"He who keeps you will not slumber"

So says the psalmist in Psalm 121:3. And then in verse 4: “He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” And perhaps there is a sense in which that is obvious. “God is not a man, that He should lie” (Numbers 23:19). Nor is He a man, that He should sleep! But, of course, the psalmist intends something even more personal than that. The idea is that, because God does not sleep, there is never a moment of the day when He is not alert; and therefore there is never a moment of the day when He is not alert to His people’s circumstances, and needs, and well-being! Nothing ever slips by His notice. No memos sit on His desk overnight, awaiting an answer until He arrives in the office the next morning. He does not have an ‘Out of Office Auto-Reply’ feature on His email account. No! There is never any moment of any day when He is not wide awake to every need, prayer request, problem, or issue in your life.

“He who keeps you will not slumber.” Isn’t that good to know? Even when your doctor must get a few hours of shut-eye, God is still alert to what is going on inside your body. Even when your pastor is napping on a Sunday afternoon, and misses your call, God is still available. Even when mommy and daddy are not awake to comfort you after a bad dream, God is awake to your cries.

And perhaps just as importantly, even when you yourself are asleep … God is not! Some of us have a great propensity to try and keep everything under control, to keep tabs on all the potential exigencies in our lives, to always be on top of the game. We’re not, of course! But we like to think that we are! And yet even we have to sleep! And we cannot watch our kids like a hawk, or continually check the security monitor, or prepare for every weather pattern, or monitor our breathing patterns then, can we? But the Lord is watching. “He who keeps you will not slumber.”

And then there are all those occasions when you and I are sleep-walking – when we are just not alert to the temptations, or the dangers, or the opportunities that are hovering all around us. Sometimes we live our spiritual lives like a driver who is texting at 70mph on the freeway – kind of paying attention, but kinda not. And, of course, there can be and often are repercussions when we are spiritually sleep-walking. But even then, if we have been bought for God by the blood of Christ; even when we are walking through this world like a teenager down the sidewalk with her face glued to her phone, and paying scarcely any attention at all to where she is going … even then, God is watching over us for good. He may let us stumble onto the concrete, so to speak, in order to teach us a lesson in alertness. But He will not allow us, spiritually, to walk in front of a truck! He is not sleep-walking! And He never will. “He who keeps you will not slumber.”

20 Years a Christian

It occurred to me today that 2014 marks twenty years since I came to Christ at the age of 17. Praise God I had parents who took me to the house of God while I was still in the womb. In fact, if I have the story right, it was not long after the conclusion of a midweek service that my mom went into labor with me. But it wasn’t until 1994, in the summer before my senior year in high school, that Christ and the gospel and salvation became real to me – 20 years ago this summer!

Because of my upbringing, I had understood the basic gospel message since childhood. And in early elementary school I ‘walked the aisle’ and made a ‘public profession of faith’. But time proved that it wasn’t real. I was following through on an outward mechanism for professing faith (and not a biblical outward mechanism, mind you!), but the faith that the mechanism was supposed to symbolize was absent. And I suspect that many who read these lines will identify with that incongruity. We were coaxed to profess our faith before we really ever had it. And in many cases, we were assured that, because we professed it, we surely had it! And so all was well.  Except that it wasn’t. Adolescence, high school, and the temptations that came with them began rapidly to prove what was really inside. And, of course, I didn’t even need the temptations. The junk was inside me with or without them!

But then one Sunday evening I sat in church, and something changed. There had been significant turmoil in our congregation – turmoil of which I was mostly unaware, since I wasn’t all that interested in what went on at church (another sign I didn’t yet really know the Lord!). Apparently a number of people were rankled over some church issue or other … and in recent days harsh, ugly words had been spoken, and relationships fractured. And the pastor, on this particular Sunday evening, gently and straightforwardly addressed the sin, and called for confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation. In fact, he called for these things to take place that very night! And what an amazing thing it was to see people begin to spontaneously arise, crisscross the church auditorium, and with tears begin asking one another for forgiveness!  At least one man stood before the whole congregation and confessed his ugliness. And there I sat, head down and a little unnerved by it all.

I had never seen anything like this before – a church full of people really broken, and taking the implications of the gospel this seriously. And I began to realize, that night, the difference between a real faith, and a merely professed one ... because these people clearly had something I did not have. I’m not even sure if I could have pinpointed what it was … but there was something in them (the Holy Spirit, I now know!) that would not allow them to keep on sinning; something that drove them to real love, and to real confession and repentance, however embarrassing it might have been to make it in public. And I knew I needed what they had.  I realized that my prior profession faith was a profession only.  And in God's mercy, I came at last to a living faith in Jesus!

