Waiting in Silence (2)

 

Let’s follow up the meditation on waiting on God with silence with some thoughts on meeting our Lord Jesus and our Father each morning.

 

We can have assurance that our God wants to meet with us, speak with us, reveal Himself to us, and that He will listen to us; our God is our Friend and His heart yearns for intimate relationship with us, His daughters and His sons.  The question is not, “Will God come to meet me?” It is, “How will He come? How will He reveal Himself to me?”

 

Our God “is a rewarder of those who seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6). If we draw near to God, He will draw near to us (James 4:8). Jesus promises us that if we ask we will receive, if we seek we will find, and that if we knock that it will be opened for us (Matthew 7:7 – 11). Our Father loves us to come to Him, to seek Him, to ask, to get to know Him – after all, we are His children – and don’t let anyone tell you any different.

 

As we learn to begin our days with Him, we will learn to spend our days with Him.

 

When I speak of waiting on God in silence I mean two things; the first is that there is no outside noise, the second is that we wait to hear from Him and that we do not do all the talking. No outside noise means primarily electronic noise, it includes screens – it is time to mute your phone or put it on airplane mode – keep it away from you. Our eyes, our ears, our minds, our hearts, our total selves are to be waiting on God.

 

The second element of silence is that we quiet ourselves and focus on the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We settle our souls down into silence – but please note – silence does not mean nothingness! We do not empty our minds, we do not empty ourselves, we do not seek thoughtlessness – we seek the True and the Living God.

 

We do not wait for “nothing,” we wait for the LORD, we expect His arrival, we anticipate Him, we look forward to seeing Him, to hearing Him, to being touched by Him, to touching Him, to sensing Him.

 

Since God comes to us in and through His Word, since God comes to us as His Word, we know that we will meet with God as we enter His Word and as His Word enters us. With this assurance we can choose a Bible passage, read it out loud, ponder it, pray it, linger in it, read it out loud again – all the time waiting and watching and sensing the moving of the Holy Spirit.

 

Some mornings will be different than others, but they will build upon each other, weaving a tapestry of communion and friendship with the Holy Trinity and the saints. We may not discern the Divine patterns God is producing within us, but they will be there – some may be straightforward, many will be intricate, all will take a lifetime.

 

As we partake of the Bible in Christ Jesus, we partake of the Divine Nature (2 Peter 1:4).

 

You might want to keep two writing pads or notebooks with you as you commune with God in the morning. One is to jot down reminders, such as “take out the trash,” or “call the dentist” When thoughts such as these intrude, rather than trying to remember them, if we write them down then we can continue to focus on Christ and His Word.

 

The other pad or notebook is to journal what you sense the Holy Spirit saying to you. Some mornings you may only write a line or two. Other mornings you may record a paragraph or more. Still other mornings you may not write anything down, this does not mean you haven’t been in His Presence, it just means nothing struck you as something to be recorded for you to look back on. Of course, you may decide to jot at least one thought every morning, perhaps a word or two related to the passage you’re reading, this may be important to some of us, while others may not be inclined to do so.

 

Meeting God in silence and intimacy is not to be found in technique, it is to be found in relationship with Him in His Word, and flowing out from His Word this relationship will be found in all of life, including in Creation and in our neighbors and in His People, the Church, the Body of Christ.

 

Techniques can be training wheels on the bicycle when we are getting started, but at some point we need to ride without them. This is not to say that we don’t maintain certain patterns of prayer, communion, meditation, and reading the Word on this pilgrimage; it does not mean that we don’t adjust or change our patterns, but it does mean that we become adult sons and daughters of God and that we learn to commune with God as His friends, as those who love to be with Hiim even as He loves to be with us.

 

If this new to you, you may want to take a passage such as Psalm 1 or Psalm 23 or Psalm 27 and ponder it every morning for seven days, allow it to be your entrance into waiting on God in silence, into listening for Him, into conversing with Him. Or you may want to take an extended passage such as the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5 – 7) or the Upper Room Discourse (John chapters 13 – 17) and remain in that passage for a month or two or even three.

 

If it is a short passage, such as one of the above psalms, I suggest reading the entire psalm out loud at first, and then in silence reflecting on what you’ve read while asking God to speak to you, to come to you through His Word. So you might read all of Psalm 1 out loud, then go back and ponder the first verse, followed by silence as you wait; then ponder the second verse, followed by silence as you wait – always listening for the impressions and insights of the Holy Spirit, always expecting to see Jesus, always anticipating the warm love of your Father touching you. And, of course, don’t hesitate to journal, even if it is a word or two to get you started.

 

Our minds are not empty as we wait for God in silence, they are being filled with God’s Word, with His image, with His distinct voice in Jesus Christ.

 

If you choose an extended passage, such as one of the above in Matthew and John, then you might read a section of the passage out loud and then go back and employ the basic pattern I outlined for a short or medium length psalm. For example, if I am pondering the Sermon on the Mount in the morning, I might begin the first morning by reading Matthew 5 out loud and then go back in meditate on verses 3 – 12, the Beatitudes. I might remain in the Beatitudes for a few days before moving into verses 13 – 20; I am not in a hurry, this is not a race, I am not in a car seeing how many miles I can drive in a day. I am in the Bible to meet God, to know Him, to grow into His holy image in Jesus Christ.

