Christian Love 5: He Makes Peace

By Hugh Binning

Now the special exercises and operations of these graces are in the 13th verse,”forbearing one another, and forgiving one another,” according to Christ’s example.

¹² Put on therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, humility, and perseverance; ¹³ bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, if any man has a complaint against any; even as Christ forgave you, so you also do.¹⁴ Above all these things, walk in love, which is the bond of perfection. ¹⁵ And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.  (Col. 3)

And indeed these are so high and sublime works, as love must yoke all the fore-mentioned graces, unite them all in one troop, for the accomplishing of them.  And the great and sweet fruit of all this is understood in the 15th verse, “The peace of God rule in your hearts, to which you are called in one body.” Peace with God is not the meaning here, but the peace which God has made up between men.  All were shattered and torn apart.  The Lord has by his Son Jesus Christ gathered so many into one body, the church, and by one Spirit gives life to all.  Now where love is predominant, there is a sweet peace and harmony between all the members of this one body.  And this peace and tranquillity of affections rules and predominates over all these lusts which are the factories of contentions, strife, and wars.

 

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Except from The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning, Kindle, Loc. 16424 [Few words modernized by this site]

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Christian Love 6: His Love Fulfills⇒

Christian Love 4⇐

Excepts of Mercy

Peter’s Masterpiece 2

by Paul M.

1st Peter 1

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy became the father of us again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, (3)

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to an incorruptible and undefiled inheritance, and that doesn’t fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who by the power of God are guarded through faith to a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (4-5) 

I believe God(Father, Son, Spirit) is good, merciful, gracious and reasonable.  God is love. He obviously desires us to be these to one another, He is the source the from which these streams of love flow.  This is the God who gave us an illustration condemning the the rich man who cared little for poor Lazarus, at his door step.  God being the ultimate “rich man” does not treat us poor and needy ones as the rich man He condemned, if we would only believe, He is, who He says He is.  This is the God who communicates Himself as running to meet His son, this son who had rejected and treated his father as if he were dead to him.  This father also reaffirmed his love to his older ungrateful and unmerciful son.

This is the heart of the gospel.  “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy became the father of us again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,”  First and foremost the gospel message of reconciliation is one of the mercy, goodness, graciousness and love of God.  God through His reconciling mercy is reaching to us all, at times almost as if He is begging us to trust and come.  He lowers himself at times in the scripture to the place of beggar, tenderly entreating us not to destroy ourselves, through disbelief.

We are given hope, raised to a much greater hope than we have ever known.  Before coming to know this hope, we had our minds on other inheritances, we wanted and sought in a variety of ways, the respect, the love and the honor of other people.  We sought things that enhanced these  for us, we wanted more than anything else, to be seen as successful, great, and worthy of these things from others.  Many of us envisioned the “blessed life” the “good life” as being one of independence, one of finding peace and security in our own greatness, ingenuity and character.  We are learning now, the blessed life is one of meekness and dependence on God.

God came to this earth, lowly and meek.  The hope He gives us which replaces our former hopes to varying degrees, and I hope great degrees is to an incorruptible and undefiled inheritance.  This inheritance doesn’t fade away as the spindle of our lives run out. This is a hope which grows stronger year after year, decade after decade.  He has reserved the best for last, reserving for us a place with Him in heaven.  He himself guards this hope within us.  We are guarded by this merciful and loving God, through His power.  He gives, renews and revives our faith in Him.  He sustains and grows the perfect seed within us, though it resides along side our remaining sin.  This remaining sin that we grow to hate, believe and pray against.

This gospel, of the good news of mercy, peace and love, has been revealed to the world through Christ.   This gospel goes against our natural inclinations, of finding respect, love and honor through our own greatness, ingenuity and character and in resulting material security.   The gospel message is one of progressively dying to these things, meaning the loving and seeking of these things.  These deceptive dreams and prizes of our former lives, before God’s merciful invasion of us personally.  By the mercy and grace of God we will turn more and more from ourselves, our greatness, our glory, our character, and our love and dependence on these things will fade.  Our Lord will pull us out of this horrible pit, of muddy and boggy false dreams more and more.  He will by giving us a growing faith and love for Him, for Jesus, for His righteousness, character and glory, increase the clarity of our eyes and hearts.  Though we may stumble at times and fall from this clarity, if we are His, he will draw us back, and even to a place of greater clarity.  We can have this expectant hope, even at and in the low places.

