Nothing Has Changed

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on January 7, 2021
Posted in: Uncategorized. Leave a comment

My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.

 He only is my rock and my salvation: he is my defense; I shall not be moved.

 In God is my salvation and my glory: the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God.

 Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah.

Psalm 62:5-8, KJV

Marketplace Monastics returns, for we have need of one another and the “reset” of which so many have been speaking. Here we may discuss, cry out, and exalt the goodness of God together.

Whatever we may have thought or anticipated in this New Year, no matter what we wanted and no matter how deep our desire, we are left with … the faithfulness of God. Of what shall we complain?

Has it occurred to you, as it has to me, that if I have put my faith in anything or anyone other than God Himself, I now have the opportunity to repent and recalibrate … yes, reset … my faith and my hope until they rest in God alone.

Have we thought our nation was poised to make us glad? Have we hoped our governors would set things to rights? Now some are exulting and some are despondent, and once again the pendulum swings . . .

But not so for the people of God. We are unmoved, for we build upon rock, and that rock is the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not in political issues alone, not only in matters of health and wealth, but in all the well-being of our souls and all the anticipation of life on earth and life after death, not to mention our vital trust that those we love and those for whom we pray will be gathered in, brought to faith, restored in every good way, even as our souls are restored in peace and joy. For all this, we have been given faith, and not just faith in Christ, but the very faith of Christ Jesus.

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

(Galatians 2:20, KJV)

We fight the good fight, and neither battles won or battles lost dissuade us, for we war against principalities that are not yet mitigated. No battle is lost if we are still standing, rejoicing, asking good of our God, our hope untarnished. We praise Him for many cataclysmic things accomplished under His hand, we refuse to consign them to loss, we refuse to believe that God would abandon those of us who pray for justice and for righteousness in our land. Has anything happened to indicate that our prayers are less welcome or less necessary for those who have not yet believed? Only let us not lose hope; that is really what is asked of us, and by God Himself.

When word came that Jairus’ daughter was beyond healing, that she had died and the mourners had taken up their wailing lament, what did Jesus say? “Don’t be afraid!” He said to the desperate father, “Only believe!” If we will not surrender our faith, then we are truly faithful, and such faith has great reward.

For Jairus, the request was simple … “Come and heal my daughter.” Of all things complex and circuitous and deceptive and horrifying – like legalized abortion – our request needs to be simple enough that we can bring it before God and keep our hearts fixed upon His faithfulness, “Come, Father, and heal our land.”

Our land will never be healed until hearts and homes are restored in truth and grace and the knowledge of God. Come, Father, and heal our land.

Image of a rose left on a wall at Auschwitz Concentration Camp, a symbol of “hope after terror.” (Puisney, Wikipedia, by permission)

Taught of the Lord … Psalm 27:9-11

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on July 21, 2020
Posted in: Praying Through the Psalms, Psalm 27, spiritual warfare, Uncategorized. Leave a comment

Lynch_Armenia_Five_generations

Do not hide your face from me,
    do not turn your servant away in anger;
    you have been my helper.
Do not reject me or forsake me,   God my Savior.
Though my father and mother forsake me,
    the Lord will receive me.
 Teach me your way, Lord; 

lead me in a straight path because of my oppressors.

 

 

As if You would ever hide Your face from us or turn us away! … and yet we know, we cringe at times, seeing our own fault and surveying our own sinfulness, even our blatant anarchy and the times when You were saying, “No!  This is not the path of life!  You do not need to know why, not right now – just choose life!” and we were saying, “we will walk in this path we have chosen; here is where we want to be.”

 

It might have been just a bad attitude we wanted to nurse for a few minutes or a few days.  It might have been a “feel good,” a comfort, a dangerous distraction, but we have sometimes gone places where we did not want to be seen, like children with chocolate-y fingers and crumbs on our chins, not hidden, and especially not from You, and even there, to whom would we have turned, but to You?

 

Others could see in our faces, that we had not been with You.

 

            We say to You, You are the Keeper of Our Souls. We say that when our parents did forsake us, seldom if ever on purpose, it was at times when they, too, wandered off on their own, themselves distracted, falsely comforted, to places where they did not want to be seen by You, sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for a few days, and some of them much, much longer.

