Until there is nothing...

"When man thus declines and becomes as nothing in all his power, works, and being, until there is nothing but a lost, condemned and forsaken sinner, then divine help and strength appear, as in Job 11:11–17: 'When you think you are devoured, then you shall shine forth as the morning star.'"
Luther Ps. 6:2 LW14

Faith's regard always makes the difference between the Abel and a Cain.

"And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard." Genesis 4:4-5 

When Abel and Cain both participated in the same form of worship and one’s worship was acceptable to the Lord and the other’s was not. How was it possible for both to participate in the same worship and yet the Lord had regard for Abel’s worship and none for Cain’s? The difference was found in the heart, i.e. the faith with which each brought themselves and their offering in worship. One with a heart relationship to his earthly blessings for the Lord and the other with a relationship to his earthly blessings for himself. One with a faith relationship in the Lord; the other with a faith relationship in the earthly things about him. One living according to his relationship to the Lord; the other living according to his relationship to the earthly. One living by the eternal; the other by the temporal.

How the Lord made known His regard to Abel, we do not know for sure, but in light of the fact that the Lord spoke with Cain about it, it is well to believe that the Lord spoke His blessing upon Abel. The Lord’s affirmation to Abel was a clear sign of God’s grace and affirmation toward him. Surely, Abel responded with praise and thanksgiving to the Lord, Who had looked upon his imperfect and sin tainted offering with grace saturated approval.

It was over the Lord’s grace given approval that the first conflict and violence in the world began. It is little wonder that such conflict and violence yet endures over God’s Word of grace and the life and living it gives and works in all who believe aright. It does explains why so many look for the assurance of the Lord’s grace and regard in anything other than His Word … and like Cain run sin-blind from their sin to the calamity of more sin and deeper into their self-created chaos. How many like Cain, sadly and foolishly believe that their sin, their situation, is beyond the want and reach of God in His mercy and grace? Such belief is the ultimate blasphemy, for it is to believe that we and our sin are mightier, greater and more powerful than God Himself.

Our sin is and will always be TOO MUCH … for us both before and after our baptism. As the blood of Abel cried out to God against Cain, so also our sinful blood cries out to God against us. Our loving God knew this and sent His Son to be MUCH MORE than us, our sin, our conflicts and our end through His Cross and resurrection. When Christ said “It is finished!”, these are Words of regard for us all, for they assure us that our Savior’s offering of Himself, is so MUCH MORE for us … than us, our sin, our experiences and MORE than enough for us in the face of God’s wrath against us for our sin. His resurrection assures us that our Savior is so MUCH MORE than even death for us so that even in this fallen world, we might have the regard and favor of God Himself. Now does the blood of Christ given and shed for you … cry out to God for you according to His testament. Now by His grace and regard, you are made to be much more as one born again in the waters of Baptism. Having been born against with a new and a clean heart, each believer is free through faith to worship the Lord and receive His regard in Jesus Christ.

Our living, worship, offerings and our service in Christ’s Kingdom are always a confession of our regard for Him and His blessings. It is faith's regard that always makes the difference between the Abel and a Cain, between the Church of Christ and a church of people, possessions and personal preference.

- pmwl  

What our faithfulness to God ... costs other people

“… they seized one Simon of Cyrene … and laid on him the cross, to carry it behind Jesus.” Lk 23:26

If anyone of us is going to be faithful the will of our Lord, it is very likely going to cost other people more than it costs us. This is especially true if they are close to us, and that is where the real rub begins. If we love our Lord, faithfulness and following His will doesn’t seem cost us so much, yet for those whose love for the Lord is young, the cost of such faithfulness seem great, too great. When we are faithful to the will of God for us, it can also mean that the plans of others may well be upset. They will often chastise us about it—‘This is the will of God? How is this faithfulness?’

Now, we can prevent this suffering, but if we are going to be faithful our Lord, we must not interfere or prevent it, we must let the cost be paid. It is the Lord’s responsibility to repay the cost He has chosen for them to pay.

Our spiritual lives will quickly stagnate if we attempt to bear the cost in ourselves alone so as to save others from bearing it. We stagnate because our lives are turned toward saving others from the will of God rather than serving His holy will for us and them. What we don’t realize, is that despite our knowing it, we are so involved in our Lord’s work in all things that we often faithfully obey Him without realizing it, and others are affected.

