by Alan Knox at The Assembling of the Church refers to a David Black blog. Both comments are worthy of careful thought.
Dave Black does not blog as much as he once did. Of course, at times like this when he’s in the middle of teaching at Southeastern, he’s on campus several days per week, and his “blogging platform” (if you can call something from the 1950′s a blogging platform) does not allow him to blog unless he’s at home.
But, when he does blog, his comments and thoughts are always compelling and challenging – academic and practical.
Recently I was speaking with a friend who confessed to me that he felt lonely. This, despite the fact that he is happily married and has a family. (Yes, there is loneliness even when one is married, and even when one has children. How silly to think that another human being could ever satisfy our deepest need for companionship.) Referring to Phil. 2:5-11, I told him that I thought the answer to loneliness is love. It is not in our finding someone to love us, but in our finding in God someone who loves us perfectly. We then express our gratitude to Him by a happy and joyful pouring out of our lives in love to others, without expecting anything in return. Fortunately, I think my friend understood this. I’m glad he did, because I myself am still panting to catch up in my emotions to what I know to be true in my mind. In dying, we live. That’s the only way to experience true joy, writes Paul in Philippians. So let’s pour out God’s love on the undeserving, for this is the mind of Christ!
This seems backwards to our human intuition! If I understand what he is saying, then the way for us to “feel” the love of God is by expressing or demonstrating the love of God. Or, to put it another way, by dying to our self (and living for God and others), we find that we are truly living.
By the way, when John writes about loving your brother or sister, he’s not talking about feelings or emotions; he’s talking about action! Don’t believe me? Check out 1 John 3:17-18.
Do you feel unloved? Then love others. Do you feel lonely? Then love others. Do you feel dissatisfied or unfulfilled? Then love others.
We know the love of God when we love others who do not deserve our love.
The selections of articles about the psalter and Christian worship in Sing a New Song are outstanding. Here’s a helpful discussion in chapter 11, “Psalmody and Prayer” written by John Fesko.
“If song in worship is a form of congregational prayer, then music in worship turns on an entirely different axis. No longer is music in worship a question of entertainment but rather an expression of personal and corporate worship and devotion. In such a light, singing psalms in worship takes on an important and significant role not only in corporate worship but also in the corporate and individual prayer lives of Christians” (p. 173).
This is a great perspective. It should help us judge our songs from a biblical and corporate point of view. Are our worship songs biblical, corporate prayers to God, or are they private, ambiguous feelings on display for the sake of entertainment? I do believe that where psalms are abandoned, ignored, and/or replaced with ambiguous contemporary praise music, the solid piety of the church devolves and degenerates into immature Christianity – the immature Christianity one often finds on top-40 Christian radio and on the shelves of Christian book/music stores.
Positively speaking, remember that when you sing with the saints this Lord’s Day you’re praying together with your brothers and sisters to the living God. As we sing together, we’re not only teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns, we’re also calling upon the name of the Lord together.
O my soul, praise Him, for He is my health and salvation!
Surely His goodness and mercy now daily attend me.
He who with love does befriend me.
Fitting me well for the tasks that are ever before me.
Spreading wings of grace over me.
Gladly for yeah we adore Him.
Here is the secret, Peter says, to genuinely and consistently serving others: humility. As long as you are set upon pleasing yourself, fulfilling yourself, seeking self-advancement, you will never be able to genuinely serve others.
Be clothed with humility.A wonderful and poignant way of emphasizing the need for a constant covering of our self-seeking human nature. Let humility be the attire you choose to walk in, live in each day.
Why live this self-deprecating, self-denying way of life? The reply is simple and powerful: God resists proud people, but He gives grace and help to the humble.
Those who lower themselves to serve others will find that God himself is serving them! He gives to the humble, others-oriented saints of God the forgiveness and strength and supply that they do not deserve but so desperately need.
On the other hand, those who seek to exalt and help and please themselves should realize that they are literally anti-God! They are choosing sides, and the battle will be them against God.
Which describes your condition today? Do you find God meeting your every need as you seek sincerely to meet the needs of others, or do you find yourself constantly at a loss to fulfill yourself, even though you give yourself to the effort whole-heartedly?
God resists the proud, but He helps those who help others.
The mischief they intend me shall quickly come to naught.
The gifts I owe to Jesus alone my love are worth.
2. It is finished: The counsel and commandment of his Father concerning his sufferings were now fulfilled; it was a determinate counsel, and he took care to see every iota and tittle of it exactly answered, Acts 2:23. He had said, when he entered upon his sufferings, Father, thy will be done; and now he saith with pleasure, It is done. It was his meat and drink to finish his work (John 4:34), and the meat and drink refreshed him, when they gave him gall and vinegar.
3. It is finished: All the types and prophecies of the Old Testament, which pointed at the sufferings of the Messiah, were accomplished and answered. He speaks as if, now that they had given him the vinegar, he could not bethink himself of any word in the Old Testament that was to be fulfilled between him and his death but it had its accomplishment; such as, his being sold for thirty pieces of silver, his hands and feet being pierced, his garments divided, etc.; and now that this is done.
4. It is finished: The ceremonial law is abolished, and a period put to the obligation of it. The substance is now come, and all the shadows are done away. Just now the veil is rent, the wall of partition is taken down, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, Eph 2:14, Eph 2:15. The Mosaic economy is dissolved, to make way for a better hope.
5. It is finished: [The price of] sin is finished, and an end made of transgression, by the bringing in of an everlasting righteousness. It seems to refer to Dan 9:24. The Lamb of God was sacrificed to take away the sin of the world, and it is done, Heb 9:26.
6. It is finished: his sufferings were now finished, both those of his soul and those of his body. The storm is over, the worst is past; all his pains and agonies are at an end, and he is just going to paradise, entering upon the joy set before him. Let all that suffer for Christ, and with Christ, comfort themselves with this, that yet a little while and they also shall say, It is finished.
7. It is finished: his life was now finished, he was just ready to breathe his last, and now he is no more in this world, John 17:11. This is like that of blessed Paul (2 Tim 4:7), I have finished my course, my race is run, my glass is out, mene, mene – numbered and finished. This we must all come to shortly.