Be Strong and Let Your Heart Take Courage - He Is Able

Jon Bloom post:  How Long, O Lord?

Peter tells us that “the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness” (2 Peter 3:9). At some point, each of us joins the “some” group. We reach places where it’s painfully clear that our sense of time-urgency must be different than God’s. And it is. We prefer to measure time in minutes, rather than months. But the Ancient of Days measures time by millennia (2 Peter 3:8).

God knows that he sometimes appears slow to us, which is one merciful reason he gave us the Bible. This book, which God took millennia to assemble, shows us that God is not slow, but patient in working out his redemptive purposes in the best ways (2 Peter 3:9). And it shows that he is compassionate toward us when we wait for him for what seems like a long time.

Not as Some Count Slowness

Abraham and Sarah were not only the parents of all of God’s faith-children (Romans 4:16); their lives are perhaps the most famous picture of God’s redemptive purposes in what seems like his painfully slow pace.

Abram (as he was first called) was already 75 years old when God promised to make him a great nation that would bless all the families of the earth and to give his offspring the land of the Canaanites (Genesis 12:1–3).

However, there was a problem: Abram had no offspring. His wife, Sarai (as she was first called), was barren (Genesis 11:30).

Years passed. Still no child. So Abram prudently planned to make his servant Eliezer to be his heir. But God said, “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir” (Genesis 15:4). Then he took Abram out and showed him the night sky and told him that his offspring would be so numerous it would be like counting stars.

But years later, it was still just Abram and Sarai in the tent.

Sarai became desperate and gave up on waiting. She decided that her maidservant, Hagar, could be a surrogate child-bearer for her. This sounded humanly reasonable to 86-year-old Abram, but he did not consult God and the solution backfired, big time.

Thirteen more years went by before God finally told the 99-year-old Abram that 89-year-old Sarai would bear a son, and he changed their names to Abraham (father of a multitude) and Sarah (princess). A year later Isaac is born.

It was 25 years of waiting, while any earthly reason to hope for a child went from highly unlikely to impossible. Their only hope was God’s promise, which was precisely God’s purpose in the long, confusing wait.

No unbelief made [Abraham] waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. (Romans 4:20–21)

God determined that all of his true children would be born again through faith to a living hope (1 Peter 1:3) and then live by faith (the faith of Abraham, Galatians 3:7) in his promises alone (Romans 1:17). So he took patient pains to cultivate it in Abraham and Sarah, and he does the same for us.

How Long, O Lord?

One of the most profoundly comforting things about Scripture is how it reveals God’s compassion for us impatient waiters. He knows that he can appear slow to us. He knows that at times we are going to feel like he’s forgotten us and is hiding his face from us. He knows that as he patiently works out his purposes, we will experience circumstances so difficult and confusing that we cry out in bewildered pain.

And so he not only gives us stories like Abraham and Sarah to help us see that we are not alone; he also gives us songs like Psalm 13 to sing.

     How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? 
          How long will you hide your face from me? (Psalm 13:1)

The canonical songbook is full of raw poetry — more raw and blunt than many of us are, even when confiding our pain to a trusted friend. And these were congregational songs! The people of Israel were to sing them together.

And from this, we are to hear from God that he knows our waiting for him can be hard. He knows it can feel to us like he is is taking too long. He gives us permission to ask him, “How long is this going to last?” He reminds us that when we feel like he’s forgotten us, it is an experience common to all his faith-children — common enough to warrant congregational singing about it.

And as we pray or sing such psalms, they remind us that God, in fact, has not forgotten us, that what we feel isn’t always real, and that God’s promises are truer than our perceptions.

Renewed Strength Is Coming

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

God’s chosen pace, as well as his chosen place for us — that bewildering, confusing, painful place where we feel like we’re stuck — is redemptive. More than we know. There is more at stake than we can see and more going on than meets our eyes.

But here are two gracious promises God gives to us when we are waiting long:

From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him. (Isaiah 64:4)

He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:29–31)

Like Abraham and Sarah, God is working for you as you wait for him, and he will bring renewal to your weary heart.

So “be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the LORD” (Psalm 31:24). He is able to do what he has promised.

Glimpses Into His Greatness

David Mathis post:  How Great Is Our God

May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation say continually, “Great is the LORD!” (Psalm 40:16)

Great is an important word. We use it to talk about something of unusually large size: A great earthquake shook the city. Or a large number: A great crowd filled the stadium. Or unusual power or intensity: She has experienced great pain. Or something that is especially good or wonderful: He is a great player. Or something in an extreme degree: For a long time, we have been great friends.

Not only is the word great flexible — used in five different ways above, to talk about size, number, intensity, goodness, and degree — but it’s also a powerful word. Or at least it used to be. It’s become an easy word to overuse. When day after day is great, and meal after meal is great, and game after game is great, we begin to lose the punch of the word to talk about our wedding day, or an unusually lavish feast, or the championship game that went into overtime.

