Stott's The Cross of Christ

Okay, so I’ve been really connecting with my inner bookworm this week.  I’ve read (or finished) like three or four books.  Reviews possibly coming, but that would require me to put the book down too long.  Okay, so I just picked up The Cross of Christ and couldn’t make it out of the preface without quoting, especially in light of what I talked about at the end of the latest Psalm study.

In daring to write (and read) a book about the cross, there is of course a great danger of presumption.  This is partly because what actually happened when "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ" is a mystery whose depths we shall spend eternity plumbing; and partly because it would be most unseemly to feign a cool detachment as we contemplate Christ’s cross.  For, whether we like it or not, we are involved.  Our sins put Him there.  So, far from offering us flattery, the cross undermines our self-righeousness.  We can stand before it only with a bowed head and a broken spirit.  And there we remain until the Lord Jesus speaks to our hearts His word of pardon and acceptance, and we, gripped by His love and full of thanksgiving, go out into the world to live our lives in His service.

John Stott, The Cross of Christ

Good stuff.

Psalm 40: Part 3

You have multiplied, O LORD my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told.

(Psalm 40:5)

I loved growing up in the country.  We had the aforementioned timber, a pond to fish in, and snapping turtles to shoot BB guns at.  You know what one of the coolest things was?  Stars.  Yes, on a clear night, you could clearly see the stars.  Have you ever lain out at night and started counting stars?  The funny thing is, the more you stare at the sky and focus, the more stars you begin to see.  That’s the picture I get here from David.  The more we see God for who He is, the more we see His glory!

Let me quote the good Dr. Spurgeon here, because he says it better than I ever could.  “Creation, providence and redemption, teem with wonders as the sea with life.  Our special attention is called by this passage to the marvels which cluster around the cross and flash from it.  The accomplished redemption achieves many ends, and compasses a variety of designs; the outgoing of the atonement are not to be reckoned up, the influences of the cross reach further than the beams of the sun.  Wonders of grace beyond all enumeration take their rise from the cross; adoption, pardon, justification, and a long chain of godlike miracles of love proceed from it…. Let our interest in our God be ever to us our peculiar treasure.”

Then we hit a recurring theme throughout the Psalms, and indeed the whole of the Bible.  David says yet again, “I will proclaim and tell of them.”  Noticing is one thing.  Proclaiming is quite another.  How are the lost to hear if we don’t tell them?  The Word tells us that if He so desires, the very rocks can cry out for us, but it is our task to share His gospel.

Are we running out of things to say?  If we are, then we need to open our eyes!  The Lord is doing a work in your life.  He is guiding you, changing you and sustaining you.  Here is where that study of theology comes in.  I’m convinced that the more we study Him, the more we will be drawn to praise Him!  Here’s the part I love most.  No matter how many books have been written, Psalms or Hymns have been sung, preachers have preached, His wondrous deeds are still too much than can be told!  Throughout the whole of human history, we have been trying to tell of the glory of God, and that hasn’t and will never be enough!  If you ever hear someone say they’ve got a grasp on God and His works, they might not quite understand just who God is.

Let us consider the Trinity.  There is a lot out there you can read on the Trinity, and you can come to a good knowledge base about the Trinity.  You can begin to understand the relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in oneness as God.  You can read many scholarly works of men who have thought of the Trinity.  You can know that it is a true doctrine through that study.  You can understand many aspects of it, but can you ever truly understand the Trinity this side of heaven?  I’m going to say no.  But that certainly doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t pursue a greater understanding the length of our lives.  The nice part is, we can be sure that we will never really understand our Lord until we are faced with Him before the throne, and then we will really worship!

Stuff Christians Like Post

Great stuff today on Stuff Christians Like.  Check it out.

http://stufffchristianslike.blogspot.com/2009/04/527-thinking-god-needs-you.html

Psalm 40: Part 2

He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the LORD. 

(Psa 40:2-3 ESV)

When we were kids, my brother and I used to spend our summers “exploring” the timber. Word of explanation. In Iowa, some people own a plot of woods known as a stand of timber. Usually timbers are used for such activities as deer hunting and turkey hunting. On the edge of our timber, Mom put in a pond, and through the timber ran a very small creek. That creek is where my brother and I would lose our boots.

The ground was soft clay, and apparently the combination of clay and water would create what my brother and I would affectionately call “quick mud.” I would be walking along, and then suddenly one foot would go down. Stuck. Trying to pull the foot out boot intact was pointless; the mud’s pull was too strong. The only solution was to extricate (good word usage huh) my foot from the boot, then pulling together, Eric and I could with all our might get the boot out. From that point on in the day, we would be careful to walk on the rocks.

Psalm 40 says, “He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay.” How often are we walking through life when suddenly we’re stuck in the mud? The only difference is that we don’t have a boot to take off. The only way to extricate ourselves from the situation is to have someone else pull us out. Going back to verse 1 from a couple of weeks ago, God hears our cry and pulls us out of the mud and sets us on the Rock. Christ. The Hymn writer says, “On Christ the solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.”

How true. Only in Christ can I walk without getting bogged down. Unfortunately, I don’t know about you, but I seem to, more often than not, think that I can handle stuff. I say, “No, that’s okay God, I’ve got this one.” And so begins the mucking about until finally I’m stuck and I have to cry out for help. What would my walk look like if I spent less time getting myself stuck, and more time walking on the Rock?

Speaking of reliance on God, what does this needed reliance say about our worship? “He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.” He put, not I put! I don’t have any capacity to worship God minus the Holy Spirit. None, none whatsoever. This should and does concern me. Really. Do I quench the moving of the Spirit in worship? I’m talking both private and corporate worship. What gets in the way? The obvious answer is me of course, but what do I do about that? How do I get myself out of the way? I don’t! But I’d better be spending serious time with the Lord, so that when I’m worshipping the focus upward is already in place.

The next verse is great. What is the result of living this way? “Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord.” Here is a promise we need to grab hold of. If we walk with the Lord, we are going to be different and people are going to notice.