Lost in Self-Righteousness

Devotional Classics, Charles Spurgeon, Excerpts from "Spiritual Revival the Want of the Church"

We too often flog the Church when the whip should be laid on our own shoulders.  We should always remember that we are a part of the Church, and the our own lack of revival is in some measure the cause of the lack of revival in the Church at large.

Many people have recently joined the Church in our country.  But are there any fewer cheats than there used to be?  Are there less frauds committed?  Do we find morality more extensive?  Do we find vice coming to an end?

Pay attention to the conversation of the average professing Christian.  You might spend from the first of January to the end of December and never hear them speak about their faith. 

But even if our conduct and conversation were more consistent with our faith, I would still have this third charge against us: there is too little real communion with Jesus Christ. . . .  Men and women, let me ask you, How long has it been since you have had an intimate conversation with Jesus Christ?

Our problem is this: there are many who say they want revival but they do not groan for it, they do not long for it.

To say, "I will revive myself," reveals that you do not know your true state.  If you knew your true state, you would just as soon expect a wounded soldier on the battlefield to heal himself without medicine, of get himself to hospital when his arms and legs have been shot off as you would expect to revive yourself without the help of God.  I urge you: do nothing until you have first prayed to God, crying out, "O Lord, revive thy work."

In this present era there is a sad decline of the vitality of godliness. . . .  When you heard [George Whitfield] preach, you felt like you were listening to a man who would die if he could not preach.  Where, where is such earnestness today?

The absence of sound doctrine. . . happened when ministers in the pulpit stopped preaching sound doctrine for fear of how it would be received.

"O!" says one person, "if we had another minister.  O! if we had another kind of worship.  O! if we had a different sort of preaching."  You do not need new ways or new people, you need new life in what you have. . . .  It is not a new person or a new plan, but the life of God in them that the Church needs.  Let us ask God for it!  (pp. 317-320)

O Lord, I have heard of your renown and I stand in awe, O Lord, of your work.  In our own time revive it. (Habakkuk 3:1-2) 

 Recently I read that the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15 is about two lost sons.  The younger son, most people are familiar with.  He is the one who runs off and thinks better of it and comes back.  He is the son of unrighteousness.  The father longs for his return and comes to him while he is still far away.  What picture of God's merciful assistance to people caught in unrighteousness!

But there is another son.  He is the one who stands outside the party for the younger son in anger and disbelief.  He is the son of self-righteousness.  Again, the father goes out to him.  Does the father withhold anything that he gave the younger son?  No, "all that I have is yours," he says.  The story ends abruptly with the question, "What will the older son do?"  We all know what the father does.  He clothes and honors the lost sons, wherever they come from.

I have no trouble seeing how the older brother misses out on his father's love because of his envy toward his younger brother.  I have no trouble seeing his self-righteousness and seeing how it warps his view of his father.  What I have often missed is the father's love for this older brother.  The father goes out to him as well.  He is also invited in.  I have usually left the older brother out in the cold.

I have missed the point of the story.  God finds and saves what is lost. I have not thought the older brother was lost.  No one asks about how to invite the older brother inside.  It seems that instead of having the older brother berating his younger brothers for wasting his money on loose-living, nowadays it might be more appropriate to have the younger son berating the older brother.  Maybe he would say, "What, him?  Don't invite him in!  He would only ruin the party with his 'work ethic' and 'piety.'  He's a fake anyway. . . ."

So I look at Spurgeon and I wonder if my attitude has been to flog the church like that older brother.  Really the troubles come from both unrighteousness and self-righteousness.  Neither of them bring a person back the Father.  Only when I turn my back on them am I pointed in the right direction.  And Jesus says that is all I need do: turn.  Turn (repent) and the kingdom of God (his loving arms and blessings) is right there.

The kingdom of heaven is the party.  Even though the full celebration is yet to come, Jesus came to say that the party has already started.  Anyone who joins in will find that it just being there with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and in the communion of party-ers (saints) will find the conduct, conversation, and communion in their lives changed.

In conduct, parties call for certain behavior.  They call out joy and celebration.  A person not in the spirit of the party would be said not to belong there.  So it is with God's kingdom, the gathering of those who follow and obey him.  Excitement in following and joy in obedience characterize this party.  Outside there is only feeding on pig's food (unrighteousness) and miserable self-justification (self-righteousness).

