The Deeps

I have been meditating on the prayer below for some weeks now. Perhaps you will find enrichment in our Lord Jesus in contemplating it. Prayers such as this are not fast food, they are meant to be pondered over days and weeks and months...indeed over a lifetime, as with the Psalms. May I suggest that you read it, ponder it, and pray it everyday, at least for a week. Take it slowly, let it permeate your soul. 

THE DEEPS

LORD JESUS, 

Give me a deeper repentance,

      a horror of sin,

      a dread of its approach;

Help me chastely to flee it,

  and jealously to resolve that my heart

    shall be thine alone.

Give me a deeper trust,

  that I may lose myself to find myself in thee,

    the ground of my rest,

    the spring of my being.

Give me a deeper knowledge of thyself

  as Saviour, Master, Lord, and King.

Give me deeper power in private prayer,

  more sweetness in thy Word,

  more steadfast grip on its truth.

Give me deeper holiness in speech, thought, action,

  and let me not seek moral virtue apart from thee.

Plough deep in me, great Lord,

    heavenly Husbandman,

  that my being may be a tilled field,

  the roots of grace spreading far and wide,

  until thou alone art seen in me,

  thy beauty golden like summer harvest,

  thy fruitfulness as autumn plenty.

I have no Master but thee,

  no law but thy will,

  no delight but thyself,

  no wealth but that thou givest,

  no good but that thou blessest,

  no peace but that thou bestowest.

I am nothing but that thou makest me,

I have nothing but that I receive from thee,

I can be nothing but that grace adorns me.

Quarry me deep, dear Lord,

  and then fill me to overflowing

    with living water.

The Valley of Vision, edited by Arthur Bennett, Banner of Truth, pages 134 - 135

What This Woman Has Done

 

What This Woman Has Done

 

“Now when Jesus was in Bethany, at the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came to Him with an alabaster vial of very expensive perfume, and she poured it on His head as He was reclining at the table. But the disciples were indignant when they saw this, and said, “Why this waste? For this perfume could have been sold for a high price and the money given to the poor.” But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why are you bothering the woman? For she has done a good deed for Me. For you always have the poor with you; but you do not always have Me. For when she poured this perfume on My body, she did it to prepare Me for burial. Truly I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told in memory of her.”” (Matthew 26:6 – 13, NASB; for parallel accounts see Mark 14:3 – 9; John 12:1 - 8)

 

This little gem may well have over a thousand facets reflecting our Lord Jesus Christ, indeed, its facets may be never-ending; as C.S. Lewis has pointed out, we can enter into small places that have more space than the big places outside them – consider the stable in The Last Battle.

 

John’s account tells us that it is Mary, Martha’s sister, who anoints Jesus. We also see Martha still serving and Mary still adoring (Luke 10:38 – 42). Perhaps this is a warning for us to beware thinking that doing the work of God is the same as adoring and worshipping God. Do we fall into the trap of substituting religious work and busyness for worship, adoration, and relationship? Do we think that doing things is a substitute for intimate relationship, whether with God or with others?

 

Jesus tells us that unless we abide in Him and He abides in us that we cannot bear fruit, that without Him we can do nothing (John 15:1 – 5). But do we believe this? Do we live like this? Is there ample evidence to demonstrate that we live like this, both individually and congregationally?

 

Matthew tells us that “the disciples were indignant” at the waste of money on Jesus, Mark that “some were indignantly remarking to one another,” and John that Judas Iscariot was also complaining – in the case of Judas it was because he was “a thief” and made a habit of stealing from the money box which was entrusted to him.

 

John pictures Mary anointing the feet of Jesus and wiping His feet with her hair, which is her glory. Mark and Matthew recount that Mary anoints His head; Mary appropriately anoints Jesus’s head and feet, hence Jesus says, “For when he poured this perfume on My body; she did it to prepare Me for burial.”

 

When Matthew makes the point of writing that “the disciples were indignant when they saw this, and said, “Why this waste?”” do we see ourselves? How do we view life? How do we view our relationships? How do we view our relationship with God? Do we love God so that we waste ourselves on Him? In other words, is the Holy Trinity the center and focus or our lives, our worship, our adoration?

 

Or do we play a debit and credit game with God…and with others? Are we forever calculating our return on investment in the things we do, on the time we spend, on the way we spend and give money? Does pragmatism rule, does religious activity rule, or are we loving and worshipping God in Spirit and in Truth (John 4:23 – 24)?

 

If the disciples represent the church, then here is a warning and challenge to us all, pouring ourselves out for Jesus, giving Him our best, giving Him all that we have and all that we are - is our calling, and out from our intimacy with Him and in Him true spiritual and eternal service will flow. As for Judas, there will always be crooks and thieves in the professing church; they will steal money and they will steal peace and they will steal joy and they will steal sound teaching…but we are called to give ourselves to Jesus.

 

It is thought that the value of the anointment was about a year’s wage for the average person. If this year represents our lives, are we giving our lives to Jesus?

 

Note that Mark tells us that “she broke the vial and poured it.” Friends, the treasure that we have in “earthen vessels” (2 Cor. 4:7) can only be shared if we are broken at the Cross and remain broken (Galatians 2:20). We are called to live cruciform lives in Jesus Christ, we are called with Paul to say, “…for I bear on my body the brand marks of Jesus” (Gal. 6:17). These marks are marks of ownership, the mark of the Cross on us means that we belong to Jesus Christ and that we are no longer our own – we are the possessions of Another.

 

John writes that “the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” Now dear brothers and sisters, are our lives filled with the fragrance of worship and love for Jesus Christ? Our marriages? Our families? Our congregations? The busyness of Martha did not fill the house with fragrance, the adoration of Mary, the breaking of the vial, the pouring out of her love…this filled the house with fragrance.

