Praying Pint

 

 

Jhn 6:53-68 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.  For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.  Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.  As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.  This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”  Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum. When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”  But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this?  Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?  It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.  But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.)  And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”  After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,

There are those who reject God and never come to the saving grace knowledge. They choose to deny God, mock Him, turn a deaf ear towards Him, harden their heart agains Him, despise Him, choose another God, and make many decisions disregarding sin and judgment to come.

Then there are those who have tasted the fruits of salvation, touched the edge of it, think it is good, possibly even try to pattern their life after it, see evidence of God in creation, follow strict rules and moral standards, and live with knowledge of salvation and redemption but never come to a change of heart, soul, and mind.

Both of these reject God’s salvation. One, obvious and undisguised, and the other covertly and hidden having an appearance of godliness and words of faith on their lips but not in their hearts.

 

 

Matthew 7:9-11  Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

Psalm 16:11  You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Matthew 11:28  Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Jhon 6:35  Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

Recently, as I watched my eleven-month-old make a mad dash for the open dishwasher, it struck me as remarkably similar to how we can approach God in prayer. Our hearts, like my son’s hands, desire to have, hold, and enjoy. Earthly objects appear good and precious before us. We reach for them through prayer — unaware of whether we reach for a spoon or a knife.

The God to whom we pray is our sovereign and kind Father. He cares whether his material gifts do service or harm to his children’s souls, and he truly knows the difference between spoons and knives, bread and stones, fish and serpents (Matthew 7:9–11). So, whenever necessary, his love says, “No.” His hands gently pull us back, shutting the door.

All the while, he assures us that he is not a Father who delights to withhold but to fulfill — fully, finally, and forever, with the only Object in all existence that can really satisfy us: himself (Psalm 16:11). Here I am; here is fullness of joy. What you wanted would have hurt you by giving you less of me. Fear not. I have not withheld myself. You shall be full.

But we are often too busy wandering around the base of a dishwasher to hear him.

Do you feel like one prayer after another is going unanswered? Is prayer an exercise in disappointment, sorrow, or even bitterness — not faith, fellowship, and joy? Jesus sees you, and he wants to free you from experiencing prayer as frustration. But to do that, he will ask you to stop asking mostly for more of his gifts. He will ask you to ask ultimately for more of him.

He says the same to all his sheep: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Goods and kindred will not do. The good shepherd does not make us lie down in green pastures so that we can become sick on grass. Times of comfort, along with valleys of death, are for communion with Christ. He alone knows how much is too much — of both ease and affliction. (T. Swanson)

 

 

Acts 2:38: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

 

So, it looks like this: repent (condition number one), be baptized (condition number two), and forgiveness will be given to you. And I’ve been arguing (because I think so many texts teach it) that, no, repentance and faith as one piece are what obtains forgiveness, not the baptism.

So, what, you disagree with this text, Piper? Who do you think you are? And I think that text should be read something like this (and I remember seeing this years ago and then finding it other places). Suppose, Tony, you want to go from Phoenix to LA on the train, and it’s about to leave, and I say, “Grab your hat and run or you’ll miss the train.” Now, I just gave you two commands like Peter gave two commands: “Repent and be baptized.” But only one of them is a cause of getting to the train on time — namely, running. But I said, “Grab your hat.” Grabbing your hat is an accompanying act, not a causative one. It may be very important. There may be all kinds of reasons why you should have a hat. Why did you tell him to grab a hat? Well, I’ve got my reasons. But grabbing the hat does not help you in the least to get on the train on time.

Now, that’s the way I think we should hear Peter when he says, “Repent and be baptized every one of you, and make the train of forgiveness.” You get on the train of forgiveness if you repent and are baptized. And the repentance, the change of mind that includes faith, gets you to the train. And baptism is important — important for all kinds of reasons — but it’s not causative in the same way that repentance is.

So, here’s my bottom-line answer to the question: Faith precedes baptism (that’s why I’m a Baptist) and is operative in baptism. So, we are justified at the very first act of genuine saving faith in Christ, and then baptism follows (and preferably would follow soon) as an outward expression of that inward reality.  (J. Piper)

 

 

Psa 19:8-10  the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether.  More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.

Jhn 15:11  These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

4. The Bible Will make me happy.

Some of us don’t even think about the Bible in categories of happiness. Wisdom, yes. Correction, yes. Promises of future happiness in heaven, yes. But meaningful happiness today? Really? Friendship makes us happy. Great food can make us happy. Recognition and praise for our work can make us happy. Sports can make us happy, if the right team wins. Marriage might make us happy. But the Bible? Really? To which God says, at the beginning of Psalm 19:8, “The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.”

God wrote the Bible not merely to give you wisdom in your relationships, or to make you articulate in your theology, or even just to comfort you in your suffering. No, he also wrote the Bible to make you really, really happy. Jesus says of his words in John 15:11, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

Jesus spoke at the Last Supper, and then in all of Scripture, that his joy might be in you, and that your joy may be full. God gave us a Bible so that we might be as happy as God, infinitely happy through this book — knowing him and loving him through this book. And of all the things that David says about Scripture in these verses here in Psalm 19, this is the piece that he can’t help but say a little bit more about. Consider Psalm 19:9–10: The rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.

This is what the Bible is. It’s more desirable than gold. It just is, no matter how you feel about it in the moment. It is more to be desired than gold. It is sweeter than honey, even when our spiritual taste buds can’t taste it. The Bible is a happy-making book. And so, when Bible reading gets hard, or life gets busy, or you don’t taste what you used to taste in these pages, remember: This book revives the soul. This book gives supernatural wisdom for all of life. This book can be understood. And in understanding it, you’ll begin to understand everything else. And this book is the deepest, richest well for joy. (M Segal)

 

 

Psa 19:7  The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple;

Psa 23:1-3   The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

3. The Bible Will address my pain.

When we look back on these seasons when we’ve struggled to read the Bible, a lot of us can probably point to some heartache or pain where the struggle started, where the Bible lost its taste. That’s not always the case. In fact, for some of us, that’s the very point when the Bible started tasting sweeter. But suffering can become a barrier to hearing God in Scripture. I wonder if you’ve experienced that. It’s a difficult relationship, a chronic pain, or an illness. Some looming uncertainty about your future can become this barrier to hearing God in his words.

