The Promise

I am going to take you back to Jeremiah in the 10th
year of an eleven year siege. The Prophet had been
confined, food was scarce, the leaders and people
were angry with him. He knew that the people
were going into captivity. He was not popular. It
was a terrible time when Jeremiah received a Word
from God. He was told to purchase land and to put
the deed into an earthenware vessel,
'that it might last for a long time.'
This deed was a promissory note, so to speak, a
guarantee that God would bring His people back
to that place.

'For thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel:
Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be 
bought in this land.'

So, Jeremiah bought the land, and then this is what
he prayed:

'Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the 
heavens and the earth by your great power and by 
your outstretched arm. Nothing is impossible for 
you...O great and mighty God, whose name is the 
Lord of hosts, great in counsel and mighty in deed.

Jeremiah finished up his prayer with a heartfelt plea,
filled with anguish. God then said this to him:

 'Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh.
Is anything too hard for me?'

(You will find this story in Jeremiah 32)

Reader, God is not hard of hearing; He is not absent;
He is not silent; He is not uncaring. He will fulfill
His promises, if not now, then later. The Israelites
were in captivity for 70 years. Most of those who
went into captivity did not live to see the promise ful-
filled, but their children and their grandchildren did.
Take heart: 
'Those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.' 
(Is 49:13)




  

Wanderings

'God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells
in God, and God in him.' (1John 4:16)

This morning I opened to a hymn in an old
English hymn book given to me almost 50
years ago. It is in words, but not in notes.
It was translated from German into English
by John Wesley.

'Thou hidden love of God, whose
   height,
Whose depth unfathomed, no man
   knows,
I see from far Thy beauteous light,
   Inly I sigh for Thy repose;
My heart is pained, nor can it be
At rest, till it finds rest in Thee

Thy secret voice invites me still
The sweetness of Thy yoke to prove;
And fain I would; but though my will
   Seems fixed, yet wide my passions
     rove;
Yet hindrances strew all the way;
I aim at Thee, yet from Thee stray.

'Tis mercy all, that Thou has brought
   My mind to seek her peace in Thee;
Yet while I seek but find Thee not,
   No peace my wandering soul shall
     see.
O when shall all my wanderings end,
And all my steps to Thee-ward tend?

Is there a thing beneath the sun
   That strives with Thee my heart to
     share?
Ah! tear it thence, and reign alone,
   The Lord of every motion there;
Then shall my heart from earth be free,
When it hath found repose in Thee.

Each moment draw from earth away
   My heart, that lowly waits Thy call;
Speak to my inmost soul, and say,
   'I am thy Love, thy God, thy ALL!'
To feel Thy power, to hear Thy voice,
To taste Thy love, be all my choice.

Gerhard Terzsteegen 1697-1769

Reader, I read these old hymns and I ponder
this. When did we lose the depth of wonder
in our walk with Him? Surely wonder is tied
into longing, pursuing, yearning for 'Himself'
as our all in all.

In a finished Work

I went back and read the previous posts. It appears
that I am repeating myself, but this subject keeps
coming up in my mind. So many miss the
marvelous truth of 'rest.'

God rested on the seventh day after six days of
        work.
Jesus said, 'It is finished,'
When He rose from the dead, He sat down.
We were in Him so when He sat down, we sat
      down.

Our rest of faith is in a finished work. When Christ
died, you died; when He was buried, you were
buried with Him; when He rose from the dead, you
rose to new life because you were in Him; when He
sat down at the right hand of God, you too entered
into rest. Our rest is made operational through faith.
(See Romans 6 for Paul's discussion on this.)

REST--
Cessation from motion, 
rest from labor, 
cease to be disturbed about anything, 
a state of reconciliation to God, 
quiet, repose

REPOSE--
To rest in confident trust, 
rest of mind, 
freedom from uneasiness, 
tranquility

I woke up this morning to anxiety. It is good to
pause and reflect on words like rest, repose.

'Come to me, 
all who labor and are heavy laden, and 
I will give you rest. 
Take my yoke upon you, and 
learn from me, 
for I am gentle and lowly of heart, and 
you will find rest (repose) for your souls. 
For my yoke is easy and my burden is 
       light.  
Matthew 11:28-30

Reader, I do believe that some of the most
uptight people I know are the Christians who
work to please God! Some of the most
productive Christians I have met are those who
know the secret of trust, rest, abide. It is not that
they are resting outwardly, but inwardly.

The Rest of the Gospel

The phrase, the rest of the Gospel, can be viewed two
ways: First, that there is more to the Gospel than what
is penned in the Bible; or it can be viewed as kicking
off your shoes and leaning back on the chest of the
One who loves you most!

Some Christians still think of Sunday as a 'day of rest.'
Up until the 60's the country had 'Blue Laws,' which
forbid commerce on Sunday. It was a good plan in that
families went to church and then spent the rest of the
day with each other. Once these laws were removed,
one state at a time, Sundays became just as busy as the
rest of the week--to the detriment of most. Israel still
shuts down completely on the Sabbath and the whole
country rests.