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.  I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly trust in Jesus’ name.  On Christ the solid Rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand; All other ground is sinking sand.  When darkness seems to hid His face, I rest on His unchanging grace.  In every high and stormy gale, My anchor holds within the veil.  His oath, His covenant, His blood, Support me in the whelming flood.  When all around my soul gives way,  He then is all my Hope and Stay.  When He shall come with trumpet sound, oh may I then in Him be found.  Dressed in His righteousness alone, Faultless to stand before the throne.-Edward Mote

 

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The Storm

Clarity

 

 

 

 

Some Drops of Sweetness 3

By Richard Sibbes

 

God calls him here his servant.  Christ was God’s servant in the greatest piece of service there ever was, a chosen and the choice servant who did and suffered all by commission from the Father.  In this we may see the sweet love of God to us, in the way he counts the work of our salvation by Christ his greatest service, and in that he will put his only beloved Son to that service.  He might well prefix it with “Behold” to raise up our thoughts to the highest pitch of attention and admiration.  In time of temptation, apprehensive consciences look so much to the present trouble they are in that they need to be roused up to behold him in whom they may find rest for their distressed souls.

In temptations it is safest to behold nothing but Christ the true brazen serpent, the true “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”, (John 1:29).  This saving object[Christ] has a special influence of comfort to the soul, especially if we look not only on Christ, but also upon the Father’s authority and love in him.  For in all that Christ did and suffered as Mediator, we must see God in him reconciling the world to himself (2nd Cor. 5:19).

What a support to our faith is this,  that God the Father, the One offended by our sins, is so well pleased with the work of redemption!  And what a comfort is this, that, seeing God’s love rests on Christ, as well pleased in him, we may gather that he is as well pleased with us, if we be in Christ!  His love rests in a whole Christ, in Christ mystical, as well as Christ natural, because he loves him and us with one love.  Let us, embrace Christ, and in him God’s love, and build our faith safely on such a Savior who is given so high a commission.

See here, for our comfort, a sweet agreement of all three persons: The Father gives a commission to Christ; the Spirit gives to and adds holiness to it, and Christ himself executes the office of a mediator.  Our redemption is founded on the joint agreement of all three persons of the Trinity.

 

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[language slightly modernized in places by this site]

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Excerpts of Mercy

Richard Baxter

The Conviction of Sin

Hugh Binning

Christ’s Righteousness

Christian Love: T.O.C.

John Bunyan

Merciful Appeal to Sinners

R.C. Chapman

Meditations on the Song of Solomon: T.O.C.

Thomas a Kempis, Imitation of Christ, Ch. 1

Thomas Manton’s Merciful Appeals

John Newton “Benefit of Affliction”

John Newton “Those mistakes, blemishes and faults in others”

Richard Sibbes Sweet Drops:

1          2          3          4          5          6          7          8          9

Life of Faith: T.O.C.

 

 

Accepting and Rejecting Condemnation

By Paul M.

 

I saw something, that speaks a lot of truth: it was something like this:

“I can recognize a judgmental person as soon as a see them.”

This is true of many of us.  Too often this is true of me.  As I grew up I felt very judged and condemned by many.  This has left its damages to me.  In many situations and environments I come into almost expecting judgment and condemnation.  Many times I’m sure, I imagine it from some where it does not exist.