Reclaim the Word Great

And what about God? The Bible tells us again and again, especially in the Psalms, that our God is great. If we use the word great for the normal and everyday, what language will we have when we need to describe the day or the meal or the game that really is a cut above the typical — or most importantly, the God who really is infinite above all else?

One wonderful thing about this song is that it helps us reclaim the word great. Using simple, but profound language, “How Great Is Our God” turns our attention to the greatness of God. It sets God before us as our standard of true greatness. Perhaps when God increasingly becomes our standard of what is great, then we’ll increasingly become more careful with how easily we dish out the word for days and meals and games.

And just as the word great is flexible and can refer to size, number, intensity, goodness, and degree, so this song gives us several glimpses into the greatness of God.

Four Glimpses into His Greatness

First is the greatness of his majesty and kingly glory. His is the splendor of a king — not just the king of a single tribe or nation, but the king of all the earth. Let all the earth rejoice. He is sovereign over all the nations, arrayed in unparalleled regal glory. He is great in royal majesty.

Second is the greatness of his holiness. As 1 John 1:5 says, “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” He is not just great in his majesty, but in his holiness. He is not just in charge and exalted, but he has perfect integrity — he is the standard of truth and character and moral uprightness. When he speaks, the darkness flees. He is great in his holiness.

Third is the greatness of his eternality. He never had a beginning, and he will never have an end. He is Alpha and Omega, he is the beginning and the end — nothing came before him and nothing will come after him. But not only does he stand unmoved from age to age, but “time is in his hands.” Not only is he before and after time, but he controls time, every century and year and hour and minute and second-tick — from him and through him and for him (Romans 11:36). He is great in relation to time.

Finally is the greatness of his mercy. He is not only One, but Three. And not only Father, but Son and Spirit. And these three persons of the Godhead work ever in happy tandem, not simply with the greatness of a Lion, but the greatness of a Lamb. And in his greatness as both Lion and Lamb, we find what it is that truly makes him great.

As great as he is in his majesty and holiness and eternality, it is the greatness of his mercy that truly leaves us in awe, because it his mercy in his Son that brings us sinners into the eternal joy of relationship with him. How great is our God!

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Desiring God partnered with Shane & Shane’s The Worship Initiative to write short meditations for more than one hundred popular worship songs and hymns. This meditation accompanies the song “How Great Is Our God” on The Worship Initiative, Volume 2.

Worship

Excerpt from Don Carson post:  2 Samuel 6; 1 Corinthians 16; Ezekiel 14; Psalm 55

DAVID WOULD DOUBTLESS make many of us uncomfortable if he lived today. He was such an intense man—exuberant in his pleasures, crushed in his discouragement, powerful in his leadership, unrestrained in his worship.

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Michal turns out to be her father’s daughter: she is more interested in pomp, form, royal robes, and personal dignity than in exuberant worship (2 Sam. 6:16). She despises David precisely because he is so God-centered he cares very little about his persona. People constantly fretting about what others think of them cannot be absorbed by the sheer God-awareness and God-centeredness that characterize all true worship.

The Lord Reigns

John Piper post:  This Is the Best of Times, And the Worst of Times

Excerpt

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How to Live in a Day Like Ours

What then shall we do?

1. Don’t assume any specific historical trajectory of good or evil is fixed and unchangeable. God evidently loves to do his surprising work in hard and unlikely times.

Surely, this is one of the implications of the history of Kings and Chronicles in the Old Testament. Even great and good kings are sometimes followed by monsters. And wicked kings have godly sons. Josiah was the son and grandson of two of the most wicked kings (Manasseh and Amon). He became king at eight years old. At sixteen he turned the nation on its head with a righteous reformation (2 Chronicles 34:1–4). It is unpredictable. It could happen at any moment, because God is sovereign.

2. Trust the sovereignty of God to turn the insanity of the nations to serve his purposes.

In the face of deadly opposition, the early church prayed with the words of Psalm 2, “Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot in vain?” (Acts 4:25). In vain? They succeeded in killing Jesus!

Yes. But what had they really achieved? The praying Christians make it clear:

Truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. (Acts 4:27–28)

They plotted in vain against the Lord and his anointed. Because, in all their fury, they simply fulfilled what the Lord had planned: the salvation of the world.

3. Let us labor to bind the minds and consciences of our young people to the word of God as infallible, and glorious, and utterly timely, and penetrating, and invincible.

The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)

I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! (2 Timothy 2:8–9)

4. And, as the apostle Peter says, “Let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good” (1 Peter 4:19).

Ready to suffer — for Christ’s name. Full of trust — in Christ’s grace. Doing good — by Christ’s power. He reigns over this sin-ravaged world. Therefore it is the worst of times and the best of times.

