fills us with His humility.
Emptied by perversions of thought, He fills us with His pure and holy thinking.
Emptied by the words of others or our own, He fills us with His Words of eternal life.
Emptied by weakness, He fills us with His strength.
Emptied by death, He fills with life ever-lasting.
In Christ, we have no fullness that His emptiness cannot receive.
In Christ, we have no emptiness that His fullness He cannot so fill that our cups, our lives shall surely run over.

pmwl

Giving Thanks that Our God has neither brim or bottom

How good is our God whose mercies never come to an end.
Our God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit has neither a brim that He might say, “Enough for you!”, nor a bottom that He might say, “There is no more for you!”

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! Psalms 106:1

A Blessed Thanksgiving to all through Jesus Christ!

pmwl

The Face of the Church is the face of one who is a sinner, troubled, ...

“The church, which, as he demands again and again, should be believed, is ‘invisible’ in exactly the same sense as all the other constituents of faith are invisible. 

It must be believed contrary to all appearances.

What can be seen of the church is anything but ‘glory’.  

‘The Christian Church cannot be without suffering, persecution, and dying, yes, not without sin either’ (WA 7, 684, 9). 

‘The face of the church is the face of one who is a sinner, troubled, forsaken, dying, and full of distress’ (Erlangen edition ex. lat. 18, 213). 

Nevertheless, faith sees the opposite, the saint, the ‘glory of God’, the ‘glory of the Christian brotherhood’.”

Elert, Werner: The Structure of Lutheranism.  262

LIVING BY FAITH IN GOD'S WANT TO DO A DEED "IN" ME

Luther is often quoted as saying: "Let no one give up the faith that God wants to do a deed through him." Whether this is what Luther said or not, there is an inscription on an archway at Wittenberg seminary that reads almost the same, but with one word changed. "Let no one give up the faith that God wants to do a deed in him."
This change may seem as a trifling thing, yet it is so critically important. How often do both pastor and people get themselves sideways in their faith to the point of despair because they are living only for the deed the Lord would do through them. When such people fail to see the deed they would accomplish come to fulfillment, they quickly descent into despair and depression. All this because their faith is fixed first and foremost on what they think the Lord ought to do through them, and when He doesn’t, they jump to the false illusion that the Lord has thrown them off and has no further use of or for them.
As the redeemed, we live by faith in Christ and His redeeming grace that daily rescues us from our sin and our sinfulness. We have been saved by God’s grace to do the good works that He prepared in advance for us to do. Let us not be so foolish to believe that He who has accomplished all that is necessary for our eternal redemption, is somehow ignorant of when, where and how best to use our redeemed lives in and for His Kingdom. If you would know what is the will of God for you as His redeemed child, look not to what you would do for Him, but look His Word, to His 10 Commandments, here you will find more than enough to occupy your time and your faith.
In all that the Lord gives you to do and in all that He has set you free from doing – make sure that you do not take to yourself what He has not given you. In what He has given you to do, rejoice in both the opportunity to serve and the boundaries that come with it. In what the Lord has relieved you from doing, rejoice that it sets you free to do more in your given areas of service and it sets you free for the potential of new opportunities of service.
The great hazard of taking to ourselves to do what our Lord has not given us is that it will only get in the way of doing what He has set us free to do in Jesus Christ. This will then only escalate our sense of uselessness and frustration and make us a willing and prime target for the illusions of Satan.
Inasmuch as “Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever.” (Heb 13:8), His want to do His saving deed in us is eternally almighty today as it was before time began. So almighty is our Lord’s want to work His saving grace in us that, “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Lam 3:22-23
Wherever you would look for the deed our Lord would do through you, look first and always to the deed our Lord is doing in you and you will always have hope.

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. Psalms 42:11

The peace and blessings of Christ be with you!

... the “Word,” as the organ and transmitter of ...

For Luther the “Word,” as the organ and transmitter of the Holy Spirit, as the “life and substance of the church” (vita et substantia ecclesiae), is, in the strict sense, a sacred element of the church. 

As a word spoken by human beings it is a piece of the world—and yet not the word of the world, but God’s Word.  It not only consecrates the acts of Baptism and Holy Communion, but it also imparts a spiritual character to all “worldly things” with which it has to do (umgeht). 

Accordingly, it gives them a character that is not worldly. By constantly re-creating and preserving the church it impresses on it a sacred character.

Elert, Werner: The Structure of Lutheranism. CPH, 2000, c1962, S. 263

... to see what spirit you follow:

When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax went up to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the tax?” He said, “Yes.” And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax? From their sons or from others?” And when he said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are free. However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself.” Matt 17:24-27 (ESV)

If Jesus is God's Son, He should hardly have to pay tax to the Temple which is His Father's. Yet by what Jesus says here, He testifies about His divinity. Thus by what Jesus does, He shows in deed His almighty power and His omniscience by telling Peter to take a coin from the fish’s mouth. But Jesus, who is God's only-begotten Son, the Almighty Lord, who did not have to pay tax, pays the tax.

