EXCITING

About 15 days ago I decided to leave this blog for dead. The decision to dispose of it was due to its association with some really icky sins and temptations. 

Icky = selfish-ambition to make something of myself by my writing.

Icky = writing with the desire to be noticed, appreciated and admired.

Icky = believing value is proportional to popularity.

Icky = being dishonest with myself in attempt to be something people want.

It's icky just writing those things. I feel like I got caught up very quickly in a rat-race of messed up motives. I'm still unsure about keeping this blog going... already I feel the icky coming back.

But right now,

I have something I want to say.

And don't have another medium at hand.

SO!

LAST NIGHT (or more accurately, early this morning) I HAD THE BIGGEST AND BESTEST ANSWER TO PRAYER THAT I HAVE HAD IN A LONG, LONG, LONG, LONG, LONG, LONG TIME.

My life. has been. an absolute mess.

I was very, very, very lost. 

very confused.

very unhappy.

very trapped.

AND I THINK THE BREAKTHROUGH HAS COME!

(I know, breakthroughs are really hard to believe in, I definitely wasn't believing that one could happen, but then this morning, I was like, remember God?, when breakthroughs used to happen?, I do, so, I mean, I know they can happen, and I really need one right now, and You know what?, I believe that You can make one happen, could You make it happen soon?, because I'm dying here).

AND THEN IT HAPPENED. 

But I didn't really realize it was happening.

My journals re: THE BREAKTHROUGH.

This is nearly too precious to behold. 

Somehow you caught my attention and turned me back to You, back to the Truth, back to faith.

As I was praying asking for help, something I thought led me to a memory of something I saw that day, something that I knew (in a gut-feeling sort of way) had the answer I needed. It was a bit blurry at first but I finally tracked it down to the Eric Ludy sermon that I had seen in my email inbox earlier.

And I suppose I wasn’t even that convinced that I needed to watch it, because I very nearly went back to watching Netflix, and I was also talking with Elyce on skype... but somehow when I got to the sermon page it just seemed like the easiest place to stay, and so I stayed there and watched it. Eventually I became so enraptured by the truth I was hearing that I had to stop talking to Elyce.

Ludy began talking about the great moral failure of a Christian man he much respected. And then he began his sermon to fight the thing that I think has been my problem – that it seems all strong Christian people are doomed to fail, that we are weak, and that we will eventually fall against the enemy. Ludy said something like, when he was younger, he had thought that if his failure in following Christ was inevitable, it wasn’t even worth trying.

This is what I’ve felt like when I’ve stayed in bed all day. That I will fail. That even if I love Christ in my mind, and even if I believe that He is my only hope of anything, if I go out and try to live for Him I will fail. Guaranteed. Because I have already. And I do over and over again. And I would just rather not try if that's the case. Because it's not worth it. So not having a desire to try, nor having the conviction to go after anything else, I stay in bed.

But Ludy said that he refuses to believe that we have to fail, and his faith is beginning to shed light for me.

What I need to do, in order not to fail, is to believe.

Believe completely. Commit to trusting my God in everything. REFUSE to listen to all the noise that is tempting me to think otherwise, but BELIEVE HIM. 

This has been my deepest problem. I keep failing to live for Christ because I am standing sideways, trying to be guided both by Him and by the world. I have not been trusting that Christ is all the Truth I need, but I have been considering everything the world says. I’ve been unwilling to appear narrow-minded (not turning fully to face my Master and putting my back to the world). I keep thinking that the world is saying something good. I have not been willing to admit that the world has nothing good to say to me. That the world is lost, is in sin, is without the Truth, is without wisdom, is without understanding. 

What I need to do, is to choose to believe God in every circumstance, no matter what the world says or the evidence that it hands me. I need to come to terms with the reality that I will appear as a fool. Like believing God’s Word, that Lazarus’ sickness would not end in death, while he lay dead for days.

