Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. – Acts 20:28

From Richard Baxter’s “The Reformed Pastor,” Chapter 1, “The Oversight of Ourselves,” Section 2, The Motives to This Oversight (emphasis, mine):

From “George Whitefield’s Journals,” Section IV “On My Preparation for Holy Orders,” p. 65 (emphasis, mine):

O Lord my God,

You have searched me and shown me how I have been solicitous that a place be prepared for me for my glory rather than my being prepared for a place for Your glory! I confess I have been more concerned about the work I might do for You rather than Your work in me. Forgive my sin and cleanse me from all unrighteousness for Jesus’ sake. Turn my gaze from self to You. Turn my heart away from vainglory so I might seek Your glory. Purify my heart so I might not be solicitous a place be prepared for me, but rather that Your preparations be done in my heart for You. Send Your Holy Spirit to fill me, fit me and prepare me so I might be sent to prepare Your way and in doing so bring glory to Christ alone for He alone is worthy. I am but an unprofitable servant. May I take heed and not shrink back from Your vital work of fitting and preparation that must be done in me before You might employ me as Your instrument. To You alone be all the praise, honor and glory. Amen.

Oh that we may be in any way instrumental to His glory! That He would make us vessels pure and holy, meet for our Master’s use!

  
“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.”

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:

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:

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):

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.

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:

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)):

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…

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!

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

Today I find myself waiting. And I have found myself beginning to get anxious. Much like King Saul, I have been just about ready to jump ahead to add onto what the LORD has shown me to do. There is no addition to the revealed commandment of God. The needed thing for me to do right now is to wait. So, so hard! No, not only hard, but impossible – apart from God who strengthens me!

Waiting seems so simple and we know it sounds very romantic – and yet we all know how difficult it is! We would much rather be doing, would be not? We see how throughout the Old Testament so many saints failed to wait for God’s blessings to come in God’s prescribed way and God’s time – and, as a result, there were grave consequences. And I have known that experience in my own life and God has definitely worked to help me to wait on Him, but once more today I must go back to Him and ask for grace sufficient for my need this day because yesterday’s manna and yesterday’s living water will never sustain me for today’s journey.

Our patient waiting, our enduring with longsuffering with all joy (see Col. 1) is God-honoring for it puts us into the place where we are acknowledging God as the sovereign King, the Lord of lords, and in particular the Lord of our own lives. As we trust Him and bow our hearts before Him and say, “Not my will, but Yours, be done,” we are saying to Him, “I am trusting You today, Lord, I am not going to lean on my own understanding, ah, as much as I think I should do such and such, as much as I am tempted to run ahead of You and do such and such, I am trusting Your ways to be best, even though at present I do not understand them and I do not see how this can work out. Give me the eye of faith to see You, invisible God. Give me the heart of faith to trust You, trustworthy God. Your ways and thoughts are inscrutable, they are higher than mine (by definition! You are God and I am NOT!), but they are always pure and perfect and they are always for Your glory, for my good and the furtherance of Your Gospel. Strengthen me as I wait on You. I know I will not be put to shame.” Amen, and Amen.

I love Psalm 27:14 because we don’t often think of waiting as being very courageous, do we, and yet here we have the two linked. And, in the same way, we don’t think of waiting as needing strength, but again we see strength as absolutely necessary so we might wait on the LORD.

A couple days ago I wrote the following as part of a message to a dear friend in Christ and think it definitely applies to me today:

So today I find myself in need of that perfect sustenance, that strengthening, that courage, all so I might wait on the LORD so He might be highly exalted and I am sure to receive His grace and mercy in due time.

Bread of Life and Living Water, draw me to You, so I might eat and drink and be satisfied and be able to wait on You and trust in You and not be afraid and anxious. Amen.