In conversation, when a celebration approaches,  it becomes the "talk of the town."  Eager planning is part of the party.  Even in the party, there is eagerness to talk about what is good and enjoyable even as we do it.  A party that no one talked about would not be much of a party.  So with the kingdom of God - his loving influence in these days and into the days to come - conversation revolves around what goods thing are happening and going to happen.  In contrast, unrighteousness talks about all the ways it will fill its desires, only to come out empty  Self-righteousness talks about how hard it works and how it deserves more appreciation.

In communion, what can be better than being with people who are celebrating?  The kingdom of God is a celebration and the most important part is the company of celebrants.  At the heart is the Trinity, and such celebration is continual as praise and worship.  Unrighteousness, however, starts with friends, but ends up with pigs.  Self-righteousness ends up cold and alone.

I have beaten that analogy to a pulp.  Although the church does not encompass the kingdom, it certainly is an important part of it.  When I have retreated from the church, I find that what I am saying is "I will revive myself."  Often as I have attended I have wished for changes in programs and positions rather than in the hearts of those who come, worship, and serve.

Lord, let me find the party in the church.  Teach me how to celebrate.  My heart is often cold.  I find I am not expectant, but weary.  I need you to show me how to hope.  Pity me!  Amen.


I am humbled by Spurgeon's point about wanting revival, but not groaning for it.  This is where I am.

Made for God

The Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer

Come near to the holy men and women of the past and you will soon feel the heat of their desire after God.

The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted.

Jesus called it "life" and "self," or as we would say, the self-life. Its chief characteristic is its possessiveness.

[Jesus] had everything, but he possessed nothing. There is the spiritual secret. There is the sweet theology of the heart which can be learned only in the school of renunciation.

God made us for Himself: that is the only explanation that satisfies the heart of a thinking man, whatever his wild reason may say. Should faulty education and perverse reasoning lead a man to conclude otherwise, there is little that any Christian can do for him.

The Presence of God is the central fact of Christianity. At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for His redeemed children to push in to conscious awareness of His Presence.

Between the scribe who has read and the prophet who has seen there is a difference as wide as the sea. We are today overrun with orthodox scribes, but the prophets, where are they?

Self is the opaque veil that hides the Face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction. As well try to instruct leprosy out of our system. There must be a work of God in destruction before we are free. We must invite the cross to do its deadly work within us.

To most people God is an inference, not a reality. He is a deduction from evidence which they consider adequate; but He remains personally unknown to the individual. "He must be," they say, "therefore we believe He is. . . ."  While admitting His existence they do not think of Him as knowable in the sense that we know things or people.

But the very ransomed children of God themselves: why do they know so little of that habitual conscious communion with God which the Scriptures seem to offer? The answer is our chronic unbelief. Faith enables our spiritual sense to function. Where faith is defective the result will be inward insensibility and numbness toward spiritual things.

God has objective existence independent of and apart from any notions which we may have concerning Him. The worshipping heart does not create its Object. It finds Him here when it wakes from its moral slumber in the morning of its regeneration.

Another word that must be cleared up is the word reckon. This does not mean to visualize or imagine. Imagination is not faith. The two are not only different from, but stand in sharp opposition to, each other. Imagination projects unreal images out of the mind and seeks to attach reality to them. Faith creates nothing; it simply reckons upon that which is already there.

What now does the divine immanence mean in direct Christian experience? It means simply that God is here.

These are truths believed by every instructed Christian. It remains for us to think on them and pray over them until they begin to glow within us.

I venture to suggest that the one vital quality which [faithful believers] had in common was spiritual receptivity. Something in them was open to heaven, something which urged them Godward.

Receptivity is not a single thing; it is a compound rather, a blending of several elements within the soul. It is an affinity for, a bent toward, a sympathetic response to, a desire to have.

The tragic results of this spirit [of quick spirituality] are all about us. Shallow lives, hollow religious philosophies, the preponderance of the element of fun in gospel meetings, the glorification of men, trust in religious externalities, quasi-religious fellowships, salesmanship methods, the mistaking of dynamic personality for the power of the Spirit: these and such as these are the symptoms of an evil disease, a deep and serious malady of the soul.

The Voice of God is the most powerful force in nature, indeed the only force in nature, for all energy is here only because the power-filled Word is being spoken.

