Brown's Daily Word: Brown's Daily Word 3-21-12

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Brown's Daily Word 3-21-12

Good morning,

Praise to be Jesus our Lord, the author of Life and Resurrection. Praise the Lord for this day so that we can do life afresh and anew as we trust the Lord for His fresh Grace. Praise the Lord that we can do life under His authority and promises.

We will meet for our mid-week gathering at 6:30 PM with a very special meal. We will be studying from the Book of John. It will be a summer-like day today. Thank you Jesus.

John 11 contains the well-known story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. We also find here the last of the seven miracles (or “signs” as John calls them) which structure this book.

One ill effect of an evil heart is to naturally assume that my will should be the axis around which the universe turns. This perspective often reveals itself by how much the affairs of life control our feelings. When events please us, we believe God is good and his love safe and solid. When circumstances go awry, we wonder that God’s love is so fickle and frail. Such attitudes betray a most basic form of idolatry. We look at life’s problems and assume they reveal the nature and character of God.

William Cowper struggled with depression much of his life. This led him to meditate frequently on God’s love and goodness in the midst of pain and suffering (he called this God’s frowning providence). One fruit of his anguish was the hymn, "God Moves in a Mysterious Way". He wrote, “Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take, the clouds ye so much dread, are big with mercy, and shall break in blessings on your head. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace; behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding ev’ry hour; the bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flow’r.”
Today, we may perceive a frowning providence, but tomorrow a smiling face. Psalm 30:5b: “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” God’s unfolding flower of providence will one day reveal blessings unimaginably sweet for his people.
As I grow older I am more and more convinced that our attitude towards our troubles drastically affects the outcome. We find it easy to nurse poor attitudes until they infiltrate every pore of our lives. Rather than trust God and count trials as opportunities to grow in grace and faith, our attitudes drive us to self-pity, self-absorption, self-trust, fear, and defensiveness.
The Bible clearly teaches that God delights to glorify himself. That truth is the only rock that holds firm when storms of suffering slam against us. This truth comes to light in John 11, in the person of Jesus Christ. Pain, suffering, and the death of dear friends, the miseries of a fallen world, combine to cast doubt on God’s love. Jesus steps into our world to show us both the power and the purposes of God and to deliver us from errors and attitudes which threaten hope and joy. John 11:3: So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” John 11:5: "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus." John 11:36: "So the Jews said, 'See how he loved him!'”
After singing, “Oh, How I Love Jesus,” Philip Bliss commented, “Those words are true. Yet I feel guilty for having sung so much about my poor love for Christ and so little about his endless love for me.” So he wrote a hymn with these words: “I am so glad that our father in heaven/Tells of his love in the book he has given;/Wonderful things in the Bible I see/This is the dearest, that Jesus loves me.”
We must be reminded of God’s love because of circumstances which argue against that love. Notice how Mary and Martha describe the need to Jesus need: “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” When Jesus lets friends die, you may doubt his love. So, John reminds us: Jesus loved Martha, he loved Mary, he loved Lazarus. I When we are Him, and have been born-again of his Spirit, then we are loved eternally... Yes, I love Jesus, but my soul needs a greater anchor, a more glorious truth: Jesus loves me. God’s love must not be defined by our health, comfort, or safety. God loved Lazarus but it is still true that Lazarus got sick and died. God loved Martha and Mary, but Martha and Mary wept and mourned. God loved his disciples, though He led them to the place of stoning.

Throughout church history Christians have mistakenly assumed that God’s love is best experienced in health, wealth, and prosperity. John Newton, known for writing, "Amazing Grace", also wrote a poem to capture the difficulty of God’s love:

I asked the Lord that I might grow
In faith, and love, and every grace;
Might more of His salvation know,
And seek, more earnestly, His face.

’Twas He who taught me thus to pray,
And He, I trust, has answered prayer!
But it has been in such a way,
As almost drove me to despair.

I hoped that in some favored hour,
At once He’d answer my request;
And by His love’s constraining pow’r,
Subdue my sins, and give me rest.

Instead of this, He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart;
And let the angry pow’rs of hell
Assault my soul in every part.

Yea more, with His own hand He seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe;
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.

“Lord, why is this,” I trembling cried,
“Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death?”
“’Tis in this way,” the Lord replied,
“I answer prayer for grace and faith.
“These inward trials I employ,
“From self, and pride, to set thee free;
“And break thy schemes of earthly joy,
“That thou may’st find thy all in Me.”

Martha and Mary discovered this truth; so did Lazarus and the disciples. We too must travel through the difficulty of God’s love before we know its joy.