 

Bible study has its place, but this is not the place for Bible study, this is the place for you and God; this is the place for a relationship so intimate that you will find that some things cannot be put into words. This is the Burning Bush.

 

Please, please, please, do not use a study Bible during these times, please don’t do it. It is fine to use a Bible with cross references, but it is not okay to use a study Bible when we are waiting on God in silence. If you use a study Bible your eyes will stray to the notes and those notes will influence your thoughts and lead you into tangents. There is one mediator between God and man, and it ain’t a study Bible. If you have a question about historical context, or about the way a certain word is used, or about a subject – write it down in your notebook so you can go back and follow up.

 

I realize most people don’t “get this,” but I have seen the damage we allow study Bibles to do over decades, while they may have their place, and I use the word “may,” whatever that place may be is not during our early morning times of intimacy with God.

 

Well, just wanted to share some thoughts. God loves you so deeply and He desires with all His heart for you to know Him intimately, I hope you know that.

 

He will meet us in His Word, yes He will.

Waiting in Silence

 

“My soul waits in silence for God only; from Him is my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be greatly shaken” (Psalm 62:1 – 2).

 

“My soul, wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be shaken” (Psalm 62:5 – 6).

 

Pascal said that the most difficult thing for a man to do is to be alone for an hour. A person without distraction will eventually ponder himself, and he may also consider God, His Father and Creator. Being alone is difficult because we do not want to consider ourselves critically, and we don’t really want to confront God, we don’t want to submit to Him.

 

Pascal also thought that the chief benefit a king has is that he is wealthy enough to have perpetual distractions. If you have perpetual distractions then you can avoid looking in the mirror critically and you can avoid thinking about God, you can avoid confronting God.

 

Of course, when the king dies his distractions will be over and he will pay attention to God for the king will have no choice. The same is true of presidents and generals and entertainment icons and the ultra-wealthy; it is true of us all. 

 

We are a people who consume distractions, and in consuming distractions we trade the image of God within us for poison in our souls. We invite the noise of the world, the flesh, and the devil into our heads and hearts and souls, rather than place ourselves before God in silence – and it all usually looks so good! Who wants to spoil the party?

 

In verse 1 the psalmist makes a statement, “My soul waits in silence for God only.”  In verse 5 he gives a command to his soul, “My soul, wait in silence for God only.”

 

There are times we need to have a good talk with ourselves. “Eye, don’t look at that! Hand, don’t do that! Ear, don’t listen to that! Soul, wait in silence for God and only God!”

 

“From Him is my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be greatly shaken” (62:1b – 2).

 

“My hope is in Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be shaken” (62:5b – 6).

 

The idea of salvation brings with it both deliverance from peril and being made whole. Our salvation is our way of life; our way of life indicates what we believe to be our salvation. What our souls feed upon is what we consider to be essential for its life, it is what we believe we can’t do without. What do our hearts and minds consume?

 

The psalmist is clear that God is his salvation, his rock, his hope, and his stronghold. A stronghold is that which can withstand assault and is a safe place. What is our stronghold? To what or to whom do we look for deliverance? Where do we place our hope?

 

Can any of the distractions around us help on that day when we draw our final breath? Can money or entertainment or corporate position or fame or physical appearance or education or pleasure (in whatever form it may be) or power? Can any of these things truly provide wholeness and safety and peace for us? Can any of them give us never-ending hope and security? Can any of them give satisfying and continuous fulness to our soul? Do we see the false promises in our frenzy of marketing, advertising, and wave after wave of political and economic movements?

 

Man became a living soul when God breathed into him – without the breath of God there is no life, there is only walking death, slumber in an opium den.

 

When we know that God is our only salvation, our only hope, our only stronghold – then we know the importance of silence before Him, of waiting on Him, of being centered and focused on Him; listening for Him, listening to Him, and then responding to Him in obedient love and faithfulness in Jesus Christ.

 

“I have composed and quieted my soul; like a weaned child rests upon its mother, my soul is like a weaned child within me” (Psalm 131:2).

 

When we are weaned from the ways of the world system, from the “lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life” (1 John 2:16), then we will have come into the stronghold of God in Christ, then the house of our soul will have been founded upon a rock (Matthew 7:24 – 27).

 

Distractions suck the life from our souls; waiting on God in silence, receiving Christ, embracing Christ Jesus and being embraced by Him – in Him alone there is Life, Life today, Life tomorrow, Life forever.

 

“They that wait for the LORD will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:31).

 

Shall our souls wait in silence for God only…today?

Our Father

 

 

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him…. The father said, “This son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.” (Luke 15:20, 24).

 

I have a friend who, like some of us, had a problematic relationship with his dad; it was emotionally and psychologically volatile. As a young man my friend had left home and was living in another state, when his life came crashing down on him. Darkness and despair enveloped him, he had no hope, no where to turn, no refuge, no safe place. What to do? Where to go?

 

He called his father.

 

When his father heard the anguish in his son’s voice he simply said, “Come home son.”

 

Every mile my friend drove on his return to his dad was a mile closer to acceptance, to love, to a safe place; every mile brought him closer to his Daddy.

 

In the story that we term The Prodigal Son, one of the great stories in humanity, indeed, in the universe, the father sees the son a long way off and runs to him, embraces him – holding him tight! – and kisses him. I imagine tears of joy and relief were shed by both the father and the son.

