I see You and Your work as I see the sun behind and through the clouds

Gracious Lord, how my eyes long to see You

and Your work in my life and the world around me.

Guard me from attempting to satisfy my longing by my own reason or senses.

Grant that when I hear and see Your Word rightly taught,

Your absolution freely declared,

Your sacraments rightly administered,

and Your will rightly done –

I may boldly say,

“This day I have seen God’s Word and God’s work!

I have heard God Himself!

I have seen God’s hands at work as He baptized,

as He fed me and others with the body and blood of His Son!”

When I am tempted to doubt Your presence and Your work 

because of the mask You have chosen,

blind my earthly eyes

and give sight to my eyes of faith,

that I may see You and receive You in all Your saving work.

Grant that I may never seek to separate You and Your Work

from Your Word or the offices You have chosen for me as my Creator, my Redeemer, and my Sanctifier.

Console me and all believers with the understanding that when I am brought to heaven’s shores -

I will see and behold You and Your work

without masks and coverings that now protect me from the fullness of Your glory.

For now, allow that I, my brothers and my sisters in the faith

may stand in the place that You have chosen for me.

I see You and Your work as I see the sun behind and through the clouds.

To this end, grant that inasmuch as I long to have and behold You in heaven,

I may have and behold You through Your chosen masks

which are the mission, substance and work of Christianity –

the Word rightly proclaimed and Your Sacraments rightly administered in Your Church.

If ever I would like to rightly know how it is between me and You, my Lord,

and whether my way pleases You,

grant that I may pay close attention to Your Word and Your works in all their fullness.

This I ask and pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

- pmwl

lest I give into the presumptions of my sinful nature ...

Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me!  Ps 19:13 (ESV)

Such is my prayer, O my soul,

For there is in me, that is in my sinful nature prone to presume much.

Surely my sinful nature presume me to be innocent,

And if be not innocent, my sinful nature assumes that it is someone else’s fault, even God.

Having owned my guilt,

having owned my sin,

having owned that I am by nature sinful and unclean,

And having been completely forgiven of it all,

by God’s free grace

for the sake of Jesus Christ,

my sinful nature would have me to presume,

that because forgiveness is free,

I am free to do as I please, be it sinful or otherwise.

Let it not be O Lord,

lest by my sinful presumptuous sin, my deliberate sin,

I find no sacrifice for my sins (Hb 10:29).

Keep me back O Lord from presumptuous sins,

lest I have to live with a fearful expectation of judgment,

with a fury that shall consume Your adversaries (Hb 10:27).

Keep me back O Lord, from presumptuous sins,

lest I spurn the Son of God,

lest I profane the blood of the covenant that has sanctified me,

lest I outrage the Spirit of grace (Heb 10:29).

Let my sins and my sinful presumptions not have dominion over me, O Lord,

lest I be made to fall into Your Living hands, O God (Heb 10:32).
Having put me, and all that is mine into the hands of Christ on the Cross,

so that my name is engraved there (49:16),

having united me, and all that is mine into the hands, into Christ Himself,

keep me back, hold me back,

lest I give into the presumptions of my sinful nature,

and take myself into my own hands and my own destruction.

Keep me back and make known to me the path of life,

For in your presence there is fullness of joy,

Fullness of a good outcome,

And at Your right hand are pleasures forever more (Ps 16:11).

My times are in your hand,

rescue me from the hand of my enemies,

the presumptions of my sinful nature (Ps. 31:15).

Rather than falling into Your hand, O Lord,

Into Your hand I commit my spirit;

You have redeemed me;

O Lord, Faithful God (Ps 31:5).

- pmwl 

who refuse in faith to open their mouths wide that the Lord might fill it

Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us, even as we hope in you. Ps 33:22

Hope in the Lord, O my soul,

His steadfast love has given me hope,

Do not stifle the Lord’s goodness in action,

by doubt and unbelief.

Is this not the Lord who promised,

“Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.” (Ps 81:10)?

And didn’t this same Lord lament over the fact

that the people to whom He made this promise,

would not listen, would not hope in Him (Ps 81:11)?

What could the Lord do with those who refused to hope in Him,

Those who refuse in faith to open their mouths wide that the Lord might fill it,

But give them over to following their own counsels (81:12),

And thus to their continued submission to their enemies (81:14).

Hope in the Lord, O my soul,

For it is by His steadfast love that I shall enter His house and dwell with Him forever (Ps 5:7).

Hope in the Lord, O my soul,

For through the steadfast love of the Lord Most High, I shall be moved (Ps 21:7).

Hope in the Lord, O my soul,

For His steadfast love, like His mercy, is from of old (Ps 25:6),

And He remembers me, not according to the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions, but according to His steadfast love (Ps 25:7).