Are we going to remain faithful to the will of our Lord and live through the humility of living dependent upon our Lord, or are we going to follow the path of sinful pride and say—‘I will not cost others any kind of suffering’? We can refuse faithfulness and disobey God if we choose, and it will bring immediate relief to the situation, but we shall in time become a grief to them and our Lord. Whereas if we obey our Lord, He will look after those who have been pressed into the consequences of our faithfulness to Him. Ours is the way of faithfulness to His will, it is His to attend to the consequences His will brings. Neither we, nor those affected by our faithfulness can know what is best for all, He does, and our Lord is and shall always be bigger than the events He calls all of us to – FOR US.

- pmwl

forever shall be a pensioner

Blessed Lord God, heavenly Father, my soul has never grown rich in itself. I have been and forever shall be a pensioner on Your daily bounty of goodness and grace. 

Surely my prayers have ascended to You for a wide range of spiritual needs and yet You have supplied Your mercies new and infinite beyond all my needs. 

The number of my wants in prayer exceed my ability to count, and yet Your supplies for them have been infinitely great. 

How beyond counting have been the multitudes of my sins, yet how beyond all multitudes have been Your manifold graces in Christ for me. 

How shall I not say with all confidence, “I love the Lord, because He has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. (Ps 116:1)”? 

For where my prayers have been many and varied beyond my ability to know them, even more so have been Your answers to them, O Lord my God. 

You have heard me in the days of trouble and strengthened me, and helped me, even though I came with trembling and doubt to Your mercy seat. 

How infinite is Your loving kindness and redemption in Christ, for no matter how great our need, nor unending of our need, the fountain of Your love in Christ can never be drained by any of us. “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” (Ps 103:2).

-pmwl

By the wedding ring of faith Christ shares in the sins, death, and pains of hell which are his bride’s.

On the Cross, when Christ prayed to His Father, "... forgive them for they know not what they do.", this was His "I will" to the question, "Will you have this person, this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife."  
In baptism, the believer responds "I will" through the confession of faith to the question, "will you have this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?" 
Luther wondrously unpacks the bonds, blessings and beauty of this marriage of Jesus Christ to you, to me ... to the Holy Christian Church through faith. 

... incomparable benefit of faith is that it unites the soul with Christ as a bride is united with her bridegroom. By this mystery, as the Apostle teaches, Christ and the soul become one flesh [Eph. 5:31–32]. And if they are one flesh and there is between them a true marriage—indeed the most perfect of all marriages, since human marriages are but poor examples of this one true marriage—it follows that everything they have they hold in common, the good as well as the evil. Accordingly the believing soul can boast of and glory in whatever Christ has as though it were its own, and whatever the soul has Christ claims as his own. Let us compare these and we shall see inestimable benefits. 
Christ is full of grace, life, and salvation. 
The soul is full of sins, death, and damnation. 
Now let faith come between them and sins, death, and damnation will be Christ’s, while grace, life, and salvation will be the soul’s; for if Christ is a bridegroom, he must take upon himself the things which are his bride’s and bestow upon her the things that are his. If he gives her his body and very self, how shall he not give her all that is his? And if he takes the body of the bride, how shall he not take all that is hers?
Here we have a most pleasing vision not only of communion but of a blessed struggle and victory and salvation and redemption. Christ is God and man in one person. He has neither sinned nor died, and is not condemned, and he cannot sin, die, or be condemned; his righteousness, life, and salvation are unconquerable, eternal, omnipotent. 
By the wedding ring of faith he shares in the sins, death, and pains of hell which are his bride’s. As a matter of fact, he makes them his own and acts as if they were his own and as if he himself had sinned; he suffered, died, and descended into hell that he might overcome them all. 
Now since it was such a one who did all this, and death and hell could not swallow him up, these were necessarily swallowed up by him in a mighty duel; for his righteousness is greater than the sins of all men, his life stronger than death, his salvation more invincible than hell. 
Thus the believing soul by means of the pledge of its faith is free in Christ, its bridegroom, free from all sins, secure against death and hell, and is endowed with the eternal righteousness, life, and salvation of Christ its bridegroom. 
So he takes to himself a glorious bride, “without spot or wrinkle, cleansing her by the washing of water with the word” [Cf. Eph. 5:26–27] of life, that is, by faith in the Word of life, righteousness, and salvation. 
In this way he marries her in faith, steadfast love, and in mercies, righteousness, and justice, as Hos. 2[:19–20] says.
Who then can fully appreciate what this royal marriage means? 
Who can understand the riches of the glory of this grace? 
Here this rich and divine bridegroom Christ marries this poor, wicked harlot, redeems her from all her evil, and adorns her with all his goodness. Her sins cannot now destroy her, since they are laid upon Christ and swallowed up by him.
And she has that righteousness in Christ, her husband, of which she may boast as of her own and which she can confidently display alongside her sins in the face of death and hell and say, “If I have sinned, yet my Christ, in whom I believe, has not sinned, and all his is mine and all mine is his,” as the bride in the Song of Solomon [2:16] says, “My beloved is mine and I am his.” 
This is what Paul means when he says in I Cor. 15[:57], “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ,” that is, the victory over sin and death, as he also says there, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law” [I Cor. 15:56].

