Lewis and Edwards on the Layers of Self-Admiration from desiringGod

http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/1962_lewis_and_edwards_on_the_layers_of_selfadmiration/

How Hearts Are Softened - C.H. Spurgeon - 9/18/1887

Zechariah 12:10-11 "And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.
In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon. "


Slightly altered to today's english

Nothing good can come out of a stony heart; it is barren as a rock. To be unfeeling is to be unfruitful. Prayer without desire, praise without emotion, preaching without earnestness – what are all these? Like the marble images of life, they are cold and dead. Insensibility is a deadly sign. Frequently it is the next stage to destruction.

I. Observe that holy tenderness arises out of divine operation. “I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplications.”

- It is not in fallen man to renew his own heart. Can the adamant turn itself to wax, or the granite soften itself to clay? Only He that stretched out the heavens and laid the foundation of the earth can form and reform the spirit of man within him. The power to make the rock of our nature flow with rives of repentance is not in the rock itself.
- The Spirit of God is prompt to give life and feeling. In ancient times He moved upon the face of the waters, and by His power order came out of confusion. The same Spirit at this time broods over our souls, and reduces the chaos of our natural state to light and life and obedience. There lies the hope of our ruined nature. Jehovah who made us can make us over again. Our case is not beyond His power. Is anything too hard for the Lord? Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? He can change the millstone into a mass of feeling, and dissolve iron and steel into a flood of tears. When He deals with the human mind by His secret and mysterious operations, He fills it with new life, perception, and emotion.
- The Holy Spirit makes us like wax, and we become impressible to His sacred seal. Remember, you that are hard of heart, that your hope lies this way; God Himself, who melts the icebergs of the arctic, must make your soul to yield up its hardness in the presence of His love. Nothing short of the work of God within you can effect this…The Spirit of God must work regeneration in you. He is able of stones to raise up children of Abraham; but until He works you are dead and insensible.
- God’s aim is that grace may reign by delivering us from our natural impenitence, and by causing us to sorrow because we have sinned… Do not think, therefore that when you feel the Holy Ghost melting you, that the Father will refuse you; it is He that sent the Holy Ghost to deal with you. Imagine not that you can feel repentance for sin and bow in sorrow at the Savior’s feet, and that Jesus will reject you; for it is He who sent the Spirit of grace to bring you to repentance, and make you mourn because of the ill which you have done.
- The Spirit is as the wind, invisible save by its effects. The Holy Ghost comes as the dew which in soft silence refreshes the tender herb. North with sound of trumpet or observation of man doth the Spirit perform his gracious deeds. His working is one of the secrets and mysteries which no man can explain to his fellow…Do not, therefore, expect to be informed when the Spirit is upon you.
- The Holy Spirit can make your heart as tender as the apple of the eye, and cause your conscience to be as sensitive as a raw wound, which feels the slightest touch. God grant us grace to deal with Him about these things, and not to be looking to ourselves. As well hope to extract juice from the stones of the sea-beach, as spiritual feeling from the carnal mind. He who can make the dray bones lice, and He alone, can make the hardened mourn over sin.

2 Thessalonians - Thoughts

2 Thessalonians 2:13-17

13 But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. 14 He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 15 So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter. 16May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, 17encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.

While mowing the law tonight it dawned on me that God knew everything I would every do, not do, say, think, or feel. He HAD full disclosure on me, and yet despite of what he knew was coming, decided to draw me in. The implications of such an act are fantastic - and freeing. It is for freedom that Jesus has set us free. However, the realty of how God looks at me is still a daunting concept. I find it difficult to believe that God looks at me the same way I look at my baby boy. The bible is very clear that he does, that he is as jealously protective of us as we are of our children. That he wishes to give us gifts, and seeks our good, just like our parents. If I am the apple of God's eye I wish I could see what he sees - what would that change? I think my parents think of me that way, did that make any difference on how I treat them? Maybe that is why God affords us the ability to have children, in order to taste what he tastes, feel what he feels. It is impossible to understand how a parent feels about their child until you have one yourself. Additionally it is impossible to understand how a lover feels about their love without having had a similar relationship. I wonder if all human realtionships and interactions are visual aides helping us to better understand our creator and how to relate to him. He is both our lover and our Judge; our sibling and our Parent; our Priest and our Sacrfice; our King.

I am glad he chose me.

