A Narrowly Missed Anniversary

It was one year ago tomorrow that the first post appeared on The Narrow Road. At that time I was not sure where this was going (I am still not), what I would post on (still not sure what i actually covered) and if anyone would bother to read it (I mean why, really, why?).

As I look back, it is clear to me that I have gotten the most benefit out of the blog (not being selfish, just realistic). It even inspired a project for one of my seminary classes, A Trinity of 3, a blog that got me through trinitarianism in one piece last semester. Never would have done that if I had not been doing this.

I pray that those that read this blog got some benefit out of my meanderings, I have appreciated your input and comments over the past year. It amazed me that I found something to write about every day, I have posted daily since September 24th of last year. Was not trying to set any sort of record, it was what it was.

But at this time, I feel the need for a break. So, I will be taking a sabbatical from blogging for an as of yet undetermined period of time. It is clear that I find my faith walk and reflections thereon the prime topic of my blogging, and right now I need to spend time immersed in that without thinking about writing about it.

This is a pretty rigorous social media fast. I have stopped tweeting, have already blown up my Twitter account. I have deactivated Facebook. This is the last step. A 40 day blog fast. Maybe. As far as the others, we will see if we go back.

Thank you for the past year. With the Lord's grace, I will figure out the next steps. I hope to be here again in the future.

Righteousness

⁸More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, ⁹and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,
Philippians 3:8-9 (NASB)

You see here both a comparison of opposites and an indication that a man who wishes to obtain Christ's righteousness must abandon his own righteousness...If by establishing our own righteousness we shake off the righteousness of God, to attain the latter we must indeed completely do away with the former.
John Calvin - Institutes of The Christian Religion: 3.11.13

Christ alone. He is the only way. I cannot do it. My own righteousness is self righteousness and it falls woefully short of where I need to be, where only He can bring me.

God knew it (that is why He sent His Son), Calvin learned it (that is why he wrote about it), I need to accept it as a fact in my life and the model for my behavior.

A Sweet Flame

I have finished my reading of A Sweet Flame by Jonathan Edwards. Throughout the book, I was struck with Edwards' struggle with his own human condition, his sin, his feeling of inadequacy to do the Lord's work, the church divisions and controversies that arose and often affected him. Viewed as a giant today, it was clear that was not a universally held belief amonst his contemporaries. That comes not as a surprise, members of the church have always dealt with that, starting with Jesus Himself. WHat comes through is the relevance to the struggles today of struggles written about around 250 years ago.

The last letter to address specifically is the letter he wrote to Lady Mary Pepperell speaking of the loss of her son. It is the letter the term a sweet flame appears in, the letter that gave title to the book.

Edwards writes in length of the suffering and sacrifice of Jesus, of His death. But he also writes of His resurrection and ascension, of the hope that gives us. Edwards makes no apology for the suffering in life, the pain Lady Pepperell bears. Our Lord had pain and suffering in this world, should we expect less?

Edwards speaks of the glory of Christ, of His holiness. How "His love to sinners appeared like a sweet flame, burning with an infinite vehemence against sin". It is because of our sin that the flame of Christ burns hot, to remove that impurity through His sacrifice. Although it burns and may be painful in our lives at points of time, it is sweet to think of the eternal state He has wrought for us.

Jesus. He is our sweet flame, for we are all sinners.

The Nature of Sin

We have to recognize that sin is a fact of life, not just a shortcoming. Sin is blatant mutiny against God, and either sin or God must die in my life. The New Testament brings us right down to this one issue— if sin rules in me, God’s life in me will be killed; if God rules in me, sin in me will be killed. There is nothing more fundamental than that. The culmination of sin was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and what was true in the history of God on earth will also be true in your history and in mine— that is, sin will kill the life of God in us. We must mentally bring ourselves to terms with this fact of sin. It is the only explanation why Jesus Christ came to earth, and it is the explanation of the grief and sorrow of life.
Oswald Chambers - My Utmost For His Highest: June 23 Devotional

Sin is mutinous, sin kills, sin is a fact of life. Pretty dismal if that was all there was, if that was all we had to work with. If there was only our sinful selves, each and every one of us.

²³for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Romans 3:23 (NASB)

But we cannot give up for there is a hope we all have in our Savior.

¹Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, ²fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1-2 (NASB)

We can mess things up on our own, we have proven that since the beginning, but we cannot make right what has gone astray. Not alone. Not without help.

But by the Lord's grace we have it.

The Only Good News

Who of us would dare to stand before God and say, "My God, judge me as I have judged others"? We have judged others as sinners— if God should judge us in the same way, we would be condemned to hell. Yet God judges us on the basis of the miraculous atonement by the Cross of Christ.
Oswald Chambers - My Utmost For His Highest: June 22 Devotional

How true this is. We never seem to apply the same standard to others that is applied to us. That's the bad news. Others never apply the same standard to themselves that they would apply to us. That's more bad news.

God is loving, merciful, patient and gracious. He never treats us like we treat each other.

That is the only good news here today.

Centering Our Prayer

A few weeks ago I posted about praying outwardly. The theme was starting with yourself and God and praying out from there, using the High Priestly Prayer of John 17 as a guide; using Jesus as a model for your actions. But as I thought about this post in the days and weeks that followed I realized I missed something. I should not have started with God and myself, but with God. After all, Jesus is God, so His prayer in John 17 does not just start with the Father and Him, it starts with God.

Several years ago as a relatively new Christian, I went through a study in a small group at church using the Navigators 2:7 series. It is a great was to either ground or refresh yourself in the basics of your Christian faith. I recommend it highly. One of the items reviewed is a way to pray, summarized by the acronym ACTS (Adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication). It is a way to focus your prayer time, making sure you not only make it about your needs, but making you focus on the wonder of God before anything else.

But even with ACTS the majority of the focus is on self: your sins, your thankfulness, your needs or requests. I have often thought since that session that the majority of my prayer time should be spent on praise, on Him, not me. So as I now think about prayer, and praying outwardly, I think about starting with God and not self. He knows my needs (better than I do), he knows my sins, my faults and weaknesses (way better than I do). Isn't it a glorious thought to want to spend the majority of your prayer time just praising Him in all His glory? Isn't it enough that He is god and He has reached out and saved me from myself?

As I look at the picture again, wouldn't it be so much better to think of self as the first circle, and the center to be the blinding light of the Lord?

Forget Not The Present

I wrote yesterday about not getting too hung up in current events. The operative word is too. You cannot ignore this world either.

Thus Paul rightly persuades us to use this world as if not using it; and to buy goods with the same attitude as one sells them...Let this be our principle: that the use of God's gifts is not wrongly directed when it is referred to that end to which the Author himself created and destined them for us, since he created them for our good, not for our ruin.
John Calvin - Institutes of The Christian Religion: 3.10.1-2

To ignore what God has given us to work with in the world is almost as bad as ignoring God. Ignoring the world is as bad as obsessing about it. What God wants for us is focus and balance: focus on Him, balance in our doing His will in this world while we wait for Him to bring us to the next.

¹⁹"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,

²⁰teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

Matthew 28:19-20 (NASB)

You cannot fulfill the Great Commission if you ignore the world; nor can you do it if you obsess on it.

So it is all about balance with the proper focus. Look at the Holy Trinity and how there is perfect balance and focus within that divine relationship.

Taking the steps we can take. Eyes on Jesus, listening to His words, hearing and seeing the world as He did. Going back to the future but not forgetting the present. And how can we do that?

⁸Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Hebrews 13:8 (NASB)

Balance and focus.