God's word in the Bible can have power only because it corresponds to God's word in the universe. It is the present Voice which makes the written Word all-powerful.

That God is here and that He is speaking—these truths are back of all other Bible truths; without them there could be no revelation at all.

The Voice of God is a friendly Voice. No one need fear to listen to it unless he has already made up his mind to resist it.

This is definitely not the hour when men take kindly to an exhortation to listen, for listening is not today a part of popular religion.

"Looking" on the Old Testament serpent [as in John 4] is identical with "believing" on the New Testament Christ. That is, the looking and the believing are the same thing. And he would understand that while Israel looked with their external eyes, believing is done with the heart. I think he would conclude that faith is the gaze of a soul upon a saving God.

Indeed Jesus taught that He wrought His works by always keeping His inward eyes upon His Father. His power lay in His continuous look at God (John 5:19-21).

The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One. While he looks at Christ the very things he has so long been trying to do will be getting done within him.

"Be thou exalted" is the language of victorious spiritual experience.

Another saying of Jesus, and a most disturbing one, was put in the form of a question, "How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God alone?" If I understand this correctly Christ taught here the alarming doctrine that the desire for honor among men made belief impossible. Is this sin at the root of religious unbelief? Could it be that those "intellectual difficulties" which men blame for their inability to believe are but smoke screens to conceal the real cause that lies behind them?

A whole world of literature has been created to justify this kind of life [without God] as the only normal one.

The burden borne by mankind is a heavy and a crushing thing. The word Jesus used means a load carried or toil borne to the point of exhaustion. Rest is simply release from that burden. It is not something we do, it is what comes to us when we cease to do.

Advertising is largely based upon this habit of pretense. "Courses" are offered in this or that field of human learning frankly appealing to the victim's desire to shine at a party. Books are sold, clothes and cosmetics are peddled, by playing continually upon this desire to appear what we are not.

The Lord Jesus Christ Himself is our perfect example, and He knew no divided life. In the Presence of His Father He lived on earth without strain from babyhood to His death on the cross. God accepted the offering of His total life, and made no distinction between act and act. "I do always the things that please him," was His brief summary of His own life as it related to the Father.

His presence in human flesh sweeps away forever the evil notion that there is about the human body something innately offensive to the Deity.

We need no more be ashamed of our body—the fleshly servant that carries us through life—than Jesus was of the humble beast upon which He rode into Jerusalem. "The Lord hath need of him" may well apply to our mortal bodies. If Christ dwells in us we may bear about the Lord of glory as the little beast did of old and give occasion to the multitudes to cry, "Hosanna in the highest."

It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it. The motive is everything.

"God made us for himself."  My desire after God then has purpose and reason.  "The pursuit of God" is the foundation of my being and the reason for my creation.  Where this desire dissipates or disappears real violence has been done to the human soul.  It is the "natural" order which has been distorted and destroyed by sin, which is also a desire, but not with God at its center.

Because God made me for himself, "he waits to be wanted."  This is the only action God can take essentially, if he wanted spiritual beings to be made for himself.  If the my spirit is coerced or forced to seek or take something, there is resentment and rebellion. Choice is the heart of the inner world. I am what I choose to desire.

The heart of sin says, "If I cannot possess it, I do not want it."  Sin withers and dies in the light of desire after God, because he cannot be possessed.  Possession implies control.  God made us so we could have him while not possessing him.  When  I can find the desire to want God without possessing him, then the rest of life - full of God's creation of people, creatures, and things - is mine for the having and enjoying.  If only I can be free of possessing!

The possessiveness of sin comes from the thought that the most "real" thing I can count on is myself - what I possess in things, abilities, and status.  With this view of reality, God is decidedly unreal.  He becomes an idea or sentiment that I can possess and manipulate to please and aid my flesh - the abilities and status I possess.  At the heart of sin is this distorted view of reality based on "self-life."

Belief is the trust that reality is God-centered, God-initiated, and God-sustained.  Such trust is practiced through reckoning.  Faith is confidence.  Faith is expectation.  Faith sees and beholds God and so is opposed to sight that does not see God.