I’ve spent countless journal entries discussing my confusion over what it is that I’m supposed to do with my life. Knowing, of course, that my life exists for the purpose of glorifying God but seeking some way, specific to me, to do this. Feeling that everything is pointless. Like there is nothing I can actually do.

But this is it. It’s this simple, yet the most difficult task that could ever be given a human. To believe His Word. 

That’s my work while I’m here in the flesh (and I’m SO excited because I’ve finally been given the light I need to BELIEVE this, this purpose satisfies my heart).

Believing in Him is what matters. And it is something I can tangibly choose to do, every moment of every day. And believing in Him IS what glorifies Him. It’s not the product of believing in Him that I am looking to or placing my hope in, these are peripheral. My life serves its purpose by unceasingly pointing to Him, by believing in Him. 

These are all truths clearly established in His Word, but I am finally seeing them now. 

Another grievance of my bed-hiding time has been that I felt it impossible to deny myself, yet knowing that life in Christ is only possible if I die to myself and He comes to live in me. I kept asking ‘how do I do that, how do I do that!?!?!?!?'

And I think the answer is by believing.

Because if I’m choosing to believe His Word, then I am by necessity putting myself to death. I’m refusing everything that the world offers me as life, and only being willing to take what He offers as life. I’m completely giving up any chance of having life or reputation in the world. I rely on Him for everything. 

What I’ve wanted so desperately, and what I’ve known myself to be lacking this entire time = faith.

Maybe what is finally making a difference now, what I finally see, is that I have to choose to believe despite everything that tells me not to. I have to make a decision to believe that is not to be held in limbo, being swayed by every opinion of the world, which I have been doing (friends, psychology, biographies).

It’s like I’ve been set free to believe that I can practice the faith that I thought I was supposed to practice, but gave up hope on. When I began believing, I remember thinking like Eric Ludy, that the promises in the bible were REAL promises, and then that we should ACTUALLY live by them. This seems like the most grievous of all problems with the Christian church in the world – that we don’t actually hold God to what He says. I want what He promises. To live victoriously in Him as He promises. It seems like the Christian’s of the world don’t believe in victory while in the flesh... and I have been lost to that lack of faith for a while. 

What we need to do is believe God despite everything. I’m not doing this justice with words. We need to not listen to anyone but God, and not believe anything but His Truth. We need to believe Him even when all evidence points against Him. We need to completely commit to Him as the Truth. 

Another thing that I realized, if not for the first time, than for the first time I remember – the task of reading Scripture isn’t just for the task of reading Scripture (also the task of praying isn’t just for the task of praying, and the task of abiding in Christ isn’t just for the task of abiding in Christ), ALL is for the task of BELIEVING. 

Why read God’s Word in the morning? To do the work of believing in Him.

Why pray? To do the work of believing in Him.

Why abide in Him? To do the work of believing in Him.

Believing in Him IS glorifying Him. 

Repent and BELIEVE.

This is the work that I am alive to do. Doing this will satisfy me. 

When I forgot how to do this, when I thought it was impossible to do this, I despaired of life. 

Reading back on journals, the times when I was fighting to believe are the times when I was joyful... fighting to believe is my greatest joy. 

This is beyond amazing. 

I was grasping SO hard for this understanding. I thought I would never find the thing that would make life worth living or that would give me something worth doing. I knew I needed a task but to ‘glorify God’ was so intangible and unknown. 

The fight to believe strings together my entire life. Everything I’ve ever done has been a part of this fight. All of the depressive times and the confusion have been from failing to believe. All of the joy and excitement and hope has been from believing. 

The key to my life- believing that Christ is My Saviour, that He has done all He has said He has done, that He is doing all that He says He is doing, and He will do all He says He will do. My life depends on believing Him and is for believing Him.

This life on earth, in this world, I was so confused about it. What the purpose of it is. Why does He leave us here in this world, and why has He made a world that is so lost. 

