The Gift of Gifts, A Prayer

The Gift of Gifts

From The Valley of Vision, pages 28 - 29

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O source of all good,

What shall I render to you for the gift of gifts,
your own dear Son?

Herein is wonder of wonders:
he came below to raise me above,
was born like me that I might become like him.

Herein is love;
when I cannot rise to him he draws near on wings of grace,
to raise me to himself.

Herein is power;
when Deity and humanity were infinitely apart,
he united them in indissoluble unity,
the uncreate and the created.

Herein is wisdom;
when I was undone, with no will to return to him,
and no intellect to devise recovery,
he came, God-incarnate, to save me to the uttermost,
as man to die my death,
to shed satisfying blood on my behalf,
to work out a perfect righteousness for me!

O God, take me in spirit to the watchful shepherds,
and enlarge my mind!

Let me hear good tidings of great joy,
and hearing, believe, rejoice, praise, adore,
my conscience bathed in an ocean of repose,
my eyes uplifted to a reconciled Father!

Place me with ox, donkey, camel, goat,
to look with them upon my Redeemer’s face,
and in him account myself delivered from sin!

Let me with Simeon clasp the newborn child to my heart,
embrace him with undying faith,
exulting that he is mine and I am his!

In him you have given me so much that heaven can give no more.

Confrontation in Nazareth (6)

 

 

“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And He ate nothing during those days, and when they had ended, He became hungry” (Luke 4:1 – 2).

 

“And he [the devil] led Him to Jerusalem and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, ‘If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here” (Luke 4:9).

 

“And all the people in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things; and they got up and drove Him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him down the cliff” (Luke 44:29).

 

In order to return to Nazareth, Jesus must go into the Wilderness. To proclaim and claim the inheritance and fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy (Luke 4:17 – 21), Jesus must face and overcome temptation. Here is a replay of Adam and Eve in the Garden, here the Last Adam, the Second Man, turns away the serpent’s, “Has God said?” with, “It is written.” (Also, compare Genesis 3:6 with 1 John 2:16.)

 

As you and I were in Adam, so are we in Jesus Christ.

 

Let us note that while Jesus refused to throw Himself down from the temple (Luke 4:9), that the devil sought another way to throw Jesus down, by using the confrontation in Nazareth, by using the people in Jesus’ own hometown synagogue (Luke 4:29).

 

When God brought Israel through the waters of the Red Sea they entered the Wilderness, here they were presented with an opportunity to worship God, obey Him, and enter their inheritance for the glory of God and the blessing of all nations. This entailed worship centered around the Presence of God in the Tabernacle and allowing God to transform them into His Holy People.

 

After passing through the waters of baptism Jesus enters the Wilderness, and during the three recorded temptations, Jesus responds to the devil with the Word of God as spoken to Israel in the Wilderness; Luke 4:4 from Dt. 8:3, Luke 4:8 from Dt. 6:13, and Luke 4:12 from Dt. 6:16. Jesus will not wander in the Wilderness for 40 years, He will encounter temptation for 40 days after passing through the waters, and then He will begin His public ministry of blessing the world, as Israel ought to have done. What Israel failed to do, Jesus will begin to do, and He continues to bless the world as the Head of His Body, the Body of Christ.

 

Jesus inaugurated a Temple on Pentecost that continues to live and grow, a holy Temple that is making its appearance from the unseen realm into the seen, that is filling the entire earth. He who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit and the Word speak.

 

Some observations:

 

When we are preparing candidates for baptism, are we teaching them about the Wilderness? The New Creation is challenged by the enemy, he hates New Life, the Life of God which he has repudiated. Thank God that we have His Word as our refuge and defense! Thank God that His Word is sure and certain and unshakeable.

 

When a player makes a football team, when he is placed on the roster, when he is called into a game, it means that he will be “hit,” he will be challenged, he will be tested. Sometimes he will see the “hit” coming, other times he will not. Sometimes he can protect his teammates, sometimes they can protect him; no matter what, the team of which he is a member is in the game together. The team will win or lose together.