And I learned something incredibly important that night. Over the next few weeks, I hope to write about several lessons I have learned in my nearly 20 years as a believer in Jesus. And the very first of those lessons was that Christianity is about the heart! I learned that night that faith is more than just mental agreement with the facts about Jesus, and a desire not to go to hell, and an ability to walk an aisle or sign a ‘decision card.’ Many a lost person can rehearse the facts about Jesus for you. And, as Iain Murray has pointed out, one need not be spiritually awakened to perform the merely physical act of walking an aisle. And I can’t think of many people who actually want to go to hell!  But conversion to Christ is something more! Conversion is when the heart – and not just the head, or the feet, or the signature – turns to Christ! And conversion is when the heart truly turns to Christ, not just to a new form of religion (or away from hell)!  I don’t know that I could have articulated these things very well on that first night in the kingdom. I don’t know that I’ve articulated them all that well these twenty years later! But this was the very first lesson I learned after (or while!) becoming a Christian – and it was a vital one: Christianity is about the heart!

The rest of the series can be followed here.

"A dimly burning wick"

“A bruised reed He will not break

And a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish”

Isaiah 42.3

Those words were written about God’s “Servant” (v.1), His “chosen one” – the Messiah, Jesus. And, O, what gentleness they reveal to us! Gentleness from a heavenly Father who is willing to send such a Servant into the world. And, of course, gentleness, meekness, kindness, tenderness, compassion, and patience on the part of the Servant himself!

Aren’t these attractive pictures of the tenderness of Jesus? “A bruised reed He will not break.” He does not, in other words, walk into His Father’s garden, find a stem that has been trampled upon and bent at a 90 degree angle … and then just immediately determine to cut His losses by grabbing the bruised reed between His thumb and forefinger and finishing the job. No! Jesus sees such bruised, bent-down people, and is tender with them. He splints them with His word, and with the encouragement of His saints, so that wounded Christians begin to grow strong again, and stand straight again, and produce fruit again. Perhaps you have known Him to do that for you from time to time.

And then the Lord goes on to say of His Servant that “a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish.” Or, as the KJV renders it, “the smoking flax shall he not quench.”

Another beautiful portrait! And one upon which the Puritan, Richard Sibbes, elaborates marvelously in his classic book The Bruised Reed.  Among his many helpful observations is to note just how a “dimly burning wick” or “smoking flax” portrays many a Christian (especially many a new Christian):

“In smoking flax there is but a little light … and that little mixed with smoke. The observations from this are that, in God’s children, especially in their first conversion, there is but a little measure of grace, and that little mixed with much corruption, which, as smoke, is offensive; but that Christ will not quench this smoking flax.”

Isn’t this true, at times, of the Christian (and even sometimes beyond our “first conversion”)? Our light doesn’t always shine as brightly as we would hope. It is more like a little glowing ember than a burning flame. And, in such a state, we sometimes produce as much smoke as we do light. But even so, Jesus does not place a snuffer over the “dimly burning wick” so as to save Himself any further trouble. For, as Sibbes also points out, even amidst all the smoke; and even though the light we emit is “but a little light” – yet that “little light”, that glowing ember is Christ’s ember … and He values it highly! He is committed, not to blow it out, but to fan it into flame!

Do you ever feel like “a dimly burning wick” – like you are producing as much smoke as light (and maybe more)? Isaiah 42.3 is not, of course, an excuse to settle comfortably into that state. But it is a reminder that Christ loves you there; and that Christ will not abandon you there, or blow out your candle altogether! He is not into cutting His losses … but splinting bruised reeds, and fanning dimly burning wicks. And His people should know Him as such, and believe Him as such, and love Him for such gentleness to us, His sometimes struggling – but always beloved – people!

The Math of the Gospel, part 2

In the last post I suggested that Robert M’Cheyne’s famous statement – “For every look at self, take ten looks at Christ” – is good, gospel mathematics. Here is how we become healthy, happy, and holy in Christ – not by constant introspection, but by looking away from ourselves, and to the author and perfecter of our faith; not by over-much emphasis on the subjective aspects of Christian piety, but rather on the objective truth and beauty of Jesus! And at a 10 to 1 ratio!

“For every look at self, take ten looks at Christ.” If we adopt this strategy, at least three common Christian ills will be cured. The first is doubt, or the lack of assurance of our salvation. We become more and more certain of our acceptance with God, not by constantly analyzing our own varied and paltry attempts at loving God, but by grasping how much He loves us in Christ! And the way to grasp His love is to think far more often about it, than we do about our own; by taking ten looks at Jesus for every one look at ourselves!