This I haven’t figured out enough to satisfy my analytic mind... but I think that joy and victory of faith is enough to make it worth staying here and fighting. To overcome the world by faith. To glorify Him by doing so. 

I’m not sure what will happen to faith when we end up in heaven... we will then truly know all that we have believed. But the situation here is perfect for believing.

So that's it!

CHECK OUT THE SERMON!

Guidance for people like me:

1. Don't be worried if none of this is mind-blowing to you... God blows different people's minds with different truths at different times for different reasons... trust that He will blow yours as is best for you. 

2. Humble yourself and learn to rejoice with your fellow believers as they are making wondrous discoveries that you have already made. 

3. Don't tie yourself up in knots with little theological errors or lacking in my reasoning. All human sources of truth will have flaws. Test the message and then allow what withstands your testing to encourage you. 

ALSO.

(in case you've forgotten).

Having your mind blown by God's glory is an excellent endeavor for the everyday. 

And an especially great way of doing this is by coming to know those who have believed Him.

So while your perusing all the exciting glory of God in Acts, and Hebrews, and 2 Kings (... and everywhere else in the bible, but not to overwhelm you....)

Also get yourself some good books about the following people:

Rees Howells

Hudson Taylor

William and Catherine Booth

David Wilkerson

Gladys Aylward

Amy Carmichael

C.T. Studd

John Knox

John Wesley

Edward Payson

John Hyde

David Brainerd

Jim and Elizabeth Elliot

Leonard Ravenhill

Richard Wurmbrand

Corrie Ten Boom

Andrew Murray

Jackie Pullinger

George Mueller

Charles Spurgeon

A.W. Tozer

E.M. Bounds

Paris Reidhead

Edward Payson

David Livingstone

D.L. Moody 

Esther Ahn Kim

Keith Green

List compiled from Eric Ludy's Sermons. 

Bolded are the ones whom I have come to know.

The rest I look forward to discovering in the future. 

Contact me with anything you might have to say!

Running in Circles

My Sole Resolve

Resolved, if I only have the strength to accomplish one thing with my life, that thing shall be that I seek to know and love the Lord through His Word each and every day.  

Jonathan Edward's Resolutions

Jonathan Edwards had a will-power the likes of which I can't even begin to comprehend (or perhaps it is rather a faith in Christ the likes of which I can't comprehend). He wrote and lived by a list of very demanding Resolutions. I can hardly even bear the imagining of how heavy such weight would be on the mind, desiring to accomplish so much all at once. 

Most of his resolutions scare me, and many seem to come from a place of understanding, seriousness of faith and desperation that I don't think I've yet come to, but there are certain ones that I currently dream of having the faith to live by. Perhaps you might be inspired by them as well, and might go forward in faith to practice them. 

Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.

Resolved, that I will not give way to that listlessness which I find unbends and relaxes my mind from being fully and fixedly set on religion [on Christ], whatever excuse I may have for it-that what my listlessness inclines me to do, is best to be done, etc.

Resolved, whenever my feelings begin to appear in the least out of order, when I am conscious of the least uneasiness within, or the least irregularity without, I will then subject myself to the strictest examination.

Resolved, to study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.

Resolved, never to count that a prayer, nor to let that pass as a prayer, nor that as a petition of a prayer, which is so made, that I cannot hope that God will answer it; nor that as a confession, which I cannot hope God will accept.

Resolved, to examine carefully, and constantly, what that one thing in me is, which causes me in the least to doubt of the love of God; and to direct all my forces against it.

Resolved, whenever I do any conspicuously evil action, to trace it back, till I come to the original cause; and then both carefully endeavor to do so no more, and to fight and pray with all my might against the original of it.