 

You will receive us; You will not stray or turn away. You run to us, and the deeper the pit into which we have fallen, the more we know, no one but You could have rescued us.

 

Save to the uttermost, Father.  Save those for whom we pray today.  Some of them know and some may not yet, that there is no one beside You, no one who can and no one who will be to the fatherless, a Father like You.  There is no one Who can teach our souls the way You can and do, no one else Who can instruct in righteousness with faith as the assurance that we will learn and grow.

 

If only our parents could have taught us this: you will learn, you will be formed and whole and without spot or blemish or any such thing (Ephesians 5:27.)  They said, “You must behave,” but You say, “You will be holy, as I am holy.”  They wanted us to behave, to do what was right, to shun evil, to walk with integrity; You provide for us along the way, walking with us in paths of righteousness which we have come to love, because You are there.  We were taught to fear abductors when we were small; let now these, our oppressors, go famished to their caves and the dark worm holes from which they emerged.  Their mouths will not even water, for we drink from the well which is Christ, and they watch, shriveling to dust, as they ought to do.

 

May it be just so with those who come to devour those we love.

 

By H.F.B. Lynch, Five Generations of an Armenian family, by permission, Wikipedia

Public Domain

 

One Day, Together at Last – Psalm 27:5-8

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on June 19, 2020
Posted in: Bearing Burdens, Praying Through the Psalms, spiritual warfare, Uncategorized. Leave a comment

1280px-Religion-Pearce-Highsmith-detail-1

 

 

Lord God! In the place of shelter which is Christ,

keep safe the one for whom I pray;

I am praying for ________________ who does not yet know eternal safety,

At least not eternal confidence and rest.

The day of trouble is a life of trouble for my dear friend – Lord, save now!

Bring my friend, my loved one, into that stronghold where nothing and no one can ever destroy; bring my dear one into faith in Your Son,

And into Him.

Then with me that one will be exalted, our heads lifted up, our dwelling place secure and sacred!  Enemies may come to steal, kill, and destroy, but we will prevail with shouts of joy.

 Oh, for the day when he, when she will sing and make music with me, my Lord!

For now, I will sing for both of us, I will sing songs of deliverance over my beloved friend, I will sing songs of honest praise; I will cry out with words that You will hear, and I will know that as my soul once submitted to the fact of Your lovingkindness, so shall the soul of this one for whom I pray.

Let his, let her heart cry out,

“Seek His face!”

 

 

 

 Psalm 27:5-8, NIV

For in the day of trouble
    he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent
    and set me high upon a rock.

Then my head will be exalted
    above the enemies who surround me;
at his sacred tent I will sacrifice with shouts of joy;
    I will sing and make music to the Lord.

 Hear my voice when I call, Lord;
    be merciful to me and answer me.
 My heart says of you, “Seek his face!”
    Your face, Lord, I will seek.

 

This image, entitled “Religion” by Charles Sprague Pearce, 1896,

was explicitly placed in the Public Domain, Wikipedia

It may or may not be evidentiary of Christian worship, but it does demonstrate for us that we worship at an altar which is Christ, and we do bring others with us.

Shelter – Psalm 27:4, 5

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on June 17, 2020
Posted in: Uncategorized. Leave a comment

 

1280px-Blenheim_Palace_2014

 

One thing I ask from the Lord,
    this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
    all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
    and to seek him in his temple.
5 For in the day of trouble
    he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent
    and set me high upon a rock.

 

 

There are two things happening here.  If the second was not so hard on the heels of the first, I would save it for another day, but the Psalmist says that his safe-keeping is a by-product of his seeking, and I do believe it.  I have experienced it, and you can likely say the same.

 

Let’s look first to the first.  Psalm 27 begins with a resounding volley of proclamation: The Lord is my light!  The Lord is my salvation!  Whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the strength of my life!  Of whom shall I be afraid?

 

This does sound just a little bit like someone facing dangers, and the next passage illustrates:

 

When the wicked, even my enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell; though a host encamp against me, my heart shall not fear.