You might think, “Will the chapters for today really say anything that will help me through this?” To which God says, “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul” (Psalm 19:7). This is a reviving book, a restoring book. It’s a balm to weary and hurting hearts. David describes the same reviving power in Psalm 23:1–3. This God comes and finds us in our valleys — afflicted, confused, broken — and he leads us into safe pastures and peaceful waters. And his rod for leading us, his rod of peace and comfort and direction, is this book.

Notice that he doesn’t just treat our wounds or our particular suffering, but he revives the soul. He goes deeper than our wounds. He offers a deeper, more meaningful rest and healing than all the things that we might turn to in our suffering. (M Segal)

 

 

Psa 19:8  the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes;

2Pe 3:16  as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

2Ti 2:7  Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.

2. The Bible Will make sense.

Now, of course, just about anyone can understand some verses, like John 3:16, Romans 8:28, and Psalm 23. I don’t hear anyone saying that they can’t understand any of the Bible, but a lot of us struggle to understand a lot of the Bible. And when we commit to reading the whole Bible over and over year after year, we’re going to walk through strange and difficult passages: Ezekiel, Hebrews, Revelation, and so on. After a while, the exercise can start to feel kind of futile. We may think, “Am I ever going to understand more of this?” To which God says, “The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes” (Psalm 19:8).

Remember, even the apostle Peter had a hard time understanding some passages in the Bible, and he wrote whole books in the Bible. In 2 Peter 3:16, he says that there are some things in Paul’s letters that are hard to understand. To which Paul says, in 2 Timothy 2:7, “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.” The Lord will enlighten your eyes in everything. That’s what he says. It’s not immediate, of course, but he’ll give you real light now, and then, if you keep looking and looking and looking, that light will grow over months and years and decades.

So, rejoice in what you can see now. It’s a miracle. If you see any beauty, any truth, any worth in this book, it’s a miracle that God has given you. Rejoice in that, and then expect to see more and more and more because this book enlightens our eyes. It doesn’t just give us something to look at, but it actually alters our vision so that it improves the longer that we live in it. (M Segal)

 

 

Psa 19:7  The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple;

2Ti 3:16-17  All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

1. The Bible is Relevant.

The first lie is that the Bible is irrelevant to your real life. Now, right off the bat, we probably wouldn’t say this out loud to anyone. We know that the Bible is theoretically relevant to our situation in some way. But when it comes time to sit down and read it, doubt can begin to creep in, can’t it? The distance between the Bible and me can feel wide — between a book like Ruth and our relationships, between Deuteronomy and the deadlines that we have at school or work, between 1 Peter and the problems that we’re bringing into this new year. Will reading this really old book really make any difference in my job or classes or friendships or future marriage? To which God says in Psalm 19:7, “The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.”

This book makes people wise — genuinely, supernaturally wise. And it’s not just any people, but simple people. People like me. This book can make you wise. It really can. And it makes these simple people wise in every age, from ancient Israel to modern Louisville, Minneapolis, or Los Angeles. And it makes us wise in all kinds of circumstances: school semesters, dating relationships, first jobs, and world missions. God didn’t shoot this book out into the future and hope that it would land a couple thousand years later and be relevant to you. That’s not what happened with this book.

    No, still today, the book that’s in your hands is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for    correction, and for training in righteousness (your righteousness), so that the man or woman of God may be complete,   equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16–17). This book gives wisdom for every difficult situation and decision you will   face. And the testimony of this word is sure. (M Segal)

 

 

John 3:16    “For God so loved the world

 Romans 5:8    but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

 Titus 3:4    But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared

 1 John 4:9-10    In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

 1 John 4:19   We love because he first loved us.

God desires that all men should become Christlike, for in so doing they present larger and more perfect objects for the reception of His outpoured love. Conformity to the nature of Christ on the part of a redeemed man restores the image of God in the soul and thus makes it possible for God to lavish on the soul without restraint all the boundless love of which He is the original fountain. It is hard for a sinful man to believe that God loves Him. His own accusing conscience tells him it could not be so. He knows that he is an enemy of God and alienated in his mind through wicked works, and he sees in himself a thousand moral discrepancies that unfit him for the just enjoyment of so pure a love. Yet the whole Bible proclaims the love of God for sinful men. We must believe in His love because He declares it and avail ourselves of the sanctifying grace of Christ in order to receive and enjoy that love to the full. (Tozer)

 

 

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.
Psalm 1:1

At the 1989 Grammy Awards, the song of the year, record of the year, and best male pop vocal performance awards went to a catchy a cappella song called “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” In spite of its many awards, the song was panned by a number of critics.

If only being happy was as simple as choosing to be happy! From a biblical perspective, the song misses a critical point: Happiness is a by-product of other choices in life. We don’t obtain happiness by seeking it. Rather, we find happiness by seeking God and conforming our lives to His plan, purposes, and will. As Psalm 1 says, we are blessed (happy) when we avoid the counsel of a world that rejects God. And we find happiness when we delight ourselves in His Word and meditate on it day and night (Psalm 1:1-2). (D. Jeremiah)

“Don’t worry” is good advice, to be followed by committing everything to God in prayer (Philippians 4:6).

Worry is an indication that we think God cannot look after us.