Joshua 1:8
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Monday, December 16, 2013
Flame Thrower
By T. M. Moore | Published Date: December 16, 2013
Tired of Christmas goofiness? If you’re like me, you quickly tire of the goofy sentimentalism that attaches to Christmas. And especially to Jesus. Walking home from dropping my daughter’s car off for an oil change, I passed a nativity scene on a neighbor’s lawn. There was little baby Jesus, His little head laid in that crude manger, looking all peaceful and serene. Wouldn’t hurt a flea. The little Lord Jesus, asleep on the hay. Sleep, baby Jesus, in heavenly peace. Right. There is an aspect to the Incarnation that is easily overlooked amid all this gush and nostalgia. Jesus’ coming to the earth was not as depicted in the hymn, “The Snow Lay All Around”: “The snow lay all around;/the stars shone bright,/when Christ our Lord was born/on Christmas night.” We don't know whether that was the case or not, but the sweetness and placidness of the setting reflects the feelings many prefer to indulge at Christmas time. All peace and comfort and abundance and joy. Fire on the earth The fact is, Jesus’ coming brought violence of the most radical kind. He declared (Lk. 12:5), “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled!” He intended to do some serious harm to someone, or, at least, to inflict some serious pain. Robert Southwell, the 17th century priest and poet, captured some of the essence of this aspect of Jesus’ coming in his poem, “New Heaven, New War.” Benjamin Britten set part of this poem to a staccato Christmas carol which I doubt many of us have ever heard: “This little babe, so few days old,/has come to rifle Satan’s fold./All hell doth at His presence quake,/Though He Himself for cold do shake;/For in this weak unarmèd wise/The gates of hell He will surprise.” Now there’s a carol you can sing with fire in your eyes! A century after Southwell, John Milton composed his “Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity,” in which, as Steven Wright reminded us recently, the coming of Jesus at Christmas sends every false deity, vain philosophy, and empty religion fleeing for the high ground, while Satan paces nervously in the depths of hell: “Our Babe, to show His Godhead true,/can in His swaddling clothes control the damnèd crew!” Righteousness and judgment Jesus came to earth to throw some flames around. He came to ignite the flames of righteousness and judgment, which consume like a forest fire all the dead wood of human sin and rebellion (Ps. 83:13, 14). And He came like a refiner’s fire to try and purify the hearts of human beings, that He might capture us for Himself and take us, glorified, to be forever with Him in heaven (Mal. 3:2, 3). That little Babe is throwing flames around, and we’re not going to be able to escape. Pray that His fire will enter your soul not for judgment, but for sanctification. “He comes to make His blessings flow/far as the curse is found.” And when the curse of sin meets the fire of holy Jesus, there can be no doubt concerning which will be the last standing. So the next time you drive or walk past a gentle nativity scene, pause for a moment. Smile sweetly – to reflect the mood of the times. Then offer this prayer to that little Babe, so few days old: “Torch us, Lord!” For more by T.M. Moore, visit ColsonCenter.org |
Friday, December 6, 2013
Psalm 143:6
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Habakkuk 1:5
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Proud To Be Virtuous
By T. M. Moore
The less we are filled with pride, the more we advance in virtue, for this more than anything else is virtue, to hold ourselves in check. Just as the sharper our sight is, the more fully do we realize how far we are from the sky, so the more we advance in virtue, so much more do we learn the difference between God and ourselves. This is no small part of wisdom, to be able to know our own worth; for he knows himself best who accounts himself to be nothing. - John Chrysostom on Isaiah 14:13
Jesus told a parable about a righteous man who knew he was righteous, and so turned out to be not righteous at all (Lk. 18:9-14). The Pharisee was proud of his “virtue”, and boasted of it before the Lord as he compared himself favorably with a tax collector.
We recognize such “righteousness” as “self-righteousness”, and we agree with Jesus that there is no true virtue in such self-vaunting.
But in a day when so much immorality is to be seen on every hand, we can easily fall to thinking we’re somehow “better” than others who aren’t as “righteous” or as “virtuous” as we.
The remedy for this, Chrysostom explained, is to look to Jesus and not to the people around us. Compared with Jesus, we have a long way to go, and nothing about which to boast. Indeed, even the virtue we are able to demonstrate is not our own; it comes from and by our Lord Jesus, as He lives His life through us in the power of His Spirit.