 

 

            This does not sound much like someone who has to imagine what it would be like to face a very real danger.  King David knew of danger from within as well as from without, and he left us a mountain of evidence that spiritual enemies can be defeated, and must be defeated, as surely as he knew how to survive in the wilderness.

 

 

Father God!  I can get myself into the Secret Place of Your Presence.  I can know the beauty

. . . and the safety . . . of Your temple and Your shelter.

I wish I could carry my dear, lost friends into this place of rest and loveliness and security, but I cannot, except just in this way:  I am here with you, and I bring them with me.  I say their names before You, I recall to Your perfect remembrance how desperate and destroyed they have become, how desolate, how defeated, how endangered they are without You, and I say, too, how much I love them.

Remember, O my God, how You brought me from doubt and fear to faith and hope, and do for these beloved friends what You have done for me. 

That will be sufficient, for You have done all and more than I ever asked or imagined, my Lord and my God.

 

 

 

Blenheim Palace, seat of the Duke’s of Marlborough

by permission, Wikipedia

 

 

 

 

Getting Hatred Right – Psalm 27, verses 2 and 3

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on June 12, 2020
Posted in: Praying Through the Psalms, Psalm 27, spiritual warfare, Uncategorized. Leave a comment

630px-Lucifer_Liege_Luc_Viatour

 

 

When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell.

Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident.

 

 

Lord God, how glad I am not to have to point fingers and blame everyone around me for everything that goes wrong or fails to satisfy in this life.  I thank You with all my heart, and I thank You at the very same time for revealing to me the hatred of my enemies.  I will do more than point at them; I will ruin them, as You give me truth and faith.

You know, O Lord, this has not always been so, this absence of misplaced animosity. You know I have blamed and recriminated when I should have prayed and lifted up and laid down my life, but it is life and peace to come before You and ask against evil at its origins, where I may hope for the utter shame and annihilation of the Wicked, those who hate with cruel hatred, as King David said.  I do, Lord, and according to Your Word.  I am asking for the destruction of the Destroyer.

Although it takes faith to know that my battle is not against flesh and blood, You said that they, my real enemies, “will be as nothing and as a thing of nought,” and I know You were not referring to the person who cuts me off in traffic!  You said that those who rage against me, even those who are incensed against me, would be ashamed and even confounded, and become as nothing; they will perish.  Clearly, You do not refer to humans who irritate and even wound at times.  Rather, these are enemies who taunt and tease and tempt them into the things they have done maliciously … and the things I have done maliciously.

Lord God!  Merciful Father!  The Centurions who crucified Jesus were forgiven.  Paul, who applauded as Christians went to their deaths, was forgiven and restored to spiritual greatness.  Men and women on Death Row, brutal murderers and even child molesters have been able to face their guilt and shame and find forgiveness and life and peace, even in death.

But may those who baited them and led them until they stumbled and fell be no more!  I do ask it! May those who beguile me and hate me and labor to separate me from You and from others be put to everlasting shame. I would not want perpetual shame for my worst human enemy, but it is a good thing to anticipate it for those who have come between us, spiritual enemies who come but to steal, kill, and destroy.

When the wicked, even our enemies and our foes, come upon us to eat up our flesh, they will stumble and fall. Even if they come in droves to wage war against our souls or the souls of the ones for whom we pray, we will not fear. Our confidence is in You, and You who teach us these things will accomplish them, for our sake and for Jesus’ sake, who prayed for His own before He left this earth, that You would keep them. Though their trials were intense, You delivered them entirely, and You are our God.

 

 

Lucifer Liege, Guillaume Geefs, Belgium – Look my friends!  The imagery!  One shackle binds this “Genius of Evil,” and his staff is broken, and he, the prince of darkness is confounded and confused … perhaps he is asking, “With all the mayhem and division I have brought into their world, how is it possible that the Sheep of that Lowly Shepherd remain kind and stalwart, they won’t stop loving or serving one another in love.  Love!  It makes me burn and shiver all at once!  They wash each other’s feet … !  My end is very near and drawing more near … I cannot make them surrender their forgiveness toward one another, and I tremble for fear I never shall …”  (Kerry)

licensed under Creative Commons

photo by Luc Viator, by permission, Wikipedia

Praying: Psalm 27, verse 1

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on June 1, 2020
Posted in: FEAR, Praying Through the Psalms, Psalm 27, Uncategorized. Leave a comment

 

Scared_Child_at_Nighttime

 

 

 

 Lord You are my light and my salvation—
    As long as I live I will fear nothing and no one apart from You,

the Lover of my soul, and Lover of my dear __________________.