But there are other ills – sometimes diametrically opposed to one another – that beset even earnest Christians. And yet they, too, may be cured using the same biblical strategy: “For every look at self, take ten looks at Christ.” Let me list two more such ills:

2. Pride. Some Christians look in the mirror, and see every reason for doubting their salvation. Others’ mirrors seem to flatter them – something like the wicked stepmother in Snow White – into thinking that they really are among the fairest of people! They have arrived … or so they think, when looking in the mirror. Their problem is the exact opposite of the person who looks in the mirror and (rightly!) sees no reason why Christ should love them. And yet the solution is the same. Look away from the mirror, and look ten times more often to Jesus! For, when we look at ourselves under the bright hue of His perfect holiness, love, and beauty … the portrait in the mirror begins to show up for what it really is – a poor, poor imitation! So, if you struggle with spiritual pride, heed M’Cheyne’s counsel: “For every look at self, take ten looks at Christ.”

3. Drought. Sometimes our one look at self reveals to us, not that we should doubt our salvation; nor that we are the picture of Christian piety; but that our souls, though truly saved, have grown a little dry and dusty. This is where that one look comes in handy! We do need to practice self-examination so that we realize when our soul is sliding into lethargy, coldness, or drought! But, while the look at self can reveal the problem to be tackled, it cannot provide the cure! An illustration may help us here. Your lawn will not turn from brown to green, this August, simply by your analyzing how dry it has been. You have to turn on the water! And you will need to spend a lot more time with the hose in your hand, than in talking about how bad the drought has been! And so it is with spiritual drought. Look at self, yes! But once you have seen that the grass needs watering, stop looking at the grass, and get yourself in a hurry to where the water may be found – namely, in Jesus (John 4.14)! For every look at your dry, parched soul … look ten times more often at the fountain of living water that is Jesus!

10 to 1 - The Math of the Gospel

The famous Scots pastor, Robert Murray M’Cheyne (1813-1843), was eminently quotable. Perhaps his most celebrated statement is: “The greatest need of my people is my personal holiness.” Would that every pastor thought that way! M’Cheyne also said, famously: “A man is what he is on his knees before God, nothing more.” Would that every Christian believed that!

But for all his wonderful (and needful!) sayings about self-examination and personal holiness, M’Cheyne knew better than most of us how to look away from himself, and unto Jesus. He knew that, if we only always look at how we are doing – how we are advancing in holiness; how we are when on our knees – we will soon find ourselves cold and lifeless in the Christian faith. Love and zeal for Jesus are not cultivated by looking long at ourselves, but at Jesus! And so M’Cheyne gave this marvelous advice to those who might spend too much time, and place too much weight, upon introspection:

For every look at self, take ten looks at Christ.

Splendid advice, I say! “For every look at self, take ten looks at Christ.” In other words, and on the one hand, it is not wrong for Christians to engage in self-examination (we are, M’Cheyne says, to take a “look at self” every now and again). And yet, while it is right and necessary that we do so, we mustn’t linger long in front of the mirror … but turn our gaze quickly to the Lord Jesus Himself! It is in fixing our eyes on Him that we gain the strength to run with endurance the race set before us (Heb. 12.1-2). It is in gazing at Him that we find ourselves transformed into His image (2 Cor. 3.18). And it will be in looking, again and again, at Him that the Holy Spirit will breathe into us a desire for the aforementioned personal holiness and fervent prayer! So take M’Cheyne’s advice, I urge you: “For every look at self, take ten looks at Christ.” 10 to 1! This is the math of Christian health! Really, it's the math of the gospel itself – the good news is about Jesus, not us! 

Over the course of two posts, in order to urge you on in this pursuit, let me mention three common Christian ills that such gospel math will cure:

1. Doubt. Many a Christian – especially in more serious circles – struggles with a lack of assurance. Perhaps you are one of them ... always asking: Do I really believe in Jesus? Am I truly born again? Do I have enough evidences of grace to say, assuredly, that I am in Christ? Those are not bad questions – especially if there is little or no evidence of fruit in our lives. But many people who are producing fruit (albeit slowly) doubt their salvation unnecessarily. They forget that their surety lies, not in how much they love God, but in how much He loves them … enough to send His Son to be the propitiation for their sins (1 John 4.10)! Looking too much at self will do that to you. It will take your eyes off the wonderful news of the cross, and make it seem as though the marrow of the Christian life lies in the Christian’s love for Christ (rather than Christ’s love for the Christian)!

Don’t mishear me, now. Christians should (and must!) love Christ … dearly so! But our affections are so fickle; so tainted with the residue of indwelling sin; so clouded over with failures that it is never safe to base our supposed standing with God on how well we love Christ. The fact is that you will never love Him as He deserves! But He loves you more than you deserve! And that is where both M’Cheyne, and the New Testament writers, would have us focus our attention. “For every look at self, take ten looks at Christ.”

See part 2.