Thoughts Along The Journey

Meditation on a given subject is often furthered by looking at what older writers have written.  As I was thinking about “cultivating repentance”, I pulled a book of my shelf from one of those older writers and this is what I read:

“What we all desperately need to see is that the love of a holy God is manifested covenantly at the cross.  In the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, the Father promises to receive contrite sinners on a daily, no hourly basis.  The cross says: “No matter what your sins, unlimited mercy is available to those who turn to God through Jesus’ merits.” 

Thus at Calvary we behold the infinite nearness and compassion of the infinitely majestic god.  The Father in the gift of His Son has put Himself under eternal obligation to returning sons and daughters.  Having satisfied the demands of His own holy law, the Father must open His might arms and embrace every returning son and daughter. And he must do it every day.  He has promised to do it (Luke 15:11-32, 1 John 1:8-10) … but without sincere repentance there can be no face-to-face fellowship with the Father of lights …

True, we can affect a certain awe in our prayers as we tell the Lord that “we are not worthy of the least of all Thy mercies.”  Yet such praying does not get the fountain clean at its deepest source.  It says very little about particular sins which we commit daily and the root sins of pride, unbelief, and lust which clog up our lives …

Ask the Holy Spirit to make you willing to be searched by God (Ps. 139:23-24).  Do not expect the process of searching to be always painless and pleasant.  But you will begin to have the joy of a clear conscience and a deepening fellowship with Christ.  As you learn to thirst after Christ and drink of Him, you will find the living waters of the Holy Spirit flowing through you (John 7:37-39).  No longer will you be merely existing, you will be living and from you waters will overflow into other lives.”

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Music has always been one of the languages of the soul.  Listen to this song and let us reflect on the amazing grace of the One who would open our eyes and hearts to receive His love:

Sweet little Jesus boy, born in a manger

Sweet little Holy child, we didn’t know who You were

Long time ago it seems You were born

Born in a manger Lord, sweet little Jesus boy

Didn’t know You’d come to save us all

To take our sins away

Our eyes were blind we did not see

We didn’t know who You were

You have shown us how

And we are trying

Master You have shown us how

Even as You were dying

This world treats You mean Lord

Treats me mean too

But that’s how things are done down here

We didn’t know it was You

Didn’t know You’d come to save us all

To take our sins away

Our eyes were blind we did not see

We didn’t know who You were

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I owe this classic text from John Wilson:

His Image Recovered, by Scott Cairns (from Love’s Immensity)

“So—and yes, I’m asking—what was the God to do?

What other course—His being God and All—but to renew His lately none-too-vivid Image in the aspect of mankind, so that, by His Icon thus restored, we dim occasions might once more come to know Him? And how should this be done, save by the awful advent of the very God Himself, our Lord and King and gleaming Liberator Jesus Christ?

Here, beloved numbskulls, is a little picture: You gather, one presumes, what must be done when a portrait on a panel becomes obscured—maybe even lost—to external stain.

The artist does not discard the panel, though the subject must return to sit for it again, whereupon the likeness is etched once more upon the same material. As He tells us in the Gospel, I came to seek and to save that which was lost—our faces, say.”

Read it again in light of this painting by Richard Caemmerer: “Incarnation”

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Advent is a time for us to “prepare” our hearts to celebrate the amazing event of the incarnation; an event we would not have anticipated or guessed in some respects. 

Watch this short video (for December 14th) from the UK Christian website, Damaris, which seeks to ready our hearts to consider once again the wonder of our God becoming human:

http://www.damaris.org/christmascountdown/

I am amazed to see how many people around me, here in Europe, can so easily “miss” Jesus as they are preparing for the festivities of this holiday season, just as those in Jesus’ day missed the Messiah.  If I am honest, I can find myself as well swept up by all the activity and “miss” Jesus and the “kind of Messiah God planned to give to the world.”  I can miss taking the long view and forget that the small child in the manger would one day cry out, “It is finished,” giving up His life as an exchange for my freedom, my redemption.

“Time to prepare.”  I need that time at this “time” of the year.  May our preparation time lead us to the manger, to the cross and to the empty tomb.

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