Meditation 32 With Prayer And Fasting

I remember speaking to a man who was complaining about his lack of affections for God. He felt nothing towards Him. He confessed that he was not not in a church, nor under the instruction of a pastor. He couldn't remember the last time he had opened God's Word and it had been years since he partook of the Lord's Supper. He was discontent with his 'spiritual life' and at the same time was not using any of the means of grace by which God communes with His children. My conversation with him reminded me of a quote I once read which said something to the effect of "Our problem is not that we are asking too much of God's people, but far too little." 

We wonder why our souls are bankrupt of spiritual yearning and our lives are so devoid of joy and yet we do nothing to heighten our ability know and enjoy God. You would not describe a couple who never spoke to one another as being in love. You would say it seems like they hate each other. And so it it true in our relationship with our Heavenly Father. Meaningful and deep joy in God comes only through much labor of effort. Even our Lord Jesus struggled to the point of sweating great drops of blood. It is said, when He was tempted to lose the joy that was set before Him, that "He prayed more earnestly" (Luke 22:44). The disciples of Jesus were often in "prayer and fasting". Why prayer and fasting? Fasting was not an act of worship to God, for nowhere are we told that God is pleased with hunger. Rather they fasted in order to promote more lively worship and prayer. They suppressed their appetite for food so that they could all the more eat upon the Bread of Life. They deprived their flesh in order to more fully open their hearts to God in prayer. They labored with much effort and energy to taste and see that God is good. 

Father, I confess my spiritual dullness and laziness. I have not sought you as I ought. Give me the grace to peruse you with all my mind, body and soul. 

Meditation 31 Forgiveness

Though we may not express it in so many words, we like to see people suffer. When the overachiever at work gets the flue and his work piles up on his desk, we get a twisted sense of pleasure. Or when the daughter of the “perfect” family at church gets pregnant outside of wedlock, and there is something inside of us that is pleased that they have finally fallen out of their ivory tower. And don’t we experience a little bit of satisfaction when we hear that the guy with the big house and nice car lost his job? 

Even if these are just momentary feelings, they still reveal the dreadful corruption of the deepest part of our being. In the very moments when we ought to feel pity and sympathy, we feel pleasure and satisfaction in the suffering and loss of others. 

Or perhaps, on the other side of the equation, when we are wronged, is not our first reaction to seek revenge? “Settling the score”, getting back at the one who we perceive has harmed us. 

Oh the darkness of our hearts! 

Dear reader, can you not see the dying Lamb of God upon the vulgar cross? His flesh exposed. His breath short and fast. His clothes stripped from his boy. His veins collapsing.  And can you not hear His cry, “Father, forgive them”? Then let us with Him, forgive all those who have in any way wronged us. 

Father, transform me into the image of Your Son Jesus. Let the humility that was in Him, be in me as well. Teach me to forgive others as Christ forgave. 

Meditation 30 A Better Hope

At the heart of the Christian’s faith there stands a risen Savior. Against the black backdrop of a traitorous, premeditated murder, there shines victorious Light; the Lamb of God who has come to take away the sins of the world. After accomplishing all He had set out to do, leaving no law unkept and no prophesy unfulfilled, our Lord Jesus having surrendered himself to the Jews, and now hanging as a curse-bearer from the cross, cries out that all is finished (John 19:30). All that the Law and the Prophets had spoken about God’s Suffering Servant has come to pass, has been accomplished. And now, in His resurrection, in his walking out of death and into life, our Lord Jesus has declared Himself to be the Son of God with power (Romans 1:4). 

The resurrection of Jesus from the dead absolves Him of any guilt, authenticates all His claims, and secures for us all the promises of God. Our debt paid in full and salvation purchased for all of God’s people. The holy wrath of God against us, now exhausted on Jesus. The merit of all of His righteousness imputed to us who believe. Full reconciliation between the Author of Life and those dead in sin. An eternity of ever increasing joy in the immediate presence of God Himself. All of this, and ten thousand others beside, are a direct result of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Our hope is built on nothing less than Christ’s death-defeating rising from the grave.  

Father, a better hope I could not ask for then all that is guaranteed in the resurrection of Jesus. 

Meditation 29 A Reason to Long for Heaven

Years ago, I was at a funeral of a dear saint who had died in old age. The pastor spoke about how this woman was now in heaven. She was hanging out with old friends, visiting with Moses and Paul. She was eating the food of heaven and laughing with the angels. As I sat listening, I could not help but notice how conspicuously God was left out of heaven. Friends and family, saints and angels, but where was God? 

I have heard many believers talk about how they have no longing for heaven, no feeling for eternity. Who cares about going to heaven, when I have everything I could ever want right here, right now? 

Its no wonder that many Christians have no taste for heaven when it is merely portrayed to them as a family reunion in the sky. The greatest thing about heaven is not that you are going to see grandma again, or get to run barefoot through a grassy field, or eat cinnamon rolls every morning. The greatest thing about heaven is God Himself; the fountainhead of all pleasure will be with us there. I fear many of us have no longing for heaven, for we have no longing for God. God is not our treasure on earth, so we cannot see how the immediate presents of God in heaven will be felicitous. 