 

Jesus said it … Don’t even fear those who can kill the body, but fear the One Who decides where bodies and souls will repose forever …

In You, O Lord!  In You, I rest now and to the eternity of eternities!

Give this hope to the one for whom I pray.

 

I take this opportunity, Father, to renounce for myself and to rebuke in Your Name for ____________  any unnatural, unholy fear, any God-denying fear,

any fear of failure

or fear of man

or fear of death.

 

How quick and subtle is our descent into fear!  I will not! – as You give me grace.

You are my life, and Your perfect love casts out all fear!  You will never leave me or forsake me; I am with You always.

 

Let us rise up against the fears that have entangled and destroyed the souls of those we love.  Let us have nothing to do with fear, and hate it when we see where it comes from and what it has done in our homes, hearts, and in our nation.

 

Scared Child at Nighttime

D. Sharon Pruitt, by permission, Wikipedia

 

 

 

Psalm 27 – Believe This!

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on May 25, 2020
Posted in: Praying Through the Psalms, Psalm 27. Leave a comment

 

Pietro_Longhi_027

 

I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

Psalm 27:13

 

 

If we ought to save the best for last, I cannot do it with Psalm 27!  I am starting at the next to the last verse.

 

These words live for me, and I want them to live for and live in those I love.

 

This one is personal; I read this Psalm twice a day for over a year.  It was during a difficult time when, with help and encouragement, I preferred the Word of God to fear and despair. Good counselors helped me to do so, and I am grateful to this day.

 

We will make our way through Psalm 27 over the days few days, praying for someone for whom we care deeply, but I can attest to this today: it is all in here.  The goodness of God, the desperation of those under attack, the wickedness of the wicked, the sweetness of His Presence, our need to seek Him, His unfailing faithfulness toward us, along with the wisdom we need to see this life through to a happy end.

 

Pray with me . . .

 

“My Father, my God, it occurs to me that among those for whom I pray, those most deeply troubled, my desperate friends, my wounded, fearful, embittered friends, they are those who cannot say, who have not yet said, ‘I believe to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.’  I ask You to repair that place in their hearts, as You have done for me, and if there is a tiny cupboard in my heart without this truth, repair me!  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.”

 

 

Pietro Longhi, circa 1744

Wikipedia, by permission, public domain

 

 

 

Called by Another Name

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on May 21, 2020
Posted in: Bearing Burdens, personal devotion, the image of Christ, The Wise and Foolish Virgins, Uncategorized. Leave a comment

 

Schadow,FW-Die_klugen_und_törichten_Jungfrauen-1

 

 

When I cannot fully understand a parable or a concept in Scripture, I have learned to do a simple thing, and it makes all the difference to me as I read and try to walk out this life in Christ.

 

To this day, as I mentioned yesterday, I have not heard the parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins explained to my complete satisfaction.  It perplexes me, “These ten, are they believers, and is Jesus saying some will be left outside?”  That does not ride up front with “Once saved, always saved,” and to make matters worse, they did all have lamps and they all had oil in them.  If the oil represents the Holy Spirit, as is most often suggested, did they run out of the Spirit?  Did they burn up all they had of Him?

 

You see.  Something just does not seem quite right.

 

And in the next words, the next story Jesus told: all the servants were given talents to use, to invest.  Now, here we are given a bit more clarification.  This servant did not squander what he had been given, he just did not bring any increase to his Master.  He kept safe what he had been given, but no fruit was born, and fruit-bearing matters to God.  Worse yet, of course, the servant bore no fruit because he was afraid of his Master, afraid to take a risk, afraid to try.

