#manna vb

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He loved to make us lovely

Hi everyone, it’s been the beginning of my 6th week of work in Wisconsin (I can’t believe it’s already been over a month). There’s not much to update on, but been settling in nicely into Midwest life.

I just wanted to share this quote from a Tim Keller book that I’ve been reading. In it, he’s talking about what loving one another means and he says this: “Well, when Jesus looked down from the cross, he didn’t think, ‘I am giving myself to you because you are so attractive to me.’ No, he was in agony, and he looked down at us - denying him, abandoning him, and betraying him - and in the greatest act of love in history, he stayed. He said, ‘Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.’ He loved us, not because we were lovely to him, but to make us lovely.” I wonder what it could have felt like for Jesus. To know that he could step off the cross if he wished to, but avoiding that selfish act in an act of service and love for humanity. The ultimate sacrifice for a fallen people. And that’s our example of perfect love. Not an emotion or some feeling that comes and goes, but service for others.

CS Lewis once said, “Do not waste time bothering whether you “love” your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more.” It’s a very similar concept to what Smith talked about in Desiring the Kingdom. Our actions shape our hearts and desires, which in turn influence our actions. For me this was a challenge by God to simply love those around me. He commanded us to love so that our hearts may be continually shaped to love.

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Suffering

I was reading an article when I came across this quote. The author quoted Charles Spurgeon who struggled with depression all of his life and died of gout and Bright’s disease at age 57. Spurgeon said, “It would be a very sharp and trying experience to me to think that I have an affliction which God never sent me, that the bitter cup was never filled by his hand, that my trials were never measured out by him, nor sent to me by his arrangement of their weight and quantity.”

It’s a very interesting take on suffering. If God has not ordained our suffering then He is not in full control and that idea is more frightening. If He has ordained our suffering, then we can rest in the full assurance that He will deliver us from it. I had never really thought of it that way, but it was very comforting for me. 

Hope everyone is doing well :)

[mannaclass2014]

Pride and Anger

Matthew 5:21-26

21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. 23 So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. 25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. 26 Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

  Today I heard the new English pastor for ACCCN speak for the first time. Pastor Eric Chang. I was eager to listen to one of his sermons since I had heard many good things about him thus far. During the service we read the above scripture from the sermon on the Mount as Jesus preached and taught about the many vices that man struggles with. Specifically the passage about anger was read out loud. I didn’t think anything of it and just read it through without giving it a second thought. But when it came time for the sermon, I began to get the feeling that God was really trying to speak to me on the this topic of anger.  

During the sermon, Pastor Eric spoke of how Jesus was admonishing the Pharisees for believing themselves to be ‘good’ and ‘righteous’ because they kept the commandments. Jesus addressed the commandment, thou shalt not murder, specifically and reminded the Pharisees that the inner expressions of the heart, namely hatred, are just as sinful as murder. Pastor Eric encouraged us to go to God first with our anger and reconcile ourselves with God that we may master our emotions, rather than let our emotions master us.

I have been told recently over the last several months that I seem grumpy all the time. That my temper has been out of control. That I have been mean and impatient. That I seem joyless at times and easily annoyed. At first I didn’t want to believe these statements about me. I found them to be an attack on my character and thought they did not accurately represent who I was. So the more I heard them, the more I continued to dismiss them, to my own detriment.

What I realize now is that I was simply blind to my own pride and self-righteousness. I didn’t believe that I could be so angry and bitter and impatient. Slowly I am beginning to realize that I am falling prey to my sinful tendencies. The more I think about it and the more I see that my pride is really the root of my anger and impatience. I believe I have all the answers and that I know what is best. I believe that my time is more valuable because my pride tells me that it is, rather than realizing that my time is all simply God’s. It’s funny because I thought that my 4 years in college had taught me and humbled me enough, but it seems not (again pride masking my lack of humility...quite insidious). Pride may be one of those sins that I battle over and over again. I must be on the lookout for my pride creeping at the doorstep, waiting for the right moment to strike. I really need your help on this one God.

[mannaclass2014]

Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?

Mark 4

35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” 36 And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. 37 And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” 39 And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 40 He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” 41 And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

I feel like I’m just as clueless as the disciples here. They don’t get who Christ is and don’t get how much He cares about them. And I have to ask myself those two questions that Christ poses to His disciples. Why am I so afraid? Because I don't trust His power to provide for me in my weakness and I have forgotten how He has been faithful to me my whole life. How easily I forget. I look out into the world and wonder what God will have me do in it, and I start listening to what the world has to say about me. Do I still have no faith? Sometimes my faith is so weak and so little that I wonder how to even cling to it. 

And even more, do I know who Christ is? Do I know His power and salvation? Why are my actions still like that of a person who doesn’t understand who He is? Where is my faith? How come I don’t understand all the words of Christ that I have read over and over again? Why can I not trust in His divine providence? As Paul says in Romans 8, the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. What experience here on earth is nothing in comparison to the glory in heaven.

Where is my faith, so unlike our forefather Abraham, for 9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. Abraham could see God’s promise, even though it may not even be delivered within his lifetime. I can barely look into the next year and see how God’s promises would play out, but Abraham rested his faith on promises that he wouldn’t even see while he was alive.

I try to be encouraged by what John writes in Revelation 21,  3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. The new heavens and the new earth will be a glorious place indeed. The question, can I live that way, looking forward joyfully to the promise that is mine through Christ? I’m not sure. Sometimes, it’s just really really hard.

 -VB