Hugh Binning on Peace

“I think that, since we obtained the mercy to get a peace-maker between us and God, we should henceforth count ourselves bound to be peace-makers among men. And truly, such have a blessing pronounced upon them (Matt. 5:9), ‘Blessed are the peace-makers.’ The Prince of Peace pronounced it, and this is the blessedness, ‘They shall be called the children of God’; because he is the God of peace, and to resemble him in these, first  in purity, then in peace, is a character of his image. It is true, peace will sometimes flee so fast, and so far away, that a Christian cannot follow it without sin, and that is a breach of a higher peace. But charity, when it cannot live in peace without, it does then live in peace within, because it has that sweet testimony of conscience that, as far as did lie in it, peace was followed without. Divine wisdom (James 3:17), ‘is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.’” (Hugh Binning, Christian Love, 53-54)

From Carl H von Bogatzky

"Have mercy upon me, O lord, for I am weak.Psalm 6. 2. Strengthen thou me according unto thy word. Psalm 119. 28.  Divine Answer: My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. 2 Corinthians 12. 9. The Lord delighteth not in the strength of a horse; he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man. The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy. Psalm 147. 10, 11. The Lord our Strength, mighty God and Immanuel, will give strength unto his people. Psalm 29. 11.

In whatever part we are weak, and most beset by corrupt nature, we may yet be strong enough, through grace, to come off conquerors; therefor, hope against hope; hope, and despair not of overcoming by the power of God, be thy corruptions within, and thy enemies without, ever so strong and obstinate. I am weak indeed, but Christ is strong; I am poor, he is rich; I am sick, he the Physician of the sick, I am a sinner, he is the Saviour of sinners; consequently, he suits me, and I suit him, extremely well. But let me look to him daily, seek his face earnestly, and grace to help in every time of need." (Carl H. von Bogatzky, The Golden Treasury)

Let me but hear my Saviour say, "Strength shall be equal to thy day;" Then I rejoice in deep distress Leaning on all-sufficient grace. I glory in infirmity, That Christ's own power may rest on me; When I am weak, the I am strong; Grace is my shield, and Christ my song. I can do all things, or can bear All sufferings, if my Lord be there; Sweet pleasures mingle with the pains While his left hand my head sustains.

Reflections on the Christian Life

Greetings my friend.

Much time has passed since the last letter we shared. Days continue to come one after another. Often I describe them as “a grind,” since at their end my exhaustion level is quite high. Yet, also at their end, and, perhaps more importantly ‘at their beginning,’ my thoughts turn to Christ. In the morning he is my life. In the evening he is my rest. He has told me that because he lives, I will live. Because I come to him, I will never hunger. Because I believe in him, I will never thirst. Temporary and created things cannot give me that necessary and particular ingredient which makes possible the satisfaction declared in John 6:35. Jesus told the tempter that physical bread has its place but God’s word also—and perhaps more importantly—serves as a source for life. We see this when our Lord answered the tempter but also when he himself obtained nourishment from doing his Father’s will. (see John 4) The spiritual feeds the physical The eternal sustains the temporal. That with life in itself—God—gives life to all that is contingent. The Father (eternally) begat His Son. When the Word became flesh, He brought into the world his life with His Father. This, my friend, I believe is the key to understanding John 1:4: “In him [Jesus Christ] was life, and this life is the light of men.”

Jesus is our bread of life. Yes, you hear it practiced that many only call on him for temporal needs. But Jesus desires to be much more to all of us than just this. Our Lord and Savior desires that we pursue him from hearts of worship and love. These motives evidence honor and affection. Jesus reassures me, that if I value and pursue his words, he and the Father will be with me now, through the dawn to the dusk or darkness of each day. (Jn 14:21-23) My friend, these truths you too know and experience, and this gives me great comfort and joy. Encourage those near you who claim Christ but do not know him as their satisfaction. May we press on in following our Lord, and may the grace of God, the love and kindness of our God, be known to us and through us daily. We can encourage each other in these things. We must.