What does faith see?  The reality of God is based on his Word.  By his Word everything comes into being, is order, and is sustained.  Listening starts the journey into God's reality.  In order to behold God I must listen to him, just like Mary, the friend of Jesus, sat at his feet to hear him.  When I trust, I listen.  If I do not listen, I am not trusting.  If I do not trust, I will not listen.  The eyes direct the ears and the ears instruct the eyes.  "Come and see," says Jesus.  "He who has ears, let him hear!"  And finally, "Faith comes from hearing."  With my eyes I find food for my soul to hear.  With my ears, I feed the faith of my eyes.

The veil of self-life keeps me from overcoming sin and seeing God.  Self-life serves the body and assumes that God will not.  Self-life lives a life of pretending.  It pretends that God will not care for my whole being, so I have to do it myself.  It pretends that only in tricking other people into thinking I am what I am not can I really get what I want and need out of them. Self-life never trusts.  It always pretends, presumes, and pushes.  The desire and pursuit of God is far from this life since he made me for trusting and waiting for him rather than grabbing what I can when I can.

Lord, the foundation of life is the fact the you made me for you.  These words bring trust, hope, and peace.  They deeply communicate your love.  Let me not pretend to live, but really live.  Let me not live blinded by my flesh, my self-life, but with open eyes of faith.  Let me listen so that I might be fed and strengthened.  I am for you, Father.  Amen.

"God made us for himself."  This is why my life must be the pursuit of God.  I think of certain kinds of software that are made for certain operating systems.  So it is with God.  I am "made for God," just like some things are "made for Windows."  I operate in him best.  Without him, whatever I am remains either poorly used or unused entirely.

The Right Use of the Word

Devotional Classics, John Chrysostom, Excerpts from A Sermon Titled "Dead to Sin"

When the fornicator becomes chaste, when the covetous person becomes merciful, when the harsh become subdued, a resurrection has taken place, a prelude to the final resurrection which is to come.  How is it resurrection?  It is a resurrection because sin has been mortified, and righteousness has risen in its place; the old life has passed away, and new, angelic life is now being lived.

The love of money, the slavery to wrong desires, and any sin whatsoever, makes us grow old in soul and body.  Our souls become rheumatic, distorted, decayed, and tottering with many sins.  Such, then, are the souls of sinners. Not so those of the righteous, for they are youthful and strong, always in the prime of life, ready for any fight.  Not so for the sinners, for they are subject to fall at the least resistance.  The sinful lose their ability to see, to hear, and to speak, for they spew forth words that are foul.

When the prodigal [son] was willing, he became suddenly young by his decision.

How am I to go back [to God] again?  Start by avoiding vice, going no farther into it, and you will have come home.  When a person who is sick does not get any worse it is a sign that he is getting better, and so is the case with vice.  God not further and your deeds of wickedness will have an end.

God is not so well pleased with being our Master as he is with being our Father; he is not so pleased with our being slaves as he is with our being children  This is what God truly wants.
God's exceeding desire to be loved comes from loving exceedingly.

What is there to fear?  Losing all your money?  If you bear it nobly, it will be as great a reward to you as if you gave it all to the poor - as long as you freely lose it because you know you have a greater reward in heaven.  What else is there to fear?  Having people revile and persecute you?  If so, those people have weaved a great crown for you if you bear it meekly. Rejoice and be glad, Jesus said, when people speak evil against you falsely, for great is your reward in heaven.    And even if they speak the truth against us, it is to our advantage if we bear it humbly, just as the Pharisee spoke rightly about the publican, but only the publican went home because he bore it in humility.

If we were suddenly aware of a serpent nestling in our bed, we would go to great lengths to kill it.  But when the devil nestles in our souls, we tell ourselves we are in no danger, and thus we lie at ease.  Why?  Because we do not see him and his intent with your mortal eyes.  (pp. 309-312)

While [the prodigal son] was still far off, the father saw him and was filled with compassion;  he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.  (Luke 15)

Sometimes I am lazy.  I use a spoon or knife as a screwdriver.  Or I use the end of a screwdriver as a hammer.  Or I use pliers instead of a wrench.  It just seems too difficult to go and locate the right tool for the right job.  While some improvisation can be innovative, I usually end up breaking something or hurting myself.

Sometimes I am lazy with my family.  I use condemnation instead of encouragement.  I point out other people's problems most often when they are my own problems as well instead of showing mercy.  I try to give good advice instead of listening for what is needed.  Again, I find the wrong tools for job and I break things and people get hurt.