 

When we act and speak as if baptism is an entrance into a life of ease and comfort, as if our lives will be comfortable and that we have only ourselves to think about, we fail to equip professing Christians and call them to Biblical discipleship (Mark 8:34 – 38). Baptism, among other things, is a call to mission and spiritual warfare, a warfare that includes temptation. If the enemy cannot stop us from escaping the slavery of Egypt, he will try to stop us from entering our inheritance in Jesus Christ.

 

Jesus was hungry then He faced the final three temptations (Luke 4:2). Hunger is an overriding human condition, dominating all other thoughts and desires, affecting our total being. Hunger can lead us to irrational thoughts and actions, to desperate behavior, to the justifying of unspeakable evil. A state of extreme hunger can lead us either down into the darkness of the abyss or raise us up into Light of Heaven. Shall we live by bread in our desperation, or will we live by the Word of God?

 

Surely it is reasonable to want bread when we are hungry. Surely if we have the power to turn stones into bread we ought to do it, after all, God made our bodies and our bodies need bread; don’t we want to care for our bodies in a reasonable manner? If we are the daughters and sons of God, ought we not to exercise our prerogatives for His glory? If we can strengthen our bodies with bread, surely we can better resist temptation.

 

As dominating as hunger can be, there is a greater hunger that we are called to experience, and that is a hunger and thirst after righteousness (Matthew 5:6, spoken by Jesus shortly after the Wilderness).

 

This does not make sense to people, it doesn’t make sense to the world or to the professing church, at least the professing church in the West. The professing church wants to have the world along with salvation, it wants to have ease and pleasure and not the Cross of suffering (is there any other Cross?). We want what Bonhoeffer terms “cheap grace” and are offended when it’s suggested that we are to deny ourselves for Jesus Christ and others, that we are to lay down our lives for others.

 

The Wilderness is not the time to consider our options, it is the time when we declare that we have no options, we have only Jesus. If we have not confronted the enemy and temptation in the Wilderness, if the Word of God has not been established in our hearts amid the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, our confrontation in Nazareth may not go well for we will be uncertain in our reading of Isaiah, uncertain in our identify, uncertain in our mission. That is, the Wilderness is a preparation for our confrontation in Nazareth.

 

Jesus will continue to face the temptation of self-preservation, of denying the Cross and His sacrificial mission. Consider that just before the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter attempted to convince Jesus to avoid the Cross, with Jesus rebuking him, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s” (Matthew 16:23).

 

On the Cross the temptation continues in the form of the crowds and the religious leaders:

 

 

“If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross” (Matthew 27:40).

 

“Let Him come down from the cross, and we will believe in Him” (Matthew 27:42).

 

The temptation for self-preservation is all around us. Jesus faced it directly from the devil in the Wilderness. He faced it from His beloved Peter. He faced it from the crowds and the religious leaders. Do we really think that we will not face it from those close to us who want to spare us from the Cross? That we will not face it from the enemy? That we will not be assaulted with it by the world and its leaders? From popular Christianity and its leaders?

 

Can we not see that so much of what passes for contemporary Christianity is all about me, me, me? All about our “best lives now”? All about making our lives better, rather than following Jesus Christ and loving Him with all that we have and all that we are and living for others?

 

Does our hunger for the world eclipse our hunger for the Word of God?

 

We want to experience the Day of Pentecost without experiencing the suffering and persecution that follows that glorious Day.

 

When we know Jesus as our Living Bread, nothing else will satisfy. When we hunger for Him, we see the deceit and foolishness of all substitutes…indeed, we see all else as poison and death to our souls.

 

“I AM the Bread of Life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst…I Am the Living Bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh” (John 6:35, 51).

 

 

 

Joseph - Reflections (2)

 

 

“Come, and I will send you to them.”

 

“I will go.”

 

“Go now and see about the welfare of your brothers.” (Genesis 37:12 - 13).

 

Genesis begins with one brother saying of another, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” It concludes with the story of a brother becoming the keeper of his brothers and their families.

 

Is this not the history of humanity? There are those who kill, and then there are those who save. There are those who reject the notion that they should guard and protect their brethren, and then there are those who say of them, “I will go and see about their welfare.”

 

Cain rejected God’s correction (Genesis 4:6 – 7). Joseph received the correction and discipline of God, “The word of the LORD tested him” (Psalm 105:19).