The Christian life characteristics just described the world cannot verify. The world has no framework intrinsic to its operations by which to authenticate or validate the godly life of a Christian. It has no defining grid or basis to bring experiences back to and judge “this one’s life is truly godly because we see, understand, thus know as fact, that what this person does is of God!” The world is the world! It knows not God. But it thinks it knows all and from this it assumes authority and renders itself suitable to judge. It maintains that its judgments are legitimate. The world believes itself right in judging and condemning behavior that it thinks a godly person should display but doesn’t. Perhaps the world knows what is not godly because it references itself and at times sees itself in a Christian’s life, and then by definition assumes that godliness would be the opposite of that. Perhaps the world has learned enough from the Christian community throughout time to apprehend what we say about ourselves, and thus armed with this understanding serves as a witness against us: lives of hypocrisy and contradiction stand out. We should consider this phenomenon personally and as congregations. An open discussion between us on this topic would be helpful.

Christian lives manifest fruits of faith which come as the result of that life beyond the world resident in their hearts. These fruits flow from the inside outward as a result of divine transformation linked to God. Christians live as conduits of Gods existence, and of His grace, His love and His kindness; from the truth of Him experienced in their lives outward. Unleashed in and through human lives, God uses people as His means of disclosure and display. So much of what God does is revelatory or declarative. People are transformed as God’s revelation opens up in their lives by the Spirit giving them understanding of God’s word and of God Himself. Because of this heavenly reality manifesting to and then through a Christian’s life, the world can and should encounter and experience the divine reality as Christian lives declare their godly origin. Christ in our lives can be tasted. We who have tasted and know Christ are transformed as the Bread of Life unleashes divine realities in and through us. Ought not that life seed planted by God open up and display to the Gardner? Of all who pass by, some may not understand the flower’s life, yet they still observe the life and beauty.

There are many places in Scripture where this contrast is recorded for us to learn by, and there seems sufficient testimony by our Lord in John 17 that those who live in the faith line can live so that the world acknowledges, in some way, God’s love toward the Son and his followers, and that the world could affirm that God sent His Son to it. This strikes me as a simple yet profound truth.

There are various ways to understand what is meant here concerning what God has done through Jesus Christ. Some conclude this is a singular world event of eventual unified confession by the world of what God has done in Christ. Some see it as the outworking of Christ’s Lordship, salvation and rule spreading beyond the nationality and locality of Christ’s initial redemptive work and ministry. I go with the second interpretation. So where do I see myself in the John 17 passage? While I comfort myself with the tangibility of God’s work in my life, I cannot always find such comfort that those who meet me during my days experience me in such a way that realities of Christ and the Father, and God’s love for His Son and followers, comes forward first and foremost. How that particular experience and testimony recorded in John 17 actually manifests I leave to God. Jesus prayed to the Father that these testimonies would be, and they seem to come as the consequent of people believing the testimony and words of the apostles, the unity of these faith follower’s lives with God in Christ. Unity. Unity with God in Christ, God’s word, God’s people, and God’s love received and manifest: for, if God’s love is received, it will be manifest. If God’s love is not manifest, then one should question why it’s not there.

Let us not forget our Lord’s comments earlier in that chapter about our need to sanctify ourselves, as he sanctified himself. I wonder where this notion has fallen away to? If I live not as a committed and cleaned conduit of God, His graces, His truths, the realities He has united me with—all through union with His Son—I shutter to think what those who experience me actually receive. Perhaps James gets at this when he frequently refers to those with divided hearts. Have you considered yourself, my friend, as a divided one? We would benefit from examining ourselves daily to see. The world sees. God sees. Let us not be blind to this. Perhaps we should talk more about this and on sanctifying ourselves another time.