Martin Luther - LW 31 pp. 352-352 

ACCEPTING GOD’S WILL

A great piece from Dr. Scott Murray's Memorial Moment - Tuesday of Easter 5

The church and her children constantly pray that the Lord's will would be done on earth as it is in heaven in the words of the Lord's Prayer. Yet when the Lord's will is done we often grumble about it, pouting that the Lord's will does not quite square with our own opinion and will. So when we are praying that the Lord's will would be done, it is a prayer that we should receive it as such, in faith and full confidence of the divine grace. The Lord's will is done. There is no question about that. Our problem is merely one of faith. We would like God's will to look somewhat differently! "Why can't His will be more like my own?" Thankfully, the Lord does not give us what we wish for, because all too often, what we wish for would not be good for us.

It is a measurement of our human incapacity that we are so full of wishful thinking. When we say "That is wishful thinking," we are reflecting on the impossibility of the wish. It's never going to happen. The Lord's will is the precise opposite. What He wills is done on earth as it is in heaven. Notice that in English we never describe God's will as a "wish." The word is far too weak. This is why we are praying that we would accept the will of God in our lives. So it was for Christ who suffered in the Garden, asking His heavenly Father to take the cup of suffering from Him, but finally that God's will would be done in His life (Lk 22:41-44). God's will brings struggle and trial into the life of God's Son. He agonizes about what is to come and He composes His will so that it would sing harmony with the will of His Father. He accepts the cross and all of its suffering.

God's will often implies suffering for those who accept it. This is why it is no simple thing to live in the will of God. We often desire God to recompose His will to suit our wishes: "God, couldn't I hit the lottery? Just once?" The Lord's will means that our lives, present and future, are in His gracious hands. We need to recognize this, especially when that will implies our suffering with Christ and for his gospel (Mk 10:29). Yesterday's Wall Street Journal ran a review of two books critical of the power of positive thinking ("Everything will be fine, if we just think happy thoughts."). One of the authors, inveterate liberal polemicist Barbara Ehrenreich panned "the long history of positive thinking in America, which might be summarized thus: dour 18th-century Calvinism begat floaty 19th-century New Thought, which begat 20th-century New Ageism, Norman Vincent Peale and today's mega-church 'prosperity gospel'" (WSJ, 12 October 2009). Here Ehrenreich is right on track. Your happy thinking cannot trump the will of God. We don't claim to know exactly how God's will is being played out in our lives, but we pray that we can bear it when it we are set in the midst of it. Christ Himself lived this way for us.

Cyprian of Carthage

"We ought to remember that we should do not our own will, but God's, in accordance with what our Lord has bidden us to pray daily. How preposterous and absurd it is, that while we ask that the will of God should be done, yet when God calls and summons us from this world, we should not at once obey the command of His will! We struggle and resist, and after the manner of disobedient servants we are dragged to the presence of the Lord with sadness and grief, departing hence under the bondage of necessity, not with the obedience of free will. We wish to be honored with heavenly rewards by Him to whom we come unwillingly. Why, then, do we pray and ask that the kingdom of heaven may come, if the captivity of earth delights us? Why with frequently repeated prayers do we entreat and beg that the day of His kingdom may hasten, if our greater desires and stronger wishes are to obey the devil here, rather than to reign with Christ?" 

Cyprian, On Mortality, 18

How to destroy a church in 4 simple steps.

A really awesome piece by Tim Challis on how churches SELF-destruct, and wonder of wonders, the Lord had Paul tell Timothy, and us, how they do it to themselves.

An important thing for the reader to realize that it is by the same path that believers can, and sadly do, self-destruct the faith the Lord has given them.

