March 31, 2011

• “your heart is not right in the sight of God” – May I not waste God’s loving discipline

    
  “Luther says he never undertook fresh work, but that he was either visited with a fit of sickness, or some strong temptation. Prayer, meditation, and temptation are necessary accomplishments for every minister. May I follow him, as he did Christ.”
  

  –George Whitefield on Martin Luther, “George Whitefield’s Journals,” Sunday, Sept. 23, 1739, p. 335

  In the last few weeks I’ve been struggling as I’ve seen God uncovering the thoughts and intents of my heart, specifically His showing me my mixed motives for ministry as I’ve been trying to move forward in the opportunity God’s given to me in women’s ministry at our church (please see my last post here for more on that).

  For example:

  • my great love affair with self in contrast to my lack of love for others and for Christ

  • my sinful propensity toward envy and jealousy in ministry

  • my sinful desire for success (though there is a pure and Godly desire for success in ministry, this particular desire is impure and ungodly because it has been revolving around my fear of failing again, and it has caused me to doubt/shrink back)

  These are all things I’ve battled previously (and I realize they’re all really interrelated). But once again I must put on the whole armor of God and be intentional and make war on these sins.

  As John Owen said:

  “Be killing sin or it will be killing you.”

  There is no right moving forward with an evil heart, or a divided heart.

  Jeremiah 7:23  But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ 24  But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward.
  
  
  I’ve been foolish and have hewn and been drinking of the broken cisterns, and I’ve not been happy at all.

  When the heart is not right, we do not drink rightly. When we do not drink rightly, the heart is not right. Either way, we end up not happy. I want to be happy.  I am a Christian hedonist. There is no true joy at all apart from finding my joy in Christ. (All right, if you’re more comfortable with using the more sanctified-sounding words joyful or blessed in place of happy, you are welcome to do so.)

  The only true happiness comes when we drink of the Living Water, as George Whitefield wrote (Monday, Sept. 22, 1740, p. 461):

  “I drank of God’s pleasure as out of a river. Oh that all were made partakers of this living water, they would never thirst after the sensual pleasures of this world.”

  If I am drinking rightly, I will not drink from the well of selfishness but from the well of selflessness.
  
  If I am drinking rightly, I will not drink from the well of covetousness but from the well of contentment.
  
  If I am drinking rightly, I will not drink from the well of fear but from the well of faith.

  I felt somewhat like Whitefield did as he spoke about “sinning against so much light and love” (p. 334) for I have seen so much of God’s light and God’s love, therefore my sin seems all the more grievous and dark and despicable to me! I have drunk the Living Water and His joy, and yet here I was going back once again to drink from broken cisterns and stagnant water which only lead to heaviness and death.

  Saturday, September 22 [1739]. Underwent inexpressible agonies of soul for two or three days, at the remembrance of my sins, and the bitter consequences of them. All the while I was assured God has forgiven me; but I could not forgive myself for sinning against so much light and love. I felt something for that which Adam felt when turned out of Paradise; David, when he was convicted of adultery; and Peter, when with oaths and curses he had thrice denied his Master. At length, my Lord looked upon me, and with that look broke my rocky heart, and I wept bitterly. When in this condition, I wondered not at Peter’s running so slowly to the sepulchre, when loaded with the sense of his sin. Were I always to see myself such a sinner as I am, and as I did then, without seeing the Saviour of sinners, I should not be able to look up.

  This has all been building up in many ways, but this morning God’s sovereign mercies poured down from heaven on the dry ground of my heart as my Lord looked upon me as I was lying in bed. These words from Acts 8 (NKJV) came like a hammer smashing my deceitful, divided, hard and evil heart:

  your heart is not right in the sight of God

  Last night, not very long after I’d come to the point where I was saying, “I don’t even know what to pray,” I opened up Whitefield’s Journals and found these words of Whitefield, which mirrored that same sentiment (he wrote these on a prolonged ship’s journey across the Atlantic (Saturday, October 7, 1738, p. 168)):

  “But Lord, I know not what to pray for as I ought. Do with me as seemeth good in Thy sight.”

  Amen. Thanks be to our good and gracious God, who does for us what we don’t even know we need and does for us what we don’t even know how to ask!

  Surely He has done what seemed good in His sight, and what is good in His sight is always for our good. The chastening and discipline of the Lord is for His glory and is always for our good and our blessing.

  Now my prayer is that God will continue and complete the work He has begun in my heart…

  Job 5:17 Behold, blessed is the one whom God reproves;
  therefore despise not the discipline of the Almighty.

  18 For he wounds, but he binds up;
  he shatters, but his hands heal.

  Psalm 119
  33  Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes;
  and I will keep it to the end.
  34  Give me understanding, that I may keep your law
  and observe it with MY WHOLE HEART.
  35  Lead me in the path of your commandments,
  for I delight in it.
  36  INCLINE MY HEART TO YOUR TESTIMONIES
  AND NOT TO SELFISH GAIN!
  37  TURN MY EYES FROM LOOKING AT WORTHLESS THINGS;
  AND GIVE ME LIFE IN YOUR WAYS
  38  Confirm to your servant your promise,
  that you may be feared.
  39  Turn away the reproach that I dread,
  for your rules are good.
  40  Behold, I long for your precepts;
  in your righteousness give me life!

  Be THOU my vision . . .
  So long as self is my vision, I will not be happy.
  When You are my vision, I will be happy.

  * * *

  For the time being, I have to let God prepare the soil of my own heart before continuing on with any preparations for ministry work at our church.

  For those who are led to do so, I would appreciate your prayers for joy and patience for me at this time so God’s workings through this time of testing might accomplish His purpose, and so I might not be deceived and tell myself “Peace, peace!” or quickly daub the wall of my sinful heart with untempered mortar. May I not waste God’s loving discipline!

  James 1:2  Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3  for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4  And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

  ---

  Related:

  His sweetness in the great fish | update 3/16/2011
  on pilgrimage in the local church | update/prayer requests 3/21/2011
  My love affair . . . whose trumpet, whose glory & incomplete joy
  Lenten Reflections: Climbing (the minister’s descent)
  sin’s cold deception, my Father’s warm reception
  Are you keeping calm & carrying on? Do you react or respond? ~ Isaiah 7:1-9

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