« March 2005 | Main | May 2005 »
April 27, 2005
"Removing the Veil"
John Piper says, "The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever." But the capacity for this manner of enjoyment is something impossible for man in our fallen state. Our grandfather Adam has planted in all of us a tendency to shy away from the presence of God. The flesh strives against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.
Though it is impossible for a sinful being to survive in the Presence of God, yet it is our purpose to live in the Presence. This is the significance of Mark 15:38: "And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom" (ESV). It was God's initiative that tore the veil. And it was Christ's sacrifice which enables us to enter the Presence.
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. (Heb 10:19-22, ESV)
Because Christ is our high priest, we can have "full assurance of faith." And not only that, but we have the evidence of the Spirit. "For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, 'Abba! Father!' The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God" (Rom 8:15-16, ESV). What son doesn't know he has been adopted? (Moby, who doesn't think a Christian can really know he's saved, needs to read these passages.)
A.W. Tozer writes,
Everything in the New Testament accords with this Old Testament picture. Ransomed men need no longer pause in fear to enter the Holy of Holies. God wills that we should push on into His presence and live our whole life there. This is to be known to us in conscious experience. It is more than a doctrine to be held; it is a life to be enjoyed every moment of every day. (The Pursuit of God, 36)
Is this the abundant life that Jesus came to give us? And can we really experience it for ourselves while we're still walking in this case of meat?
At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for His redeemed children to push in to conscious awareness of His presence. That type of Christianity which happens now to be the vogue knows this Presence only in theory. It fails to stress the Christian's privilege of present realization. According to its teachings we are in the presence of God positionally, and nothing is said about the need to experience that Presence actually...Ignoble contentment takes the place of burning zeal. We are satisfied to rest in our judicial possessions and, for the most part, we bother ourselves very little about the absence of personal experience. (37)
Children, if we are doubting our adoption, it's because we haven't known the Father's Presence. And the Presence is something we're supposed to know.
...the scribe tells us what he has read, and the prophet tells what he has seen. The distinction is not an imaginary one. Between the scribe who has read and the prophet who has seen there is a difference as wide as the sea. We are overrun today with orthodox scribes, but the prophets, where are they? The hard voice of the scribe sounds over evangelicalism, but the church waits for the tender voice of the saint who has penetrated the veil and has gazed with inward eye upon the wonder that is God. And yet, thus to penetrate, to push in sensitive living experience into the holy Presence, is a privilege open to every child of God. (43)
Tozer says that there is a veil in our hearts which separates us from the Presence of God today, and it is the veil of Self.
It is woven of the fine threads of the self-life, the hyphenated sins of the human spirit. They are not something we do, they are something we are, and therein lies both their subtlety and their power.
To be specific, the self-sins are self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love and a host of others like them. They dwell too deep within us and are too much a part of our natures to come to our attention till the light of God is focused upon them. The grosser manifestations of these sins--egotism, exhibitionism, self-promotion--are strangely tolerated in Christian leaders, even in circles of impeccable orthodoxy. They are so much in evidence as actually, for many people, to become identified with the gospel. (45)
But this veil is so much a part of us, that it can "be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction. We may as well try to instruct leprosy out of our system" (46). Only God can rend the veil.
In human experience that veil is made of living spiritual tissue; it is composed of the sentient, quivering stuff of which our whole beings consist, and to touch it is to touch us where we feel pain. To tear it away is to injure us, to hurt us and make us bleed. To say otherwise is to make the cross no cross and death no death at all. It is never fun to die. To rip through the dear and tender stuff of which life is made can never be anything but deeply painful. Yet that is what the cross did to Jesus and it is what the cross would do to every man to set him free.
There can be no self-surgery here. Only our Divine Physician can handle this scalpel. And as John Owen says, we must beware of using our reasoning and rationalization to produce our own peace when the Holy Spirit has not pronounced such a peace for our souls. We must let Him work in our hearts and have His way in us.
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24, NIV)
Within the veil
I now would come
Within the Holy Place
To look upon Thy face
I see such Beauty there
None other can compare
I worship Thee, my Lord
Within the veil (Ruth Dryden, © 1978 Genesis Music)
Posted by aaronlord at 10:39 AM | Comments (0)
April 25, 2005
As Unto the Lord...
I just read something in Disciplines of a Godly Man that goes along perfectly with what Pastor Sam said yesterday about 1 Thessalonians 4:11b-12a--"...work with your own hands, as we commanded you, that you may walk properly toward those who are outside..." (NKJV). Kent Hughes makes an important point, although most of this excerpt is him quoting someone else:
Lastly, our work must be done with an eye to excellence. Dorothy Sayers said that the Church in our timehas forgotten that the secular vocation is sacred. Forgotten that a building must be good architecture before it can be a good church; that a painting must be well painted before it can be a good sacred picture; that work must be good work before it can call itself God's work.Work that is truly Christian is work well done.
