TBT: How We May Grow in the Knowledge of Christ

  • April 16, 2015
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  • Park Forum

CultivatingFaith4

Psalm 25.9
The Lord guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way.

TBT: How We May Grow in the Knowledge of Christ (an excerpt) | by Nathaniel Vincent (c.1639–1697)

You must not lean to your own parts and understandings.

Men of the greatest natural capacities have been men of the greatest mistakes and the foulest errors; and herein they have embraced for the truths of Christ: and the reason is, because, their hearts being proud, God thwarted them, and their pride blinded them. 

In your ordinary, secular affairs, it is not safe to confide in your own wisdom; but even here you are to acknowledge God. Certainly then, when searching into the mysteries of the gospel, you must be sensible that the sharpest understanding has need of illumination from above. You must indeed “be fools, that you may be wise.” A sight of your folly and weakness must make and keep you very humble. Such the Lord has promised to “guide in judgment, and to teach his way.” 

Heedfully attend to the word of the truth of the gospel.

This is the great means to infuse and to increase the knowledge of Christ. It is called “the word of Christ:” “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom;” because Christ is the author of it, and the principal subject therein treated of. 

The gospel informs you of his natures, divine and human; of his offices, prophetical, priestly, kingly; of his benefits, justification, adoption, regeneration, strong consolation, and such-like. 

The gospel informs you what he did, what he suffered, and how he eyed his church’s good in both. It informs you where Christ is gloriously present,—in the highest heavens; where he is graciously present,—he “walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks,” and accompanies his own institutions with a mighty and gracious efficacy. 

O study this gospel more — take it in at your eyes, by reading it; at your ears, by hearing it; nay, receive it into your very hearts. The gospel is that which brings you to the knowledge of Christ, and so “makes you wise unto salvation.”

Prayers from the Past
We pray you, merciful Father, God from whom all encouragement comes, give us strength to act as befits men with such a vocation, such calling to worship, such newness of life. We mean to observe the sacred commands of the divine law; we long to come closer to you, closer today, long to have light from you, light to know you and serve you.

— Anonymous fourth century prayer; acquired by Egyptian Antiquities in 1911.

Today’s Readings
Leviticus 20 (Listen – 4:18)
Psalms 25 (Listen – 2:18)

Cultivating Faith
Part 4 of 5, read more on TheParkForum.org

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Peace in a Restless World

  • April 15, 2015
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  • Park Forum

Psalm 23.1-3 The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.

“Depth and strength underlie the simplicity of this psalm,” observes Derek Kidner in his book, Psalms. Often quoted in times of trial and suffering, Psalm 23 offers hope to the faithful.

The reality of the peace that comes from God is far from naive and simplistic. In his book Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity, Abraham Joshua Heschel asserts, “It is hard to dismiss the popular concept that religion is a function of human nature, an avenue in the wild estate of civilization. We have been indoctrinated with the idea that religion is man’s own response to a need, the result of craving for immortality, or the attempt to conquer fear.”

Heschel, who walked arm-in-arm with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Al, knew this at a far deeper level than most of us have experienced. “Many people assume,” he continues, “that we feed our body to ease the pangs of hunger, to calm the irritated nerves of the empty stomach. As a matter of fact, we do not eat because we feel hungry but because the intake of food is essential for the maintenance of life, supplying the energy necessary for the various functions of the body. Hunger is the signal for eating, its occasion and regulator, not its true cause.”

“To restrict religion to the realm of human endeavor, or consciousness would imply that a person who refuses to take notice of God could isolate himself from the Omnipresent,” Heschel expounds. “Religion is not a cursory activity. What is going on between God and man is for the duration of life.”

To say, as the Psalmist does, that “I lack nothing” is to acknowledge the full peace of God. The Hebrew word for peace is shalom which points to the holistic peace which is a result of the presence and pleasure of God.

“Peace is not escape; its contentment is not complacency,” Kidner concludes: “There is readiness to face deep darkness and imminent attack, and the climax reveals a love which homes towards no material goal but to the Lord Himself.”

Prayer Fill us, dear Father, with your peace. Renew our hearts and engage our minds. You are our hope and our future, and we long for your peace to make right all that we suffer in this world.

Today’s Readings Leviticus 19 (Listen – 3:08) Psalms 23-24 (Listen – 2:03)

Cultivating Faith Part 3 of 5, read more on TheParkForum.org

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Christ – Our Hope Black Lives Matter

  • April 13, 2015
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  • Park Forum

Psalm 20.7
Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

Civil Rights, let-alone equality, for African Americans have been notoriously difficult for The United States to secure, structure, and maintain. Names like Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and now Walter Scott, shot eight times in the back by a police officer in South Carolina last week, have become representatives of this national tragedy.