 

The Virgins fell asleep, the good servants worked and invested what they had been given.  The Wise Virgins were not commended for their increase, but that they still had enough, and they did not dare to share what they had, lest they run out.

 

Thoroughly confused?  These parables are told as if they relate to one another.  In both, there is an awful shutting out of some, even into darkness.

 

And then … and then … Jesus follows these two tales with the account of the sheep and the goats, and He gets specific: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.  All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats …”

 

These are the things that I can see, when nothing else is fully understood:

 

  • Those who will be taken in with the Bridegroom when he comes are those whose lamps are burning.
  • To this end, Jesus said specifically, “Keep watch; you do not know the day or the hour.”
  • I know that He told us to take stock of our faith, to make sure we are “in the faith”… Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! (1 Corinthians 13:5)
  • I know that I can keep watch over my own soul to see if in all things and at all times that I am living in and living out the faith I have been given; of that I do not wish to run dry!
  • Although I do not know if the “talents” are talents or something else, but I do know that with all I’ve been given, I am meant to live to the increase of God’s kingdom.  Talents and abilities, yes.  Spiritual gifts, yes.  Human strength, yes.  His strength, yes!  Hope, yes!  Faith, yes!
  • All of it, all that I have and all that I am, is the Master’s, and to live in fear of making a mistake, or refusing to live as a human because He is divine, because He harvests where he has not sown and gathers where he has not scattered seed, is to risk all I have been given.
  • I see that, if it is known of Him that He is so powerful that He harvests where He hasn’t sown and gathers where He hasn’t scattered seed, then I ought to trust that He has might and resource beyond my ability and that He expects to find a harvest, as indeed He actually did expect to find a fig on a fig tree when He wanted one!
  • He can do this!  I ought to be comforted!  He can expect to find figs out of season!  That means, I can bear fruit for Him at all times. I ought to be comforted!
  • Now He tells us, that those on His right, the sheep, will have not have run dry, will not have grown weary in well doing. They will be addressed as “The Blessed of My Father,” and that is the name by which they will be called.
  • What will they have been busy doing? Showing kindness.
  • What kindness?They will have given food to the hungry, bread and the bread of life in the Gospel of Christ; they will have given drink to the thirsty, waters of refreshing, even water from the Rock which is Christ; they will invite strangers in rather than judging them as outsiders and leaving them in the cold.
  • Those who enter in will have clothed the naked rather than exposing them, had compassion on the sick and the sick at heart, and those that were imprisoned in jails and dark, horrid chambers of doubt and fear and guilt, will be visited in their need and in our prayers.
  • To do all of this, will we not have to persists because of the love of God shed abroad in our hearts?  Honestly, will we not have to seek Him that we do all that we do effectually, whether with much or little?
  • When we have stayed awake to these needs of others, when we have given what we have and who we are to this increase, it will be said of us that we did all these things as unto our Master, and that is a great caravan of riches to return to Him for what we have been given to use, oil, lamps, talents, faith, hope, and love.

 

Can more be seen?  I think so.  Perhaps you will share some of what you know.

 

But if we see these things, have we not seen enough to put one foot in front of the other, and will we not be found lighted, glowing, and watchful?  Will we not have to keep our hearts encouraged and our hands clean and be ever mindful that we are in the faith?  When our faith and love would slip and decrease, so will our hope wither on the vine, and vice versa!

 

One more thing, and we must ask it.  What of those who do good, who do all those things, clothing the naked and feeding the hungry and visiting prisons, and love for God never motivates any of it?

 

First.  What difference does that make to me?  I will feed His sheep.

 

Second.  One cannot buy the oil that lights the lamps that burn with the knowledge of God in Christ at the grocers!  We will always wake from the stupor of all our human effort, burnt out.  Those who do what they do for the love of Jesus Christ will always have enough.  Just trim your wick, dear friend, checking to see if you are in the faith, and shine, for you are not under a bushel basket.  You are a lamp upon a stand.  That you cannot share with anyone, even if you would.

 

You will always awaken to more of the same, to life in Christ.   We are told, admonished, even commanded to be filled with the Spirit, so let us consider that if we have but one talent, that’s it!, and let us invest it with all our hearts, as long as we live, and singing in our hearts for the knowledge that what we do to do the least of those among us, we do to Jesus our Lord.