 

Do you think that after the grand celebration, as morning dawned the following day, that the father said to the son, “Now son, before we have breakfast, we need to talk about the past few years and the way you’ve lived”?

 

Do you think that on each following day, for the rest of their lives, that the father said to the son, “Now son, before we do anything else today, we need to talk about the time you took your inheritance and wasted it, the time you rejected me and our family, the time you squandered your life”?

 

Do you think that the father treated his son like a servant? Like an outcast? Do you think that each day the son had to earn his father’s love and trust? Do you think that the son could never measure up to the father’s expectations and that the father continually reminded the son of his failures?

 

Do you think that if the son needed anything, money, clothing, food, that he had to beg and plead with his father?

 

Is this the kind of father that Jesus portrays in this story?

 

Is this the kind of father that Jesus portrays to us in His own life and teaching?

 

“As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward those who reverence Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Just as a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who reverence Him” (Psalm 103:11 – 13).

 

The Bible teaches us that we are the sons and daughters of God in Jesus Christ; that the very Spirit of our Father lives within us, so that we cry to Him, “Abba (Daddy) Father!” (Rom. 8:15).

 

Consider that our Father made our elder brother, Jesus Christ, “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).

 

Consider that Jesus, in dying on the Cross and rising from the dead, did so in order to proclaim the Name (Nature) of the Father to us, His sisters and brothers (Heb. 2:12; Psalm 22:22).

 

Do we really think that such a Father has any desire to remind us, again and again and again, of our time away from Him, our time in the hog pen, our time in a far country? Such a nature, such behavior, would trample on His love and the sacrifice of Jesus, it would make caricatures of them – there would be no good news in the Gospel, it would be just another “bait and switch” religion.

 

Allow your Father to hold you tight today, allow Him to speak to you and to reassure you that you are His daughter, you are His son. Allow Him to bring you back home into the House to which you have always belonged, into the Family in which you will live eternally.

 

You are no longer a stranger, no longer a sinner, no longer an outcast – you are a daughter and a son of the Living God, made pure and holy in Jesus Christ, a saint (holy one), and an heir of God and a coheir with Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:14 – 25).

 

Who will separate us from the love of Christ?...I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:35, 38 – 39).

 

Can you hear your Father saying, “Come home”?

Our Light and Our Salvation

 

Psalm 27 is part of my reading today, it being the 27^th of July. This is an old, old friend and is ever sweeter as the years pass, sweeter as we spend time together.

 

“The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the defense of my life; whom shall I dread” (27:1).

 

In that Day there will be only one Light, that of the Father and the Lamb (Rev. 21:23; 22:5). If this will be the case then, why not live in that Way now? Why not learn to live in the Light of Christ and the Father, and only in that Light?

 

This requires “Yes” to Jesus Christ and “No” to competing lights and voices and ways of life. The most dangerous competing lights are those which look good and seem reasonable. People may understand when we reject things that are obviously evil, but they seldom understand when we reject things that appear reasonable, good, and even “Christian.”

 

Are we asking ourselves, “Where is Jesus in this? Where is the Cross? Do I see Jesus?” Paul writes, “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).

 

“For my father and mother have forsaken me, the LORD will take me up” (27:10).

 

This may be true of biological parents, but it may also be true of the traditions and cultures within which we are raised. The tradition in which Jesus was raised not only forsook Him, it tortured and crucified Him. The hierarchy of the religion in which Jesus was raised plotted His death and sought to destroy His followers. As they have done to the Master, they will do to His disciples, “A slave is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20).

 

This can be a very hard thing, choosing Jesus over tradition, choosing Jesus over the pragmatic, choosing Jesus in the midst of religious peer pressure. However, if we are seeking His Face, if we have declared, “Your Face, O LORD, I shall seek” (27:8), then we really have no option. We are as Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life” (John 6:68).

 

My sense is that an element of our pilgrimage is to constantly ask whether we are walking in the Light of Jesus or in lesser lights, including lesser “Christian” lights. Are we hearing the Voice of the Father saying, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased, hear Him!”? (Matthew 17:5).

 

As we lift up our eyes, are we seeing only Jesus? (Matthew 17:8).

More Than A Face In The Crowd

 

 

What is the largest crowd you have ever been in?

 

Perhaps a college or NFL game? A Major League baseball game? Maybe a parade in New York City? Maybe your town’s 4^th of July parade?

 

My dear brother-in-law Rod, who is now in the Presence of Jesus, once drove from his home in Iowa to visit us when we lived in Baltimore. He had been with us two or three days when we arrived home from work to find a note from him which read, “Too many people here, going home.”

 

“Home” was the town of Luther, Iowa where he and Vickie had grown up. It had about 300 people when they were growing up, and in 2026 it has about 150 people.

 

The world population is about 8.3 billion people right now, and the United States has about 350 million of those people. When I was born in 1950 the USA had about 150 million.

 

Sometimes I’ll hear someone talk about feeling insignificant when they look at the heavens, or when they consider just how many people there are. No wonder a psalmist asked God, “What is man that You take thought of him; and the son of man that You care for him?” (Psalm 8:4).

 

When I hear talk of insignificance, I immediately think of just how special that person is to God, of how much God loves that man or woman or young person. When we gaze into the heavens, rather than think that we are insignificant, we have the opportunity to think that the Great God who created those heavens loves us, knows us, and deeply desires that we know Him in a loving relationship.

