Thoughts on Bearing Burdens

Learning to Bear Burdens

I have been thinking a ton lately about bearing the burdens of others. As a family we have been praying much for the healing of Matt Chandler. We have also been praying for several guys on staff at The Village and their families. Our prayers have simply been the following:

Papa, please make Your thoughts their thoughts. Make Your feelings their feelings. Give them a peace that will surpass all understanding that guards both their heart and mind in You.

As I have prayed this for each of them I have realized how much of a distorted view of carrying a burden I possess. Many times I have looked at it as asking God to take the persons “burden” and pass it to me. The problem is that it would crush me, so I definitely would not be carrying it well.

He has been teaching me the only way to properly carry a burden is to look at Him and ask Him to take it from the person. It does not have to do with the burden being “taken on” in order to relieve the other person because of my ability to carry their burden. After all, this is still practical atheism. God has nothing to do with that thought process.

He asks us to intercede in such a way that the relief people experience is MAINLY from Him, not my prayer. If it is any other way I am focused mainly on my glory and ability in prayer and not looking for Him to be all in all. Let me give a word picture (although analogies breakdown).

A little boy and his friend were playing outside in the woods. Lightening struck a tree and it fell over on the little boys friend. The little boy runs to His daddy, who is the world’s strongest man, and says, “Daddy, My friend is being crushed by a tree in the woods! Please come and help! I KNOW you can lift the tree.” The father quickly runs out and lifts the tree off the friend and brings him to safety. As the boy recovers, they both constantly talk about the father and what he did.

Let’s look at a few things in this analogy.

First of all, in a situation like this the father does not begrudgingly come to help. It is his good pleasure (Mt. 7:7-11). He is fully confident in His own strength. The strength of the Father should give us a source of comfort and confidence. He is not like the father who hates to be interrupted in the middle of a college football game to come and help!

Next, the son knew exactly where to go. He did not take time to try and lift the tree. He knew it was hopeless, yet it did not cause TOTAL hopelessness. His lack of ability caused him to seek out someone greater than himself. This is the call of truly “carrying a burden”. We are to seek out Him who is truly greater than us and ask Him to lift the burden. After all, HE IS INFINTELY STRONG!

Finally, notice how the relief of the injured child and the relief of the son was found in the work of the Father. The strength of the father produced an intense confidence that culminated in His praise. It would have been ludicrous for the son to turn toward his friend and start talking about how great he was because he ran to his father and THAT ACTION is what saved the boy. It is not that the action was not important it just was not the saving source of the boy. The father was.

The size and weight of the tree was not mainly the focus either. The problem was not the focus. Looking at the power of the tree would not have saved the boy. The focus was the father. His strength. His compassion. His love. His power.

As we think about “carrying burdens” for others I pray we will mainly look to Him who is infinitely stronger, more loving, more compassionate, and more powerful than we will ever be. As we pray for others, I pray our focus would be on our Father in Heaven who feels infinitely stronger about every situation than we will ever feel. Pray for all those involved in this situation with Matt. Yet, pray in such a way that the way you carry the burden is by Ps. 37:5.

“Commit your ways to the Lord; trust in Him, and He will act.”

Love Truth

Vernon

A Very Important Principle

Here is an article John Piper wrote. What do you think about this approach?

Love Truth
Vernon

One of the Most Important Principles in Reading the Bible

October 27, 2009 | By: John Piper | Category: Commentary

Sometimes readers of the Bible see the conditions that God lays down for his blessing and they conclude from these conditions that our action is first and decisive, then God responds to bless us.

That is not right.

There are indeed real conditions that God often commands. We must meet them for the promised blessing to come. But that does not mean that we are left to ourselves to meet the conditions or that our action is first and decisive.

Here is one example to show what I mean.

In Jeremiah 29:13 God says to the exiles in Babylon, “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” So there is a condition: When you seek me with all your heart, then you will find me. So we must seek the Lord. That is the condition of finding him.

True.

