church

  • update and prayer requests: 6/29/2011

     
    As I’ve written previously (see here and here), I’ve landed in Psalm 84 (my references here are to the NKJV, I know the phrasing in other versions is a bit different) and have been trying to prepare some lessons from that for a women’s group at our church, but it’s been going a bit slowly. For one reason, almost every day, I keep finding more that applies to the Psalm since it deals with such large themes in the Christian life. I’m really only through the first four verses (more or less), and though the pace has been a bit frustrating at times, I am absolutely loving digging into the Psalm!

    I keep saying I could pretty much answer anyone’s concerns about the Christian life from this Psalm. Well, perhaps not quite, but these twelve verses of Scripture do cover a pretty wide range of territory and touch on some really meaty themes.

    Off my head, here’s a little summary…

    First off, an overview of the whole Psalm – the Christian life as pilgrimage. This is key. As soon as we miss this, we may as well say we’ve not really begun and we’re going to fall. We’ve got to keep our heart on pilgrimage (v. 5) and our eyes fixed on Jesus and on things above, like the men and women of faith in Hebrews 11. We’re not going to finish with the race with joy if we’re not looking at the big picture and looking to the final destination. And so, Lesson 1: The Christian Life as a Pilgrimage.

    And then in verse 1 we read the Psalmist proclaiming the LOVELINESS of God’s tabernacles and then moves into the courts of the LORD and finally the psalmist Himself says his heart and flesh are crying out for the living God. In other words, the psalmist has come to see God Himself as altogether lovely. Lesson 2: The LOVELINESS of Christ. Do we see God in the ways the Psalmist does? Do we have that overriding passion to be with Him? Do we know a sense of God’s loveliness, like the Shulamite woman in the Song of Solomon, or like Jonathan Edwards described: we can know the concept that honey is sweet, but have we TASTED it – to know it IS sweet indeed?!

    Then we have the Psalmist referring to God at the end of verse 2 as the LIVING GOD. How many years of being a Christian did I really have any sense of “the LIFE of God in the soul of man” (using Henry Scougal’s words there, his book with the same title)? A whole host of things on what it means our God is a living God, e.g. – our relationship to Him, our communion with Him, His desire to communicate to us, His life in us to help us to live sanctified lives, to be holy as He is holy, etc. That’s Lesson 3: The LIVING God.

    As you know, I love books and one set of books I’ve stumbled onto (thank you, google books) is Joseph Addison Alexander‘s Psalms Translated and Explained (Vol. 1 (Ps 1-50), Vol. 2 (Ps 51-99), Vol. 3 (Ps 101-150) This is not really a commentary but an amplification of the Hebrew, and I’ve loved reading through Alexander on just a few of the Psalms. I don’t know about you, but when I read there are always a few choice words, phrases or sentences that keep at you, things that just won’t leave you alone and you carry with you. For me, there are Alexander’s words about the living God (re: Psalm 84:2 – “My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.”): “The Living God, really existing, and the giver of life to others.” Really existing! Do we live our lives like He’s really existing? How do our churches show He’s really existing? Do we understand He alone is the giver of life to others? What are we doing with the life He’s given us? And so on.

    Then verses 3 and 4 of Psalm 84 teach us of the full assurance of our salvation in Jesus Christ and the ongoing rest available to us as Christians, something I keep seeing people missing out on. We see there the wonderful picture of the sparrow finding a home and the swallow a nest. O, by grace through faith, if we are Christ’s, we are already safe in the nest, we have found that home in the bosom of the Beloved! This is the lesson I’ve been working on lately: our peace with God – our justification, no fear in judgment, no condemnation in Christ, our standing as accepted in the Beloved, and then our ongoing peace in Christ – assurance of our sanctification and our trust in His sovereignty at all times and in all circumstances ~ Philippians 4, that nothing can separate us from His love (end of Romans 8), the joy and peace the God of hope wants us to have in believing. Also, that picture of the swallow laying her young in the nest reflects the assurance that we can cast our cares on God, for He cares for us, and so all our requests, all our “young,” we can trust Him with absolutely each and every one of them. As we find that Sabbath Rest in Jesus Christ, and as we rest in that rest, in His yoke, how can we not be blessed and praising our God (v. 4)! God doesn’t want His children to be miserable, He wants us to be blessed with such assurance, and then as we are blessed we will praise Him! Our blessing is for His blessing and the blessing of others. So, that would be a couple lessons on the God of REST and PEACE.