 

Have we forgotten that “God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16)?

 

Yet, even when we read this statement, we may think, “Well, God may love the world, but I am only a face in the crowd, one person out of a huge population, one person out of all the people who are living and who have ever lived and who ever will live. I don’t matter. God doesn’t know I exist.”

 

“He counts the number of the stars; He gives names to all of them” (Psalm 147:4).

 

The European Space Agency says that there are about 100 thousand million stars in the Milky Way (our very own galaxy), and that beyond the Milky Way there are millions upon millions of other galaxies. There are many more stars than people, and I have an idea that God gives each star a unique name – if a star is named “Bob” that star is, I imagine, the only “Bob” in the star population.

 

You may recall that Jesus says that He will give those who are conquerors with Him “a new name” written on a white stone, “which no one knows but he who receives it” (Rev. 2:17). I hope I’ll be able to pronounce my new name! The point is, of course, that while God has special names for all the stars, He also has special names for you and me. As much as I appreciate the late George Foreman, God isn’t naming us George 1, George 2, George 3.

 

For years I heard it said, “If you were the only person on the planet, Jesus would have come to die for you.” I heard it said many times, and I said it to lots of people. It sure sounded good, and it sounded really great when I told others, but did I really believe it? Did I really think that if I was the only person on earth, Jesus would have come to suffer and die for me, bearing my sins and my deeply sinful nature which was in rebellion against God?

 

Since I was a young disciple, one of my core verses has been Galatians 2:20; we can know something and not know something; we can think we know something but not really know it, not truly “see” it.

 

Almost 30 years ago our church was doing a series of ALPHA courses, using Nikki Gumbel’s marvelous DVDs. I had watched the series so many times I was on autopilot this particular evening, sitting in the back of the group by myself in our fellowship hall, with most people sitting at tables together. My mind was wandering…when Nikki quoted Galatians 2:20:

 

“I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”

 

All of a sudden, my ears, mind, and heart were captured by the words, “Who loved ME and gave Himself up for ME.” I let out a whoop and a holler and a “glory!”

 

“Me! Me! I shouted to the group. He loved ME and gave Himself for ME!”

 

It was true after all…I had recited that verse for decades and never seen it – what assurance! God didn’t just love the world, God loved ME! He loved me and gave Himself for ME!

 

And my dear friend, He loves YOU and gave Himself for YOU!

 

You are more than a number, than a face in the crowd; much more than an accident looking for a place to happen – God has an eternal plan for you to be wrapped up in His arms of love; He loves YOU with every beat of His heart!

Jello Molds

 

Treating the Bible Like Jello

 

Do we treat the Bible like Jello?

 

When we read and teach the Bible do we pour the text into our distinctive molds? Do we add fruit to it? How about toppings?

 

Do we make our own core identity the core of the Bible?

 

A friend of mine once did a sermon series on “the Presbyterian view of spiritual formation as seen in the Gospel of John.”

 

I thought, “Really?”

 

Why not teach the Gospel of John as it is written?

 

Or, if you have a pastoral sense to focus on spiritual formation in the Gospel of John, then why not simply approach it as, “Spiritual formation as seen in the Gospel of John?”

 

Do we want our people to be Baptists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, or Christians? Well, the pragmatic answer is that we want them to be in the mold of our tradition, whatever that might be. Should we want this? I can’t see that we should want it.

 

Would we not be better Baptists or Pentecostals if we were Christians first – disciples of Jesus Christ first? Men and women and young people being formed into His image first and foremost?

 

How many treasures of the Word and of Christ Jesus do we miss when we treat His Word as Jello? On the other hand, if we would learn to receive the Word as it is written and made alive by the Holy Spirit, then the possibilities are infinite because of our Lord Jesus is infinite.

 

My friend was just doing what he was taught, and he was just doing what most of us do…and what most congregations want their pastors to do.

 

I wonder how many Jello molds I am still using?

 

 

Sweet Than Honey

 

“They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.” Psalm 19:10.

 

Psalm 19:7 – 11 was among the Scripture songs we used to sing and it often comes back to me when I ponder this psalm. I love the dual witness of Creation and the Word – they bear witness to one another, they complement one another, they are a duet singing the revelation of God in Christ.

 

Can we truly say that God’s Word is “more desirable than gold,” and that it is “sweeter than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb”?

 

Honeycomb used to be sold in grocery stores; while I still see honey, I haven’t seen honeycomb on the shelf for many years. As a lad I used to love putting honeycomb in my mouth and extracting the honey by chewing.

 

Is this not the way we are to ingest the Word of God? We chew it slowly, allowing it to work its way into our hearts and minds and souls. We ruminate on God’s Word, it is outside, it comes inside, it works its way within us as we receive it, ponder It, meditate on it, ruminate on it (see Psalm 1:2, to meditate is to ruminate). We are to “receive the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21).

 

This is personal, is it not? This is an experience, yes? We receive the Word, we taste the Word, we ingest the Word. We become what we eat.

 

We live in a resort area that has over 20 million visitors each year. There are many ice cream shops in the area, for after a day at the beach or on the golf links, people, young and old, hanker for ice cream. The other evening, as we were driving home, every ice cream shop we passed was packed with people. Their parking lots were full and there were lines to get in the door – in the summer here one must be patient if one desires ice cream.

 

Do we have a sweet tooth for the Word of God? Is God’s Word more desirable than gold to us? Is it sweeter than honey and the honeycomb to us?

