mushrooms | Bonnie's Prayer Affair

ABIDING IS OUR WORK

“You don’t play a game or color a picture with a child to show your superiority. Rather, you choose to limit yourself so as to facilitate and honor that relationship. You will even lose a competition to accomplish love. It is not about winning and losing [or getting work done], but about love and respect” Wm. Paul Young (ref#384, p106).

This is exactly what JESUS does with me—limits Himself—put Himself on the same level as I—“emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men” (Phil 2:7 NASB).

He skips down the hallway, sticks His head in my office door and says, [L]et us go out to the countryside” (Song of Songs 7:11 NIV). He takes great delight seeing my reaction in our relationship. Wm. Paul Young (ref#384, p106)

And my reaction would be summed up in the main character’s remarks in Young’s book as he does the dishes with JESUS: “[If I] could just keep listening to [Him], [I] would be thrilled to do dishes the rest of my life” Wm. Paul Young (ref#384, p108).

“Behold, he comes, leaping over the mountains, bounding over the hills” (Song of Songs 2:8 ESV).

“My beloved speaks and says to me: ‘Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away” (Song of Songs 2:10 ESV).

“As an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the young men. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love” (Song of Songs 2:3-4 ESV).

“Sustain me with raisins; refresh me with apples, for I am sick with love. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand embraces me” (Song of Songs 2:5-6 ESV)!

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SHATTERED PRIDE

“As we grow in the Christian life we face increasing danger of spiritual pride” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p72).

“To humble the pride of the flesh, God determined to take away from men any reason for confidence or boasting” John Calvin (ref#164, Jan 9^th).

“It is a very common for God’s people, after they have enjoyed a great deliverance, to find a little trouble too much for them. It is as if the Lord must teach us our littleness, our nothingness, in order to keep us within bounds” Charles Spurgeon (ref#34, Jan 21^st PM).

“Thank God if you are going through a drying-up experience! The sign that God is at work in us is that He corrupts confidence in the natural virtues. It is the saddest thing to see people in the service of God depending on what they have by the accident of heredity” Oswald Chambers (ref#7, Dec 30^th).

“Weakness is not the big danger to be avoided. What you need to avoid is your delusions of strength” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Feb 17^th).

“Idlers may indulge a fond conceit of their abilities, because they are untried; but the earnest worker soon learns his own weakness. If you seek humility, try hard work. If you would know your nothingness, attempt some great thing for Jesus” Charles Spurgeon (ref#34, Mar 2^nd PM).

“To be truly in Christ is to stand accepted in His righteousness, to be justified by Him freely from all things; it is to be brought to the knowledge of our own vileness, insufficiency, and guilt; to be made to cast aside all self-dependence and works of human merit, and to come as the thief on the cross came, without any confidence in anything of self, but as a poor, helpless, ruined, condemned sinner, whose hope of pardon and acceptance is only through the free mercy of God in Christ Jesus” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, July 1^st).

“[W]e must die if we are ever going to live. So grace is out to kill us. But in presiding over our deaths, grace gives us life” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Oct 19^th).

“[T]rust the Lord, surrender, and go habitually trusting through all the changes, knowing that his love, purpose, and promise are unchangeable” John Newton (ref#322, p191).

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HUMBLE WAITING

“[I]f all things are in his hand, if the very hairs of our head are numbered; if every event, great and small, is under the direction of his providence and purpose; and if he has a wise, holy, and gracious end in view, to which everything that happens is subordinate and subservient;–then we have nothing to do, but with patience and humility to follow as he leads, and cheerfully to expect a happy issue” John Newton (ref#322, p137).

“You are to be nothing so that God may be everything. It is for you to fall at His feet, with confusion of face and contrition of heart” Charles Spurgeon (ref#320, p 73).

“[M]y power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9 ESV).

“[A] Christian knows the plague of his own heart and the value of Christ” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Feb 29^th).

“[H]umility means ‘a deep sense of our own meanness which is always accompanied with a profound submission to the will of God, and great deadness to the glory of the world, and the applause of men.’” Henry Scougal (ref#321, p11).

“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8 ESV)?

“[T]he one condition for spiritual progress is that we remain sincere and humble” John Calvin (ref#313, p19).

“[T]he battle is not yours but God’s. Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the LORD on your behalf. Believe in the LORD your God, and you will be established; believe and you will succeed. Give thanks to the LORD, for his steadfast love endures forever” (2 Chron 20:15,17,20-21 ESV).

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REST AND WORK, WORK AND REST

“God of glory and grace, who calls his people to do his will on earth, always goes with them as they obey his calling. When he sends you, he doesn’t give you a bunch of stuff to help you along the way. He always gives you himself because he is what you need” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Sept 27^th).

“He knows that we cannot keep the law which He has set before us. Yet for the exercise of our faith, and for the testing of our duty and obedience to Him, He will always have us to aim at it. And although we come short of that duty and obedience which He requires at our hands, yet He will accept and reward our good endeavor” Henry Smith (ref#225, Nov 18^th).