 

It is probably very, very important that we do not go off anywhere to try to buy what can only be had in Christ.  That’s a story for another day, isn’t it?

 

 

The Wise and Foolish Virgins

Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow, between 1838 and 1842, by permission, Wikipedia

Public domain, death of the artist

Name Calling

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on May 20, 2020
Posted in: personal devotion, the image of Christ, The Wise and Foolish Virgins, Uncategorized. Leave a comment

 

The_Parable_of_the_Ten_Virgins_(section)_by_Phoebe_Traquair,_Mansfield_Traquair_Church,_Edinburgh

 

 

Are there certain passages of Scripture that attract your attention and curiosity more than others?  As much as we esteem the whole Word of God, when Jesus starts talking about the Wise and the Foolish Virgins, we edge a little closer in our seats.

 

The Whom?  Why?  What?

 

This is not great bedtime reading, either, not if we are at all unsure under which heading we would fall, Wise or Foolish.

 

While we are still gasping for breath (the Bridegroom said what???), Jesus tells us the story of the Master who went away and left his servants with five, two, and one talents and expected them to give good return for his trust in them.

 

The Master said what???

 

            Every time I read this chapter (Matthew 25,) I say the same thing to the Lord: I do not think I fully understand this!

 

Who are the Virgins?  I have heard the sermons, but who are they, really?

 

What does the oil represent?  I think I know, but do I have it right?

 

Why couldn’t the Wise share at least a little with the Foolish?

 

Why did they all fall asleep in the first place? Shouldn’t the parable be about staying awake?

 

And relative to the talents the servants received, why did some get more than others?

 

What were they supposed to do with their talents, that the one servant feared to do?

 

Why was no grace extended to the one poor fellow who didn’t invest well?

 

Over the years, when I read passages like this one that make a very strong point, having to do with life or death, and in these cases with eternal life or death, I have had to become simple enough to pull from Scripture what I am able to see, the things that can be known without deep theological referendum, and I have come to believe that it is probably what I should have been doing all along.

Someone counted sixty-six occurrences in Scripture that tell us in one way or another, to watch and pray, and I would not be surprised if we could find many more.  I have never counted, but I have read through the Gospels marking them all, and they are everywhere.

 

Not only that, but there are the “see to it” verses, which Mr. Sixty-Six did not count!  We surely do not want to overlook those!  Taken together, here is one of those rare places where the Lord repeats Himself, and continually.

 

Here is one sample from the Old Testament, one you may know, a beautiful reminder:

 

 

But as for me, I will watch expectantly for the Lord;
I will wait for the God of my salvation.
My God will hear me.

Micah 7:7, NASB

 

 

Oh, my dear friends, all of this stirs up something in my heart, something that sounds like this, I believe . . .

 

We don’t want to be Foolish, and we are already Wise, wise enough to have called upon the Lord Jesus Christ for His saving grace, for the covering of His blood, for the redemption of our souls and our lives.  We aren’t foolish, then, are we, and yet are not the “Virgins,” believers?  These have gone out, with lamps and oil, to meet the Bridegroom!  Whom else could they be, and what have they to do with us? Why did Jesus tell this story?

 

We don’t want to be afraid, either!  Look!   The servant in the next parable, the one who was given only one talent to invest, was fearful, seemingly terrified of his Master, and where did that get him?  We do not want to be afraid because we never want to see the Father like that.  We are numbered among those who believe that Jesus lived and died that we might not fear, that we might know the love of God.

 

We do fear God, but not like that, not cringing and withholding.

 

Uh-oh.

 

Tune in tomorrow, and let’s look together at these two splendid archways into the lives we have been given to live in Christ Jesus.

 

 

 

The Parable of the Ten Virgins

Phoebe Anna Traquair, by permission, Wikipedia

 

 

Vindicate Us, O Lord! – Psalm 26

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on April 20, 2020
Posted in: Uncategorized. Leave a comment

 

Pituophis_catenifer_catenifer_(Carrizo_Plain)

 

Plenty of time to make healthy observations during the COVID19 “timeout,” and here’s one, if you haven’t mulled it over in recent days.