 

I often pray that God will give me a desire for His Word, that I will desire Him and His Word more than ever, that His Word will fill me through and through and flow outward to others.

 

How does God’s Word taste to you today?

Our Anniversary - Heirs Together

 

“You are joint heirs of the grace of life” (1 Peter 3:7).

 

Peter writes that husbands ought to honor their wives, with whom they are joint heirs of the grace of life, “so that your prayers may not be hindered.” There is an alternate reading in the TR for “hindered” which can mean, “cut off” or “cut down” (such as “if your hand offends you, cut it off”) and I find this interesting, for even if our current best manuscripts heavily support the idea of prayers being “hindered,” at some point there were copyists who conveyed the violent image of a husband and wife’s prayers being cutoff or cutdown. Both senses ought to get our attention (the two words are closely related in Greek).

 

1 Peter 3:7 is a picture of Christ and the Church, just as is Ephesians 5:22 – 33 (and just as is Proverbs 31:10 – 31). We are joint heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:17, 32; Gal. 4:7; Rev. 21:7) and this is particularly true of us as His Bride – for there is a “unity of person” in marriage…the two become one. This idea of “unity of person” was embedded in English common law and was recognized, at least until recently, in many state laws in the United States. As a real estate broker in Maryland and Virginia this was a critical legal concept when transferring title to real estate, husbands and wives took title as “tenants by the entirety," they took title as “one person.”

 

The Bride becomes one with the Groom in Scripture, this is our calling in Jesus Christ, our destiny is the Marriage Supper of the Lamb and a glorious unfolding of His love for us in eternity.

 

Our marriages in Christ are to participate in this glory, in this sacramental union. So much so that husbands and wives receive the grace of God as joint heirs – as one person in Christ. So much so that should there be a breach in the marriage, in communion, in mutually caring for one another, in mutual deference and submission (Eph. 5:21), in forgiveness and forbearance and patience; that the prayers of the spouses will be hindered and possibly cutoff, chopped down, castoff.

 

While all marriages have their particular DNA, if you will, in Christ they have His DNA…whatever else they may bring into the marriage. One of the questions married couples can always ask is, “Where is the Lordship of Jesus in this?”

 

I once asked this question, and only this question, of a couple in a crisis marital situation; they were on the precipice of separating. Our Father gave me a sense that I should do this since they were professing Christians. When they left our home after about two hours, they still had work to do in Jesus, but the threat was over and the direction was sure. No matter what one said about the other, no matter what issue they wanted to bring before me, I kept asking, “Where is the Lordship of Jesus Christ in this?”

 

Many years ago my friend Steve Allsbrook shared the following poem with me, saying, “When I read this I thought of you and Vickie.”

 

The poem has become more precious over the years, as has my wife, as has our marriage, as has our dear Lord Jesus.

 

 

 

The Word

 By John Masefield

 

My friend, my bonny friend, when we are old,

And hand in hand go tottering down the hill,

May we be rich in love's refined gold,

May love's gold coin be current with us still.

 

May love be sweeter for the vanished days,

And your most perfect beauty still as dear

As when your troubled finger stood at gaze

In the dear March of a most sacred year.

 

May what we are be all we might have been,

And that potential, perfect, oh my friend,

And may there still be many sheafs to glean

In our love's acre, comrade, till the end.

 

And may we find, when ended is the page

Death but a tavern on our pilgrimage.

 

I Will Speak

 

I Will Speak

 

R.L. Withers July 2026

 

I will speak to God,

God will speak to me.

If you will join the conversation

Then there will be three.

 

God will speak to you,

You will speak to God.

If I will join the conversation

Then there will be three.

 

God will speak to us,

We will speak to Him.

Shall others not join the conversation?

How many shall there be?

 

A Voice of many waters,

Flowing from the Son.

Reverberating in the hearts of men,

Calling them home as One.

Great Is Diana

 Good morning, there is much I could say, but perhaps not much I should say. 

Much love,

Bob

Great Is Diana of the Americans

Robert L. Withers

Written in January 2020

 

During the past few years, as I’ve become increasingly concerned about the engagement of professing-Christians in the political melee in the United States, John Newton has become an historical mentor to me in thinking, teaching, and behavior. This mentorship is particularly pronounced in the area of politics and nationalism.

 

In August 1775, four months after Colonists and British regulars fought at Lexington and Concord, Newton, Anglican priest and author of Amazing Grace, writes to a young friend concerning Britain and the Colonies:

 

“As a minister and a Christian I think it is better to lay all the blame upon sin. Instead of telling the people Lord North [the Prime Minister] blunders, I tell them the Lord of hosts is angry. If God has a controversy with us, I can expect no other than that wisdom should be hidden from the wise…I believe the sins of America and Britain have too much prevailed, and that a wrong spirit and wrong measures have taken place on both sides because the Lord has left us to ourselves.

 

“It seems to me one of the darkest signs of the times, that so many of the Lord’s professing people act as if they thought he was withdrawn from the earth…instead of unavailing clamors against men and measures they would all unite in earnest prayer, we might hope for better times, otherwise I fear bad will be worse.”