 

Joseph’s journey to become the savior of his brethren had its deep sorrows, its betrayal into the pit, into slavery, into despair. Did Joseph have any inkling of the purpose of his suffering as he was experiencing it? There was a glimmer of hope with Potiphar, then prison. There was another glimmer of hope with the cupbearer in prison, but then nothing. However, when the fulness of time came and Pharoah had his dreams, as famine approached the land, Joseph’s ascent began and all became clear.

 

“It was not you who sent me here, but God” (Genesis 45:8).

 

“You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive” (Genesis 50:20).

 

Cain killed Abel, Joseph’s brothers were intent on killing him – indeed, Jospeh was dead to his father Jacob. We have all killed Jesus, have we not? Our sins have forged the nails, our natures of wickedness have been placed upon Him on the altar of the Cross, and Jesus has cried, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

Yet, as Joseph was raised to newness of life, a life that became the salvation of his brothers, so our Lord Jesus was raised to a newness of life which became our own new life in Him (Ephesians 2:1 – 10; Romans Chapter 6; 2 Corinthians 5:14 – 21).

 

There is the way of Cain, and there is the way of Joseph; what we see in Genesis, we see today. Look around you, there are those who desire the best for others, and then those who say, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

 

We can always rationalize reasons not to help others, reasons not to love others. Yet John writes, “Whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how dos the love of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:17).

 

James teaches us, “If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,’ and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if is has no works, is dead, being by itself” (James 2:15 – 17).

 

Let us recall what God said to Cain, “Now you are cursed from the ground” (Genesis 4:11).  And when we recall this, let us also recall what Jesus says in Matthew 25:41 – 45:

 

“Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me…Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.”

 

When the world looks at the professing church, does it see Cain or Joseph?

 

 

Confrontation in Nazareth (5)

 

“When He began His ministry, Jesus Himself was about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph (Luke 3:23)…the son of David (3:31)…the son of Abraham (3:34)…the son of Noah (3:36)…the son of Enoch (3:37)…the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God (3:38).”

 

“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12 – 13).

 

We have two ancestries, two family trees. We are descended from two genealogical lines. One once was and is no more, yet in a sense still is. The other once was not, though in a sense has always been, and now is forever and ever.

 

The first ancestry is from the earth, earthy; the second is from heaven (1 Cor. 15:47 – 49). In the past we bore the image of our first genealogy, now we are bearing the image of our second and lasting genealogy (2 Cor. 3:17 – 18).

 

If we are confused and uncertain about our genealogy, we will be confused about our identity, if we are confused about our identity, we will be confused about our nature, if we are confused about our nature, we will be a confused and unstable people.

 

The Father’s approbation, His declaration, “This is My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased,” must reign over us, must live within us, must permeate our hearts and minds, and must be our confession in Christ Jesus.

 

People “supposed” that Jesus was the son of Joseph, but Joseph and Mary knew better, as do we. Jesus did not deny a relationship with Joseph, but it was not the relationship that most others thought it was – in once sense it was more, in another sense not quite the same. I will not write that it was “less” than people thought, because who can measure the love and affection and trust that was in this holy family? There was a depth and a mystery that surpasses the experience of common humanity, and yet it embraces common humanity and gives us hope.

 

We all once traced our ancestry back to Adam, but now those in Christ trace their beginning to the One who is the Beginning, who is the Last Adam and the Second Man. We do not forget that we were once in Adam, we are mindful that we have had an experience common with all of humanity, but we also confess that this is in the past and that in Christ Jesus we have been raised to newness of life (Ephesians 2:1 – 10).

 

Our shared experience with humanity ought to give us compassion and a desire to share Christ with others, to share His love and mercy and grace and joy and salvation. Our shared experience with Christ ought to cause us to lay our lives down for our brothers and sisters, and for the people of the world (1 John 3:16; John 3:16; John 17:18; 20:21).

 

Just as people supposed that Joseph was Jesus’ father, people will suppose that our fathers are our fathers in the primary sense of the word “father.” However, in Christ our Father God has brought us into Himself, and whatever fatherhood we may have been the recipients of was a fatherhood held in trust on behalf of Father God. For some of us, this trust was a wonderful experience, for some of us it may have been mundane, for others of us the trust that the Father placed in our earthly fathers was profaned and violated.