Resolved, to improve every opportunity, when I am in the best and happiest frame of mind, to cast and venture my soul on the Lord Jesus Christ, to trust and confide in him, and consecrate myself wholly to him; that from this I may have assurance of my safety, knowing that I confide in my Redeemer

Resolved, very much to exercise myself in this all my life long, with the greatest openness I am capable of, to declare my ways to God, and lay open my soul to him: all my sins, temptations, difficulties, sorrows, fears, hopes, desires, and every thing, and every circumstance.

Resolved, never to give over, nor in the least to slacken my fight with my corruptions, however unsuccessful I may be.

Resolved, if ever I shall fall and grow dull, so as to neglect to keep any part of these Resolutions, to repent of all I can remember, when I come to myself again.

See the full list of his 70 Resolutions here.

For The Christian Who Reads

An excerpt from the writings of George Mueller:

I fell into the snare into which so many young believers fall - the reading of religious books in preference to the Scriptures. I could no longer read French and German novels, as I had formerly done, to feed my carnal mind, but still I did not replace those books with the best of all books. I read tracts, missionary papers, sermons and biographies of godly persons. This last kind of book I found more profitable than others, and had they been well selected, or had I not read too much of these writings, or had any of them tended particularly to endear the Scriptures to me, they might have done me much good. 

I never had been at any time in my life in the habit of reading the Holy Scriptures. When under fifteen years of age, I occasionally read a little of them at school; afterward God's precious Book was entirely laid aside, so that I never read one single chapter of it, as far as I remember, until it pleased God to begin a work of grace in my heart.

Now the scriptural way of reasoning would have been: God Himself has condescended to become an author, and I am ignorant about His precious book, which His Holy Spirit has caused to be written though the instrumentality of His servants. It contains what I ought to know, and the knowledge which will lead me to true happiness; therefore, I ought to read again and again this most precious Book, this Book of books, most earnestly, most prayerfully, and with much meditation. In this practice I ought to continue all the days of my life.

I was aware, though I had read the Bible but little, that I knew scarcely anything of it.  But instead of acting thus, and being led by my ignorance of the Word of God to study it more, my difficulty in understanding it and the little enjoyment I had in it made me careless in reading it (for much prayerful reading of the Word not merely gives more knowledge, but also increases the delight we have in reading it); and thus, like many believers, I practically preferred, for the first four years of my new life in Christ, the works of uninspired men to the oracles of the living God.

The consequence was that I remained a babe, both in knowledge and in grace. I say in knowledge because all true knowledge must be derived by the Spirit, from the Word. And since I neglected the Word, I was for nearly four years so ignorant that I did not clearly know even the fundamental points of of our holy faith.

This lack of knowledge most sadly kept me back from walking steadily in the ways of God. For it is the truth that makes us free (John 8:32), by delivering us from the slavery of "all that is in the world; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life" (1 John 2:16). The Word proves it; the experience of the saints proves it; and my own experience also most decidedly proves it. For when it pleased the Lord in August 1829 to bring me to the Scriptures, my life and walk became very different. And though even since that time I have very much fallen short of what I might and ought to be (see Romans 3:23), yet, by the grace of God, I have been enabled to live much nearer to Him than before.

If any believers read these words who prefer other books to the Holy Scriptures, and who enjoy the writings of men much more than the Word of God, may they be warned by my loss. I will consider this book to have been the means of doing much good, if it pleases the Lord through its instrumentality to lead some of His people no longer to neglect the Holy Scriptures, but to give them that preference that they have hitherto given to the writings of men.

My dislike of increasing the number of books available to readers would have been sufficient to deter me from writing these pages if I had not been convinced that this is the only way in which others may be benefited from my mistakes and errors. I was influence by hope that, in answer to my prayers, the reading of my experience may be the means of leading them to value the Scriptures more highly and to make them the standard and guide of all their actions. 

If anyone should ask me how he may read the Scriptures profitably, I would advise Him that above all he should seek to have it settled in his own mind that God alone, by His Spirit, can teach him. Also, since he will be asking God for blessings, it is a beneficial idea to seek God's blessing before reading the Word, as well as during the reading of Scripture.