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Our New Being

Jeff Vanderstelt post:  God's Big Work and Your Little Mission

Many people wrongly believe that Christianity is simply a new set of rules and guidelines for how to behave. More recently, due to the widespread emphasis on missional living, it’s the “missional to-do list” that now determines our personal righteousness. In both cases, people find themselves feeling more like spiritual slaves than gospel-freed children of God.

This is because we easily buy into worldly thinking that claims our identity comes from what we do instead of what God has done.

We have wrongly believed that we’re human doings instead of human beings.

In the beginning, when God created humanity, he created us in his image and likeness and declared we were very good. Adam and Eve could have lived lives trusting in and resting in the work and word of God about themselves.

However, the evil one came along and questioned God’s word and work and deceptively convinced them to put their trust in his word and their own works. This was the beginning of moving from faith-based righteousness (identity based upon faith in God’s word and work to define us) to works-based righteousness (identity based upon lies from the evil one and faith in our own works).

And Adam and Eve aren’t alone. We can all tend to do this. We move from human beings to human doings by giving into the lure of believing lies about God and ourselves and putting our hope in our own works to define us.

But the problem is we all fall short.

Based upon our works alone, we all are lacking. If our sense of being — our sense of identity — comes from what we do, we will be filled with pride when we succeed and shame when we fail. Just like Adam and Eve, we will try to cover up our inadequacies with the fig leaves of good works or hide in the bushes of guilt and shame.

Unfortunately, for many, this is what Christianity has become for them: A missional drive to perform for, or a religious façade to hide behind.

The gospel offers us something far better.

In the gospel we are once again told that God has done a good work and spoken a better word over us.

Jesus is the better word and better work.

Through faith in Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection on our behalf, we are who we are — forgiven, loved, accepted, very good — not because of our work, but because of God’s work in and through Jesus Christ. God speaks over our lives “very good” because Jesus, who is the true and better human, is now our identity.

God’s word is true and his work is very good.

The gospel doesn’t call us to behavior modification — or to a missional-to-do list. The gospel calls us to identity transformation and a missional done list. Our identity is based upon faith in who God is, what he has done through Jesus, which leads to who we are.

We don’t do what we do out of our need to become. We do what we do because in Christ we already are. We are a new creation created in Jesus Christ for good works that he prepared in advance for us to do. Our “being in Christ” leads to our “Christ-like doing.”

We do what we do because of what we believe he has done.

We love because we are loved by him first.

We serve because we were served by Jesus first.

We are on mission, not mainly so that God will be pleased with us, but because he has already sent the Son on mission to make us decisively pleasing to the Father.

He is ultimately pleased with us because of Jesus, who loved, served, and was sent to die in our place. Everything we do comes out of what we believe about God and his work. This doesn’t negate good works or prevent missional living and keep us from desiring to please our Father. It actually produces good works and informs and leads into missional living.

We don’t have to do anything to become someone, but we get to, and want to do what we do because of what God has done to and for us, and is and will be for us, and who we now are in Christ.

Think of it this way: What God has done to us he now wants to do through us to the world.

Our new being in Christ leads to our new doing for Christ by his power.

Sufferers, Wait for God

Garrett Gilkey post:  The Promise of God in Threatening Pain

We live in a society that is petrified of suffering. Each day starts with a thousand moments of flinching at pain — at our alarm clocks, at the shower’s cold water, at missed emails that threaten loss and tragedy. We resent suffering, and what it could mean for us. Job bewails that suffering looms with the shadow divine disappointment: “I become afraid of all my suffering, for I know you will not hold me innocent” (Job 9:28).

Last night, I bolted onto the football field to face the Miami Dolphins. I was eager, surging with life, energy, and strength. It was the last preseason game of my third season in the NFL. The ball snapped, and with a snap of his fingers, God mercifully showed me how small and weak I am compared to his grand and glorious sovereignty over all creation.

As I was hit from the side in my knee, I felt the pop, fell to the ground in excruciating pain, and knew my year was over before it had even begun.

In the NFL, it’s easy to publicly thank God when we win, when we are victors, when we feel like gods. I want to take the opportunity to thank God when I am afraid — I want to thank him for three things:

1. his promise to care for me in the midst of threatening pain;
2. his meaning, which he spins out of the thread of suffering; and
3. his joy, which resonates most beautifully when superficial pleasures fade.

God’s Sovereign Care

A few wrong angles, and I was hit, falling to the ground in pain. All of a sudden, five people ran out to me. My flesh and Satan would have me believe a thousand stories in that moment. “You’re done.” “You’re worthless.” “You’re going to lose everything.” “You can’t keep up.” “You’re pathetic.” But the more real story echoed through my heart. As I lay on the field, God’s Spirit through the word whispered in my ear, “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good” (Romans 8:28).