Few in our country believe governance and the mental resolve of the masses alone are sufficient to solve such an insidious problem. In this way we observe part of the words of the Psalmist: we no longer trust in chariots (governance) and horses (power). Yet few of the dominant voices in American culture would offer up “the Lord our God,” as the Psalmist does, as the solution to racism. Perhaps this is to our detriment.

History has its share of those who maligned Scripture to condone racism, slavery, and worse — but it was the words and work of Christ that ultimately crumbled the foundation slavery sat upon. 

Throughout the 1790s William Wilberforce worked tirelessly to eviscerate slavery’s justification in English jurisprudence. “Wilberforce’s embracing of the anti-slavery cause was from the direct effect of embracing the Christian worldview,” The Wilberforce School reports.

Years later, back in the United States, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his life to see needed changes in governance and society. We know from his writing and teachings that King knew the catalyst for this change was Christ — the gospel was the solution.

Rev. Dr. King’s seventh “I have a dream” statement — the crescendo of his seminal I Have a Dream speech — quotes the Messianic prophecy found in Isaiah 40.3-5. King was sure to have known this is the only section of the Old Testament quoted in all four gospels — inaugurating the incarnation of Christ in each. 

“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low. The rough places will be made plain and the crooked places will be made straight. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope.”

Social activism can raise awareness. Governance can eliminate impunity and protect the vulnerable. Only Christ is sufficient to change the hearts of men, bring justice to the wicked, and heal the broken.

Today’s Readings
Leviticus 17 (Listen – 2:39)
Psalms 20-21 (Listen – 2:37)

Finding Faith in Doubt

  • April 9, 2015
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  • Park Forum

Psalm 16.2-4

I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.” As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight. The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply.

TBT: Finding Faith in Doubt | by C.S. Lewis

Though Christian charity sounds a very cold thing to people whose heads are full of sentimentality, and though it is quite distinct from affection, yet it leads to affection. 

Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.

People are often worried. They are told they ought to love God. They cannot find any such feeling in themselves. What are they to do? The answer is the same as before. Act as if you did. Do not sit trying to manufacture feelings. Ask yourself, ‘If I were sure that I loved God, what would I do?’ When you have found the answer, go and do it.”

On the whole, God’s love for us is a much safer subject to think about than our love for Him. Nobody can always have devout feelings: and even if we could, feelings are not what God principally cares about. 

Christian Love, either towards God or towards man, is an affair of the will. If we are trying to do His will we are obeying the commandment, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.’ He will give us feelings of love if He pleases. We cannot create them for ourselves, and we must not demand them as a right. 

The great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him.

Prayers from the Past
“I believe; help my unbelief!”

— Father of the boy healed by Jesus in Mark 9.14

Today’s Readings
Leviticus 13 (Listen – 9:34)
Psalms 15-16 (Listen – 2:04)

Finding Faith
Part 4 of 5, read more on TheParkForum.org

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Finding Faith in Trials

  • April 7, 2015
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  • Park Forum

Psalm 11.5
The LORD tests the righteous.

Finding Faith in Trials | The Park Forum

Dorothy Parker sold her first poem to Vanity Fair in 1914 and wrote prolifically for the next five decades. Near the height of her success, Parker revealed a sentiment few writers admit, but to which all can relate; “I hate writing, I love having written.”

To be fair, nearly all disciplines require sacrifice and dedication to a difficult process in order to produce beauty. Italian tenor Enrico Caruso, who performed at The Metropolitan Opera in the early 1900’s, had a long and difficult rise from obscurity to fame. “Bisogna soffrire per essere grandi,” he said regularly. “To be great, it is necessary to suffer.”

This process — beauty born of suffering — is found all around us. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone;” Jesus says, “but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” We love the fruit, but do not often reflect on the death that bore it.

What often goes unnoticed in the difficulty of the trial is the way it activates a person’s faith. It is possible, for many of us in the comfort of the modern western world, never to actually engage our faith at the deepest levels. It is the pain of crisis that pushes us from the assumptions and pleasantries of religion into the depths of genuine love and trust in God.

What we find, at the depths of God’s presence and love, is the fruit of the resurrection. “Death used to be an executioner,” said the english poet George Herbert, “but the resurrection of Christ makes him nothing but a gardener. When he tries to bury you, he’s really planting you, and you’re going to come up better than before.”

“Having written” worked out well for Parker. In addition to hundreds of poems, Parker published nine books, composed a play, and she was on the founding editorial board for The New Yorker. Her legacy lives through her words she endured to write.

How much greater the reward for those who persevere in faith?

Prayer
God, you are our greatest hope. We cling to you in times of trial. We long for you to refine us — give us strength and endurance in the process. Forgive us for our brokenness and pride. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Today’s Readings
Leviticus 10 (Listen – 4:17)
Psalms 11-12 (Listen – 1:59)