–Richard Owen Roberts

I had a conversation with a friend a few weeks ago which will probably stick with me for some time. The conversation merely consisted of our summers in summary, but it revealed much more. It was in that conversation that the very lessons I was describing were solidified in my heart.

I’m being vague only because there are so many lessons that are intertwined together; I cannot describe one without describing them all. And to describe them all would be a colossal project (for me to write and for you to read).

Oh, but summarize I must.  What would the point of this post be, if I succeeded at communicating nothing?

Over the past year or so, I’ve spent extensive amounts of time forcing myself to rely on my logic and understanding for everything. I came to realize that my emotions were constantly pulling me towards desires and attitudes that did not reflect the heart of Jesus and therefore needed to stop. My conclusion was to turn off my emotional side altogether. Bad idea.

Through the fellowship of that conversation I came to realize that while my emotions can be very distracting (especially as a single female); I was created with emotion. I was created to live. To feel. While my emotions often rear some ugly heads, a life without passion is no life at all.

So I leave the summer behind and embrace my future with a fresh set of eyes. It is through these eyes that I can view all of the other lessons I learned this summer in full color. I came back from that conversation to an email that simply said, “Are you alive?” I replied, “Yes. Very much alive.”

“His principle can be quite simply stated: he refuses to die while he is still alive. He seeks to remind himself by every electric shock to the intellect that he is still a man alive, walking on two legs about the world. For this reason he fires bullets at his best friends; for this reason he arranges ladders and collapsible chimneys to steal his own property; for this reason he goes plodding around the whole planet to get back to his own home. And for this reason he has been in the habit of taking the woman whom he loved with a permanent loyalty, leaving her about (so to speak) at schools, boarding-houses, and places of business, so that he might rediscover her again and again with a raid and a romantic elopement. He seriously sought by a perpetual recapture of his bride to keep alive the sense of her perpetual value, and the perils that should be run for her sake.” G.K. Chesterton in Manalive

David Livingstone

This is just about my favorite time of day. The house is quiet and no one else awake. It allows me a few minutes to myself—time I use every day to read the Bible and pray. I know that in a few minutes the family will begin to stir. Nick and Abby will wake up and Michaela will not be far behind. It won’t be long before the quiet is punctuated by their childish squabbles over who gets to eat what or who gets to sit where. I can pretty well count on this.

A little bit after nine, we will head to church. Here we’ll enjoy a time of worship and fellowship with a group of our favorite people. Though we love them dearly, I’m quite sure we’ll see evidence of sin in their lives—we’ll hear people say things they shouldn’t say and see them do things they shouldn’t do. After church we’ll head to the home of some friends to spend the afternoon with them and, once again, I’m sure there will be plenty of evidence of sin in their lives and in ours. We’ll return to church in the late afternoon to once more hear a sinful brother preach what I’m sure will be an excellent but somehow-imperfect sermon. And after it all, we’ll head home. And as we do, you can be sure that there will be more sin, more fighting or complaining or temptation to say things that just have no business being said.

All day we will see the evidence of sin in others around us. It is inevitable, is it not? How are we to react to such sin? It is here that Jonathan Edwards offers a valuable resolution and one that I hope will be in my mind and on my heart as I see so much sin today. I trust that you will benefit from reading it and pondering it as well.

Resolved, To act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings, as others, and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God.

*I’m obviously using the term “friend” very loosly. I read his blog.

A Heart for the Lost, pp.25-27

The more I rehearse and exult in gospel truths, the more there develops within me a corresponding burden for non-Christians to enter into such blessings. This is also what seems to happen to the Apostle Paul while writing the book of Romans.

In Romans 5 Paul exults in his righteous standing before God. In chapter 6 he speaks of the freedom from sin which Christ has accomplished in the lives of believers, a freedom which Paul later confesses had not yet become fully revealed in his own daily practice (chapter7). Nonetheless, coming into chapter 8, he recounts the fact that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. With increasing flourish, he rehearses numerous gospel themes throughout the length of chapter 8, and he climaxes the chapter with a triumphant exclamation regarding the endless love of God which enables Christians to conquer overwhelmingly in all things.

What effect do such gospel meditations have upon Paul? What emotions do they produce in him besides the obvious joy he feels while reciting them? Paul bares his soul at the very beginning of chapter9: “I have great sorrow,” he says, “and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ, for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”

Coming down from the heights of gospel meditation, Paul’s heart is devastated by a burden for his fellow-Jews to experience the saving power of the gospel. His burden existed long before he started writing, but it is undoubtedly intensified by his rehearsal of gospel truths in Romans 5-8, a rehearsal which inevitably leads his thoughts toward the plight of those outside of Christ.

Hence, if I wish to have a ‘Romans 9′ kind of burden for non-Christians, I should become practiced at celebrating the gospel as Paul does in Romans 5-8. Over time, my joy in the gospel will become increasingly tinged with grief, and this grief-stained joy will lend a God-inspired passion to my ministry of evangelizing the lost.

Grief is a good word to describe how I feel tonight. When I first read A Gospel Primer, this section stood out  to me, but didn’t ring true; tonight it does. I sit here tonight overwhelmed with thoughts of the cross and burdened for those who don’t know of the redemptive power that hung there. I am in tears as I remember how lost I was apart from Christ, how much He’s done through me for His glory. I am in tears as I grieve the eternally-damned souls of my friends, family and co-workers.

For those who are keen to pray for me, please pray for the staff at the hood this summer. There are many who are still unsure of who Christ really is. He is the God of hope, love, eternal security and so much more.

A Heart for the Poor, pp.38-39

Like nothing else could ever do, the gospel instills in me a heart for the downcast, the poverty-stricken, and those in need of physical mercies, especially when such persons are of the household of faith.

When I see persons who are materially poor, I instantly feel a kinship with them, for they are physically what I was spiritually when my heart was closed to Christ. Perhaps some of them are in their condition because of sin, but so was I. Perhaps they are unkind when I try to help them; but I, too, have been spiteful to God when He has sought to help me. Perhaps they are thankless and even abuse the kindness I show them, but how many times have I been thankless and used what God has given me to serve selfish ends?

Perhaps a poverty-stricken person will be blessed and changes as a result of some kindness I show him. If so, god be praised for His grace through me. But if the person walks away unchanged by my kindness, then I still rejoice over the opportunity to love as God loves. Perhaps the person will repent in time; but for now, my heart is chastened and made wiser by the tangible depiction of what I myself have done to God on numerous occasions.

The gospel reminds me daily of the spiritual poverty into which I was born and also of the staggering generosity of Christ towards me. Such reminders instill in me both a felt connection to the poor and a desire to show them the same generosity that has been lavished on me. when ministering to the poor with these motivations, I not only preach the gospel to them through word and deed, but I reenact the gospel to my own benefit as well.

 

“People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking that we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves that we have been liberated.” D.A. Carson