    I struggled with assurance years after I was saved, as I came to see my total depravity and was plagued by my sins, guilt and failures. No, I didn’t think I would lose my salvation, but I had no real and true sense of Christ’s peace or rest as I kept churning around my sins and failures over and over and over again. That’s one reason I’ve written so much about assurance & fighting for joy on my other site. The other reason, as I already alluded to, is that I keep finding people who are struggling with having a settled assurance of God’s love, and, as a result, they lack any sense of His peace and rest. So the topic continues to hit home with me over and over again.

    That’s about as far as I’ve gotten in my preparations, though I’ve been dipping ahead into the following verses about God as our strength, and going from strength to strength, verses I’ve loved for a while now.

    As far as the study and the preparations are concerned, I’d appreciate your prayers for focus, since I’ve usually got a lot of thoughts in my head constantly about a lot of things! Our elders have been absolutely lovely about it, and our pastor so encouraging; I spoke with him a little over a week ago. I have three outlines pretty done and am almost finished with the fourth. And then we’ll see how it all unfolds. Please pray for God to put it into the heart of the women whom He is calling to delve into the living reality of Christ to come to the study. And, as always happens, when you do preparation like this, you are more blessed than you can imagine you would be, which is the case with me, in spite of the frustrations, the slow pace and so forth. I feel it a great blessing and privilege to know God and then to be able to study His Word and be allowed to speak of Him and write of Him is icing on the cake, so to speak!

    * * *

    In addition to the Bible, I always have a small passel of books I’m dipping into. (Small passel – oxymoron, right? ;) )

    I’ve read through Daniel Webber’s “William Carey and the Missionary Journey” (Banner of Truth Trust) a couple times. (I posted it on it recently on my other site here.) It’s a short book (116 pages), so that’s not saying very much that I read it through a couple times.

    As I mentioned those words of Alexander that have remained with me, there were some things that Webber wrote about Carey that also continue to stick with me in my heart. Carey had a great God-given passion for missions, which was pretty much non-existent in the evangelical churches of the day, due to hyper-Calvinism.

    Here’s the account Webber gives of a minister’s meeting in Northampton (England) in 1786 (p. 15);

    Carey suggested the following motion:

    Whether the command given to the apostles to teach all nations was not obligatory on all succeeding ministers to the end of the world, seeing that the accompanying promise was of equal extent.

    The reply from the older man came like a thunderbolt:

    Young man, sit down: when God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without your aid or mine.

    At least, this is how the matter was later reported by Mr Morris, minister of Clipstone, who was present at the meeting. This incident serves to provide some ideas of the immense difficulties facing Carey even within his own constituency. The hyper-Calvinism of the day was more than capable of turning the sovereignty of God into a pretext for doing nothing.

    And then Webber continues to describe Carey, the “passionate advocate of world mission”:

    Discouraged but not dissuaded, Carey embarked upon the task of educating all with whom he came into contact about the great need for missions. He preached about it to his little flock and echoes of the same concern were to be found in his public prayers. At several ministers’ meetings between 1787 and 1790 this was his chief topic of conversation. Some of the older men in particular thought his was a wild and impracticable scheme, but he continued undaunted.

    And later (p. 45) Webber adds that

    At times it must have seemed to him [Carey] that he was the only one interested in the evangelism of the lost nations of the world. Yet the indifference of others around him did not stop Carey from seeking to rouse the apathetic, nor hinder him from being prepared to go himself.