Hope in the Lord, O my soul,

For all His paths are steadfast love to those who trust in Him (Ps 25:10).

Many are the sorrows of those who have no hope, no trust in the Lord,

But the Lord’s steadfast love,

His love in action, devoted to my salvation,

surrounds me,

if I will but believe in Him,

if I will but hope in Him (Ps 32:10). 

Let Your steadfast love be upon me, O Lord,

Even more than I hope in You.

- pmwl

He gave His back to bear my burdens

Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you … Ps 55:22 (ESV)

Give me up to these words, O my soul,

I have a burden to test and try me,

I have a casting to relieve me,

And a promise to assure me.

Many are the times when I have gone no further than myself with my burdens and the bearing of them. 

Surely with this burden too, I, in my pride,

would load this burden and the bearing of it to myself alone.

Cast my burden on the Lord, O my soul,

For the Lord has cast my sin behind His back (Is 38:17).

The Lord is compassionate,

casting all my sins into the depths of the sea (Mi 7:19).

Cast all my burdens on the Lord, O my soul,

For when all my iniquities were cast upon Him,

the Lord did not cast me away.

Cast all my burdens on the Lord, O my soul,

For He gave His back to bear my burdens

and the burdens of us all (Is 50:6).

Whether my burden be one of weakness,

one of temptation,

one of suffering,

or one of faithfulness,

Humble yourself, O my soul,

casting all my burdens,

and their anxieties,

onto the Lord,

For He cares for me (1 Pt 5:7).

As the captain of a ship casts his anchor beyond his sight,

That it might be lodged in that which is more secure,

And his ship made steady,

So cast my burdens beyond my sight, O my soul,

Cast them on the Lord,

that they may be lodged in Him who is so secure,

That I shall be sustained by Him who has gathered me up in His arms,

and bears me on through life in His bosom. (Is 40:11).

Give me up to these words, O my soul,

I have a burden to test and try me,

I have a casting to relieve me,

And a promise to assure me.

I relieved your shoulder of the burden; your hands were freed from the basket. In distress you called, and I delivered you.  Ps 81:6-7 (ESV)

- pmwl

so near is the Lord to me while in the fire of humiliation

Why do you stand far off?  Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? 

Psalm 10:1

The Lord’s presence is of great joy to me, O my soul.

Yet in my troubles, in my trials, in my testings,

my senses overwhelm me,

screaming that the Lord has hidden Himself from me,

Amidst every trouble, trial and testing,

amidst the screams of my senses,

listen to the Word of the Lord, O my soul!

For the Word of the Lord, is the nearness of the Lord in all His glory.

Just as the refiner is ever near fire when he is refining his gold –

so near is  the Lord to me while in the fire of humiliation, or the furnace of affliction. 

Though I may be called to walk through the fire,

Hasn’t the Lord promised to be with you, O my soul?

Promising that you shall not be burned,

Promising that the flames shall not even scorch you, O my soul (Is 43)?

Isn’t the Lord as near to you, O my soul,

As He was so near to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace

that He walked with them there,

preserving them even from the smell of the fire (Dan 3)?

Bless Lord, O my soul!

“According to his great mercy, he has caused you to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your soul.” 1 Pt 1:3-9 (ESV)

So distant is this sense of separation for one who is lacking

“For He satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul He fills with good things.” Ps 107:9

So great is the lacking of satisfaction that it leads one into a deep sense of aloneness and separation. 

So deep is this sense, that the longing one is not able to adequately ascend from his depths by thoughts, words or deeds to attain his desired satisfaction. 

So distant is this sense of separation for one who is lacking that which satisfies his soul, that no matter his longing of thoughts, words or deeds, he cannot adequately bridge the gap his lack has brought him. 

It is in this solitude that one finds himself in the belly of the whale with Jonah. 

It is at such a time and place that one is confronted with the end of themselves and one begins to despair. 
In such longing one surely thirsts, but it is not until one has reached the end of themselves that he begins to thirst for that which is not of himself or the earth. 

It is when one realizes that things earthly cannot satisfy his thirst, that he is stewarded to the heavenly supply. 

So he goes with petitions to the Lord in confession and prayers, asking for divine grace and mercy so that his soul’s thirst may be satisfied, and be at rest.

For the one who thirsts in faith, He gives him the Water of Life for satisfaction, and for his hunger He fills him with the greatest good – the Bread of Life.

In both cases the need is more than met, there is abundance in the supply which the Lord does provide. 

No one will come up lacking of what they need where he receives the provision of the Lord. 

For what the Lord sends to one so alone in their sin is not the common fare of this world, but goodness Himself, the Son of God. 

How should one who has been so abundantly met in their solitude of lack and need respond?

“Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of man!”  Ps 107:8, 15, 21, 31.

- pmwl

My sins occur when I stop being His creation,

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; ⁶ in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.  Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil.  This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.   Proverbs 3:5-8

If my understanding is correct, of Luther’s understanding of God and man’s relationship to God it is set down for me like this:

Let God be the God that he is, and let me and all mankind be what we are, creatures and not Gods.

Sin is my attempt to be other than I am – God. 

I do this because my sin has bound me to distrust my Creator 

and thus proceed to make decisions and take actions that are not mine, as a creature, to make or take.

In Jesus Christ, I find a man without sin. 

Why?  Because Jesus never assumed a role or responsibility that was not His. 

He was perfect in His manhood because He lived the life of a man,

as man was to live it,

and died the death of a man. 

Just like everyone else who was created in this flesh,

Jesus lived by the rules of the flesh (God’s Law)

and lived them so closely that as all flesh must die, so Jesus also died – as my substitute.

In the cross of Christ I find God in man, living, suffering and dying like all men and women do,

not just to take it away, but to give and fill all suffering and death with purpose and blessing. 

In Baptism, God the Holy Spirit comes, and by the grace of God,

puts Jesus’ death to me, and His death to the power of my sinful nature,

and created in me a new life that is pleased and rejoices to be a new creature in Jesus Christ. 

This new life of mine is lived only by faith in Jesus Christ,

faith that believes and knows not the outcome of any event or day,

but faith that believes that God is at work in all of them making them serve my welfare (Rm 8:28).

This faith gives me joy, because it assures me of a good outcome, whether for life here or death.

The way of living this new life in Christ is found in the Word of God, the law of God. 

The law then becomes not just rules and regulations,

but the signs that point the way for me to be what God created, redeemed and recreated me to be.

By the grace of God I am given a new life,

and I am enabled to be a new creation in the midst of God’s old creation. 

It is by faith in God being God,

and being God in me through Jesus Christ,

that I live out my new life in the day to day activities.

My sins occur when I stop being His creation,

created to serve God and all of creation

and start attempting to be God. 

This flows from my sinful heart that refuses to let me be a mere creature,

A sinful heart that refuses to let the true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit –

be my God, accomplish His will for me, and accomplish His will through me.

When you and I let God be God,

That is when I seek first His Kingdom  –

He and His will fills everything I am,

purifying me of everything in me that is unrighteous,

And give me eternal life.  

By the grace of God,

I as a believer have been brought into a faith relationship with Jesus Christ. 

In this relationship my Lord Jesus brings me God as He really is

and makes me as Jesus really is through Baptism. 

In this relationship I live by letting Jesus be Jesus,

Letting Jesus be THE Way for me, THE Truth for me, and THE Life for me.

- pmwl

I am bound by my sin to the silence Christ found ...

Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope. Ps 119:49

The Psalmist does not fear a failure in the Lord's memory, but turns to the promise and speaks of his need according to His promise.

The Psalmist doesn’t plead for the Lord to remember in his words, but that the Lord remember His own words. 

I like the psalmist, am under the bondage of sin have no word, no promise of my own. 

For I am bound by my sin to the silence Christ found Himself in the midst of my sin before the wrath of God. 

The only word, the only promise that I have is that which is given to me of the Lord. 

Even as in creation, so now in the living as a creature, He must speak His word before I or anything in all creation can respond.

While my hope arises from my Lord’s promise, my hope is fulfilled in my Lord’s remembrance of His promise to me. 

For when He remembers His promise to me, He will participate in me and with me according to the word of promise. 

This plea to remember is no mere request that the Lord “think about me.”

No, it is a request for the Lord to participate in and with me according to what He has said He will do. 

Inasmuch as Jesus Christ is the Word of God,

the promise of God, incarnate,

He is the Lord’s living and participating remembrance of His promise to me and to all of fallen creation. 

Jesus being the Lord’s remembrance of His promises to me is set boldly down in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians,

“For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.” 2 Cor. 1:20-22.

My hope therefore is not that the Lord “thinks about me”, but that He remembers, He participates in me and with me according to His Word.

Jesus Christ came to remember me, my words, my actions, my thoughts. 

He came to remember me, to participate in all that was, that is, and that will yet be me in this fallen world. 

No matter how painful or how absolute Hell it became for Him in His remembrance of me on the Cross, He never stopped participating in my sin, my penalty or me. 

Even when the Father forgot Him, stopped participating in Christ because of His remembrance of me, Jesus never backed away from remembering me, never backed away from fully participating in me. 

In the blessed sacrament of the Lord’s Body and Blood, I have received His command, “Do this in remembrance of me.”  Surely this is no mere mental recollection, but a participation in His Body and His Blood, and by that communion the receiving of all His Body and Blood had participated in to secure my salvation. 