Sufficient, then, for me is the task of living Christianly by following our Lord Jesus Christ, loving God and loving people. (If I truly follow Christ, would not the other items happen?) Pray for me my friend, for I am not always inclined to the things of God or the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, nor to love the unlovely (or so I render them at times). Recently, I have found it helpful to meditate on the apostle Paul’s use of the word “appeared” in Titus 2:11 and 3:4. Grace appeared (in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ), then love and kindness appeared. God manifest brightly to humanity in the person and work of His Son, grace, kindness and love. And if these have shown in my heart, then they should shine through my heart into all I am and do; thus would the world have a better witness of the reality that God sent His Son into the world, and that He loves His Son and those who follow him. A living witness of God loving: what more could the world need? What more would we offer? But self-love worms in and plays its hand to confuse and occupy the believer’s mind and heart. If it holds the mind, the heart is enslaved. There would be fewer godly choices made promoting God and Christ, because the Christian in this state lacks devotion, passion and gratitude.

Recall Jesus said he is the way, he is the truth, and he is the life. These statements I have understood of him in relation to the Father. Yet, it seems deficient to only say “I mentally agree with what our Lord says.” I think we must step into or live the reality of what he is revealing through what he says. Perhaps Jesus’ encounter with the woman in John 4 serves as an example of Christ Jesus being the way and the truth in regards to the Father. He must be these to us also, and likely as we grow in Christ over our years we will be shown more fully just how Jesus is the way to the Father and just how he is the truth about the Father for us and those sharing Christ with us. It seems a necessary biblical imperative that Jesus not be these only at a Christian’s death, some blessed and assured distant hope, but that Jesus be these for each individual Christian throughout the course of each day lived and then also more completely at the time of one’s death.

This leads me to discus the third element from John 14.6: Jesus as life with the Father. Here I find a Christ-o-centric epistemology. I find a living means of knowing: an experiential epistemology; a relational means. This view differs in kind and structure from those static rationalistic grids that some argue each of us should examine and conclude meet our personal criteria for determining what we think we individually are capable of knowing, or someone else could ever know, then evaluating and judging truth claims and lives from this window as we look out on to things. Many in Jesus’ day experienced him, but few knew him as the Lord Jesus Christ and the Father through him. Our Lord clearly says that “No one knows the Son except the Father and no one knows the Father except the Son, and those he wills to reveal Him to.” (Mt 11:27) See also Luke 10:22 and John 5:21. These three passages would make a great sermon. Thy unite with respect to the role Christ is given but they differ with respect to what Jesus praises the Father for. We should come back to this important topic, so we can discuss it without being rushed. But for now, I want to return to Christ as life with the Father and explore what this means for us. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and he is all these, I say, in relation to his and our Father. Notice how he reveals he is “the way” before he is “the truth?” Once Jesus is believed in as the way and the truth, and he is experienced as the way and the truth, only then can he be known and experienced by Christians as “the life” with the Father.

Unfortunately, my friend, I need to send this letter to you. My time for writing you this day has passed. I will continue writing on this last topic of Christ as life with the Father and write again soon.

God’s best.

Carl

Dealing with Desires at the Dawn of the Day

“You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted by your own affections.” (2 Cor 6:12)

“and the desires for other things entering in choke the word.” (Mk 4:19)

My God, I am humbled to start my day by coming to You, confessing You are God, that I am not, and considering before You these verses. I am Your child. You care for me. You work for my good, and You love me as no other ever can or will. This knowledge strengthens me for my day. You are not against me. This I know. You are my Father.

Today begins early with my meditating on these verses from You. I acknowledge the warning they give—things within me, and things outside me—that I need be always careful of. My own affections work against me. My own desires for things other than You and Your word end up choking the life You have granted me, and thereby that very life You intend Your word to accomplish in and through me. Dear God, forgive me. Do I still not understand the place and the power of Your word in this fallen world? In my own life? That Your word brings life and light to me, and to others?

Jesus tells me his words are life. He spoke of You. Peter writes Your word not only brings life but nurtures this life into a mature state. Yet, You tell me “I” stand in the way of this life achieving full design and fruitful benefit. You grant me life, Father. What have I done with it? I recall Your son warning about the light within, that if that light is actually darkness, then, indeed, how dark is that darkness that comes across as light but isn’t; that self-deception would so twist things and present its own darkened state as light. Further, that someone would view darkness as light such. God, have mercy on me. Lead me away from myself and every false light-bearer. May I always and only behold Your son as the light of the world and the light of my life. The morning star has arisen in my heart. May I walk in the light of Christ who has come.