    The portions I continue to come back to are “discouraged but not dissuaded,” “preached about it to his little flock,” “the indifference of others around him did not stop Carey from seeking to rouse the apathetic,” and “a wild and impracticable scheme, but he continued undaunted.”

    I run into discouragement regularly, it’s one of my worst enemies – and I’ll add it’s mostly discouragement from my own flesh, and yet I’m not dissuaded or daunted in the end. I keep coming back. I know that’s by the grace of God alone. I would have quit long ago, but by God’s mercies to me. As Lloyd-Jones once said, “I would have been dead long ago if I had depended upon men for encouragement.” That’s exactly it! Though other people can be an encouragement to us at times, our ultimate sustenance comes from God alone. We’ve got to go back to The Vine.

    I’m no pastor, and I don’t preach in that sense, but I’m part of a little flock of people God has brought together who have a passion to see the Church revived and return to reclaim her birthright as children of God. Therefore, whomever God gives ears to hear or or eyes to read, Lord willing and by His strengthening, I’ll keep speaking and writing. The concept that God might bring something good out of this Nazareth, this blogging community is certainly a wild and impracticable scheme, wouldn’t you say? But isn’t that just how God operates – delighting to use the foolish, weak and base things of the world time and time again to spark revival in the Church, all so He alone might receive all the praise, honor and glory! Hallelujah! He reigns. Our God is in the heavens. He does all He pleases!

    I’m no William Carey by any means, and at this point I have no calling to world missions directly, but rather in some sense to rouse the apathetic in the lukewarm Church to the reality of that lovely and living God I described above, to help others begin to see the all-surpassing excellencies of Christ. On my other blog and in my conversations with people, I keep speaking about the abundant life Christ wants us to have. I do this because when you begin to get a taste of the loveliness and life of God, just a drop of that Living Water or a morsel of the True Bread, you won’t remain the same, and you can’t remain apathetic about God’s glory and God’s Gospel and the condition of God’s Church and world missions. I’ve come to see this living reality of Jesus Christ as true wellspring of evangelism. A revived Church will want to give out God’s Word. They won’t have to be manipulated by men to go out or have to be put on a guilt trip to evangelize, the Spirit will do His work in God’s people and give them the overwhelming desire to make Christ known as they come to know Him as their all-satisfying portion and great reward. This has been part of my journey over the past few years. I was seeking assurance of forgiveness because I was absolutely miserable and ineffective and paralyzed in so many ways. Little did I know where that journey would lead! Now I am seeking revival in the Church. I had no real interest in it, though I knew there was something not right about the Church, but didn’t have the right way to understand it, so I started dabbling in emergent/missional theology, but then, thank God, I landed straight into Reformed doctrine, primarily through Lloyd-Jones’ commentary on First John “Life in Christ.” I had no real interest in evangelism or world mission, and now I’m finally beginning to. Yes, I confess just beginning. But, as Jesus said in John 7, if we are thirsty and we come to Him and drink of Him, the streams will flow. As you begin to know, to experientially know, that loveliness and life of God, you can’t help but want others to know of it – of Him – the God who is altogether lovely, the living God! Come and see! Taste and see the Lord is good! The Spirit and the bride say, “Come, all who are thirsty!”

    For those of you who don’t know, besides my naphtali_deer site, I have a site devoted to revival prayer, tent_of_meeting. If you are burdened over the condition of the Church today, I invite you to visit there. I don’t post there as much as I used to, but I still do on occasion. God’s means of reviving the Church have always been through prayer and the ministry of the Word. (You can read more about my passion, vision and holy ambition here, here, here and here.)

    Thank you for reading and for your friendship and prayers. My desire is that God might use my words to encourage those of you who are Christians and spur you on to serve in the Body of Christ, and particularly in your local congregation, or in missions, wherever God may be leading you. If there’s any way I can assist you, please comment below and/or message me.