“It never works to ask people to do for you what only God can do. It never works to wait for God to do what he has clearly called you to do. God promises to provide, but he calls us to labor, pray, and give. God alone has the power to save, but he calls us to witness, testify, proclaim, teach, live, and preach. God not only determines outcomes, but he rules over the means by which those outcomes are realized. [T]he life of faith is all about rest and work. We rest in God’s presence and constant care, and we toil with our hands, busy at the work we have been commanded to do. We rest in our work and work in our rest. At times, we work because we believe that God who is at work calls us to work. At other times, we rest from our work because we believe that the work that needs to be done only God can do. So rest and work and work and rest. It is the rhythm of the life of faith” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, June 2^nd).

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking –around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you” (Rom 12:1-2 MSG).

“[W]e have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him” (Eph 3:12 ESV).

“I’m glad from the inside out, ecstatic” (Acts 2:22-28 MSG).

“[T]he joy of the LORD is [my] strength” (Neh 8:10 ESV).

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RESULTS OF OBEDIENCE

“If Christ is your life, you are free from the desperate quest to find life in situations, locations, and relationships. You don’t need to search for meaning and purpose. You don’t need to search for identity. You don’t need to look for something to give you the inner sense of well-being that every person wants” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Dec 8^th).

“And the LORD has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession, as he has promised you, and that you are to keep all his commandments, and that he will set you in praise and in fame and in honor high above all nations that he has made, and that you shall be a people holy to the LORD your God, as he promised” (Deut 26:18 ESV).

“[W]e hold unassailable truth because we feel a divine energy living and breathing in it—an energy by which we are drawn and animated to obey it, willingly indeed, and knowingly, but more vividly and effectually than could be done by human will or knowledge” John Calvin (ref#113, p34).

“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trust in You” (Isa 26:3 ESV).

“When we reach that place of deep intimacy with the Lord, we experience a joy and a peace and an overflowing sense of love that cannot be equaled. The joy we know overrides any difficulty, hardship, trial, tribulation, or lack we may have in our lives. His peace and His love fill up every lonely, frustrated, or empty crevice in our being. He deals with us in a way that is infinitely kind and good and faithful and generous and merciful, so that our automatic response to ourselves and to others is one of kindness, goodness, faithfulness, generosity, and mercy” Charles F. Stanley (ref#230, p68).

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HARD LIFE

“[W]e can be in the very center of God’s will, being used by the Lord in a powerful way—and still get into a lot of trouble” Jim Cymbala (ref#161, p114). I think of Stephen who was chosen by the Apostles to wait tables but ended up martyred (Acts 6-7).

“Those whom the Lord has chosen and honored with his intercourse must prepare for a hard, laborious, troubled life, a life full of many and various kinds of evils; it being the will of our heavenly Father to exercise his people in this way while putting them to the proof. Having begun this course with Christ the first-born, he continues it toward all his children. (Heb 5:8)” John Calvin (ref#113, p458).

“Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim 3:12 ESV).

“Christ is exceedingly ready to pity us. His arms are open to receive us. He delights to receive distressed souls who come to Him and to protect them. He would gather them as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings; it is a work that He exceedingly rejoices in because He delights in acts of love, and pity, and mercy” Jonathan Edwards (ref#229, p106).

“So Christ is an ever-flowing fountain. He is continually supplying His people, and the fountain is not spent. They who live upon Christ may have fresh supplies from Him to all eternity; they may have an increase of blessedness that is new, and new still, and which never will come to an end” Jonathan Edwards (ref#229, p107).

“As thy days, so shall thy strength be” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Jan 1^st).

“It would seem as though we were summoned not so much to go out on the field of battle, as on the field of conquest; not so much to combat with the foe, as to gather up the spoils of victory What is each successful conflict with our spiritual adversaries, each mortified corruption, each resisted temptation, each overcome sin, but a display of the great victory already won by the Captain of our salvation” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Aug 5^th)?

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WE ARE RECEIVERS NOT GIVERS

“[W]hat accounts for most of our failures in Christian living is our failure to realize what we are. It is our failure to realize what God has done to us. We must think less and less of doing and more and more of being. If we only are what we ought to be, then the doing will more or less look after itself” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#211, p87).

“Conformity, to live one with God, is a far higher and more divine life than to live simply in submission to God” E.M. Bounds (ref#54, p51-52).

“It is a great matter to enjoy God’s ordinances, but to enjoy God’s presence in the ordinances is that which a gracious heart aspires after” Thomas Watson (ref#225, Jan 15^th).

“You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews. You have granted me life and steadfast love and your care has preserved my spirit” (Job 10:11-12 ESV).

“Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long” (Ps 25:4-5 ESV).

“Salvation is something that has come to men and women as a free gift to them, and they have nothing to do but to receive this gift. It is something provided; it is the righteousness of God that is given” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Nov 24^th).

A free gift is hard to receive. Over and over free gifts are hard to receive as we go through sanctification. But, our entire life with CHRIST is receiving from Him with our inability to pay back. We are receivers not givers when it comes to our spiritual life. Pointing our finger at CHRIST in worship is the only gesture we can give.