We should, of course, strive every day to increase in virtue, studying God’s Word to discover new ways that we may increase in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. But we must at the same time study humility, trust, and self-denial. Otherwise we may end up prideful about our “virtuous” attainments, forgetting that any progress we make in becoming upright in virtue is only the work of God within us, willing and doing of His good pleasure (Phil. 2:12, 13).
How can we “hold ourselves in check” in this matter? First, by giving thanks to God for His work of sanctification within us. He alone must receive honor and praise for any good or any virtue which is seen in us. God makes us fruitful for virtuous living; we have no ability to do this of our own.
Second, rather than look down on others whose lives fall short of God’s virtuous standards, let us pray for them, try to get to know them, and show them the love of Christ in every way we can. Of course we will observe areas of others’ live that we know to be displeasing to the Lord. But we must judge with righteous judgment, and that does not include condemning others (Jn. 7:24; Matt. 7:1).
Finally, always remember that we will have barely begun to become truly virtuous even after many years of striving and growth. The standard set by our Lord Jesus Christ will always be far beyond our reach in this life. Only in the life to come, when we see Jesus as He is, will we truly be like Him (1 Jn. 3:2). This being so, let us, rather than rest on our laurels and become content in our attainments, press on to become more like Jesus everyday of our lives (1 Jn. 3:3).
Grow in virtue, beloved, but don’t let pride or self-vaunting spoil your attainments. Virtue with humility: this is the goal we seek.
For more by T.M. Moore, please visit Breakpoint.org.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Seek The Lord
“You will seek me and find me. When you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, declares the LORD…” Jeremiah 29:13, 14
Foundational to the life of seeking, which is the calling of all who believe in Jesus Christ, is the responsibility and privilege of seeking the Lord. Before we seek anything else, we must learn to seek the Lord.
As God asserted through the prophet Jeremiah, He intends for us to find Him, on condition that we seek Him with all our hearts. The psalmist understood this most important objective, and he devoted himself to seeking the Lord early and earnestly (Ps. 63:1). In Psalm 105:4 the specifics of what we are to seek concerning the Lord are briefly stated: His presence and His strength. The teaching of the New Testament is along these same lines.
The true seeker is the one who seeks the presence and glory of God, to partake of Him in such a way that His strength comes to expression as glory and love in the seeker’s own life. Eternal life, which all have “found” who believe in Jesus Christ, is summed up by Jesus Christ as “knowing” the Lord (Jn. 17:3). What we seek in knowing the Lord is to encounter His glory, to enter into it, and, in the strength of the Lord, to show His glory to the world around us (Hab. 2:14).
But we must seek the Lord with all our heart, as He Himself instructs. This is the indispensable condition for seeking and knowing the Lord. We must be serious about seeking Him, daily and continuously devoted to the task, and careful to keep out of our lives anything that hinders our quest to know the Lord.
God is pleased to reveal Himself and His glory to us in the pages of Scripture (2 Cor. 3:12-18) and in the created world around us (Ps. 19:1-4; Ps. 66:18). It is the glory of God to conceal Himself and His glory in the Scriptures and the creation; our duty, as His appointed priests and rulers (1 Pt. 2:9, 10), is to seek out the glory of God in each of these places, so that we might enter into His presence and be transformed by His glory (Prov. 25:2).
Thus, we are seeking the Lord when through reading Scripture, meditating on it and studying God’s Word, and by prayer and other disciplines, together with the study of God’s works in creation, we are daily and faithfully engaged in ferreting out His glory.
To seek God with all our heart is to be enthusiastic about meeting the Lord wherever He may be pleased to reveal Himself, and to devote ourselves to the task of seeking the Lord in His Word and creation according to the ways He Himself has provided.
God commands us to seek Him, and He promises that, if we will, if we will seek Him with all our hearts, then we shall surely find Him and the promise of full and abundant life which is to be known in Him alone.
Seeking the Lord takes time, discipline, and good habits of study and prayer. It must be a daily, consistent, and even conscious endeavor on our parts, seeking God as our greatest longing, highest desire, and most determined activity, every day of our lives. If we will seek the Lord in the ways He has provided, through Scripture and creation, then we shall certainly be able to fulfill the most fundamental obligation of those who have found the gift of eternal life.