Christ's love is the spirit of true humility and peace forming and strengthening society. In this love He has given to His people, the members of His body, so that His spirit in us conquers over the flesh and the unlawful spirit of the devil at work within us.

If you would be a Christian in more than name only, then examine yourselves, so see who you really follow.

Search yourself and your ways to see what spirit you follow: Christ's spirit of obedience and humility or the power seeking / " my way or the highway" spirit of the world.

Do you follow Christ's love which willingly bears the burdens of your companions or the spirit of selfishness and self-serving which murmurs and complains because others refuse your vision or way of how things ought be done?

How many people who stand on their Christian freedom, stand on this freedom not for the sake of humble service to those whom God has joined them or obedience to those God has placed over them, but the sake of escaping any true forms of humble service or obedience.

Such people who talk a great deal about Christ and the freedom they have in Him, are so far from the humble obedience of their Savior and the true freedom that the Christian uses to love and serve their Lord and neighbor. They are enslaved and toil under the yoke of self-will and are controlled by a perverted spirit of freedom which divides and tears apart both the church of which they are a part and human society.

“If you want to belong to my kingdom," the Lord says: “then deny yourself. If you want to rule with me, then put on my humility and my servitude and my obedience. If you want to wear a crown of glory there in heaven above, then bear the cross here and walk in my footsteps of humble service."

The freedom of faith in which we follow Christ can never be used to turn away from Christ in His Word.  The one who uses this freedom to turn away from Christ as He gives Himself in Word and Sacrament, has turn away from the very faith that receives Christ and His salvific work.

Many are the times when we so misuse our Christian freedom, thanks be to God that if we be faithless, He remains ever faithful (2 Tim 2:13). 

So draw me to you with a repentant heart, Lord, and let me be led in Your humble way. Give me grace through faith, to put on Your mind and to follow You faithfully. Let me be a faithful member of Your holy church on earth which You established – and in heaven a blessed member of the Church triumphant, to which You gather all Your saints. Grant this grace to me and to all who call upon Your name most merciful God. Amen.

Nils Jakob Laache

Book of Family Prayer
Lutheran Synod Book Company - Mankato, MN
Editing and additions by Pastor Mark W. Love

All Sizzle, No Substance

By Rev. Scott Murray - Memorial Lutheran Church - Houston, TX
Tuesday of Pentecost 23 - 2 November 2010

Worry transgresses the first commandment. Yes, of course. We should believe that God is in charge and that there is nothing to worry about. When we worry, we are ultimately saying that God can't take care of us. But there are far more destructive kinds of worry than our garden variety worries about money, home, family, and future. The worst kind of worry is the worry that church leaders often exhibit about the church and her future. Church leaders agonize when it appears the church is dying because its adherents are defecting to the world. It is easy to suffer this worry, when all that we read and see shoves into our face the declining membership in Christian churches today. The very leaders of the churches themselves are constantly beating the dead horse of declining church membership in the churches. The result of these beatings is that we begin to think we had better do something about this weakness and decline in our church body or congregation. If we would just do something, we could reverse the trend and grow.
This is a far worse idolatry than garden variety worry. This is worry that attributes to God the inability to care for, watch over, and guard His church. He needs us to help Him do that of which we think Him incapable. This kind of worry drives us to try to fix what is not under our control. This kind of worry motivates us to employ the manipulative marketing methodologies of the world to woo the "dying" church back to life. The church's life cannot be created nor maintained by such methods. If we use these methods we will be treating the chaste bride of Christ as though she were an adulterous woman, who can be wooed by the techniques of the procurer. The church will suffer under the signs of death until the Lord who suffered and died returns in glory on the Day of Judgment. We dare not worry her out of those signs into the signs we prefer. We dare not deck her out in the glad rags of the adulterous woman. She is our mother, not our girlfriend.
No matter how much people rave about the latest techniques by which they think they can "grow the church," we must not succumb to them, but faithfully testify to the power of Christ to preserve His church and save His people though the divine Word alone. Such techniques were foisted on God's people as a better way to reach people with the Word, but in such situations, the "better way" finally overcomes the word and the sizzle substitutes for the meat. One of the restaurants near my office is "Ruth's Chris Steak House," which advertizes that their steaks arrive at your table on a sizzling 1,200 degree plate. What if they began serving the plate without bringing the steak on it? The sizzle would fail to feed and satisfy the restaurant patron and very soon the restaurant would be empty. I am hearing a great deal from people who are attending Christ-less churches where Christ is not preached for fear of offending the congregants. This is the triumph of sizzle over substance.
The church needs to be committed to preaching Christ and His mercy for sinners, without counting the cost. Will some turn back and no longer walk with Jesus (Jn 6:66)? Yes, but that is God's business, not ours. We should not worry about making God more successful and let God be who He is, under the humble signs of the Word. Let God worry about His church. He can manage it.