    Yours in Christ’s love, for His glory in the Church,
    Karen

    Habakkuk 2:14.

  • “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

  • on pilgrimage in the local church | update/prayer requests 3/21/2011

    As part of my mission statement for deerlife, I had written the following (a synthesis of my very first post here plus what I wrote about deerlife on my other site here)…

    Through deerlife, I pray God might raise up a fellowship of believers here who can support, uphold and encourage one another, so we can be mobilized and sent back into our home churches and communities on mission for Him. I am praying that those of us who have had a taste of revival in our own lives would be able to take that into our churches. I know there are some of us who are specifically called to this blogging community, but all of us are called to build on the home front as well.

    I am also praying God would begin to raise up people in the local church to disciple and equip the saints both now and as revival does come, for there will be an influx of hungry souls needing meat. We should all be praying about our responsibility and role in that.

    I love the Church and want to see her glorify God as she is intended and that starts with each one of us! I am a strong advocate of every member ministry. As Christians, we are all ministers, we are all uniquely called and equipped by God to be serving Him, His people and our neighbor in love with the gifts and resources He provides for His glory. I am praying God would be gracious to us and allow us to encourage one another to live our lives to His glory in the places He has put us here on this earth.

    In the Church today the work is great and the work is widely spread. It is also crucial for us to come together because the world is united in opposition against Christ and against those who are seeking to do His will and seeking the welfare of His Church. We are separated on the wall, far from one another in many ways. I am praying God might be gracious to us here and work through Deerlife to equip, encouragement, edify His people as we seek to walk in the works God has ordained for us and build up His Body for His glory.

    In my communications with all believers, I am always continuing to encourage them to go into their own churches to actively serve…

    So, here I am now, being sent into my own church to actively serve… to practice what I have been preaching.

    I’ve written previously about the opportunity God was opening up in women’s ministry in our church (see the end of this post) and now that door is opening wider and the way seems to be coming clearer.

    I recently had a wonderful meeting with our church’s elders. (Thank you to those who had prayed!) I am especially thankful for their love for the Lord and His Word and that all of them take seriously the charge to guard the deposit of the Gospel and to be overseers of the flock of God purchased with the precious blood of Christ.

    I took an outline along with me that night, which I’ve fleshed out more here for you…

    Christianity – religion of the SOUL.

    Henry Scougal defined Christianity “the LIFE of God in the SOUL of man.”

    There is a great distinction between our knowing about God in general terms, with our understanding of the Christian doctrines as notion – as opposed to our intimately and experientially knowing God’s person, character and work directly for and in our own souls, Christianity then becoming more than notion (using Joseph Hart’s phrase – see the later part of this post), with the Biblical doctrines coming to be written on the heart by the Holy Spirit, producing burning hearts…

    Psalm 66:5 Come and see the works of God;
    He is awesome in His deeds toward THE CHILDREN OF MAN.

    Psalm 66:16 and hear, all you who fear God,
    and I will declare what He has done FOR MY SOUL.

    As I’ve written previously, using Whitefield’s words, my deep desire is that God would raise up “sweet knots of religious friends” throughout the Church, including in my own congregation.

    In his book “The Experience Meeting,” William Williams, an 18th century Welsh Calvinistic Methodist, describes the types of meetings that were being held during The Great Awakening in both Wales and England. In the Introduction to the book, Martyn Lloyd-Jones (who was instrumental in having the book translated into English, with the translation done by his wife Bethan) explains that in both Wales and England

    independently of each other, the leaders were led to gather together the converts into little groups or societies for further teaching and nurturing in the Faith. These men of God had a great concern for the souls of the people, and realising that the parish churches were so spiritually dead that they could provide neither the fellowship nor the teaching that was necessary for these raw converts, they developed the idea of ‘religious societies’ where such people could meet together regularly every week.