'So, then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people 
of God...'
Hebrews 4:9)

The writer to Hebrews spends 15 verses on 'rest,' so this
is a very important subject from God's perspective. He
has given something to his people that is available 24/7
to us, whether it is a Mom with small children or a doc
who puts in a 60 hour work week.
I want to explore this further.

We Rest on Thee

Yesterday as I was pondering the subject of finished,
completion and rest, I 'stumbled' across a hymn that
says it all:

'We rest on Thee'--our Shield and our Defender!
We go not forth alone against the foe;
Strong in Thy strength, safe in Thy keeping tender,
'We rest on Thee, and in Thy Name we go.'

Yea, 'in Thy Name,' O Captain of salvation!
In Thy dear Name, all other names above;
Jesus our righteousness, our sure Foundation,
Our Prince of glory and our King of love.

'We go' in faith, our own great weakness feeling,
And needing more each day Thy grace to know:
Yet from our hearts a song of triumph pealing;
'We rest on Thee, and in Thy Name we go.'

'We rest on Thee'--our Shield and our Defender!
Thine is the battle, Thine shall be the praise
When passing through the gates of pearly
     splendour,
Victors--we rest with Thee, through endless days.
Edith G Cherry, 1872-1897--died at age 25

"Edith was on crutches most of her life due to Polio
as a child.  Her songs were mostly spontaneous,
whether she sang under dark clouds or soared above
them. Her only sister, 15 months younger, died at
age five. Edith often wondered how they would
meet each other, 'in the bright heavenly home.'
Most of her poems were written before the age of
fifteen."

The poem I penned above was the last hymn sung by
Jim Elliot, Nate Saint and the others the night before
they were martyred by the Auca Indians. Five men
died that day in the jungles of Ecuador in the 1980's.
If you have not seen the End of the Spear, see if you
can find it. It is one of the best documentaries I have
seen and covers the deaths, the why and the salvation
of those who killed.

We rest on Thee, our Shield and our Defender
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c1K8pmSdfk

Finished; Complete

'And God saw everything that he had made and it 
was very good.' Genesis 1:31

God finished everything on the sixth day and He
declared it perfect. There was nothing more that
He could add to make it more perfect. The snake
told Eve that things were not perfect; that God was
holding out on her; she was missing out. The result
of this abominable deception can be observed
throughout history. Satan, through the sin of man,
has infiltrated all that God called very good.

One day God became Man, flesh and blood, in order
to reverse the curse that lay upon this earth. Jesus
was nailed to a cross and as He hung there,
He took into Himself--
Every sin you ever committed.
Every pain you have ever experienced.
Every sorrow and every grief weighing you down.
All of your transgressions.
All iniquities from the garden to the end of time.
Last of all, He took death itself into Himself.
He became united with us, our sin and shame, then
He said, 'IT IS FINISHED!'

Finished, complete, nothing left out, nothing lacking,
nothing left over. Do you hear this, reader? You can
add nothing. No good works, no longer prayer times,
no good behavior, no going to church, no reading the
Bible through each year--all in order to please God to
fill in that which was incomplete. Throughout the Age
of Grace the Snake has implied that this and that has
to be done, added, or you will miss out on God's
pleasure; even your salvation. So subtle.

God's part was to provide a complete, finished
     salvation.
Our part is to receive this salvation by faith.

When God finished His work on the sixth day, He
rested on the seventh day. When Jesus finished His
work on the cross, He rose into heaven and sat
down next to His Father and entered into rest. He
invites His kids to enter His rest.

'Whoever has entered God's rest has also rested
from his works as God did from His...strive to
enter His rest...  Hebrews 4:10,11

Well, reader, I would venture to say that learning
how to abide in His rest is one of the most difficult
things for us to grasp; the most difficult to walk
out, but, so important!

Himself

He, Himself, bore our sins on the tree.
1Peter 2:24

For the past few days I have been pondering this
beautiful word, Himself. AB Simpson says:

'How often Himself comes out in His word. It is the 
person of Jesus we want. Plenty of people get the 
idea and do not get anything out of it. They get it 
into their head, and it into their consciousness, 
and it into their will. But somehow they do not get 
Him into their life and spirit...'

'After much struggle to make his Christian life work,
the Lord spoke to him and said, 'My child,just take 
Me, and let Me be in you the constant supply of all 
this. Myself.'

AB Simpson goes on to say, 'And when at last I got 
my eyes off all my sanctification, and my experience 
of it, and just placed Christ in me, I found, instead of 
experience, the Christ larger than the moments need, 
the Christ that had all that I should ever need. And 
when I saw Him, who was given to me once, and  it 
was all right, and right forever. For I had not only 
what I could hold that little hour, but also in Him,
all that I should need over all situations; I get a 
glimpse of what it will be a million years hence, and 
afterward. We will shine like the sun in the kingdom 
of our Father (Matt 13:43) and have all the fullness 
of God.'
A brief quote from HIMSELF by AB Simpson
(1843-1919)

Reader, here is one of the 'Great cloud of witnesses,''
who lived out the abiding life and went from
strength to strength until he moved on to glory. I
need all I can comprehend in order to come into
the simplicity of the Christian life.
Abide, abide, abide.
He, Himself is sufficient.

Our greatest need is have a far greater revelation of
Himself as our indwelling Lord.