 

As the letter continues, Newton turns his attention to the idea of liberty; turning to Jeremiah the prophet Newton writes:

 

“He [Jeremiah] preached against sin and foretold judgment, but I do not find that he made a parade about liberty…He does not seem to have troubled his head, who was scribe or recorder, or who was over the host [that is, who was in charge of government and the military], for he knew that whoever had the management, the public affairs would miscarry because the Lord fought against them. When I hear the cry about liberty I think of the old cry, ‘Great is Diana of the Ephesians’ [italics mine]. Civil liberty is a valuable blessing, but if people sin it away, it is the Lord [who] deprives them of it…

 

“However a believer has a liberty with which Jesus has made him free which depends upon no outward circumstances. It grieves me to hear those who are slaves to sin and Satan, make such a stir about that phantom which they worship under the name of liberty, and especially to see not a few of the Lord’s people so much conformed to the world in this respect [italics mine].”

 

When I first read the above letter, a year or two ago, I was taken with Newton’s image (no pun intended) of Diana of the Ephesians from Acts Chapter 19. A few days ago I realized that Newton’s use of Diana preceded his 1775 letter, for in a 1773 letter he writes to a fellow minister:

 

“On the other hand, you and I, dear sir, know how much they are to be pitied who are frantic for what they call liberty, and consider not that they are in the most deplorable bondage, the slaves of sin and Satan, and subject to the curse of the law, and the wrath of God. Oh for a voice to reach their hearts, that they may know themselves, and seek deliverance from their dreadful thralldom! Satan has many contrivances to amuse them, and to turn their thoughts from their real danger; and none more ensnaring, in the present day, than to engage them in the cry, ‘Great is the Diana Liberty!’ [italics mine].

 

“…And already in some pulpits, (proh dolor!) [Latin: oh the grief!] a description of the rights of man occupies much of the time which used to be employed in proclaiming the glory and grace of the Savior, and the rights of God to the love and obedience of his creatures.”

 

It seems to me that Christian nationalism, and Christian political engagement, whether it be from the “right” or the “left”, or even the “center” – is a snare to the professing-church in that it obscures our witness to Jesus Christ and His Gospel as it exalts our “rights” and “liberties” and “personal freedoms”.

 

There is a sense in which, for the disciple of Jesus Christ, there is no “personal freedom”, for we are called to be servants of Jesus Christ; indeed, since we have been purchased and redeemed by Jesus Christ, we are no longer our own possession – to echo Paul, we are not our own, we are bought with a price.

 

The People of God are called to be distinct from the world, the flesh, and the devil. We are called to be distinct from the “right”, the “left”, the “center”; our Gospel is to be for all mankind without regard to ethnicity or national flag or economic system.

 

We are to discern the difference between the Bible and the constitutions of nations, the political systems of nations, the economic systems of nations, and the foreign policies of nations. If the Gospel of Jesus Christ is transcendent then the Church of Jesus Christ ought to express itself, in Christ, transcendently. How can this be otherwise, unless professing - churches within national boundaries prostitute themselves in the service of the world? Babylon the Harlot rides the beast until the beast destroys her (Revelation Chapter 17). Can we not be a foolish people?

 

We have been taught to make idols of liberty, prosperity, pleasure, our founding national documents, our foreign policy, our economic policies – and we seek our identity in these things rather than in Jesus Christ. As we fail to be citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven (Philippians 3:20) we fail to be good neighbors to our fellow earthly citizens and neighbors.

 

When we adopt a faulty sense of our national identity in place of a true sense of “a better country, a heavenly country” (Hebrews 11:16) and we cease to live as pilgrims and strangers we, as Esau, sell our birthright for a mess of pottage; we trade our high calling for short-term pleasure and gratification. We forego identification with the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ for temporal agendas that will turn to dust. The beast will eat us and we are so drunk with the world that we won’t even know it – it devours us even as I write this.

 

Newton chose Christ above everything. When other ministers of the Gospel attempted to pull him into political and nationalistic orbits Newton resisted, when others appealed to “liberty” Newton recognized the danger of liberty outside of Jesus Christ. Newton saw the that great need of mankind was not political liberty, but rather liberty from sin and death. Newton saw that Christ held him accountable for preaching the Gospel, and that not a day was to be spared in the service of temporal movements outside of the Gospel.

 

Newton saw that the turmoil of his nation and world could only be the result of sin, and that there is no political remedy for sin.

 

Lest we forget, Newton was engaged is serving the fatherless, the widow, the hungry, and the slave; the Gospel of Jesus Christ for John Newton included serving the “whole person” – John Newton knew, as we should know, that the only hope for this world was, and is, Amazing Grace.

 

 

 

HRH Princess Kate and Knowing Jesus

 

 

HRH Princess Kate recently completed the UK’s Three Peaks Challenge, which involves hiking up Ben Nevis in Scotland, Scafell Pike in England, and Mount Snowdon in Wales - a total of 23 miles and 10,052 feet of ascent - in 24 hours. Hiking all three also requires 462 miles of driving to get between the peaks. She accomplished this feat to highlight and support holistic cancer treatment.

 

Vickie and I watched an interview with a climber she met during the Challenge. At first he didn’t recognize her for she had a hat pulled down over her forehead and was, of course, dressed as any other climber. She wanted to know how he was doing and engaged him in pleasant conversation. When he recognized who she was he was overwhelmed with her graciousness, and as he shared the experience his face and eyes radiated joy.

 

As I watched the interview I thought about the difference between knowing Jesus and knowing about Jesus; the difference between speaking with Jesus ourselves and having others tell us about Him and what He is like.