 

Some of these latter relationships have been healed in Christ, for others…there is no reconciliation and the pain lingers…we can but trust God in these matters. If we have been unfaithful parents, there is forgiveness in Christ; if we have been unfaithful children, there is forgiveness in Christ. We can ask God to help us be blessings to others, even if such opportunities within our own earthly families have passed us by.

 

Our Father is bringing many sons and daughters to glory through His Firstborn Son, Jesus Christ (Hebrews 2:10 – 13; Romans 8:29 – 30). No matter what we may hear in the wilderness of temptation, and no matter what may be said in the synagogue of Nazareth, we must hold fast to our confession that God is our Father and Jesus Christ is our Elder Brother, and that the Holy Spirit has given us the very life of God, making us new creations in Christ.

 

When the Father says, “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well – pleased,” He sees not only the Firstborn Son, but all His sons and daughters. He sees not only the Head of the Body, but the entire Body of His Son.

 

I wrote above that we have two ancestries, two family trees. We are descended from two genealogical lines. One once was and is no more, yet in a sense still is. The other once was not, though in a sense has always been, and now is forever and ever.

 

The first ancestry is that of Adam, through Jesus Christ and His Cross we have been removed from Adam and placed in Christ (Romans 5:12 – 6:11; Galatians 2:20). We no longer trace our genealogy back to Adam and the fall from God’s glory into sin and death. Yet, we do not deny our past experience and we use it to build bridges to others through sympathy and testimony – but we do not, we must simply not, find our identity in our past life of sin and death, we must not deny Christ Jesus and His glorious and perfect work of salvation.

 

Our genealogy in Christ Jesus is now our amazing ancestry, and in a sense it has always been, for our Father has known us before the world was formed (Eph. 1:4 – 5; 1 Peter 1:1 – 5; Rom. 8:29 – 30; Rev. 13:8; 17:8). This ancestry defines who we are in Christ, who we shall ever be in Christ, and who we have always actually been in Christ. In this sense, we can trace our genealogy to the Throne Room before the ages, for the seed of God is the Life within us (1 Peter 1:23; John 3:1 – 8; 1 John 3:9).

 

Yes, we indeed may have lived in the pig pen, but now we have “come to ourselves” and realized that we have always been the children of our Father, let us arise and go to His House and eat His Food, living at His holy Table (Luke 15:17).

 

Let us also bring others with us on our journey home, declaring His Name to our brothers and sisters (Hebrews 2:12).

 

Joseph – Reflections (1)

 

Vickie and I have been reading the story of Joseph in Genesis; what an amazing story, what highs and lows and twists and turns, what a picture of Jesus Christ!

 

It strikes me that Genesis begins with strife between brothers that results in murder (Cain and Abel), and that it concludes with strife between brothers that results in redemption and salvation.

 

I wonder how Adam reacted to Cain’s murder of Abel. Did he take any responsibility for it? After all, had Adam and Eve not disobeyed God and allowed sin and death to enter the human race, would there have been a murder?

 

Then I wonder how Jacob reacted when he realized the deceitful conspiracy of his ten sons in selling Jospeh into Egypt. On the one hand his joy must have been overwhelming, on the other hand what might he have felt when he considered the pain and suffering Joseph endured, not to mention his own pain and grief for many years.

 

Did Jacob see himself in the deceitfulness of his sons? After all, Jacob was a deceiver, scheming to steal his brother Esau’s blessing, taking advantage of Esau’s hunger to purchase the birthright. In wresting with the angel of God Jacob comes to the end of his natural strength, yet there is more debilitation to come in his loss of Joseph to a supposed death by a wild beast.

 

Genesis begins with unreconciled strife between brothers; it concludes with strife between brothers that is redeemed. Not only is the latter strife redeemed, but we also see that the strife was purposed by God for the redemption of the very ones who rejected and betrayed and sold Joseph into slavery.  As Jospeh says to his brothers:

 

“Do not be grieved or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life” (Genesis 45:5).