The Bible is a tool notorious for misuse.  I am tempted to pull it out on the wrong occasions.  I use it to prove how right I am instead of how good God is.  I use it to point out other people's sins and shortcomings rather than reveal my own need for a Deliverer.  I treat it like a contract instead of an ongoing conversation.  The main purpose of the Bible is as Chrysostom says, to make me dead to sin and alive to God.  (Romans 6:10)  For this reason, I need to be immersed in it as I am in the presence of God.

Dead to sin?  I like the picture of sin creating soul-decay.  The part of me that holds me together as a unified whole - my soul - becomes frayed and eventually ruined by sin.  And so, as with the body, I start to fall apart.  How do I fight this disease?  Simply, do not get sicker, and I will get better.  This takes into account the basic truth of sin: sin kills.  If I am getting better, then sin is losing its foothold.  The focus is on spiritual health and vitality, not on how much sin can I stand before I really fall apart.  I am tempted to remain a little sick, but it shows through under stress or when I am attempting to follow Christ.  With sin-sickness, I am quickly winded and giving up.

The one who encourages sin is like that snake in the bed.  There is no compromise.  There is no "managing" or "coping."  Simply sin and its accomplices must die.  Getting better is at the heart of killing sin.

Getting better is going back.  The very decision to return to the Father will bring hope and vitality.  The picture that Jesus wants us to have is of a father longing for a son, not a judge gathering a jury.  Perhaps the journey back begins as obligation to a master, but when I draw near, I find that really I am responding to the love of a parent.

Fear hangs over the image of a master waiting for a slave.  That is where the prodigal son started.  Even with that image, the son realized that his treatment under such a father would be better than the treatment he was now receiving in his runaway status.  I see that even a God as judge and master has more appeal than the cruel treatment of sin form my flesh, the devil, and the world.  My fear is what I may lose: money or reputation, for instance.  I am encouraged by the idea that if I lose them well, they will assist me in drawing close to God and living in his love and power.

This fear is unfounded, though.  What I find is not a master or a judge, but a father.  This father does not wait for me to make my way back, but comes to me while I am still far off.  This is the story of grace:  I turn and God is there.  I am never far from him because of his mercy and grace.

Lord,


I am always going into the far country,
  and always returning home as a prodigal,
  always saying, Father, forgive me,
  and thou art always bringing forth the best robe.
Every morning let me wear it,
  every evening return in it,
  go out to the day's work in it,
  be married in it,
  be wound in death in it,
  stand before the great white throne in it,
  enter heaven in it shining as the sun.


Amen.


(The Valley of Vision, a collection of Puritan Prayers &Devotions)

The Bible is then the light and the trumpet that makes me turn around and go home.  It shows the darkness of the world's night and the dawn of God's goodness and grace.  It shows the sickness of sin and the healing of Jesus hands in my life.  I announces the futility of living on my own for myself and whispers the call of family and home in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  I want to not be lazy and use it incorrectly, but let it be a light, a medicine, and good news in the hand of God.

Pain Without Suffering

Conversations, Gary Moon, Phillip Yancey, and Jan Johnson, The Problem of Pain

We are like children trying to understand the minds of an adult. Just as an infant cannot understand how an object can still be present in a room when it is hidden from vision, we cannot fathom how God’s love can still exist when it becomes concealed by tragedy. Evil is not a problem. Problems have solutions. Evil is a mystery. It defies solution through human intellect. Only faith can remove us from the dark dilemma.  (Gary Moon, Finding God in the Midst of Pain and Suffering)

Pain is directional, after all. It exists not to make us miserable but to force us to pay attention to something that needs changing. I see physical pain as the language the body uses to communicate a matter of urgent importance—and exactly the same principle applies to psychological or spiritual pain. (Philip Yancey, What Good Is God interview)

Spend less time and energy trying to clean up the culture around you—a task Jesus and Paul did not seem concerned about—and more time and energy creating a counter-culture that presents a compelling alternative while exposing the shallowness of its surroundings.  (Yancey)

First, I would say, don’t hold back. The Bible gives ample proof that God welcomes our honest expressions of emotion, even when they include profound disappointment and rage.  Further, I would say that suffering should come with a warning label: Do not practice this alone. (Yancey)

Jesus wept even for those who wanted to destroy him.  (Jan Johnson, A God Who Weeps)

Jesus "woes" to the Pharisees and his lament for Jerusalem (Matthew 23):  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc8qOXeTsUQ#t=185m53s.