2 Thessalonians 3:5
5May the Lord direct your hearts into God's love and Christ's perseverance.

G.K. Chesterton Quote

"Man is most comforted by paradoxes."
by G.K. Chesterton

The Moment of Surrender - U2

The Moment of Surrender

I tied myself with wire
To let the horses run free
Playing with the fire
Until the fire played with me


The stone was semi-precious
We were barely conscious
Two souls too cool to be
In the realm of certainty
Even on our wedding day


We set ourselves on fire
Oh God, do not deny her
It's not if I believe in love

But if love believes in me

Oh, believe in me

At the moment of surrender
I folded to my knees

I did not notice the passers-by

And they did not notice me

I've been in every black hole

At the altar of the dark star

My body's now a begging bowl

That's begging to get back, begging to get back

To my heart

To the rhythm of my soul

To the rhythm of my unconsciousness

To the rhythm that yearns

To be released from control

I was punching in the numbers at the ATM machine

I could see in the reflectionA face staring back at me

At the moment of surrenderOf vision over visibility

I did not notice the passers-byAnd they did not notice me

I was speeding on the subway

Through the stations of the cross

Every eye looking every other way

Counting down 'til the pentecost

At the moment of surrender

Of vision of over visibility

I did not notice the passers-by

And they did not notice me

The Return of The Prodigal Son – Henri Nouwen

pg. 106 -

“For most of my life I have struggled to find God, to know God, to love God. I have tried hard to follow the guidelines of the spiritual life – pray always, work for others, read the Scriptures – and to avoid the many temptations to dissipate myself. I have failed many times but always tried again, even when I was close to despair.

Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not “How am I to find God?” but “How am I to let myself be found by him?” The question is not “How am I to know God?” but “How am I to let myself be known by God? And, finally, the question is not “How am I to love God?” but “How am I to let myself be loved by God?” God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home. In all three parables which Jesus tells in response to the question of why he eats with sinners, he puts the emphasis on God’s initiative. God is the shepherd who goes looking for his lost sheep. God is the woman who lights a lamp, sweeps out the house, and searches everywhere for her lost coin until she has found it. God is the father who watches and waits for his children, runs out to meet them, embraces them, pleads with them, begs and urges them to come home.

It might sound strange, but God wants to find me as much as, if not more then, I want to find God. Yes, God needs me as much as I need God. God is not the patriarch who stays home, doesn’t move, and expects his children to come to him, apologize for their aberrant behavior, beg for forgiveness, and promise to be better. To the contrary, he leaves the house, ignoring his dignity by running toward them, pays no heed to apologies and promises of change, and brings them to the table richly prepared for them.”

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Acts 17:26

26From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'

Matthew 7:22

22Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' 23Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'

Matthew 3:11-12 Commentary Thought

"Amos sounded a clear warning, to his generation, to Jesus' generation and to ours, when we prove more quick to judge others than ourselves: "Woe to you who long for the day of the LORD," for it will be a day of reckoning (Amos 5:18). Sometimes skeptics appeal to evil in the world to deny God's existence; instead they should be applauding his mercy in giving them time to repent, because when God decisively abolishes evil, he will have to abolish them (see 2 Pet 3:3-9).
Second, John warns that the wicked will be burned, just as farmers destroy useless products after the harvest. Harvest and the threshing floor (3:8, 10, 12) were natural images to use in agrarian, rural Palestine. Earlier biblical writers had used these images to symbolize judgment and the end time (as in Ps 1:4; Is 17:13; Hos 13:3; Joel 3:13); Jesus (Mt 9:38; 13:39; 21:34) and his contemporaries (4 Ezra 4:30-32; Jub. 36:10) also used the image. (Fire naturally symbolized future judgment, as in Is 66:15-16, 24; 1 Enoch 103:8.) Villagers carried grain to village threshing floors; large estates worked by tenants would have their own (N. Lewis 1983:123). When threshers tossed grain in the air, the wind separated out the lighter, inedible chaff. The most prominent use of this chaff was for fuel (CPJ 1:199). But while chaff burned quickly, John depicts the wicked's fire as unquenchable. Many of his contemporaries believed that hell was only temporary (for example, t. Sanhedrin 13:3, 4), but John specifically affirmed that it involved eternal torment, drawing on the most horrible image for hell available in his day.
Many of us today are as uncomfortable as John's contemporaries with the doctrine of eternal torment; yet genuinely considering and believing it would radically affect the way we live. That John directs his harshest preaching toward religious people (Mt 3:7) should also arouse some introspection on our part (see also Blomberg 1992:142-43). Even for the saved, the knowledge that all private thoughts will be brought to light (10:26) should inspire self-discipline when other humans are not watching. Our culture prefers a comfortable message of God's blessing on whatever we choose to do with our lives; God reminds us that his Word and not our culture remains the final arbiter of our destiny."

"God reminds us that his Word and not our culture remains the final arbiter of our destiny."