 

Now, of course even though the climber met Princess Kate, he really doesn’t know her, but for sure he has encountered her and having encountered her he has an experience that those who follow her life in media would love to have. The climber has heard her voice directed to him, he has seen her eyes, he has been in her presence – and he has absorbed a portion of her radiance…at least for a while (though I imagine whenever he shares his experience his eyes will light up, well into old age).

 

We read that God “Made His ways known to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel” (Psalm 103:7). But there is more, Moses not only knew the ways of God, Moses and God spoke face to Face as friends speak to one another (Exodus 33:11; Deut. 34:10).

 

We can know the acts of God, we can read about them, talk about them, believe them; but that does not mean that we have a relationship with God. Even knowing the Bible does not mean that we have a relationship with God in Christ. We can even know the ways of God, we can know a measure of His character, His holiness, His righteousness, His love; but even then we may not actually be in a relationship with Him. Jesus calls us to know Him and His Father and live in the Holy Spirit. He calls us to intimacy with the Holy Trinity.

 

People who know HRH the Princess of Wales talk about her. Even those who have a brief encounter with her talk about her. Those in relationship with her speak of her and faithfully (I hope) represent her as a result of time spent with her and because of their trust in her and her trust in them.

 

And here is the conundrum, where are Christians who speak of Jesus as a friend speaks of a friend? Where are Christians who are so in love with Jesus that the foolishness of the promiscuous world and society and nations and economics and national identity mean nothing to them because Jesus means everything?

 

Why are Christians offended when fools for Jesus insist that we are to be wedded to Jesus, and to Jesus alone? (2 Cor. 11:11 – 3).

 

I assume Christians would not be offended when I insist that I be married to Vickie and Vickie alone, that I have eyes for her and her alone, that I devote myself and my heart to her and to her alone.

 

Then why do so many pastors and churches and Christians take offense when others suggest that our hearts be devoted to Jesus and to Jesus alone? Why do they not speak of Jesus their Friend? Of what He has spoken to them during the past few days? Of His heart of love and care for others? Of what they are learning of Him and His ways, His heart, His character, His Cross, His self-sacrifice, His sufferings – in which He invites us to participate?

 

Those who met Princess Kate on her Three Peaks Challenge speak of her with joy, those who have an actual ongoing relationship with her know the difference between knowing her and knowing about her.

 

When is the last time you spoke to someone in your congregation about your own relationship with Jesus Christ? When is the last time you spoke to a neighbor or a stranger about your dear Lord Jesus?

 

I think it can be more dangerous to speak of Jesus within the “church” than outside it – and I mean that portion of the church that professes a high view of Scripture. We act as if the owner of the vineyard is dead…yes, I think we do.

 

Well, I know different…and I hope you do too.

 

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13 – 14).

 

It has taken me 76 years to realize, in some measure, the truth of this statement.

 

 

 

Calvary’s anthem – A Meditation (8)

 

 

“May I always known that a clean heart full of goodness is more beautiful than the lily, that only a clean heart can sing by night and by day, that such is heart is mine when I abide at Calvary.”

 

I woke up this morning singing the hymn Nothing But The Blood in my heart. “O precious is the flow, that makes me white as snow, no other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

 

I often meditate on Romans 4:1 – 5:11 to bathe in the reassurance of justification. “Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD will not take into account” (Rom. 4:8; see Psalm 32).

 

“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (5:1).

 

“For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (5:10).

 

Justification means, in part, that our Father sees us as having never sinned and as having always kept His righteous commandments – we are holy and pure in His sight because of what Jesus has done, which includes us living in Him and Him living in us. We are one with Christ, one in Christ, living in the Vine (John 15:1 – 5; Galatians 2:20).

 

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). I don’t think a more amazing statement has ever been written – to proclaim this statement is to proclaim the Gospel, to mitigate or qualify this statement is to diminish the Gospel.

 

In Jesus Christ, we have continual cleansing.

 

“If we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have koinonia with one another, and the blood of Jesus His son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). We experience continuous cleansing as our Way of Life in Jesus Christ. Being washed in the blood of the Lamb is our daily, our continuous, experience.

 

In justification we have glorious freedom to live in unbroken fellowship with God and with one another. Our consciences are cleansed (Hebrews 10:19 – 25) and we are free to give our lives away to God and others. We no longer live in condemnation (Rom. 8:1), rather we have received the spirit of sonship, crying “Abba! Father!” (Rom. 8:14 – 17).

 

Every day we can have an adventure in Jesus, every day we can walk with Him and talk with Him, every day we can enjoy His love and joy and kindness and pass it along to others. We can spend every day in conversation with Jesus, for is He not our Best Friend? We can learn, every day, to love Jesus more than we did the day before.

 

We can do all of this because we are the objects of His love and care and affection. We can do all of this because we are the joy that was set before Him (Heb. 12:2). We can do all of this when Calvary is our Anthem.

 

As I write this my heart is singing the words, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful Face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”

 

AMEN.

Calvary’s anthem – A Meditation (7)

 

 

“Though here my spiritual state is frail and poor, I shall go on singing Calvary’s anthem.”