Genesis 1 logs God's commitment to excellence when it says, "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good" (v. 31). Christians should always do good work. Christians ought to be the best workers wherever they are. They ought to have the best attitude, the best integrity, and be the best in dependability. (R. Kent Hughes, Disciplines of a Godly Man, p. 154)
I've grown up knowing that everything I do is supposed to be as unto the Lord. This should be true of all Christians, not just the ones who grow up going to a Calvary Chapel with parents who are in ministry and who sit in the main service because the 6th grade teaching is too "milky". But I know that not all of us live like this. (Plus, I know it's easier to grow up knowing what you're supposed to do than it is to maintain that practice when you grow up and enter the "real world".)
But what struck me most about this passage is the way the first part relates it to Church life, not just our vocation. "A painting must be well painted before it can be a good sacred picture," says Dorothy Sayers.
What if it said, "Music must be good music before it can be worship music?" What if it said, "Music must be playable on a secular radio station before we can consider its lyrical content for qualification for airplay on K-Love or Air One?"
What if all Christian movies were as well-made as The Passion? And what if Protestant filmmakers were as good as the Catholics? What would the world look like?
I read today about the high-church "Oxford movement" of the 19th century, when Anglicans like John Henry Newman tried to steer the Church of England closer to the Church of Rome. An important part of their worship was that singers in the choirs had vocal training.
The biggest problem with high-church thinking is that it's all outward. Whitewashed tombs, Jesus would say. Musicians would be hired solely for their skills, with no consideration given to an evidence of a walk with the Lord or the presence of spiritual gifts. When I was in college, I was often hired to play with a string quartet at the Episcopal church in Malibu because I knew the music director, and she knew I needed the money. And I'm not even baptized into the Church of England! And I also know that my grandparents' church in Garden Grove has a Local-47 union house orchestra. Because the words that are being sung contain certain words, no consideration is given to the theology or lifestyle of the people singing them or playing the underlying chords.
In Luther's time, the Church of Rome financed its building projects with the sale of indulgences to the masses, exploiting both princes and paupers. And even a recent building project was outsourced to a Jewish architect. When asked how he felt about being the first Jewish architect in history to design a church for the Roman Catholic Church, Richard Meier answered,
I feel extremely proud. It is very clear that the Catholic Church chose my design based on its merits, not because of a need to make a statement in regard to their relationship to Jews throughout history. Three of the architects in the competition were Jewish. They were chosen to compete because they were among the top architects of our time. However, I think it is important that there is communication and mutual admiration and respect between members of all faiths. As the architect of this church, some might say that I am, to some degree, a symbolic bridge between faiths. (source: Wired New York)
Christian art isn't the world's art paid for by the Church's dollars. There has to be something different, somewhere between the Catholic church's extreme art production methods where their end justifies their means, and the Puritan removal of all art from the sanctuary (even to the extreme of the Church of Christ removing musical instruments altogether).
So, what I mean when I ask, What would the world look like? is: What would it look like if the Church (and I am speaking of the real body of believers, not the corrupted age-old institutions) could raise up this kind of quality from the inside without having to hire or outsource its art and music? What if people serving at their church saw their service as a holy sacrifice unto the Lord rather than merely "volunteer duty"? What if people on the worship team practiced as much as people who play in the pubs? What if non-Christians actually flocked to Christian "outreach concerts" because they heard the artists on the radio, and the quality of their music surpassed all the other songs on the station's playlist? And what if, after the world pounded down our doors to get in, we didn't have to water down the truth of the Word of God in order to prevent them from leaving?
What if we all gave of our time and our talents and our money to the local body of believers where God has placed us, and in this giving we really believed that the gifts were unto God? What if we didn't need a tax-deductible receipt or a pat on the back or a word of praise from our fellow man in order to feel like our gift wasn't in vain?
I want to leave you with a passage from Exodus 36 that deals with both of these issues. The first part speaks of excellence in craftsmanship and artistry, and it's a statement about the creative gifts God gave mankind when he made us in his image, and how these gifts need to be excercised as unto the Lord. The last part deals with excellence and extravagance in monetary giving.
Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whom the LORD has put skill and intelligence to know how to do any work in the construction of the sanctuary shall work in accordance with all that the LORD has commanded.
And Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whose mind the LORD had put skill, everyone whose heart stirred him up to come to do the work. And they received from Moses all the contribution that the people of Israel had brought for doing the work on the sanctuary. They still kept bringing him freewill offerings every morning, so that all the craftsmen who were doing every sort of task on the sanctuary came, each from the task that he was doing, and said to Moses, "The people bring much more than enough for doing the work that the LORD has commanded us to do." So Moses gave command, and word was proclaimed throughout the camp, "Let no man or woman do anything more for the contribution for the sanctuary." So the people were restrained from bringing, for the material they had was sufficient to do all the work, and more. (Exodus 36:1-7, ESV)
What if?
Posted by aaronlord at 05:36 PM | Comments (0)
April 20, 2005
The best news I've had all day...
Via the State of California Franchise Tax Board website:
Your refund was authorized on Saturday, April 16, 2005
If you filed a paper return, please allow 25 business days from this date to receive your refund. If you filed your return electronically, please allow 10 business days from this date to receive your refund. If we make any adjustments to your tax return, we will notify you.
So, let's see... Looks like I should have it by the 30th, then!
Posted by aaronlord at 03:31 PM | Comments (0)
April 15, 2005
Spiritual Bankruptcy
David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And when his brothers and all his father's house heard it, they went down there to him. And everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul, gathered to him. And he became captain over them. (1 Sam 22:1-2, ESV)
As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, "follow me." And he rose and followed him.
And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" But when he heard it, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.' For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." (Mt 9:9-13, ESV)
I know what it is to be in debt. I also know why it's bad to be in debt. But I also know that Jesus' eternal values differ from our temporal ones. The American ideals of self-sufficiency and independence are what make it so hard for so many people in this country to come to Christ. They say, "I don't need your crutch, I can do it on my own." But the debtors, the disenfranchised, the disillusioned, the broken, those are the ones who know they can't do it on their own. They know, like Paul, that "nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out" (Rom 7:18, ESV).
He put no confidence in the flesh, though this is the same guy who said in Philippians 3 that he had reason to boast in the flesh. Christ brought him to the end of himself and destroyed his self-confidence. The acknowledgment of our own spiritual bankruptcy is the most crucial step in coming into a life of surrender to Christ. This is the meaning of Hosea 6:6.
Unlike temporal debts, our eternal debt can never be worked off. Surrender is the only way. We make ourselves bondservants to our loving Master, permanently, giving up all rights to our selves, "forever" (see Deut 15:12-18). But then he calls us sons.
So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. (Rom 8:12-19, ESV)
The covenant has been transgressed (Hosea 6:7), but the Father will restore our fortunes regardless (Hosea 6:11). The inheritence which Adam squandered will be ours again, forever!
Posted by aaronlord at 10:56 AM | Comments (0)
April 12, 2005
'My sheep hear my voice'
I am overjoyed at hearing about friends who have been receiving clear direction from the Lord lately. There is a clear distinction between His voice, when we just KNOW it's Him, and the 'confirmation' and 'peace about it' that we produce for ourselves through rationalization and reasoning—when we consult other people or search the Scriptures looking for self-justification in our corrupt situation rather than seeking the Holy Spirit's illumination directly into our souls. You can survey your friends and find ones who will take your side, and you can find promises in Scripture to help you feel better as you fight to have your own way, even though they are conditional on certain aspects of surrender which you are not meeting. But when we are honest, and in communion with the Holy Spirit, he won't let us deceive ourselves. This voice is truth. And we can hear it for ourselves.
...there is, if I may put it in this way, a secret instinct in faith, whereby it knows the voice of Christ when He truly speaks. As the babe leaped in the womb when [Mary] came to Elisabeth, faith leaps in the heart when Christ indeed draws near. 'My sheep', said Christ, 'hear my voice' (John 10:27). 'They know My voice; they are used to the sound of it.' They know when His lips are opened to them and are full of grace.
In the Song of Solomon (5:2), the bride knows the voice of her beloved. As soon as he speaks she cries, 'It is the voice of my beloved!' She knew his voice and was so accustomed to communion with him that she instantly recognzied him. So will you know the voice of Christ. If you exercise yourselves to know and have fellowship with Him, you will easily discern between His voice and the voice of a stranger.
Note this: When he speaks, he speaks as no man has ever spoken. He speaks with power. He will in one way or another make your heart burn within you (Luke 24). When He puts his hand to the latch (Song of Sol. 5:4), His Spirit will seize your heart!
Each one who has exercised himself to discern good and evil, and is increasing in judgment, experience, and observation to recognize Christ's voice, and the operations of His Holy Spirit, is the best equipped to judge for himself when God is indeed speaking. (John Owen, The Mortification of Sin, Banner of Truth, 114)
Posted by aaronlord at 09:34 AM | Comments (0)
April 04, 2005
New Digs...
I'm finally all moved in! Oh, and guess what! I get to drive through a roundabout every day!!!
Posted by aaronlord at 05:06 PM | Comments (1)