But does that mean that we are left to ourselves to seek the Lord? Does it mean that our action of seeking him is first and decisive? Does it mean that God only acts after our seeking?

No.

Listen to what God says in Jeremiah 24:7 to those same exiles in Babylon: “I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.”

So the people will meet the condition of returning to God with their whole heart. God will respond by being their God in the fullest blessing. But the reason they returned with their whole heart is that God gave them a heart to know him. His action was first and decisive.

So now connect that with Jeremiah 29:13. The condition there was that they seek the Lord with their whole heart. Then God will be found by them. But now we see that the promise in Jeremiah 24:7 is that God himself will give them such a heart so that they will return to him with their whole heart.

This is one of the most basic things people need to see about the Bible. It is full of conditions we must meet for God’s blessings. But God does not leave us to meet them on our own. The first and decisive work before and in our willing is God’s prior grace. Without this insight, hundreds of conditional statements in the Bible will lead us astray.

Let this be the key to all Biblical conditions and commands: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12-13). Yes, we work. But our work is not first or decisive. God’s is. “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10).

Thoughts from Henry Scougal on Love

Henry Scougal wrote an amazing letter to a friend that was turned into a book. The title is The Life of God in the Soul of Man. Here is a quote he gave on love. Scougal died at the age of 27.

"Love must needs be miserable, and full of trouble and disquietude, when there is not worth and excellency enough in the object to answer the vastness of its capacity...nothing below an infinite good can afford room to stretch itself, and exert its vigour and activity. What is a little skin-deep beauty, or some small degrees of goodness, to match or satisfy a passion which was made for God; designed to embrace an infinite God?"

I have been thinking much about the "active love of God". Many times I make the mistake of viewing His love almost as this "impersonal force" that is pursuing me instead of seeing the relational reality that His intimate love is designed to mainly lead me to Himself, which will naturally overflow in the love for others.

In fact, this will allow me to love others the way that He does instead of loving others in order that they return love back to me. I believe this is the focus He gives us when He tells us to even love our enemies. The point is not that we just "grit our teeth" and do it because He said, but it is because this is the same love He had for us when we were enemies of Him (see Romans 5:10).

What are some thoughts that you have on the "active love of God"?

Love Truth
Vernon

Great Thoughts by C.J. Mahaney on Adoption

Not long ago we looked at God’s initiative in our adoption. The more aware we are of God’s initiative the more amazed we are of grace. Our position and status as adopted sons and daughters was secured by God’s initiative in sending his Son.

Today I will focus on the work of the Holy Spirit in our experience of adoption. “God’s purpose was not only to secure our sonship by His Son,” John Stott writes, “but to assure us of it by His Spirit. He sent His Son that we might have the status of sonship, and He sent His Spirit that we might have the experience of it.”*

In other words, God first sent his Son to die for our sins and then God sent his Spirit into our hearts. The immediate cry of the Spirit within our hearts is “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:6; Romans 8:15).

The Spirit’s Call

This cry—“Abba! Father!”—is the precious privilege and common experience of all Christians. This cry is evidence that we have received adopting grace. This cry assures us of God’s love. It is a means of certainty that God loves you!

I never tire of reading the following illustration from the ministry of Charles Spurgeon:

I once knew a good woman who was the subject of many doubts, and when I got to the bottom of her doubt, it was this: she knew she loved Christ, but she was afraid he did not love her. “Oh!” I said, “that is a doubt that will never trouble me; never, by any possibility, because I am sure of this, that the heart is so corrupt, naturally, that love to God never did get there without God’s putting it there.” You may rest quite certain, that if you love God, it is a fruit, and not a root. It is the fruit of God’s love to you, and did not get there by the force of any goodness in you. You may conclude, with absolute certainty, that God loves you if you love God.**

Let me ask: Are you aware that God loves you, if you love God? You can be. You can be assured of God’s love for you. That cry did not originate with you. That cry is a gift from God. That cry is an evidence of adopting grace. That cry is a means of assuring you of God’s love for you.