This is something the Lord has been working with me on.  Lord Jesus says:

 “Therefore be merciful,
    even as your Father is also merciful.
 Don’t judge,
    and you won’t be judged.
Don’t condemn,
    and you won’t be condemned.
Set free,
    and you will be set free.”¹

I have found these words of the Lord to be true, as much as I have allowed myself to experience them, at least.  When I give others the “benefit of the doubt” even when there is much evidence to the contrary, there is a freedom.  A freedom from condemnation. I am embracing the love and mercy of God as I am understanding it and giving it to others.  His mercy is passing through me as a vessel of mercy.   Judgment on the other hand does not work out well for me.  I tend to judge those who “I think” are judgmental and or harsh, but who is to say my judgment is right. Even if I was right 9 out 10 times, the tenth person suffers unjust judgment.  Mercy is undeserved anyway.  When I become judgmental and defensive, anger and or bitterness is the result.  This is a very unpleasant state.  I am allowing my own judging and condemning to block up and distort my understanding, view and experience of God’s mercy to me, to us.

I want to be slow to judge and condemn even the most obvious offenders.  This is my desire and what I am aiming for, but I’m not close, but I will keep looking in faith and hope for Lord to make this more true in my life.

Lord Jesus says:

 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you,  that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven.”²

Loving those who are somewhat deserving of our love is a low thing.  God calls us to a higher love.  A love which loves and does good to those who hate and hurt us.  This is hard, this is where the “good fight” of faith comes in.  This is a war.  That we would learn to respond to our judges, our condemners, those who hurt us with supernatural love and mercy.  I know those of us who are His children have it within us to do this.  He, His gentle and merciful Spirit is within us.

I have come to use a way of thinking that has helped me, some.  In a sense I am condemned, anything in me that is not renewed, and changed by God, has been condemned already.  I fully agree with the condemnation of any sin or remaining corruption within me.  I accept God’s condemnation of this remaining sin and sinner.  This part of me deserved the cross Jesus took for me, it deserves hell Jesus saved me from.  By faith this sinner has already been dealt with on the cross.   So why should I get so upset when others condemn this sinner also.  When I am condemned I can agree with my condemners.  “Yes, you are exactly right.”   “Thank God, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”  We can accept condemnation from others without getting so defensive, yet in another sense we are believing gospel mercy and love to reject condemnation, as now we are credited with complete righteousness and full acceptance with God.  Our solid standing is on perfect righteousness and no condemnation at all.  Practically there is still much to judge and condemn within one another, if we so choose.  Practically we spend much time in Romans 7, but by faith we are truly Romans 8 believers.  The Enemy of our souls would have us believe our deserved condemnation of our sin, extends to undo our state of no-condemnation in Christ.  It won’t and it can’t, but the Enemy many times practically convinces us otherwise.

The Lord tells us to forgive as we have been forgiven, so the mercy we give will be correspondent with the mercy we receive, accept and love from our God.(Father, Son, Spirit) I hope to love His mercy more and more.  I hope this for you also.  Fight this War.

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1. Luke 6: 36-37
2. Matthew 5: 44-45a

 

Its a War, Blackbird Blackbird

Some Drops of Sweetness

“It is said of Noah, Genesis 8:21, that he offered a sacrifice after the flood, and “the Lord smelled a sweet savor of his sacrifice”, and thereupon he says, ” I will not curse the earth again.”  So God loves and delights in Christ as he offered himself a sacrifice of a sweet smelling savor wherein God rests; he felt such a sweet savor in the sacrifice of Christ, he is so delighted in it, that he will never destroy mankind, he will never destroy any that believe in Christ.  The sacrifice of Noah was a type of Christ’s sacrifice.