Destroy a Church in 4 Simple Steps

By Tim Challis   -  April 28, 2014

http://www.challies.com/articles/destroy-a-church-in-4-simple-steps  

A short time ago I learned of a church building in our neighborhood that was for sale. For years now Grace Fellowship Church has been looking for a building of our own, so we thought we should go and give it a look. This had once been a thriving congregation. Faithful Christians had given sacrificially to construct that building. They had consecrated it to the Lord and had worshipped there for many years. Yet now that building was deserted, decaying, and up for sale.

What happened? How did that church go from thriving to dying? How did it slide from healthy to sick to dead? I think I know. I think Paul tells us in his second letter to Timothy, the letter he wrote just days or weeks before his death. There, in chapter 4, he looks into the future, he sees a church being destroyed, and he warns us how it happens. It’s as straightforward as four simple steps.

Before we get to those four steps we need to see one critical piece of information: this church self-destructs. The church is not closed down through government persecution; it is not afflicted by cultural pressure and does not succumb to the attacks of another religion. This church is eroded from the inside, from within the membership. This church is destroyed by people claiming to act in the name of Jesus.

Here are those four simple steps that lead to a church’s self-destruction.

STEP 1: REJECT TRUTH

Paul warns Timothy that “They will turn away from listening to the truth.” The first step in destroying a church is turning away from what is true, losing interest in the truth as God reveals it, growing weary of what God says is true and lovely. What was once a love of truth becomes a dislike and then disgust toward truth; what was once a hatred of error becomes an intrigue and interest in error. Hearts begin to harden.

STEP 2: REJECT TRUTH-TELLERS

As they turn away from the truth, they necessarily turn against the truth-tellers. So Paul tells Timothy that in that day to come, “They will not endure sound teaching.” It’s not that people won’t know what is true, but that they won’t endure what is true. Because they have come to hate the truth, they will now hate those who proclaim the truth. The very teachers that once drew them will now repulse them.

STEP 3: EMBRACE FALSE TEACHERS

This church has rejected the truth and those who teach the truth. Now what? It is obvious and inevitable: They will embrace false teachers. “Having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.” As these people become hardened in sin, as they grow in their rebellion, they will want to be led by people who tell them those things they want to hear. Paul uses a great word-picture to describe this: itching ears. These are ears that want to be tickled by novelty, by something that will be respectable to society and palatable to a godless world. They will soon find this kind of teacher who will justify their turning away from truth and who will validate them in their rebellion.

STEP FOUR: EMBRACE FALSE DOCTRINE

Once they have rejected truth and truth-tellers, and once they have found teachers who will tickle their itching ears, “They will wander off into myths.” They will now embrace full-out error, full out heresy. They will become hardened in their sin so they will now believe error is good and true. They will become so deluded and rebellious that they will celebrate what God hates and do it all in the name of God. They will wander off, just like dumb sheep wandering away from their good shepherd.The narrow road to salvation has no room to wander, but that broad road to destruction has all the room they need to wander this way and that.

And they will die. In the end, those who claim to have acted in the name of Christ will be shown to hate Christ. That church, that congregation, will die.

What happened to the church that once worshiped in the building we visited and wanted to buy? The people developed itching ears. They would no longer endure sound teaching, and accumulated for themselves teachers to suit their own passions. They turned away from listening to the truth and wandered off into myths.

The evidence of those myths was plain to see. Their hymn book had songs like “Mother and God” which says, “Mother and God, to you we sing: wide is your womb, warm is your wing.” Their web site featured a video about a pastor undergoing gender reassignment with the full support of his church. Their literature explicitly denied that Christ is the only way to God, saying “God works in our world by a mysterious Spirit that knows no distinction at the doorway of a Christian chapel; Buddhist, Hindu, or Sikh temple; Aboriginal sweat lodge, Muslim mosque, or Jewish synagogue.”

We did not get that building. That building was sold and, if I understand correctly, will soon be torn down. In the end the denominational leaders charged with selling it did not want the gospel in that building, they wanted money out of that building. They needed the money to help support two more of their floundering congregations that will inevitably soon be gone as well.

Two thousand years ago Paul wrote to young Timothy and told him exactly how this church, and so many like it, would die. He also gave Timothy a charge that would keep his own church from experiencing similar destruction and from wavering through the time of itching ears. But I will save that for another day.

God’s glory is slain for my glory.

“Your glory, O Israel, is slain on your high places! How the mighty have fallen!”  2 Samuel 1:19

Lord God, Heavenly Father, I have no glory.