God does not have a problem with pain.  He comes into it through Christ.  He sees it through Christ.  He overcomes it through Christ.  Pain is not a problem in light of the the gospel.  This is the good news.

In itself, pain invites response and keeps people from growing too complacent.  As with other "natural" feelings, it has greatly increased with the Fall and has moved from mere pain to suffering and misery.  Change, growth, and healing do not occur quickly enough, so pain takes residence in my body and mind and creates suffering, much like anger can take residence and create rage or contempt.

God's solution is not one easily accepted.  Jesus did not seek pain, but neither did he avoid it exactly.  He accepted pain and addressed it.  He brought healing and comfort more than explanations.  When the time was right, when God's will was plain, he embraced pain and underwent suffering in order to overcome suffering with joy, peace, and love.  His victory did not remove pain, but defeated suffering and the outcome of hopeless, empty death.  No one need suffer or die alone anymore.

I am awed by the statement above that "Evil is not a problem. . . .  Evil is a mystery."  This shows that I cannot unravel the "problem of pain" on my own.  Mysteries are revealed.  Jesus's acceptance of and address to pain is a revelation more than an answer.  In him we find out not so much why pain and suffering exist, but how we are to deal with them.  Revelation comes through faith, that is, trust.  That is why the "answers" vary and fall short of universal truth.  They are pictures of journeys that other people have taken and reveal the kind of trust they had in God.

The "shallowness of [my] surroundings" encourages either glib or hopeless answers to pain and suffering.  What is needed is a community of faith, that is, a gathering of people dedicated to trusting God through pain and suffering.  This sort of community is not drawn and held together primarily by descriptions of what faith they have nor by what actions faith demands, but by lives drawn together by a trust in God through Christ that accepts and addresses pain in a walking friendship with God.

Such depth is evidenced through weeping and true sorrow.  Such sorrow does not have to be misery.  I do not think God is miserable because of suffering in and around him.  He is characterized by joy.  Only through faith, hope, and love can suffering be defeated and bring out love, joy and peace in my heart.  Such change comes through sorrow, which in Christ leads not to despair, but to change and growth and life.

Lord, may my tears come easily.  May they be real.  May I have the trust to accept and address pain instead of always denying it or running from it.  Such actions lack faith and lead to further suffering.  Calm my fear and reveal in me, to me, and through me your work in this world, especially in pain and suffering.  Amen.


I might say (very tentatively) that God has pain, but does not suffer.  I might say that although immutable in character, the love of God brings the reality of pain.  This would be all I could really say about God.  For myself, if growth is my destiny in God, then pain is also there.  Yet it may be a pain without suffering, a stretching and soreness from growth without the prolonged and mysterious pain of suffering.  This requires more thought and certainly more experience to understand.  May God's grace guide me.

God's Word Brings Faith By Quieting the Mind

Devotional Classics, Madame Guyon, Excerpts from Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ

In coming to the Lord by means of "praying the Scripture," you do not read quickly; you read very slowly.  You do not move from one passage to another, not until you have sensed the very heart of what you have read.  You may then want to take that portion of Scripture that has touched you and turn it into prayer.

Of course, there is a kind of reading the Scripture for scholarship and for study - but not here.  That studious kind of reading will not help you when it comes to matters that are divine!  To receive any deep, inward profit from the Scripture you read until revelation, like a sweet aroma, breaks out upon you.

In "beholding the Lord" you come to the Lord in a totally different way.  Perhaps at this point I need to share with you the greatest difficulty you will have in waiting upon the Lord.  It has to do with your mind.  The mind has a very strong tendency to stray away from the Lord.  Therefore, as you come before the Lord to sit in his presence, beholding him, make use of the Scripture to quiet your mind.

The way you do this is really quite simple.  First, read a passage of Scripture.  Once you sense the Lord's presence, the content of what you have read is no longer important.  The Scripture has served its purpose; it has quieted your mind; it has brought you to him.

Turn your heart to the presence of God.  How is this done?  This, too, is quite simple.  You turn to him by faith.  By faith you believe you have come into the presence of God.