For more by T.M. Moore, please visit Breakpoint.org
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
I grew to love these people. The more I learned about the lives of those living and dead about whom I had read and heard, the more I loved them and the easier it became for me to live. I lived this way for about two years, and a profound transformation came over me, one that had been brewing in me for a long time and whose elements had always been a part of me. The life of our class, of the wealthy and the learned, was not only repulsive to me but had lost all meaning. The sum of our action and thinking, of our science and art, all of it struck me as the overindulgences of a spoiled child. I realized that meaning was not to be sought here. The actions of the laboring people, of those who create life, began to appear to me as the one true way. I realized that the meaning provided by this life was truth, and I embraced it.
But at that point I took a closer look at myself and at what had been happening within me; and I remembered the hundreds of times I had gone through these deaths and revivals. I remembered that I had lived only when I believed in God. Then, as now, I said to myself, "As long as I know God, I live; when I forget, when I do not believe in him, I die." What are these deaths and revivals? It is clear that I do not live whenever I lose my faith in the existence of God, and I would have killed myself long ago if I did not have some vague hope of finding God. I truly live only whenever I am conscious of him and seek him. "What, then, do I seek?" a voice cried out within me. "He is there, the one without whom there could be no life." To know God and to live come to one and the same thing. God is life.
"Live, seeking God, for there can be no life without God." And more powerfully than ever a light shone within me and all around me, and this light has not abandoned me since.
- from "My Confession" by Leo Tolstoy
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Proverbs 25
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Proverbs 24
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Paul's vision for the church
Viewpoint by T. M. Moore
We cannot read the epistles of Paul without realizing he harbored a clear vision of the local church. He considered that Christ had raised him up in order to lay out the blueprint for His Church-building agenda (cf.Matt. 16:18; Eph. 3:8-10, 4:11-16). Paul saw the church as a community in which the Word of God was firmly planted, had taken deep root, and was beginning to bear fruit for the Kingdom of God (Rom. 14:17, 18). Since we are all members of the Body of Christ, it is our duty and calling to contribute to this community of the Word of God. As the living Word of God dwells richly in us, we must contribute to the enrichment of our local church by bearing the fruit of the living Word with our fellow church members.
What particular forms should we expect that to take?
Teaching and admonishing
First, Paul commands us to express to one another what God is impressing on our souls by His Word. The words “teaching and admonishing” cover a wide range of activities, both formal teaching and informal conversations, simple exposition and earnest warnings, individual and corporate settings. We have a duty to one another, in encouraging one another for wisdom and for love and good works (Heb. 10:24), to take an active part in the instruction and discipleship of those who are fellow members with us in the Body of Christ.
The Lord has placed pastors and teachers in each congregation, and the greater burden of instruction falls on them. But each member in whom the Word of Christ dwells richly must also take responsibility for teaching and admonishing others, so that together the Body of Christ can attain increasingly to the maturity of Christ.
Worship
A second way the indwelling Word leads us to contribute to our local church is by our active and lively participation in the worship of God. Worship is not a spectator sport. We are worshiping God as He prescribes when we are actively adoring Him, attending to Him, and assisting our fellow worshipers to do the same. Paul says the fruit of the indwelling Word will be manifest as we sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to the Lord, and as we give Him heartfelt thanks together for all His abundant goodness.
Such worship begins in our hearts, where we daily respond to the Lord’s kindness, and it continues as an ongoing celebration of the Lord whenever we are together with His people as the Body of Christ.Everything in Jesus’ name
Finally, the members of Christ’s Body will represent Him to the watching world as they go out from their times of instruction and worship to live for Christ in every area of life. Local churches should have a vision for how they can impact their communities for the Lord. They must equip their members to receive the indwelling Word and to let it live through them in lives of service, witness, and social and cultural engagement for the glory of Jesus Christ.
When Jesus came into a community, everything changed. This should be the same wherever His Body is living out the living Word together. A community of the Word of God will make a Kingdom impact on the larger community as it follows the example of Christ and the vision of Paul to turn the world upside down for Jesus Christ.
Each of us in whom the Word is beginning to dwell richly must make every effort to contribute to the health and growth of our local church, for it is as a community of the Word that the church becomes a true agent for the Kingdom of God, spreading righteousness, peace, and joy throughout its community in the name and for the glory of Jesus Christ.