The Unseen Is Eternal

If I had time to regularly read another blog (I don't, since I can't even keep up with the ones I currently have on my Google Reader), I would want to read Ann Voskamp's Holy Experience. As it is now, I occasionally pop in and breathe deeply of the beauty and peace and holiness found there. During one of my random visits to her blog, I read this post and nearly shed tears. I don't even know how to describe how I felt: refreshed, refocused, renewed. But so much more. Words fail me.

His Word speaks.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

~ 2 Cor. 4:18

Well Content to Be Weak

An Elisabeth Elliot devotional,

with my thoughts interjected.

What weakness are you feeling today?...

Too many to describe.

A sense of inadequacy for some task laid upon you?...

Yes, yes, and yes. I always feel inadequate for my roles of wife, mother, homemaker, etc. Especially the mother one. Ani lo maspiqah.

Christ has been there before you. Every form of human limitation He knew, and out of that utter poverty we have been made strong. Yet, again and again, in the life of each disciple, comes the experience of weakness in order that we may live His life for others...

Again and again? Does it have to be that way? I'd like to just conquer this obstacle and be done with it once and for all and never be weak again!

This sharing of His weakness is one aspect of the death of the cross, one of the conditions of our discipleship, and hence cause for joy rather than bitterness...

I'd rather think about other aspects of the death of the cross--like the reward waiting us in heaven because of Christ's blood shed for us. But OK, I'll try to be joyful about the frailty of my human condition and not be bitter.

For we walk the road, not alone, but with Christ, "well content to be weak at any time if only you are strong" (2 Cor. 13:9 NEB)...

Thank You, Jesus, that You walk with me on this demanding journey.

The mystery is constantly being worked out--strength out of weakness, life out of death.

Lord, may any success I have along the way, any strength that flows from me, any joy that is evident to the world--may it be obvious that it comes from You, and not from my own self.

Likewise, we are weak in him, yet by God's power we will live with him to serve you.

~ 2 Corinthians 13:4b

Grace - It's Amazing

Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more--no amount of spiritual calisthenics and renunciations, no amount of knowledge gained from seminaries and divinity schools, no amount of crusading on behalf of righteous causes. And grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us less--no amount of racism or pride or pornography or adultery or even murder. Grace means that God already loves us as much as an infinite God can possibly love.

~ Philip Yancey,

June 2 in Grace Notes

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

~ 2 Corinthians 13:14

Be Ye Separate

At the homeschool convention we recently attended, we were handed literature by a number of organizations as we wandered through the exhibit hall; and at the time, I didn't even glance at some of what we were given. Yesterday, however, I was sorting through a tote bag full of papers and so forth and discovered a small publication called Reaching Out, apparently published by the Pilgrim Mennonite Conference (about whom I know nothing, but am guessing it to be a fairly conservative group). One of the articles was written by a Lester Troyer and is entitled "The Case for Separation." It begins...

Biblical separation is possibly the most neglected teaching in Christianity today, especially in the West. Through sheer neglect (or unbelief), the life of the Christian is reinvented as being a mere statement of belief apart from any change of life, or relationship to a world of ungodliness. The Gospel is reduced to this: "One accepts Jesus into his heart. God forgives. Heaven is sure. That's it." But nothing has changed. The new Christianity does not usher in the divine grace of transformation that breaks the old sin patterns and brings forth a life ordered by God. Instead, it has invented a divine blindfold, where God no longer sees the sin of the Christian.

But God is not mocked. Heaven is reserved not for those who merely profess Jesus as Lord, but for those who do the will of the Father in Heaven. Salvation results in single-minded devotion to God, producing a separation from the world and the powers of darkness. Separation is the principle whereby Christians live "in the world without being of the world."

Later in the article, he quotes from a message Billy Graham preached in 1987 at a missions conference in Urbana, Illinois. Graham said:

We have moved in with the world and allowed the world to penetrate the way we live. So things we used to call sin are no longer sin. Things that we would have abhorred a few years ago, we accept as matter of fact today, not realizing that they offend a holy God....We act as if it doesn't really matter how we live or what we think or say because God will forgive us anyway.

He concludes with these verses:

Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

~ 2 Corinthians 6:17-18

This article hit home because of the ache in my heart for holiness. Where is the individual, where is the congregation, that realizes without a doubt that it is only through God's grace that we are being saved, but that also desires and practices holiness in response to God's great love and mercy? Where is the shepherd who is willing and bold enough to call his flock to repentance without instituting legalistic rules that supposedly safeguard the sheep but in reality lead to bondage? Practically, how can I come out from among the world and be separate, while still making an impact on those who so desperately need to see a flesh-and-blood "little Christ"?

The Ramban's Letter, Part Two

When you think about all these things, you will come to fear Hashem* who created you, and you will protect yourself from sinning and therefore be happy with whatever happens to you. Also, when you act humbly and modestly before everyone, and are afraid of Hashem and of sin, the radiance of His glory and the spirit of the Shechina will rest upon you, and you will live the life of the World-to-Come!

~ from The Ramban's Letter to His Son

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

~ 2 Corinthians 3:18

* Hashem - literally means "the name" and is used for God (whose name is too holy to utter)