“Guide me, O thou great Jehovah!

Pilgrim through this barren land;

I am weak, but thou art mighty;

Hold me with thy powerful hand;

Bread of heaven,

Feed me now and evermore” W. Williams (ref#224, song #462).

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WAITING ON GOD

“We call Abraham ‘father’ not because he got God’s attention by living like a saint, but because God made something out of Abraham when he was a nobody. Abraham was first named ‘father’ and then became a father because he dared to trust God to do what only God could do: raise the dead to life, with a word make something out of nothing. When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do” (Rom 4:17-18 MSG).

GOD didn’t allow CHRIST as the Son of Man to master His life. JESUS said this about Himself: “I can do nothing on My own initiative” (John 5:30 NASB).

To conform myself to CHRIST requires that I live like CHRIST. The Apostle John records JESUS Himself telling how He did it: “Jesus replied, ‘The Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing, and in the same way” (John 5:19 TLB).

CHRIST lived from day to day, from faith to faith. He had to make His own decisions. But He did not depend on His flesh. Isaiah rightly prophesied about JESUS: “He will not judge by the way things look or decide by what he hears” (Isa 11:3 NCV).

“Waiting on God is an active life based on confidence in his presence and promises. Waiting is your calling. Waiting is your blessing. Every one of God’s children has been chosen to wait, because every one of God’s children lives between the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet.’ Already this world has been broken by sin, but not yet has it been made new again. Already Jesus has come, but not yet has he returned to take you home with him forever. Already your sin has been forgiven, but not yet have you been fully delivered from it. Already Jesus reigns, but not yet has his final kingdom come. Already sin has been defeated, but not yet has it been completely destroyed. Already the Holy Spirit has been given, but not yet have you been perfectly formed into the likeness of Jesus. Already God has given you his Word, but not yet has it totally transformed your life. Already you have been given grace, but not yet has that grace finished its work. You see, we’re all called to wait because we all live right smack dab in the middle of God’s grand redemptive story We all wait for the final end of the work that God has begun in and for us” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Mar 2^nd).

CHRIST made no decisions on His own. He simply went from moment to moment obeying His FATHER. Likewise, GOD did not create me to become independent of Him. “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven” (John 3:27 NKJV).

“So we wait and act. We wait and work. We wait and fight. We wait and conquer. We wait and worship. Waiting on God is an action based on confident assurance of grace to come” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Mar 2^nd).

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INTRODUCTION TO OUR PART IN SANCTIFICATION

“God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth” (2 Thes 2:13 ESV).

“The Scriptures place great emphasis on our part in sanctification” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Jan 27^th).

“Do not be conformed to this world” (Rom 12:2 ESV).

“Growing in the Christlike virtues will give believers increasing confidence that God really did call them and really did elect them to salvation” ESV Study Bible (ref#125, p2419).

“[B]e filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col 1:9-14 ESV).

“The Scriptures place great emphasis on our part in sanctification, on what you and I have to do” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Jan 27^th).

“[B]e diligent to confirm your calling and election” (2 Pet 1:10 ESV).

Definition of a ‘holy life:’ “[A] life sanctified through the influence of faith, the achievements of prayer, and the endowments of holiness. Such a life is a living demonstration of the divinity of the Bible, and does more to confirm its truth and spread it throughout the world than all that has ever been spoken or written on the evidences of Christianity” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, June 6^th).

“[A]nswer the call of Him who asks for all because He is all” Gene Edwards (ref#226, Dedication Page).

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THE LORD PLANS AND DOES

“The LORD [plans] and does what He [speaks]” (Jer 51:12 ESV).

“[U]nblemished goodness governs His absolute sovereignty. His decrees are as firm as though no man had the liberty of will: yet we all have a choice as truly as if there were no fore-determining decree. God suffers men to make a free choice, and gives to all men that which they finally choose. He gives not to His elect either grace or glory without their knowledge and against their consent: and He does not utterly desert or destroy others, till they harden their hearts, and choose darkness rather than life” Daniel Burgess (ref#225, Oct. 26^th).

“I learn conversion to be both God’s work, and ours. It is God’s work; ‘I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people’ (Jer. 31:33). It is ours; and He commands it. ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live.’ It is His; He gives to will and to do. It is ours; we do it, and move, by Him moved. Daniel Burgess (ref#225, Oct. 26^th).

“What He desires that he does. For he will complete what he appoints for me” (Job 23:13-14 ESV).

“I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people and I will be their GOD. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes” (Ezek 37:23-24 ESV).

“God is a Shepherd as able as He is good, and as good as He is able. Not only He has green pastures to lead me into which shows His ability, but He leads me into them, which shows His goodness” Sir Richard Baker (ref#225, June 8^th).

“God gives you His supernatural power in order to do supernatural work. He imparts to you His divine energy and His divine authority so that you may participate fully and successfully in His divine plan” Charles F. Stanley (ref#230, p30).

“Every one of us needs God’s power to infuse our will so that we truly have willpower” Charles F. Stanley (ref#230, p26).

“[L]et us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe” (Heb 12:28 ESV).