 

There are many enigmas in Jesus Christ, things that are mysteries, which we may not understand yet which we may experience. Paul writes to Timothy that he is to be “strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 2:1), and to the Ephesians that they are to be “strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might” (Eph. 6:10). Yet, Jesus says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9), and we know that the treasure of Christ is ours in our “earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves” (2 Cor. 4:7).

 

So we are strong, and we are also weak. Our strength is Christ, it is always Christ. We need not hide our weakness, our frailty, for His glory is manifested through it. Indeed, to pretend to be something we are not would be to deny Jesus Christ.

 

Christ is not only our wisdom, sanctification, righteousness, and redemption, He is our strength – our everything (1Cor. 1:30 – 31). We may put it, “Yet not I, but Christ” (Gal. 2:20).

 

We are indeed “to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man” (Eph. 3:16), always remembering that “greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).

 

When I confess that my spiritual state here is frail and poor, I mean that Christ is God and I am not. I mean that I must always abide in the Vine and that without Him I can do nothing, absolutely nothing (John 15:1 – 5). I mean that I need Him desperately, that He must be the Air that I breathe, the Water I drink, the Wine I enjoy, the Bread I eat, the Light by which I live and see all things, the Raiment I wear, the House I live in.

 

I mean that after knowing Him (in some measure) for 60 years, that I need Him more than ever, that I desire to do nothing independently of Him, and that I want to live every day for His glory and the blessing of others. I mean that I cannot possibly know my true spiritual condition, other than in Jesus Christ that condition is righteous, holy, glorious, and perfected in Him…always in Him. We overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the Word of our Testimony, which is all Jesus Christ (Rev. 12:11).

 

This is why Calvary’s Anthem means so much to me, I began true Life in the Cross, I will conclude this life in the Cross, I will sing of the Cross in eternity. The Lamb of the Cross will ever be the Light by which I live, and He is the Light which shines brighter and brighter until that perfect Day (Pro. 4:18).

 

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy – laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:28 – 30).

Calvary’s anthem – A Meditation (6)

 

 

“I have a longing for the world above where multitudes sing the great song, for my soul was never created to love the dust of earth. Though here my spiritual state is frail and poor, I shall go on singing Calvary’s anthem.” (The Valley of Vision, page 315).

 

As I grow older, I sense the eternals pressing upon me and drawing me into that world above. I feel it, smell it, touch it, taste it, breathe it into my lungs. Do not all of us who are in Christ breathe the sweet Holy Spirit as our way of life?

 

We live 5 ½ miles from the Atlantic Ocean. Sometimes I can smell the ocean. Since I am an early riser, most mornings I see the sun rise and many of those sunrises are beautiful, fleeting but beautiful. While I cannot see the ocean from our home, I know the sun is rising over its horizon, I know it is shining its rays on the beach, I know the waves are usually lapping, or at other times pounding, against the shoreline. I always “see” the coastline and the ocean when I look to the sky in the morning and consider the sunrise.

 

I can be at the ocean in a few minutes, and I can plunge into it shortly after my arrival. As long as I can remember, I have associated being in the ocean with being in the depths of God’s love, being enveloped in His Holy Presence beyond measure. One day I will enter the infinite ocean of His love never to return to the shoreline; I may come to the ocean on that day, or the ocean will come to me; some things we do not know, but in all things we can trust our dear Lord Jesus and His overwhelming love (Romans 8:31 – 39).

 

As Paul writes, we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven; God has prepared us for this very purpose (2 Cor. 5:1 – 5), and He has indeed given us the Spirit as a pledge and guarantee, as His Promise to us (Eph. 1:13; 2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5).

 

I suppose I visualize Revelation chapters 21 and 22 every day, and why not? I will be there sooner rather than later, that City even now is drawing me into itself, where the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the only Light. If they will be our Light then, ought they not be our Light now?

 

“They will see His Face, and His Name will be on their foreheads” (Rev. 22:4). This, my friends, is to live for…to see Him and to have His Nature within our hearts and minds as His daughters and sons.

 

“He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will not go out from it anymore; and I will write on him the Name of My God, and the name of the City of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My New Name” (Rev. 3:12).

 

The fleeting sunrises that I am blessed to behold are daily promises of that Great Day when the “Sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall” (Malachi 4:2). The joy that skipping calves and lambs display is uninhibited, it is natural, it is without self-consciousness or fear – it is joy within joy and joy overflowing.

 

“Then you will see and be radiant, and your heart will thrill and rejoice” (Isaiah 60:5).

 

“No longer will you have the sun for light by day, nor for brightness will be moon give you light; but you will have the LORD for an everlasting Light, and your God for your glory” (Isaiah 60:19; see also Rev. 21:22 – 23; 22:5).

 

One of the many hymns embedded in my soul since my teenage years was written by Carrie Ellis Breck, Face to Face. It is my hope, my vision, my reason for living, my reason for sharing Jesus with others – that they may know the depths of His love and the expectation of seeing Him face to face. Here is a selection from the hymn:

 

Face to face with Christ my savior,

Face to face what will it be

When with rapture I behold Him

Jesus Christ who died for me?

 

Refrain: Face to face I shall behold Him,

Far beyond the starry sky,

Face to face in all His glory,

I shall see Him by and by.

 

Face to face oh, blissful moment!

Face to face to see and know,

Face to face with my Redeemer,

Jesus Christ who loves me so.

 

Are we living in the light of His love today?

 

Are we sharing the warmth of His love with others?

 

Are we inviting others to skip with us?