It is written of Your Son that in Him was life, and that this unique life was, and is, the light of men (Jn 1:4). Jesus is the living word. I look at, examine and understand His life, as I would read a book. As I do this, I learn from You things hidden from before the creation of the world. He was with You. He knew You best of any other source. He created all, so he knows all things best. He knows me. He knows You. Jesus is the mediator between us, and he ever lives making intercession for me before You. He reveals You to me, thus he is light. I have him as the light of my life, spiritual light. He is light in my soul similar to how the sun is light to the world. Father, thank You for the gift of Your son. He is life from You to me. He is light from You to me. Forgive me of the sin, the darkness, I put against that light. Change my affections and desires to be more heavenly, so that Your word would grow and create fruit for the world to see and consume, thus others may draw life from You. These things I pray.

You permit me to understand, as I come to You through him. He is still the way, still the truth, and he is still the life in relation to You. He is the living word who manifests to us eternal life; that which he shared with You always, and which You have granted me to participate in with You, Your Son, and Spirit. Knowing You, through the participation of this relationship, is eternal life. Thank You, Father.

Also, Father, I have the written word. Through it I too understand who You are, what You are about, and by this record I relate to people; some transformed by Your renewing love and grace; some still in darkness. I learn of and participate in the thread of The Redeemed. Your Spirit’s labor preserving the written record stands to this very day. Thus, Father, when I seem to myself suspended between time and eternity—that position of self-reflection where I labor to see life and all things that I can from the lens of divine revelation and life with You through Christ by the Spirit—I best know the assurance of our relationship, and I best know the reality and presence of what most works against all You have ordained for my good—the presence of self (that remnant and stain of my unholy being, the flesh, stained into all that I am, and ready to live and grow through all I do, unless subdued and denied life; which only comes through my pursuit of life with You through Your Son by the Spirit, and the pursuit of godliness). Thank You, Father.

So, I come to these verses, my God. Your faithful servant the apostle Paul instructs me that my own affections can restrict, narrow my way, or crush me. Why would I ever want that! Rationally, I wouldn’t. But we are not dealing with illumined reason here. Paul speaks as an apostle to the Corinthians, as one who has opened his heart to them with Your revelation and his transformed life, pouring out both to them for their good. And they shut out both! His redeemed and renewed life is a gateway of divine grace and favor displayed for their edification and benefit, yet when he presents this to them their hearts are shut. I picture the image in Revelation 3:20: a hardened heart, shut and locked from the inside, presented with divine grace and favor, yet so committed to self that it shuts out God! And both of these passages are in the context of the church and Your ministry to those classified as saints, or separated ones. Dear God! You have illumined me to see and know that my own affections can shut out Your ministry of life to me, and the consequence, while it may appear as life because “I” retain control, is really narrowing my way and crushing my very soul, because is welds me further and further into myself where Your light grows dimmer and the darkness deeper. Dear God, bring to me Your light and favor. Renew my heart with Your grace, love and truth. Change my life denying passions and affections for heavenly appetites that pursue and honor You. May I hear only the voice of my Shepherd and not follow the voice of any other; especially that of my sinful self. For that voice, above all my God, seems to be the loudest, most clear, most influencing, of all. Forgive me, Father, and please lead me away from living from, by and for my own affections to living from, by and for what is according to Your heart. Thank You.

Also, You warn me from Your word about things outside of me that I might give too much attention to, and that these will end up taking away that life You give me through Your word. My God, I am not Your Son. My heart longs for so much that I either have or don’t have. In and of myself I am not content or satisfied. I am a creature, and I have not life in myself. You and Your Son have life in Yourselves, and this life You have brought me into. Thus, why the torment? It is because I give preference to other things, and these they are which kill-off the life I share with You. Both cannot grow together. How do I ever expect that gift of Your life to flourish and grow in my heart, so that I bear fruit to Your glory, when it is Your word working in and through me that is the source of fruit, and I choose to desire anything but Your word! As Your Son reveals in John 15, there is a danger of thinking I am drawing life from Him when in reality I am not. Father, may there be sufficient fruit in my life—even if that be confession of sin, which is itself of faith—for You to prune me and carefully craft my days, such that the end would be more honor, praise, and glory to You, Your Son, and Spirit, and that I would find rest from desires for other things and know the greater and truer pathway of life from the Living and written word. Father, I am so weak in and of myself. Please grant me the grace and strength to make it through my day. Lord Jesus, may I know your presence and the ministry of the Spirit in all things. May the Living and the written word be as lights to me this and each day. As I draw light and life from these, other unholy desires will disappear. Be with me and guide me through each step of my day. Amen