Yet it’s possible to grow less aware of this cry. It is possible to hear only the voice of slavery and fear and grow insensitive to the cry of the Spirit.

This was happening to Christians in Galatia. In Galatians 4, Paul writes people who have been seduced by legalism and no longer enjoy adopting grace and have grown deaf to the cry of the Spirit within.

Many voices cry out for our attention each day and seek to distract our attention from the voice of the Spirit. The cry of indwelling sin is one voice. So is the cry of legalism. And the voice of condemnation can be consistently noisy, too. These are loud and distracting voices.

Which voice are you most aware of?

If you are distracted by these voices and the noise in your soul created by sin and legalism and condemnation, this cry will be muffled.

If this is you, I would recommend a pair of divine noise-cancelling earphones. What I mean is that I would encourage you to memorize Galatians 4:1–7. What is revealed in these verses about adopting grace and the Spirit's work within revealing and applying adopting grace will protect you from the voices of sin, legalism, and condemnation. And it will help you to better hear the Spirit’s cry—“Abba! Father!”—for yourself.

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Notes:
* John R. W. Stott, The Message of Galatians (IVP, 1968).
** Charles Spurgeon, sermon: “The Relationship of Marriage” (sermon No. 762).
Posted by C.J. Mahaney

Thoughts on One Foot Raised

I read this passage via the notes Abraham Piper took of the talk Sam Storms gave on John Calvin.
The idea of living in a disposition of having "one foot raised" is so powerful. Please take time in every day to meditate on eternal realities. Heaven/The New Earth and Hell help to clarify so much in life. Here is the passage:

On August 5, 1563 Calvin wrote a letter to the wife of one of the Reformation leaders in France. She was experiencing physical illness and he wrote to her, "They [our physical afflictions] should serve us as medicine to purge us from worldly affections and remove what is superfluous in us. And since they are to us the messengers of death, we ought to learn to have one foot raised to take our departure when it shall please God."

Thoughts?

Love Truth

Waking up early

I have always been somewhat of an early riser but never on a consistent basis. I manage to string together a week or two of early mornings but eventually I will reset my alarm and pretty much loose an entire morning. As my life has become busier and busier (with mostly good things like a hot wife) it has become more imperative for me to try and get the most out of each day. I also know that my most productive hours are early morning to mid-afternoon, which means if I am going to consistently spend quality time with the Lord it is going to have to take place early in the morning. So a couple of weeks ago when Tim Ferriss tweeted a link to a blog about How to Become an Early Riser I was intrigued.

If consistently getting up early to increase productivity is something you are interested in I think that the blog post is worth a read. It is a fairly simple concept created by combining two schools of thought on sleep patterns. If early mornings are not for you then have fun being one of those "weird late night people".

If you end up trying it out let me know how it works for you.

jk

Thoughts from J.C. Ryle on Prayer and Faith

Rik, a friend of mine, sent me an article by J.C. Ryle and I thought Ryle's thoughts were quite profound. Here they are:

I know that much may go on in a person's mind before they are brought to pray. They may have many convictions, desires, wishes, feelings, intentions, resolutions, hopes, and fears. But all these things are very uncertain evidences. They are to be found in ungodly people, and often come to nothing. In many a case they are not more lasting than the morning cloud, and dew that passes away. A real hearty prayer, moving from a broken and contrite spirit, is worth all these things put together.

Faith is to the soul what life is to the body. Prayer is to faith what breath is to the body. How a person can live and not breathe is past my comprehension, and how a person can believe and not pray is past my comprehension too.


Let me know what you think.

Love Truth

Great Article On The Need For Christians to Read Widely

I read about this article on Justin Taylor's blog. He has an incredible amount of resources and great articles that he links.

The following article has to do with an area that I am greatly interested and believe that a renaissance in Christian thinking needs to take place. We must be people who not only read, but read widely. Here is the article. Click here.

Let me know your thoughts.

Love Truth