My glory was slain the moment of my conception in sin,

while I was carried high in the womb of my mother.

I was brought forth with no glory,

Born fallen and slain in my iniquities.

Let me see in Christ my glory,

He comes to fall because I am fallen.

He comes to be slain because I am slain.

He comes to be slain

and to fall on the high places

so that His Father sees and accepts

His glorious sacrifice and falling for me.

I dwell in the valley of the shadow of His death

on the high places where He was slain.

God’s glory is slain for my glory.

He who was lifted up has drawn me to Himself

and now He falls upon me in the shadow of death

and I am saved.

I see not His glory that He has made to fall upon me

because I dwell in the shadow of death.

Yet, I need only have the water to fall upon me with the Word

and I am born again in my glory, Jesus Christ.

I need only hear His Word of forgiveness

and I am set free in my glory, Jesus Christ.

I need only have the bread and the wine with the Word

fall upon my tongue

and I am feed and nourished

by the body and blood of my glory, Jesus Christ.

Surely I need only hear His Word

falling upon my ears, my heart, my life

and I am strengthened and renewed

to live by faith and not by sight,

in my glory, Jesus Christ.

Lord have mercy and let it be!

Christ have mercy and be this to me!

Lord have mercy and mercy me!

pmwl

Have mercy, Lord .... I cannot straighten, what I have bent ...

Have mercy, O most gracious Father.

Have mercy, and hear my prayer. 

Woe unto me for I am truly a whitewashed tomb, 

lovely on the outside 

and yet full of death and uncleanness on the inside.

You have purified me 

and yet by my own desires and sinfulness, 

I fill myself with selfish and self-serving ways in which I live, 

and love myself above all else.

I cannot purify, what I have made impure.

I cannot straighten, what I have bent.

I cannot make clean, what I have made filthy.

I cannot save, what I have lost.

I cannot make holy, what I have made unholy.

I cannot make alive, that which I have killed.

For the sake of Jesus Christ, 

whom I crucified by the agents of my sins, 

and You made alive by Your power of the resurrection, 

have mercy upon me and forgive me. 

Have mercy, O Lord. 

Have mercy, O Christ.

Amen. 

- pmwl

Nothing is so securing as Your love, Nothing so safe as Your ...

Have mercy Lord,

have mercy and hear my prayer.

Many are the dangers that attend my sinful life in this fallen world,

Many more are my sins that rightly deserve such dangers.

I cannot rightly account one danger,

Neither can I foresee the other aright.

Such is my wretched condition in sin,

Such is the bondage and blindness of sinfulness.

Holy Lord, blessed and loving Lord,

Nothing is so securing as Your love,

Nothing so safe as Your protection,

Nothing so saving as Your mercies,

Nothing so supplying as Your grace.

Yet, what one of these have I not so carelessly neglected,

That You would be justified in denying me any of the others.

You have wooed me in mercy,

Yet I have refused to come.

You graciously invite and call me –

By Your continual preservation,

By Your providential sustenance,

By Your tender corrections,

By Your faithful promises,

And by Your rich works of love and mercy.

Blessed Lord, have mercy,

Have mercy and hear my prayer.

How wonderful are Your compassions toward me,

When I am so ungrateful for Your many blessings,

When I am unmindful of my own miseries,

Even then, You graciously provide for me,

And yet for all this,

I have not yet seriously resolved to worship You,

To serve You in faith.

Such, and so many are my sins,

So great is my unthankfulness,

That I now tremble to appear before You;

And Yet so tender is Your mercy to me,

That You again call me, invite me to Your comfort and consolations in Christ.

Into the wounds of Christ I plunge myself,

Into the wounds of Christ do I cast myself and my sins,

For the healing of my wounded soul,

For the cleansing of my filthy soul,

For the forgiveness of my guilty soul,

For the hiding of myself in Him,

Who even in death is my life, Jesus Christ.

Have mercy, O Lord!

Have mercy and grant me - 

Strength in my weakness,

Support in my feebleness,

Comfort in my grievings,

Protection in my vulnerability,

Peace in my turmoil,

Conviction in my doubts,

Hope in my despair,

Preservation in my losses,

Forgiveness in my guilt,

And life in my dying,

Which is Jesus Christ,

For me and in me.

Yeh, Lord, have mercy,

Have mercy and hear my prayer.

Amen.

- pmwl