Martin Luther
"This doctrine (of the cross) is especially necessary at the present time, when we see the pope and his accomplices raving and raging in a cruel manner. Many good and saintly men, together with their wives and children, are being driven into exile, stripped of all their goods, and atrociously slaughtered. Similarly, the Turk is also raging monstrously. Accordingly, we are in the midst of death, and the world is being driven to ruin, but the Lord still lives. Everything belongs to the Creator, who is the almighty Father. Therefore we should have no regard for the size of the calamities and for the power of those who persecute us. Nor should our own dangers or those of our wives and children make us afraid. Thus Joseph does not look at prison, disgrace, death, and the very sad and horrible things that befell him (Gn 45:7). No, he clings to the Word and believes in the almighty Father. What if the Turk or the pope swallow us alive? What are they doing? They are devouring our death, miseries, and tribulations, and are exchanging this calamitous life for eternal life, provided that we believe in the almighty Father.
"But you will say, 'Meanwhile, however, religion is being destroyed.' What will happen then? What of it? Let God rule. Let Him take care of this. The Lord will take care that the church and a holy seed are preserved on earth. Certainly Joseph was sent to the Egyptians, a barbarous and godless nation with no knowledge of God, where there was great danger that his tender soul would be seduced after being imbued with depraved dogmas and superstition. But the outcome bears witness that that very mission and danger was the cause of many blessings. Thus it is possible for God also to preserve some of us to be a nursery for the church when the Turk and the enemies of God have been destroyed. For He allows them to rave and rage so that they may be destroyed and perish. In the meantime, however, the light of the Gospel is gradually being propagated more and more. Only let us keep on believing, teaching, suffering, and dying; for they, too, will have to perish."


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THE TROUBLE OF A FADED IMAGE OF GOD

“What is man, that he can be pure? Or he who is born of a woman, that he can be righteous? Behold, God puts no trust in his holy ones, and the heavens are not pure in his sight; how much less one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks injustice like water!”  Job 15:14-16 (ESV)

We might say that according to this text man is as unholy as God is holy. But that would not be correct, for nothing can be compared with God’s holiness. “The heavens are not pure in His sight.” The light of the sun is completely clear, yet God’s light His sight.” The light of the sun is completely clear, yet God’s light must we look in His eyes? “How can he who is born of a woman be righteous? … Man, who is abominable and filthy, Who drinks iniquity like water!” And how do the Pelagians explain this text?
“Learn, O man, really to know what Adam’s fall and original sin are, that your filthiness cannot be expressed or understood. Learn to know yourself, what you have become by the fall into sin, that you were made in the image of God, but have become the image of Satan, with all his vanity and wickedness. For God’s holiness, purity, and all His deeds are just like His image. And just as man before the Fall was completely heavenly, spiritual, and pure as angels, so now inwardly he has become completely earthly, fleshly, and brutish. For isn’t your anger and cruelty like a lion’s? Your avarice and insatiable greed like a dog’s and a wolf's? Your impurity and gluttony like a pig’s? Yes, if ... I you really search your heart, you shall find in yourself a whole world, full of unclean animals, and just in one little member, the tongue, a whole mess of lizards and evil spirits, a ‘world full of unrighteousness’” (Johann Arnde).
This is Biblical teaching, almost like what Paul writes in Romans 3:10-18, truth for salvation. But why are there so few who hear it, and even fewer who recognize it in themselves? The trouble is that we have a faded image of God. Stand before Him who is “sanctified in holiness, awesome to praise,” before whom the seraphim hide their holiness, awesome to praise,” before whom the seraphim hide their hosts” [lsa 6:3]. Know Him from whom you cannot escape, who in His holy zeal did not even spare His only-begotten Son [Rom 8:32] when He took our sin upon Himself, but gave Him the full cup of wrath to drink, though He wept and prayed for pity [Mat 26:39]. Know Him, “our God who is a consuming fire” [Heb 12:29]. Then the dreams of your own piety shall vanish, so that you see your impurity and unrighteousness. One says: “Your affliction is incurable” [Jer 30:12]. But the same One says: “I am the LORD who heals you” [Exod. 15:26].

My God, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me [Ps 51:5], so my heart is only evil from my youth [Gen. 8:21]. Have mercy on me for Jesus’ sake. Forgive me, and heal me, that I may live and praise You. Amen.

Nils Jakob Laache
Book of Family Prayer
Lutheran Synod Book Company - Mankato, MN