Moreover, he should have settled in his mind that, although the Holy Spirit is the best and sufficient teacher, this Teacher does not always teach immediately when we desire it, and that, therefore, we may have to ask Him again and again for the explanation of certain passages. But He will surely teach us at last, if indeed we are seeking for light prayerfully, patiently, and with a view to the glory of God.

Also, it is of immense importance for the understanding of the Word of God to read it systematically, so that every day we may read a portion of the Old and a portion of the New Testament, going on where we previously left off. The reasons to read the Bible in a systematic way are as follows:

This method is important because it throws light upon the connection between the Old and the New Testaments; a different method, where one habitually selects favorite chapters, will make it utterly impossible ever to understand much of the Scriptures.

Second, while we are in the body, we need a change, even in spiritual things; and this change the Lord has graciously provided in the great variety that is to be found in His Word.

Third, an orderly reading of the Word honors the glory of God. The leaving out of some chapters here and there is practically saying that certain portions are better than others, or that there are certain parts of revealed truth that are unprofitable or unnecessary.

Next, it may keep us, by the blessing of God, from erroneous views, since in reading regularly through the Scriptures we are led to see the meaning of the whole. We are also kept from placing too much stress upon certain favorite views. 

Fifth, the Scriptures contain the whole revealed will of God; therefore, we ought to seek to read from time to time though the whole of that revealed will. I fear that many believers in our day have no read even once through the whole Scriptures; yet in a few months, by reading only a few chapters every day, they might accomplish it.

It is also of the greatest importance to meditate on what we read, so that perhaps a small portion, or, if we have time, the whole, may be meditated upon in the course of the day. Or a single portion of the book, or an epistle, or a gospel, through which we go regularly for meditation., may be considered every day, without causing one to be brought into bondage by this plan.

I have found scholarly commentaries to store the head with many notions and often also with the truth of God; but when the Spirit teaches, through the instrumentality of prayer and meditation, the heart is affected. The former kind of knowledge generally puffs up (1 Cor 8:1), and is often renounced when another commentary gives a different opinion. It is often also found good for nothing, when it is to be carried out in practice. The latter kind of knowledge generally humbles, gives joy, leads us nearer to God, and is not easily reasoned away. Having been obtained from God, and thus having entered into our hearts, it becomes our own and is also generally carried out.

***

I am guilty of loving Christian biography and preferring it to Scripture. I am guilty of loving head-knowledge (sermons, teachings) and preferring them to Scripture.

I believe I have my own life evidence that attests to the truth of Mueller's words (and the truth of Scripture). During grade twelve I read my bible voraciously, reading the New Testament every morning and the Old Testament each night. I can barely even remember what it was like to have such stamina. My commitment to reading Scripture since then has been abysmal. Yet I believe that year spent deeply soaking in the Word of God was orchestrated and used by God to give me an everlasting acquaintance with His Spirit. Being taught directly by His Spirit was what invited me to truly know Him and that foundational time of truly knowing Him is what makes it possible for me to know Him now. 

I sincerely hope that He will once again draw me, by faith, into deep reading of His Word. Please pray for a commitment to God's Word such as George Mueller described - for myself, for yourselves, and for all who truly desire to know and love Jesus Christ. 

... all this is not to say that you shouldn't read Christian biographies. Read them (Brothers, Read Christian Biography)! Just be watchful that your primary attention is to God's Word.

Read This

A blog that I think would be beneficial for you to know about and to read. 
Steve Fuller's Living By Faith Blog. 

The Sentence of Death in Ourselves

Read this entire thing seriously. Not just the highlighted part. Think before God about it. 

For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia: that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us, you also helping together in prayer for us, that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the gift granted to us through many (2 Corinthians 1:8-11). 

We may just end up doing a little trek through 2 Corinthians.

SO MANY THINGS TO PONDER!!!