Here we find our spiritual senses awakened on occasion, but when we see Him face-to-face, all dullness will be vanquished forever. Here we spend our time in hope and faith that the Gospel is true and that God is good. But there all of our hopes on earth would not fill a thimble compared to the ocean-vastness of God’s endless goodness and shocking beauty. Here we taste, but there we shall have our fill. Here we see God through a steamed-up mirror, but there we shall see Him face-to-face. 

Father, give me to taste and see that You are good. Teach me to treasure you on earth now, so I can enjoy You all the more in heaven. 

Meditation 28 A Restless Heart

Right after high school I found myself working for a summer in a restaurant. I was shocked at how the staff talked about the customers they were serving. It was all smiles and politeness in front of their faces to get a big tip, but behind their backs, they were literally being cursed by the waitresses. Internet trolling, which has no agenda less than causing emotional damage, has led young children to hate and even kill themselves. Anyone who has held down a job for more than five seconds knows that back-stabbing coworkers and sabotaging their work and reputation is par for the course.        

The great Augustin made this observation, “The heart of man is restless, until it finds its rest in God.” There is an endless attempt by the unsaved to comfort or quite their wretched hearts. Whether it be doping themselves on the comforts of consumerism, attempting to feel validated as a man or woman by sleeping around, or living for the weekend when they can drink enough to forget themselves, they can never find rest for their souls and therefore they can never actually be happy or satisfied.  

Standing in stark contrast to this is our Lord Jesus who has said, “Come to me, and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28). You see, dear reader, the Lord Jesus is the one for whom your soul was made. And your soul will never find it’s rest until it comes to discover that great purpose for which it exists, which is no less than for God Himself (1 Cor. 8:6). Try what you might to satisfy your soul’s longing for reality and meaning, unless you come to Jesus, the fountain of Life, you will always be trying to drink from a sieve.  

Oh God, my soul has no rest! I have spent my time trying to fulfill the longings of my heart by drinking anything but your life-giving water and all I’ve found is misery. Save me and satisfy the longs of my soul.

Meditation 27 False Gods

The very idea of making false gods sounds silly to our postmodern minds. We find it difficult to believe that there is a God at all, let alone making up a bunch of false gods. A lot of us would admit that we find prayer hard and we primarily read our bibles only when something has gone wrong in our lives, and we need to turn to Psalm 23 for some much-needed comfort. Its not the making of false gods that we struggle with in the 21st century. Right? 

I remember speaking to a man who was telling me how much he loves and respects Jesus.  As we continued talking however, it turned out that this man did not believe in the deity of Jesus, nor that Jesus was the only savior of the world, nor that he rose from the dead! I asked him, “Then how can you say you love Jesus if you deny everything that Jesus claimed about himself?” I said to this man, “You love an image of Jesus that you have fashioned and formed. You do not love the Jesus who actually is.”

This man had made a false god and named it Jesus. He had created a god in his own image and worshiped it. The temptation for us to do the same is very real. It is not uncommon for us to hear someone say, “To me, Jesus is…” and then fill in the blank with just about anything you want. Are we zealous for the Jesus who was prophesied in the Old Testament, revealed in the Gospels, and preached in the Epistles? Or do we want a wax-nose Jesus who can be molded and shaped to look as we want it to? 

Father, I do not love you as I ought. I have broken the second commandment and made for myself false gods. Open now my eyes so that I can see you for how you really are - supremely glorious. 

Meditation 26 Perfect Perfection

“God hath all life, goodness, blessedness, in and of himself…He is the alone fountain of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things…He is most holy in all his counsels, in all His works, and in all His commands.” Those words blow my mind! I’ve read them over and over throughout the years, but they have never stopped commanding my attention. These high words describing God come from the Westminster Confession of Faith. Though they were penned 500 years ago, the God they speak of has not changed and so neither has their truth or gravity. 

Belief in the perfect perfection of God is awe-inspiring. God has never made a mistake or commanded something out of a bad motive. He has never fallen asleep at the wheel nor has He ever whined or rolled His eyes for having to deal with us.

We could not be further from perfect perfection. No one will ever say of me that all my advice is sound and all of my actions are flawless. I am filled with feelings of arrogance and weakness. I disappoint myself and the people around me. 

All of our dark self-hating and neighbor-envying only serves to remind us that in God and only in Him, lies all life, goodness and blessedness, light and wisdom, hope and truth. And we are actually driven to the goodness and perfection of God by our sin. Do we not find that the knowledge of our sinful selves actually makes the radiance of His perfection shine brighter? The dark backdrop of our impurities causes the diamond of His goodness to be seen for how it really is - the fountain of all goodness. 

Dear reader, let your sin, shame and brokenness be catalyst to treasure the perfection and goodness of God. Let the contrast between Him and you bring you to the foot of His cross in total awe that He is yours. 

Father, in You is found the perfection of happiness and the fountain of life. In Your goodness, cause even the blackness of my sin to magnify the flawlessness of your beauty.