 

Pragmatism and utilitarianism will not give life and fragrance, mere religious activity will not result in others knowing the Presence of the Trinity, a curriculum of “how to” courses will not draw us into koinonia with the Trinity and with one another.

 

Are we wasting ourselves on Jesus Christ? For make no mistake, lives of worship will always look like a waste, lives of prayer will always look foolish – after all, there is so much we could be doing (what we usually mean is that we have other things to do which serve our agendas).

 

When Jesus says, “Truly I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her,” why do you think He says this?

 

How does the “memory of her” challenge us?

 

What other Divine facets do you “see” in Mary’s outpouring of love and devotion?

 

How are we responding to this memory, this memorial?

 

What is Mary teaching us?

Base Camp

 

To ascend means taking only the necessities and leaving the rest at base camp. Yes, we may have intermediate camps, but the point is that the higher we go the more we leave behind as we behold Him, our dear Lord Jesus.

 

Yes, there are seasons of altitudinal acclimation. New orientations within the Great Orientation of the Holy Trinity.

 

We learn to breathe the Presence.

 

Ultimately, we will not take oxygen with us.

 

But now, will we be sherpas to others as others have been sherpas to us?

 

This is not about “doing” so much as it is about “being” (John 151:ff). A failure to discern this leads us into a consumer religous culture. Yes, being disciples we know disciplines; but knowing disciplines is not the same as knowing Him.

 

We can teach others…perhaps…what to do; but then we’ll ever be teaching them what to do and they will be like deaf people mimicking the movements and facile expressions of others responding to music.

 

O, but to teach others to know and live in the Trinity, for their lives to be organic expressions of the Divine Life; 1 John 1:3.

 

There is a sense in which we can sum up spiritual formation with the statement, “There is only One who can live the Christian Life.”

 

Or we can look to John 15:1ff; but do we really believe that without Him we can do nothing?

 

Or again Galatians 2:20 and 6:14.

 

I wonder if there isn’t a sense in which coming into the world naked and leaving naked (Job 1:21) says a bit more than we think it does. For leaving naked in Christ means that we are clothed with an eternal house, a tabernacle (2 Cor. 5:1). We are leaving all behind at base camp as we are enveloped within His Glory.

 

Consider that for the mountain climber, as for the hiker on a trek, that every pound, every ounce, of gear and equipment becomes more noticeable with every step. Can we not understand that we must not only lay aside sin, but also every encumbrance (Heb.12:1) as we live looking unto Jesus?

 

Once a coworker of mine went on vacation. She asked me to water the plants in her office during the week or two she was gone. Among the plants I watered was an artificial tree.

 

How many artificial trees have I watered over the years? How many am I watering now?

 

What about you?

Saturday Evening Post

 

I’ve just told Vickie that I need to go write something for this blog. I haven’t written or posted anything this week and I need to post something every week for purposes of search engines. So what we have here is a Saturday evening post, not to be confused with The Saturday Evening Post.

 

A few years ago an unknown benefactor got us a subscription to a current The Saturday Evening Post, the thing is, it isn’t published weekly; it’s more of a nostalgic publication with feel – good stories and advertisements from the Franklin Mint, gold coin sellers, pictures of bald eagles with a backdrop of the American Flag, and maybe even some ads from vintage candy companies – I mean, who wouldn’t like to lay his hands on some Beeman’s gum or Necco wafers?

 

I recall the time when there was Look magazine, Life magazine, and The Saturday Evening Post; just like there used to be a time when we had Hecht’s, Landsburgh’s, Woodward and Lothrop (known as Woodie’s), and Kann’s, these we all department stores in the D.C. area. You’d think someone would open a retro department store so old folks could take one final stroll through retail memory lane. O how these stores used to put on a window show at Christmas, we used to make special trips to the department stores to view the window displays of trains, villages, and general merriment.

 

Now some folks think that a good time at Christmas is paying $20.00 a carload to drive through a blinking neon light display synched to music, that has a total lack of symmetry, imagination, or beauty – but they pay the $20.00 because they think…well…what do they think? Give me the old department store windows at Christmas – they could hold your attention for more time than any old thumping and banging light display – and I am proof that they could live in your memory for a lifetime…and I ain’t the only one with this testimony.

 

Speaking of lights, they came for a neighbor this week…maybe they’ll bring him home, maybe they won’t. Pray for Bob please. I’m not sure what happened, he’s been dealing with cancer and is pretty frail, right now he is in the hospital. It was night and we saw the lights through our window, no sirens, just blue and red lights. I thought, “Is this the way it is? Is it a matter of the blue and red lights coming for you?”

 

Speaking of prayer, I prayed with a neighbor this week. I hadn’t had the opportunity to have a conversation with her before, but this week I had a sense that I needed to walk across the street and have more engagement than simply, “Good morning,” or “Good afternoon.” After a few minutes of general talk she started sharing some serious stuff; after a while I asked her if I could pray…not later, but right then and there. She was all for it and prayed I did, with her listening and (I believe) praying too. Then she gave me a hug and I went back across the street to my yard work.

 

Is there someone that you need to cross the street to be with? Who might you pray with during the coming week?

 

Last week, while I was walking our border collie Lily, a neighbor who lives a few blocks away came up to me and said, “I’d like you to add our middle daughter to your prayer list.” Then she shared about her. You see, when I first met this lady a couple of months ago and learned that her husband is dealing with cancer, I told her that we’d be praying for them; when I see her out walking I ask her how her husband is. So she knows we’re praying folks and she knew we’d pray for her adult daughter…which we are indeed doing.

 

Well, I guess this is it for my Saturday evening post. Please pray for the folks I’ve mentioned…praying for others is a high honor and privilege…and a joy…maybe we can all find some folks we can pray for in the coming week…wouldn’t that be just great?