Now, that Christ’s sacrifice was so acceptable to God, there is a direct place for it in Eph. 5:2 “Walk in love as Christ has loved us, and has given himself an offering and a sacrifice to God of a sweet smell.”  And indeed how many sweet savors were there in the sacrifice of Christ offered on the cross!  Was there not the sweet savor of obedience?  he was “obedient to the death of the cross,”  Phil. 2:8.  There was the sweet savor of patience, and of love to mankind.  Therefore God delighted in him, as God, as man, as mediator God-man, in his doings, in his sufferings, everyway.”– Richard Sibbes

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Richard Sibbes [“The Sweet Dropper”]: Works of Richard Sibbes, The Description on Christ, Vol.1 , Loc. 310(Kindle)  [Language slightly modernized]

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Excepts of Mercy

Sweet Drops: This is 1

1          2          3          4          5          6          7          8          9

 

 

Peter’s Masterpiece

I was reading 1st Peter 1 a few weeks ago.  This chapter is now one of my favorites.  It is a great summation of faith in Jesus Christ, faith in God.  If you would, please read this chapter.  1st Peter 1

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the chosen ones who are living as aliens in the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,   2  according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, to obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied.  

The chosen ones of God were living as aliens in places into which they were dispersed.  They were made missionaries, [many by seemingly unfortunate circumstances to other peoples.]  God brings wonderful things out of seemingly bad things.  Those who are His children are aliens to this world.  The world does not understand us, why we do the things we do.  They misjudge our motives and hearts, they cannot figure us out.  We have become God’s children through the sanctification of the Spirit.  The Spirit most immediately to us, initiated our salvation.  He, in one way or another, turned our thoughts to Jesus, He drew us to Jesus, and Jesus reconciles us with God.  God led us to God, and God reconciles us with God. We have a sure and trustworthy salvation.   “and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”  Thank God, our salvation is His doing and keeping, and not our own.  May His grace and peace be multiplied to us.  May we come more and more to rely on His mercy, grace, and love for us, which will produce peace when trusted and relied on.

 3  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy became the father of us again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,   

Oh, Blessed be Our Father, God, and the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ.  This reminds us of God the Father’s love and loyalty to His Son Jesus Christ.  It is from this love of God the Father to God the Son, from which our faith in God’s love for us can rest.  There is not much in us practically, in our deficient morality, goodness, conduct, hearts; seen by us and others in this world, that is at all worthy of God’s love for us.  You see, this is not where our hope lies.  Our hope is only sure, steadfast and truly hopeful when resting on The Fathers love and acceptance of His Son, Jesus Christ.  It is in the righteousness, love, obedience, the covering of Jesus Christ Himself, that we may have a living hope.   This is His wonderful and merciful gift to us.  This living hope, who is the living God, Who dwells within us indeed,  He is the source and only true Spiritual Life within us.  His dwelling within us is what brought us from death to life.  As Jesus was raised from the dead.

 ^“that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that you, being rooted and grounded in love,  may be strengthened to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and height and depth, ¹⁹ and to know Christ’s love which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. ²⁰ Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,“

This same resurrection power has occurred in us, and continues to give us hope and life.  

”  and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to that working of the strength of his might which he worked in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and made him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places,  far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come. ”  

We have a sure, and powerful Living Hope within us.  The Ruler of All is within us, in a mysterious, but true way.  Though we may be feeble, and weak in ourselves, we do have access to great strength and power.  If only we had a fuller, deeper, more trusting faith in God to believe more fully in His power.  I hope, you and I will seek, trust and believe more of the mercy and grace of God for us, to help us experience more of His wonderfully powerful working within us.  May we share His great mercy and power more effectively with others, through His working in us. 

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I will continue this at a later date, Lord willing.- Paul M.

Wrestling a Good God

I have come to love the psalms. The psalms to me are a window into the heart of God, a window into seeing the connecting of His heart with ours.  I’ve been thinking a lot about depressed saints lately.  I would like to help, however I know for some, depression is no easy fix. I too have a strong bent to depression.  Most often after reading the psalms after thinking and meditating on God’s heart and character through reading the psalms, I am left more encouraged, less depressed.  His loving kindness and graciousness are communicated to me, and my joy is increased.   I am not trying to convince a depressed brother or sister of a miraculous or instant transformation from deep depression to great joy through reading the psalms, but I do believe there is an increased joy and decreased depression in the reading of and seeking of God through His psalms written for our encouragement.  We see the truth of struggle, defeat, mercy, forgiveness and restoration within the psalms.  We see the delusions of the perfect and the proud.  We see God and ourselves His children more accurately, which helps heal us from the lies we have believed.