A Meditation on Prayer

“O that we might only cleave more too God and our Saviour in inward and heartfelt prayer, and devote this opportunity for the purpose of heartily entreating God, that in order to this, he would grant us his grace and Spirit! It is by omitting prayer that we go astray from our hearts and at the same time from God; and the further we go from God, the further do we depart from our peace. O soul, consider therefore what belongs to thy peace! If we loved prayer more and practiced it more, my dear friends, we should become capable of experiencing the peace of the precious love of Jesus in our interior, in our center, and become more closely united to him. Jesus is so near us, the precious Saviour, ought we not therefore to draw near unto him and withdraw our hearts from all created things, from all distraction, from all multiplicity of thoughts concerning outwardly and earthly things, and with all the devotion of our hearts and our affections retire into Jesus in our inmost souls? By the continual drawing near to Jesus in our hearts, by a believing adherence to him, in which consists the true prayer of the heart, we attain too an ever closer union with him and peace becomes great in our souls; yea, it becomes at length an invincible peace which nothing can take away. O what Peace! How every burden and difficulty then falls away! And although we may not attain to so high a degree of union as that which many souls by divine grace attain in this life, yet still, the soul that loves prayer and inward retirement, that abides much with God in the heart, will be conscious of such a secret well-being and such a tranquility as it never can find or possess in the world or created things.

Let us consider what belongs to our peace, in order that we may have peace when we must pass over into an endless eternity.”

(Gerhard Tersteegen, Spiritual Crumbs from the Masters Table, p.18, 1837)

The Spirit and The Bride

'And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!”’

Lord, work in me that my voice would be found in this chorus!

Revelation 22:17 shows us the Spirit and the bride together as one seeking the Person, the presence, and involvement of the Lord Jesus Christ. This verse placed at the Revelation’s end and at the end of our bibles summarizes the condition of those swept up in God’s redemptive work and history which opens itself to us in Genesis. Lord, if I claim participation in Your salvation, but my heart and lips fail to cry for You, lead me by Your Spirit back into these pages that I might hear You, see You, know You, and come to cherish You beyond all else that I could ever know or desire. Something is in the way. May nothing stand that causes me to not hear the Spirit’s voice and that keeps me from voicing my own cry for You.

The Spirit and the bride know and agree on who Jesus is and what He is about. The Spirit has known this from eternity. The bride knows all this now. The bride understands and is fully convinced of all the Spirit has revealed and brought to life in her. She is complete. She is prepared. She lives the truth that Jesus Christ loves, purifies, and cleanses her in preparation of bringing her to their wedding day and to Himself. The Spirit has brought to earth that heavenly life and nurtured it along the way by evidencing Christ, Who in turn reveals the Father. The church’s relationship to Christ Jesus is her primary thought while in this world, and from it she looks to Him and sees beyond mere human history into life as His story. Additionally, the Spirit and the bride understand, welcome, and work with the means whereby Jesus Christ is set upon to prepare her for that day. Such an understanding would have governed the primitive church that received John’s writing and would have fortified their thinking and faith against pressures from the earthly powers that were against them and sought their destruction, and it would have anchored the early church’s mind and heart on the sovereign Lord of all Who rules over all. Finally, the verse reveals to us the place and role of “desire,” the oft overlooked but foundational and essential element to the inner essence of the Christian life. The Spirit and the bride passionately want to be with the Bridegroom, the Husband, the Head, and they desire all such union entails and where it leads.