 

“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive” (Genesis 50:20).

 

It is hard to see the whole picture of life, it is challenging to have a clear picture of even a segment, there is so much we just don’t know or understand. What must Jospeh’s perspective have been when he was thrown into a pit by his brothers? When he was sold to slave traders? When Potiphar consigned him to prison?

 

What about his father when he saw the coat he had given to Jospeh soaked in blood?

 

What about Joseph’s brothers after the betrayal and the lie to their father? Was life the same for them after this?

 

How do we react when we realize that our sins forged the nails that pierced the body of Jesus on the Cross?

Confrontation In Nazareth (4)

 

 

“You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased” (Luke 3:22).

 

The Father expresses His love for Jesus and His pleasure in Him at Jesus’ baptism, and the Father does the same with us, for as with the Head, so with the Body. Through our baptism into Jesus Christ we have died and our lives are “hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:4).

 

Justification is not something that is given and withdrawn, given and withdrawn, given and withdrawn; rather it is a completed work of Christ in which we stand, a declaration of the Father, an entry in the annals of Heaven. Having been justified, we “have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1), are being “saved by His life” (Rom. 5:10), and have received God’s glorious reconciliation (Rom. 5:10 – 11).

 

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). The righteousness of Jesus Christ is both imputed to us and infused within us; it is both forensic and organic; we are justified and we are made new creations in Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 5:17).

 

The Father’s declaration of, “This is My beloved Son,” was under attack throughout the earthly life of Jesus Christ, and the same can be true in our lives. In other words, the identity of Jesus Christ was attacked and questioned, and the same is true of us.

 

During the temptation in the wilderness, the enemy twice challenged Jesus with the words, “If You are the Son of God.”

 

In Nazareth the people said, “Who does He think He is?”

 

In the Gospels Jesus is accused of having a demon, His background is questioned, the fact He comes from Nazareth is held against Him, and on the Cross He again is challenged, “If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” (We see this attack on His identify particularly in the Gospel of John.)

 

Our movement toward sin and death, into what we term “the fall,” began when Adam and Eve doubted their identity in God, doubting the Word of God. The serpent tells them, “You will be like God,” when they were already formed in the image of God. The Word and work of God was not good enough for our first parents, they chose not to rest in God and to be satisfied in Him. God was satisfied with them, they were not satisfied with Him.

 

Ever since those earliest times the enemy has attacked our identity in God, our salvation in Jesus Christ. Hence, he is styled, “the accuser of our brethren” (Rev. 12:10).  Yet, in Christ, we are justified, we are called to live in open heavens in unbroken communion with God and with one another. “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1).

 

A tragedy is that our justification and identity are often challenged within our congregations, and we hear the cry, “Who does he think he is? Who does she think she is?”

 

We teach justification, but do we truly accept one another as being justified, as being holy in Jesus Christ? When we look at one another, do we affirm that the Father has said of our brother and our sister, “This is My beloved son, this is My beloved daughter, in whom I am well-pleased”?

 

O dear friends, we are in Jesus Christ, hidden in Him, wedded to Him, buried with Him, raised in Him, seated in the heavens with Him.

 

Yes, yes, it can be easier to go with the flow in Nazareth and not speak up about our glorious life in Jesus Christ. It can be easier not to fight the strong current of condemnation and Law and accept that we will live in Egypt for the rest of our lives. We may want to give up and agree that the idea of an open heaven is unrealistic, and that the Father could not possibly say of us, “This is My beloved child, in whom I am well- pleased.”

 

Yet, our Father loves us too much for us to deny Him. We love Him because He first loved us. Let us continue in God’s love, love for God, love for one another in Christ, love for the people of the world. It is incumbent upon us to be faithful to our Father, to not deny Him, but to confess our glorious salvation and sonship in Jesus Christ - let us declare His Name to our brothers and sisters. (1 John 4:19; Hebrews 2:9 – 13; Romans 8:29 – 30).

 

O dear friend, when the Father sees you coming up from the waters of baptism in Jesus Christ, He proclaims, “This is My beloved child, in whom I am well-pleased!”

 

Do not allow anyone to deceive you into denying your Divine parentage – even those in your hometown of Nazareth.