Now, waiting before him, turn all your attention towrd your spirit.  Do not allow your mind to wander.  If your mind begins to wander, just turn your attention back again to the inward parts of your being. . . .  The Lord is found only within your spirit, in the recesses of your being, in the Holy of Holies; this is where he dwells.  The Lord once promised to come and make his home within you (John 14:23)

Oh, it is not that you will think about what you ahve read, but you will feed upon what you have read.  Out of love for the Lord you exert your will to hold your mind quiet before him.  When you have come to this state, you must allow your mind to rest.

In this peaceful state, swallow what you have tasted.  At first this may seem difficult, but perhaps I can show you a simple way.  Have you not, at times, enjoyed the flavor of a very tasty food?  But unless you were willing to swallow the food, you received no nourishment.  It is the same with your soul.  In this quiet, peaceful, and simple state simply take in what is there as nourishment.

For a long time I have sought to "practice the presence of Christ," as Brother Lawrence puts it, and have found myself more burdened than blessed.  It seems so strenuous and somewhat confusing.  My mind wanders because of a desire to "scheme" my way through life when I seek to stay with God throughout a day.  However, my mind also wanders because of confusion.  What am I supposed to think?  What am I supposed to be doing?

I have moved mostly toward regular times with God rather than "constant prayer."  I recharge throughout the day.  Still, even this can prove taxing.  Some days are better than others.  More often than not, though, I am flapping like a chicken rather than soaring like an eagle.  God meets me graciously and instructs, helps, and guides me.  But I want to know if this "constant prayer" is more than just a fantasy.

Through Madame Guyon's discussion of "beholding the Lord," I have come to understand more of what this "practicing the presence" is.  I have long recognized certain feeling associated with God's presence.  The feelings aren't always the same, but there is similarity to them.  Really the feelings are not so much God himself, but my attitude toward God when I am receptive to his presence.

This feeling has always been somewhat nebulous to me.  I didn't know what it was exactly or how it helped me.  Without knowing, I felt confused.  When confused, my mind wandered more.  So what has helped me is Madame Guyon's simple instruction to enter the "beholding of the Lord" through faith.

I find the word trust more helpful.  Trusting is not so much a feeling, but there is a certain kind of feeling that often accompanies it.  Also, her suggestions about resting my mind fit well with this trust.  In order to trust, often I must let go of certain thoughts and desires.  I must be open to God and therefore I must be closed to certain thoughts and desires.  The Scripture opens my mind to God and closes it to living life without him.

Trust and confidence are really actions of the will and heart more than the mind.  Although thoughts and feelings in the mind may accompany or facilitate trust, such confidence comes from the intention and action.  Trusting God involves a lot of waiting on him and resting in him.  Trust never involves hurry or frantic behavior, even if it does include quick action at times.  This faith is a readiness to do certain things.

A.W. Tozer speaks of faith as the "gazing soul on the saving God."  This lines up with Madame Guyon's "beholding the Lord."  It makes me realize that the command "Pray without ceasing" is really the same as "Do all things with faith."  Also I see that the reason faith is opposed to sight is that it is sight in itself.  Faith opposed temporal or physical sight.  This is analogous to a comment from C.S. Lewis Christianity and education: "Christianity does not require education because it is an education."  Faith is sight.

Such trust is possible on all occasions.  What I needed was recognition of that continuing faith followed by practice.  God opening my eyes to the experience of faith has made it easier to remain with him in faith.  Madame Guyon's admonition to look inward for me is not morbid self-absorption, but a reminder to attend to my trust in God and let go of the things that worry and obsess my mind.  The Scripture quiets the mind by refocusing my mind on God's goodness and love and encouraging my heart (will) to trust God.  Trust is the natural reaction to love.

This is how God's word goes out and brings people to him.  When people come to hear and realize the goodness and love of God, they are drawn into faith, trusting him.  This is not a one-time action, but a continual work of letting go of the things that seem so important to grasp the things that are important.  God's word, used honestly, brings faith.

Lord, may I be immersed in your word, so that my mind may be at rest and my heart full of trust.  Amen.


Now I feel I have grounds to practice this "prayer of the heart."  It is faith from "first to last."  People like Madame Guyon have explained and demonstrated this faith in practical terms.  The Bible is full of such descriptions.  Much of Jesus' teaching might be seen as a description of this faith and its outcome in God's kingdom and in this world.  I want to test this against the Scriptures.