Oh Holy Spirit of God, you come before any life or utterance the bride sounds! The Spirit is positioned first. The Spirit’s primary task as revealed in the New Testament is to bring to life and completion the redemptive work of Christ and God the Father, where what has been eternally ordained through and for the Son reaches completion in the Father’s presence. The Spirit’s action is a bringing together the two—One from Heaven to earth and back to Heaven; One from earth to Heaven—and it summarizes the Spirit’s entire ministry. The Spirit, being the life and breath of the bride, moves her collective (and thus every member’s) mind, affections, and will to passionately single out, see, hear, know, long and cry out for, then pursue her Head and Husband above all else. The Spirit brought to her the heavenly life in the beginning, enlightens, empowers and drives the bride toward her Husband, labors to purify her from false lovers, and the Spirit does all this in a way that the bride’s will is not discounted, dismissed, disengaged or overridden, but it is instead influenced in a manner where the brides’ wants and affections so latch on to Christ as the choicest of any object of desire that her will follows hard after those desires and moves passionately steadily toward Christ above all else.

God does not crush and bypass the human will, certainly not that of His Son’s bride. She is no forced marriage! As the Shulamite so longed for her beloved, whose banner over her was love, so does the bride of Christ only long for Him, and only through this experience of longing for Him does she know both herself and Him. To glorify Himself, thus triumphing over all sin and evil, God works through the will by means of His love relation to her. Courting her she gains true understanding of Him: experiencing His goodness and power, His light dispelling darkness; that transformation being undeniably real, His goodness and purity capturing her gaze, as if stealing it from seeing (thus knowing) nothing but darkness and sin to seeing all things, thereby breaking through her as if newly born or created and seeing for the very first time her Creator, Who loving her she loves, Who seeing her she sees, Who wanting her she solely wants. Their eyes meet, and forever she has affections for no other. Dawn has broken to her, and it occurred within her. His look is for Her. He isolates it and gives it to her only. He is faithful to her, and He looks not this way at any other.

This divine gaze changes the one looked upon. Certainly, such a bride will not cry and shout for a return to that darkened womb of the world from which she came! She dare not, or her Husband to be—the Great Shepherd of the sheep—will alter her path toward Him and allow her to feel again that pointed and trying way she only knew before He set His love on her. This He may do, as God, to glorify Himself and purify her affections and desires, through repentance, in preparation of being with Him upon their marriage forever. She is to dwell in the Father’s house, in His presence, and the Son—above all others—knows those preparations required to fit the church for the eternity of that experience.

Recall, my friend, the virgins as they waited for their day. (Matt 25:1-10) Must we not go through our wait and maintain our own want, if He delays a bit longer? Should we not also know the fruit found in delay? Must we not realize the divine work that attends a humble trust and quite patience? Furthermore, would it not be essential and foundational to our Christian maturity to recognize the Lord Jesus’ actual presence during the time of “apparent “delay? What does this notion of delay do with you? Have your affections for the One with whom you will spend eternity grown dim with the world’s dirt and ungodliness? Are we stained? Or, have our desires to be with Christ only grown with fervor and intensity, as we have with increased passion pursued our Head and Husband, the one Whose’ love was set upon us and redeemed us from sin and destruction? Where are you my friend?

God’s love and grace experienced by an individual Christian, and the totality of Christ’s body, enlightened with knowledge and infused with ultimate desire, anchors on the God from which these come, so that the Christian, and the body as one, longs above all else to be with the Source of Life from which these flow. If we have truly tasted of that river of life from above, what fount of apparent and false life could tempt and appear to satisfy us from here below? All we need do is examine our own lives to see the collection of things we have more affection and desire for than the Lord Jesus Christ. What do you see? Could you today participate in the chorus, “Come Lord Jesus! Come!” If not, examine your desires. Recall the role of the Spirit in bringing you that heavenly life, testifying of Christ, and cleansing you of ungodliness. Pursue through faith and repentance what God offers you to prepare you for life with Him.