    The object of the societies was primarily to provide a fellowship in which the new spiritual life and experience of the people could be safeguarded and developed. The great emphasis was primarily on experience, and the experimental knowledge of God and His love and His ways. Each member gave an account of God’s dealings with him or her, and reported on any remarkable experience, and also their sins and lapses, and so doing compared notes with one another in these respects. The societies were not ‘bible study’ groups or meetings for the discussion of theology. Of course great stress was laid on reading the Bible as well as prayer, but the more intellectual aspects of the Faith were dealt with in the preaching services and not in the societies. Here, the emphasis was on daily life and living, the fight against the world, the flesh and the devil, and the problems in the Christian’s pilgrimage through this world of sin.

    Many of us know the book of Malachi for its exhortation to bring the tithe into the storehouse, but there’s a wonderful passage later in that third chapter which Williams used in his book (p. 17), a verse you may not have ever really noticed (I know I hadn’t).

    Malachi 3:16 Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. 17 And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. (KJV)

    I love this! Consider that as those who fear the LORD come together to speak to one another and meditate on His name, the LORD listens and hears us and a book of remembrance is written! Let us not minimize the pleasure God takes in our meeting together to speak of His life in our souls! He treasures such times as He treasures us!

    As it has today, much of Christianity in the 18th century had become lifeless, very similar to Jesus’ description here:

    John 5:39 You search the Scriptures because you THINK that in THEM you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness ABOUT ME, yet YOU REFUSE TO COME TO ME that you may HAVE LIFE.

    And Jeremiah’s words:

    Jeremiah 2:11 “Has a nation changed its gods,
    Which are not gods?
    But My people have changed their Glory
    For that which does not profit.
    12  Be astonished, O heavens, at this;
    And be horribly afraid;
    Be very desolate,” says the LORD,.
    13  “For My people have committed two evils:
    They have forsaken ME,
    THE FOUNTAIN OF LIVING WATERS,
    And hewn themselves cisterns ––
    broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

    Our great need is to come to Christ and drink!

    John 7:37  On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him COME TO ME AND DRINK. 38  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39  Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

    The devil works to distract us from this drinking! We get busy, busy, busy, doing, doing, doing – doing any and every thing else BUT drinking!

    Belief = Coming = Drinking

    Psalm 87:7 ALL my springs are in YOU.


    Isaiah 48:1-2 Hear this, O house of Jacob, Who are called by the name of israel, And have come forth from the WELLSPRINGS OF JUDAH…

    If you’ve been reading over at naphtali_deer (especially my posts tagged hunger and thirst and experiential Christianity), you’ll know this is a passion of mine. It is a passion of mine because I wandered around as a pilgrim for years and I wasn’t drinking! I had no understanding of the life of God in the soul of man, no understanding of the need to drink the Living Water. Yes, I was saved. Yes, I knew about the Holy Spirit, but I didn’t understand my desperate plight. I didn’t understand the vital need of the Holy Spirit. I didn’t understand that apart from drinking that Living Water, I could do nothing. I didn’t see myself as poor and needy. I didn’t see myself as a wretch. Oh, yes, I was doing things, I wasn’t that bad a person, but most all of that was in my own strength and my own flesh and not in the Spirit.

    And then a few years ago, God brought me to the end of myself, caused me to face my total depravity, to fail and fall flat on my face and fail (and He’s continued to do it again and again!). Thank God for His merciful kindness that leads us into those dark and dry and desert places, into that Valley of Humiliation, because those are the places we finally come to our senses and cry out to Him, “I thirst! I thirst! There is no other I desire but You! Pour down upon me I am thirsty! There is no Living Water to be found anywhere in the world, but only in You, O Lord! You are my portion!” Those are the times we begin to know the life of God in our souls!

    Job 5:17 (KJV) Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty!

    Much of what is called Christianity today has very little to do with the souls of men.

    THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SOUL  (I did a quick look through Scripture – not an all-inclusive list by any means)

    Ezekiel 18: The soul who sins shall die.
    Psalm 116 Our souls have been saved from death by faith in Christ
    I Peter 1:18-19 our souls redeemed w/ the precious blood of Christ
    I Peter 1:9, 2:7 We should be seeking/looking to the salvation of our souls
    I Peter 2:25 Christ is the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls, should we not be concerned about the state of our own souls as well as the souls of others?
    Psalm 103, Isaiah 43 Our souls are created to bless/glorify the Lord

    THE SOUL’S JOURNEY

    Psalm 84 – As Christians we are on pilgrimage in the fallen world – the Valley of Baca – the weeping, thirsty valley – there’s weeping and thirst because of the fall, because of sin coming into the world. Where do we find water/life/joy/sustenance/strength for the journey?

    Are we longing, fainting, crying out for the living God?
    Are we seeking to find our strength in Him?
    Are our hearts set on pilgrimage?
    Are we going from strength to strength? (Without Him we can do nothing)
    Do we drink of Him so we might have joy and comfort and strength for our own souls and be able to impart those gifts to others?

    Psalm 4 – The world is looking for water… Who will show us anything good? All the world’s supplies are eventually going to come up empty. The gladness in our hearts will be more than their corn and wine, and will serve as a testimony. As we drink of the Living Water, we will show Christ’s sufficiency to quench thirst and satisfy, and we will have supplies to give out the thirsty and weeping world.

    Jeremiah 50:4  “In those days and in that time, declares the LORD, the people of Israel and the people of Judah shall come together, weeping as they come, and they shall SEEK THE LORD THEIR GOD. 5  They shall ask the way to Zion, with faces turned toward it, saying, ‘Come, let us join ourselves to the LORD in an everlasting covenant that will never be forgotten.’  (see Samuel Rutherford’s “The Deliverance of the Kirk of God” - a similar movement of home meetings had been occurring in the 17th century).


    THE SOUL’S SUSTENANCE

    1. Each one coming INDIVIDUALLY Christ to eat and drink of Him – to gain strength and to go from strength to strength (e.g.- John 4-6, Psalm 27, 63, Psalms 42-43, Psalm 1), otherwise we WILL wither.

    2. Coming together in FELLOWSHIP in the Body of Christ to encourage and exhort one another w/ the Word of God – so we might go from strength to strength

    Hebrews 10:23-25 hold fast the confession of OUR faith w/ out wavering, let US consider one another in order to stir up love & good works, not forsaking the ASSEMBLING of OURSELVES together, exhorting ONE ANOTHER, so much as we see the Day approaching.

    Romans 15:14 full of goodness, filled w/ all knowledge, able to admonish ONE ANOTHER

    Colossians 3:16 let the Word of God dwell in you richly, teaching, admonishing, singing…

    Ephesians 5:15-21 Be filled w/ the Spirit, SPEAK to ONE ANOTHER… It is FOOLISH if we do not. We are WISE when we do use our time in this way.

    Hebrews 3:12-15 Exhort ONE ANOTHER daily so we will not be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

    Hebrews 12:12-17 strengthen, make straight, look diligently

    Philemon 1:7, 20 MUTUAL REFRESHMENT

    3. Reviewing CHRISTIAN HISTORY

    Hebrews 11-12:1-2 Look to the cloud of witnesses (past and present). In the Bible itself as well as throughout Church history. I talked for some time about my love of Christian biography and the impact it’s had on me. (See my tags Church history and biography here on deerlife and bio and Church history on my other site.)

    I Corinthians 10, Romans 15:4 These things are written for our example & learning – so we would not be ignorant, not forget God and become idolaters, tempt Christ and fall.