To remember Christ in the Sacrament is to participate in His participation in the promises of God’s Law and His Gospel so that I might have, I might receive the forgiveness of our sins and participation in eternal life.  

The Lord’s remembrance of me began in my baptism as He participated in my life by uniting to the crucified, dead, buried and risen Jesus Christ – through His Word. 

In His remembrance of me in baptism He participates in me by the work of His Holy Spirit who fills and works in me the grace of my Lord Jesus Christ.

Surely I understand the words of Jesus – apart from me – you can do nothing.

- pmwl

born to afflict what is righteous (Ga 5:17)

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. Ps 34:19 (ESV)

In a world bound under sin,

bound under the dominion Adam and Eve gave to Satan,

there is no one who is righteous, no one (Rm 3:9).

Being conceived in iniquity and brought forth in sin, no one enters this world righteous (Ps 51:5).

In fact, we are born hostile to all that is righteous, born to afflict what is righteous (Ga 5:17).

So what is righteous and righteousness,

must come from outside this world, outside us.

To us in our need,

God sent His only Son into the world to be the propitiation for our sins (1 Jn 4:9-10).

God sent His Son into our world,

into our bondage to sin,

into the dominion of Satan,

and into verdict of God’s Law against us,

To be the payment that bought us out of our bondage to sin

and bought us the eternal favor of God the Father.

As our Savior, He has come to be for us,

as He was named,

“The Lord our righteousness” (Jr 23:6, 33:16).

United to the Son of God in our baptism,

The great exchange takes place by the grace of God through the work of the Holy Spirit.

Our unrighteousness is so united to Christ that we are set free from it.

Christ righteousness is so united to us that we are born again totally in His righteousness.

And now we live a new life in His righteousness.

Being united to Christ and receiving His righteousness,

We have also received the hostility and hatred of Satan, the unrighteous and our own sinful nature.

Many and often will be our afflictions as the righteous,

they shall not cease until our Lord calls us from the battlefield.

The glorious promise given to us

even though our afflictions and troubles be infinite in number, peculiar in nature, and heavy in weight,

the Lord shall deliver us out of them all.

For in all these things, we have been more than conquerors  through Christ who loves us (Rm 8:36).

Having delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us into His kingdom (Co. 1:13),

The Son of God gives this twofold promise  to those whom He has saved through faith,

To those whom He daily purifies from all unrighteousness,

In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”  Jn 16:33 (ESV)

pmwl

to find that there are too many breaks, too much brokenness ...

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.   Ps 34:18 (ESV)

Who is there who’s heart is not broken?

So there are those who know their heart is broken and those who do not know this.

Those who do not know that their hearts are broken,

constantly experience the brokenness of their hearts.

Yet, blinded by sin's breakage within themselves, they only have eyes to see the brokenness in others,

And seeing their own brokenness only in others, they accuse, blame and attack others for the brokenness they experience in themselves.

They are the children of Adam, saying to the Lord, “It is the broken woman, man, child, friends … you gave me.”

Not so the brokenhearted!

These are they that know their brokenness.

These are they that have tried to fix, to repair, to heal and even to hide their brokenness,

Only to find that there is yet more broken within them,

Only to find that there are too many breaks, too much brokenness,

Only to find that even their ability to fix, to repair, to make whole – was also broken.

These are they that know in the midst of all their brokenness,

what it is to be crushed.

These are they that know their sinfulness, that know and confess themselves to be poor miserable sinners.

These are the broken that the Lord knows and is ever near to.

The Lord, the Lord, He alone can save the brokenhearted,

For He came so near to the broken, as to suffer the brokenness of us all –

In faithfulness broken by betrayal;

In friendship broken by denial;

In truth broken by lies;

In justice broken by politics;

In mercy broken by cruelty;

In holiness broken by sin;

In innocence broken by guilt;

In family broken by forsakenness;

In life broken by death.

Having received us, our brokenness and breakage,

He repairs no heart, He fixes no breach or breakage,

He gives to the brokenhearted a new heart, a clean heart.

Having given a new heart amidst the yet broken in us,

He gives and daily renews a right spirit within us (Ps 51:10).

These are they whom the Lord saves.

The Lord is near to these because they acknowledged their brokenness, acknowledge their sin before the Lord.

The Lord saves such as these because He forgives the iniquity of their sin, the brokenness of their hearts and ways.

The Lord is near to these for they believe and fully accept that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, save the brokenhearted, of whom they are the worst (1 Tm 1:15).

Lord have mercy on those whose hearts are broken, and yet do not know it.

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.  Psalms 147:3 (ESV)

- pmwl