For 2012

“Everybody wants to be a Christ-worshipper; no one wants to follow Him. However, real worshippers and Christ-lovers also follow. He who loves Christ also loves His holy life’s pattern: His humility, meekness, and patience; His cross, shame, and contempt. And even though in our present weakness we cannot perfectly imitate Christ’s holy, exalted life, we are still to love it and to yearn to imitate it more fully. Then do we dwell in Christ and He in us. But the world now holds it better to gain knowledge about all things than to get understanding about His love, which is better than all knowledge. No one loves Christ who does not follow His holy life. There are many—a majority—who are ashamed of His holy example, of His meekness and lowliness. Now Christians demand an imposing Christ—magnificent, rich, conformed to the world! No one wants to imitate a poor, meek, despised, lowly Christ.”

“O my heavenly Physician! I bring Thee a dead soul; revive it! I bring Thee a sick soul; cure it! I bring Thee a heart empty of all basic virtue; fill it with Thy Spirit, with Thy love, with Thy humility, and with Thy wonderful patience! Amen”

“Ordinarily the soul rises to perfection [completion, or that end to which it was designed or made] by passing through three states. First of all, it gets free from sin by penance and mortification; then it forms inner virtues by prayer and imitation of Christ; and lastly, it advances in the love of God until it reaches habitual union with him. It is for us to enter that path of perfection and to traverse its stages more or less quickly.”

(John Arndt, 1555 – 1621)

My friend, these words and ideas or concepts, even truths, expressed by John Arndt require me to evaluate my own heart and my very life to see and acknowledge who Jesus Christ is to me and ask what of my love for Him? Has it been some time since you asked God to show you what it means to be a Christian? If you ask, also petition Him and trust Him to lead you in the way. Rely on the Author of that life, not on self.

An “ordinary” Christian you and I dare not be. This world loves ordinary Christians. They lack devotion to the Lord of the universe, therefore, they lack power. These are blind to sin in their lives and to the world’s sin; thus, one could conclude, they are truly blind to God. They do not see His holiness and love seeing them, so they do not themselves see with holiness and love. They manifest nothing of the life God’s Spirit, but only manifest godlessness. Godlessness need not be just those gross sins or unrighteous displays. It can be understood as a framework of life which stems from self, serves self, instead of that which originates from a hearty trust and confidence in God; one sourced by that which is tied to heaven and feeds the new life Christians know is most true, and which lives in and through them, and that can only be attributed to as divine.

The Christian does not lay claim to this treasure, but humbly permits its dictates and impressions to fashion one’s life in place of the self’s natural and earthly inclinations, thereby preferring what is holy over that which is not of God. Ongoing self-reflection in God’s presence, confession, faith and repentance grounded in true forgiveness are living necessities for such a Christian.

And what of loves work in my heart? Does not Christ make much to do about the love of God, his love for the Father, and his desire that those who have been reconciled to the Father through him would be remade and transformed by the unfolding and experiential ministry of divine love poured out into the heart of people? Dear God, where am I to be found in this prayer of Your Son recorded for my benefit and Your glory in John 17? Can I testify that I do see the fruit of His prayer and Your answer to his request manifest in my life? Dear God, if I cannot attest to this reality of love, do not let me rest till we have met in that ministry of Your Word, Your Spirit and my soul and the darkness of my mind and heart are burned away by the brightness of Your glorious love and truth! The brand of my fallen heart runs deep! Would you my Father run the brand of Your love even deeper! In the pain from that pressing into my flesh I’ll feel, Your Son will be revealed, and I will understand and then live more for the pleasure of Your holy will as did he commit even more so to You as the pain pressed deeper into His holy flesh. God, to pray such things and know the true condition of my own heart! Faith moves me to pray such, because I know all is guided by Your love.

As I enter the year 2012, my framework for this year’s meditations and reflections is the reality described by John 1:4: “In Him was life, and this life was the light of men.” Do you know, my friend, what this verse reveals? I pray that over the next twelve months, I will understand and live these truths. I pray your soul will be watered. We are all imperfect. This we know, thus we forgive freely and we encourage along the way. We anchor in Him, not in ourselves.

God’s Best,

Carl