    THE SOUL’S BATTLES (again, not an all-inclusive list)

    Luke 21 must endure to possess our souls
    Hebrews 11:16 to look to the heavenly country, not to settle for the lesser earthly country
    temptation to gain the world and lose our souls
    I Peter 2:11 fleshly lusts war against the soul
    Hebrews 12:1-3 lay aside sin, run w/ endurance, we can become weary and discouraged in our souls as we battle sin.
    Psalm 23 our souls must be restored
    Psalm 119:36, 141 Keep Christ as our refuge, not to be ensnared or trapped for false refuge
    Psalm 116 the soul needs rest
    I John 5 keep from idols
    Hebrews 12:15 not being diligent, fall short of the grace of God, selling our birthright like Esau

    As we meet together, my hope and prayer is that as we each individually drink deeper of Christ, we can come together and strengthen and refresh one another, so we might keep drinking and persevere with joy on our pilgrimage, even as we go through the Valley of Baca and the night of doubt and sorrow…

    Through the Night of Doubt and Sorrow
    Bernhardt S. Ingemann tr. Sabine Baring-Gould

    Through the night of doubt and sorrow,
    onward goes the pilgrim band,
    singing songs of expectation,
    marching to the promised land.
    Clear before us through the darkness
    gleams and burns the guiding light:
    trusting God we march together
    stepping fearless through the night.

    One the light of God’s own presence,
    o’er his ransomed people shed,
    chasing far the gloom and terror,
    brightening all the path we tread:
    one the object of our journey,
    one the faith which never tires,
    one the earnest looking forward,
    one the hope our God inspires.

    One the strain the lips of thousands
    lift as from the heart of one;
    one the conflict, one the peril,
    one the march in God begun:
    one the gladness of rejoicing
    on the far eternal shore,
    where the one almighty Father
    reigns in love for evermore.

    Onward, therefore, pilgrim brothers,
    onward with the cross our aid;
    bear its shame, and fight its battle,
    till we rest beneath its shade.
    Soon shall come the great awaking,
    soon the rending of the tomb;
    then the scattering of all shadows,
    and the end of toil and gloom.

    * * *

    I unfolded much of that before the elders, who were very enthusiastic and encouraging. And then they helped to hone it down (a much needed thing, given the multitude of thoughts swirling in my brain at any moment in time and my difficulty with being succinct/focused), so each week we meet should will look something like this:

    1. A MAIN SCRIPTURE PASSAGE with a clear objective/aim that can be summarized in a single sentence. (Yes, yes – back to homiletics!)
    2. A HYMN to complement the passage.
    3. A BIOGRAPHICAL EXAMPLE as illustration.
    4. A time of PRAYER.

    My deepest hope and prayer is that as we fellowship and meet together, God will knit our hearts closer to Him and to one another, so we might be able to tell what God has done for each of our souls from week to week (Psalms 66:16: Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul), so we might encourage and exhort each other, so we might go from strength to strength on our pilgrimage to Mount Zion, to the Celestial City (Psalm 84/Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress”)

    For those who are led to pray, I would appreciate your prayers for:

    focused time to study and pray and prepare
    clear leading as to the Scripture passages to study
    greater love for the women
    humility and reliance on the Holy Spirit
    hungry and thirsty women
    scheduling the day and time to meet

    I do believe we’ll eventually get to the book of John (which is what I initially felt led to do), but for now, it has come to seem good to start with an overview of the soul’s pilgrimage and God’s means of sustenance as we travel through the Valley of Baca (the Word of God, prayer and fellowship with believers – including the great cloud of witnesses).

    Needless to say, I am very excited about this, because this is what I absolutely love. Throughout this whole process I have been profoundly humbled. First, because of the journey of chastening God has had me on over the past few years. And second, because it is a high privilege and responsibility to give out the words of life. And that sense of humility is a very good and very necessary thing because I know I too easily become full of myself – and whenever I am full of myself I cannot be full of Christ’s Holy Spirit!

    I am praying each of you will be obedient to God’s call to you to serve Him in your local churches for the building up of the Body of Christ for His glory and for your joy.

    Thank you for your fellowship and prayers.

    Psalm 115:1  Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory,
    for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!

    Yours in Christ,
    Karen

    Related: Where do you go when the world is unlovely? (Psalm 84 & the theology of Biblical counseling)