 

How much, if any, is there perhaps even a SHRED of vindication for us, as God’s people?

 

When we are right with Him, we aren’t looking for excuses, looking to hide our sin under every rock and around every corner.  We scarcely think of being vindicated.  We confess our sin; we acknowledge both our wrongdoing AND our iniquity.  Oh yes, we might blame-cast from time to time, but show us that we’re doing it, and we will stop.  The problem is, of course, that we’re still stumbling, still sinning, still falling short, and far too often, with no vindication in sight!

 

And yet … there is this place, and Paul speaks of it at the end of Romans, chapter 7, where our love for God, for His will, His Word, and His way, not to mention His Son, Who encapsulates all of that, matters.  In our minds, with all our consideration, we love Him now, and we love His way and His purpose, and in that location – what?  We are vindicated there?  Not so much that, as it is that that locale IS our vindication.  Sort of like the cross-stitch samples on the wall, come to life:

“When you’re here, you’re home.”

We have passed from death to life, by that very change of mind, change of heart, surrender of our old lives and of the old man and of the body of death we have been dragging around.

 

We are new.  We appreciate having our hearts examined, even when it is very, very painful to see what has lodged there. The surgeon cannot remove the bullet or the shrapnel he cannot see, and we do want deadly sin and hypocrisy, OUT!

 

For another, we do hate evildoers, the spiritual ones, the enemies in exalted places that exalt themselves above the Word of God.  Ha!  As if they could!  But they do try, and we abhor them.  More than that, we hate when we give them the time of day.

 

You know, in some ways, I think we are more blameless before God than we know, just as we are more sinful than we ever wanted to realize.  In this life, we have to embrace all the superlatives, including the good ones!

 

How does that work?

 

            “There is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”  (Romans 8:1)

 

            There is a new “natural” law at work; it is natural in this new Body and in this new Kingdom.  The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has MADE US FREE from the law of sin and death.  (Romans 8:2). The letter of the law couldn’t make us obey the law, but the Son, the firstborn among us all, He both obeyed and brought us into His own heart … gave us a new heart, and wrote His law upon it.  All this without repenting of having extended such generosity to such a frail people!  That is so “the point”.  He knew what He was getting, how frail indeed are we, His own, and so He gives His strength.

 

We stumble, we get tripped up … hopefully, we see what happened, usually where we failed to believe:

  • How new we are
  • How loved we are
  • How right we are with God
  • How great His power toward those who believe

 

Read Psalm 26 today, and try praying it with those things in mind, for yourself and for someone struggling, perhaps a young person, perhaps someone fainting along the way.  Let’s remember that it is the Enemy who is meant to eat the dust of our lives … that is, we want to give him nothing to feed upon.   No self pity, no bitterness, no lusting of any kind.  Just dust, dust, dust!

 

Let’s see if our observations may not take a turn for the better.  For all our shortcomings, if our reliance upon Jesus Christ as the True and Forgiving, Healing and Shepherding, Redeeming and Liberating Son of God is our righteousness, we may be doing better than we think.

 

 

Vindicate me, Lord,
    for I have led a blameless life;
I have trusted in the Lord
    and have not faltered.
2 Test me, Lord, and try me,
    examine my heart and my mind;
3 for I have always been mindful of your unfailing love
    and have lived in reliance on your faithfulness.

4 I do not sit with the deceitful,
    nor do I associate with hypocrites.
5 I abhor the assembly of evildoers
    and refuse to sit with the wicked.
6 I wash my hands in innocence,
    and go about your altar, Lord,
7 proclaiming aloud your praise
    and telling of all your wonderful deeds.

8 Lord, I love the house where you live,
    the place where your glory dwells.
9 Do not take away my soul along with sinners,
    my life with those who are bloodthirsty,
10 in whose hands are wicked schemes,
    whose right hands are full of bribes.
11 I lead a blameless life;
    deliver me and be merciful to me.

12 My feet stand on level ground;
    in the great congregation I will praise the Lord.

 

 

Pacific Gopher Snake … dust eater!

Wikipedia,  Bill Bouton, by permission