That verse was a promise to me. God works all things together for good. It was like the Holy Spirit was repeating it in my heart, over and over again, with each surge of pain through my knee, “For those who love me, I work all things together for good.” God cares for his people. We can’t bank on prosperity-gospel promises. They can’t stand the test of God’s curse over the world. But God promises to care for us better than any worldly shepherd.

When we trust in the richest powers of the world, God says through Jeremiah, “All your lovers have forgotten you; they care nothing for you” (Jeremiah 30:14). But God still works to move the gospel into our lives through people who delight in Christ: “I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the LORD” (Jeremiah 23:4).

“Neither shall any be missing.” Not even me. Not even when I fail. Not even when I have nothing to offer. “Declares the Lord.” It’s his decree: Garrett shall not be left outside his care. Praise Jesus.

God’s Meaning-Making Sovereignty

In that moment of pain, I had a strange “peace of God that surpasses all understanding” (Philippians 4:7). I had heartfelt assurance that everything was going to be okay. But I was assured of something more important:

This season of suffering, this injury, is a gift.

Not only was I reminded of Romans 8:28, that all things work for good, but also that what happened was a gift in so many ways. Suffering is always another opportunity for God to be glorified, and for his satisfying gospel to be made known. King David holds the two in clear tension: “The Lord upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down. . . . You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing” (Psalm 145:14, 16). David isn’t saying that God will never let us suffer. He is saying that God fulfills the longing which our suffering brings to the surface.

God makes meaning out of our suffering, because he is sufficient in it. Through suffering, I see in my own heart these desires given to the throne. That’s God’s biggest gift in suffering — to have something taken away from you, and still find joy. A family member. A job. An idol. God satisfies us, not in spite of our unwanted circumstances, but in and through them.

God’s Joy Deeper Than Worldly Pleasures

How does God satisfy us in suffering? Through joy.

If God’s existence has ever been affirmed to me, it has been affirmed in suffering. Like we said above, when God gives us peace, it is peace that transcends understanding. But when God gives us joy, it is “that I may know the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:10). The suffering that we experience with Christ is not the searing pain of a physical experience. It is the emotional pain of suffocating our parasitic idols — the labor pains of joy.

Our natural inclination is to experience fear. Our hearts by instinct respond to suffering with fear, frustration, and questioning God’s sovereignty.

That’s what God is already showing me in this and through this. He is not only showing me peace, but delight and joy. It’s a gift, and it shows me the joy of an intimate and loving and compassionate God.

Sufferers, Wait for God

Return with me to Job. We saw him in Job 9, on the ropes, getting beaten up, wondering whether God was the one wearing the gloves. But James called him steadfast. That’s an odd description for Job. How was Job steadfast? He hung in there long enough to joyfully rest in God’s love for him. “Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful” (James 5:11).

Sufferers, wait for God. More than that — wait with me for him. Let’s see what the Lord’s purpose is for us, the one who is compassionate and merciful to his sheep whom he will not forget.

The Lord As Our Ultimate Treasure

Bethany Jenkins: How Shall We Live?

1 Corinthians 7:31

(From now on let) those who deal with the world live as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away. 

Each of us has only one life. This is it. Our time is valuable and our face-to-face meeting with the Lord is imminent and real. As Paul writes, “The appointed time has grown very short … For the present form of this world is passing away.”

How shall we live?

Mourn as Though We are Not Mourning

We mourn. We are sad over great losses – e.g., family, friends, health, dreams. Yet we mourn as though we are not mourning because we know that we cannot lose our ultimate treasure – Christ’s love. Thus, our losses don’t destroy us. We say, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” Our losses are modest. We lose now, but win in eternity.

Rejoice As Though We are Not Rejoicing

We rejoice. We take joy in the thousands of good gifts from God. Beautiful weather. Great food and friends. Art and music. Yet we know that these things cannot satisfy our souls. Only Christ can. Even our present fellowship with him is a mere foretaste: “Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.” Thus, our joys are modest. They give us tastes of what is to come.

Buy As Though We Have No Goods

We buy things. We don’t withdraw from commerce. Yet business doesn’t possess us. We don’t love money. Our cars, homes, e-readers, iPhones – we hold them loosely. If they are taken, we sense that they were never really ours because Christ is more valuable than anything money can buy. We’re not here on earth to own things; we’re here to lay up treasures in heaven.

Deal With The World as Though We Have No Dealings With It

We engage with the world. We don’t avoid it or approach it with spiritual dichotomies. Yet we don’t ascribe final greatness to it. We know that there are unseen things that are vastly more precious than the world. We work with all our hearts, but our full passions belong to the heavenly kingdom.

Prayer

Lord, our lives are short and precious. Let us, therefore, live in death’s inevitability so that we mourn and rejoice and buy and engage as though we are not mourning or rejoicing or buying or engaging. Grow us deep in you as our ultimate treasure. Amen.