 

Psalm 119: 68

You are good, and do good. Teach me your statutes.

 

In the psalms you see very often, the children of God approaching God in a certain way. “I know You are good God, and You do good.  Now do good for me, teach me your statues.  I want to know your goodness personally to me.  Teach me personally of your goodness to me.”  Or “ I know You are merciful, show mercy to me, reveal Your mercy to me, in a way personally understood and sensed by me, by my heart.”

God, I am convinced, is desirous that all His children come to Him and wrestle with Him in faith as Jacob did. Those who are convinced of His mercy, wrestle with Him in prayer, in seeking, in reading, in meditating on Him, to find and experience more of His mercy and goodness to them.

All God’s redeemed children are credited with the righteousness and goodness of Jesus. In a sense we are always close to God, and He to us, through Jesus.  In a practical felt way we may however feel and sense a great distance between us and our Lord.  I have noticed when I am the most depressed; the more likely I am to believe the lies of hopelessness, communicated to us by the enemy.  These are the times when wrestling with God, in His word and with His Spirits gentle help is most needed.  More exposure to God is needed to compensate for the extra resistance to His message of good news and hope, because of my depression.  More exposure to Him and His truth is needed to combat the lies of the enemy.  God is good, God is merciful, may we wrestle with Him, trusting Him, as long as it takes to know and sense His goodness and mercy to us more.

Hope of the Dance

There is a Hope.  A hope of freedom, peace, and joy resulting in singing and dancing.  The spring of this freedom and peace flows gently and most often must be sought.  Even after tasting and fully receiving this thirst-quenching and satisfying stream, care must be taken to keep {going to} this stream {of living water}.  Finding it’s renewal and restoration.

Psalm 87:7

 Those who sing as well as those who dance say, “All my springs are in you.”

Those of us who of a more melancholy nature do have a sure hope of singing and dancing.  Truly singing and dancing in freedom, peace, and joy.  This sure Hope is found in our only true Hope, Jesus. This is the stream and spring that can and will produce true singing and dancing.  God Himself, under our Shepherds watchful eye, His Spirit within us producing springs and streams of joy and peace.

You may say. “I don’t seem to have these streams of joy and peace coming forth from within me.” “My streams of joy and peace seem stopped up.”   “I cannot say I am singing and dancing with joyful exclamations, “All my springs are in you.”   This writer would not add sorrow to God’s children feeling this way, by questioning the reality of your faith, or Jesus within you.  Depression and lack of joy is where our enemies revels in attacking, not me.  There is hope for singing and dancing with joy still though.  May we fight the enemy and His lies of hopelessness, through hope.  May we turn our eyes, minds and hearts to Jesus, may we place ourselves in His care.  All our springs our in Jesus, whether they seem streams of sorrow or of gladness, from our Man of sorrows and gladness.  We can come to His garden of hope and communion.  I believe we come to this garden of streams and springs through His word and through  prayer.  We can rely on His gentle and helping Spirit to reveal His truth to us more clearly, and lessen the strength of the lies we tend to believe, the lies that dampen the experience of His gladness.  This gentle spirits which is the streams, that flow from us like rivers, whether they be streams of joy or streams of sorrow and longing for God.  These streams bring us nearer to our lord, bringing is to greater change, to reveal His image in us more to others, that they may taste and long for Jesus also, becoming His.

We can look to hope in God, for a possibly, if so, slow and gradual defeat of the enemy through hope.  We can look to an increase in our singing and dancing, here. We can look to our sure hope of singing and dancing in our full change, our full redemption.  We can begin meditating more and more on this sure future hope of full peace and joy.  Even if this seems our only hope for ever singing and dancing, let this be our sure hope, on which we think on and meditate on with faith and anticipation.  Thinking on the day our melancholy will be left with our natural bodies, and we will begin to dance and sing with our Loved one, unhindered in ecstasy within His forever hold of love.