I. O. U. S.

Candy's thoughts: I wish when I had started writing this blog (Aug 2009) that I had written down how I determined each day's topic. I know that sometimes I have had a list of essays or books that I wanted to quote from; other days I just "woke up" with an idea. Another way that the Holy Spirit has directed me has been through what I have laughingly called "link-through-link-through-link" until I had forgotten where the original starting place began. 😀This is the case today. I logged on to my email this morning and the TGC Women's Coalition had sent me some good links to great articles, and little by little I followed these links to other great articles, and on and on, until voila' - something caught my attention and here it is! Matt Smethurst of the Gospel Coalition has written a book called Before You Open Your Bible: Nine Heart Postures for Approaching God's Word. (Note: I have not read the book, but only the author's excerpt of it posted below.) I pray that readers will both enjoy and be edified by it.

Matt Smethurst's thoughts: I am convinced that a prayerless approach to God’s Word is a major reason for the low-level dissatisfaction that hums beneath the surface of our lives. We rob ourselves of joy and peace when we fail to pray. Indeed, approaching Scripture apart from prayer is one of the most counterproductive things we do. For prayerless Christianity is powerless Christianity. 

I-O-U-S

You may be familiar with praying in response to God’s Word, but what does it mean to pray in anticipation of it? What does it look like to approach your Bible prayerfully? 

It means not rushing into your Bible reading, expecting the pages to magically microwave your cold heart. Now, God is sovereign—which is another way of saying he’s God and does what he wants (Ps. 115:3). He is more than capable of turning on the microwave even when you haven’t asked him. But why not ask him? 

Several years ago, I heard John Piper share an acronym that he uses to ready his heart to hear from God. Each letter—I-O-U-S—corresponds to a prayer from Psalms.

I – “Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain” (Ps. 119:36)

This is not a flattering request. It assumes our hearts are bent in the wrong direction, away from what gives life. It’s not that we dislike our Bibles; it’s just that other things loom larger. Our wish lists seem more enticing, our to-do lists more pressing. 

Most mornings, for example, my mind immediately goes to one of three places: 

1. What do I have planned for today? 
2. What am I going to eat for breakfast? 
3. What’s happening on social media? 

Questions like these are not terrible, but they are telling. They expose the natural bent of my heart. They reveal that while it’s effortless to be mindful of self, I have to work to be mindful of God. 

Every day I need to be peeled away from my pathetic preoccupation with self. You do too. Thankfully, God loves to de-magnetize our hearts from what is worthless, and re-magnetize them toward what is priceless, all for the sake of our joy. This is where prayer comes in; we just have to ask. 

O – “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Ps. 119:18)

In many ways, reading the Bible is like reading other books. We ought to approach it the way we’d approach any piece of literature, being sensitive to genre, setting, the author’s intent, and all that other good stuff. But there is one major difference. The third person of the eternal Trinity breathed out its words. And the Spirit loves bringing God’s words to life, day after day, in the hearts of those blinded by the tyranny of worthless things. 

What has captured your imagination? What is enamoring the eyes of your heart? When you open your Bible, don’t expect to be put under some mystical spell. Speak directly with the Author. Ask the Spirit to unblind you to the beauty staring you in the face. As Charles Spurgeon observed, “Texts will often refuse to reveal their treasures till you open them with the key of prayer.”

U – “Unite my heart to fear your name” (Ps. 86:11)

When I was a boy, my dad once explained why opening the Bible can be such a struggle. “It’s almost like Satan’s finger is pressing down on the cover,” he said. I remember thinking that was weird. Now I believe it’s true. 

The Bible teaches us that the Devil is crafty. He knows the easiest way to keep us from God’s Word is to distract us, to hold up captivating shiny objects, to lure us into thinking about something—anything—else.

Perhaps you recognize this scenario: Okay, Romans chapter 2. Let’s do this! Where did I leave off? Okay, this part looks familiar. Man, I love the apostle Paul . . . I am so hungry. Is my lunch meeting tomorrow at 11:30 or 12:30? Let me check . . . 

Amazing, isn’t it? Our hearts are fragmented in a thousand different directions. As Piper has written elsewhere, in words that should haunt many of us, “One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the Last Day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time.”

We must pray earnestly for a united heart, lest it drift toward being divided, distracted, and distant from the words of the living God. 

S – “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love” (Ps. 90:14)

It’s not just that we’re distracted from God, though. We’re also dissatisfied in God. Sure, we know he’s a significant part of life, but we figure that if we want to be really filled up—really happy—we’ll need to look elsewhere. 

Sometimes religious people can give the impression that happiness is unspiritual. You can be happy or you can be holy, but surely not both. Thankfully, the Bible has no patience for this kind of thinking. 

Every human being on the planet is seeking happiness. That’s not the problem; the problem is that we seek it outside of God. Right quest, wrong destination. 

I. O. U. S. This is why I need to approach God’s Word prayerfully, asking him to satisfy this restless heart with steadfast love."

An Advance in the Kingdom of Sanctification

I recently listened to a 4 minute video answering this question:  "I am stuck in sexual sin. I always end up back at square one. How do I truly change?" The speaker was Alasdair Groves who is now the Executive Director of CCEP (Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation). As I watched and then read the transcript I realized that what Groves was saying was applicable to any type of sin, and that we can be very encouraged if we just reorient our framework of thinking about those daily battles. So please read this excerpt and then I will comment more below. Click here for video link and full transcript. 

Alasdair Groves' thoughts: "I appreciate even the wording of this question, the sense of being back at square one. And I think that’s actually where I’d like to start by offering something a bit different. That idea of being stuck and back at square one I think is a very intuitive approach to what you’re feeling, but it’s not the right framework. There is no such thing as being back at square one. God’s redemptive purposes for our lives does not operate with a, “How long have you gone without?” He’s not looking for a certain level and standard of, “You have to hit this and then you’re okay,” and “If you never do this again, that’s the only real success.” The Spirit of the living God is delighting in every single battle won, every five second period in which a momentary fantasy [insert any type of sin tendency here - CM] that comes into your head and you say, “No, I don’t want that. Lord, help me.” That is radically different than a five second period in which you just sort of let run and then it sort of evaporates and goes away. There’s something right about winning battles because the Spirit has laid on your heart a conviction that this is wrong and that you want to live in a different way. 

Every day, every battle, every fight, every victory, every little tiny fruit of the spirit that you are tasting is not square one. That is an advance in the kingdom of sanctification [my emphasis], of glory to God, of your heart learning to worship and hate what is evil and cling to what is good. And the more you see it that way, the less you’re gonna end up in this despairing mindset of, “Oh no, I did it again; all past growth is now undone.” Instead, you realize, “God has given me grace daily. I’m actually tasting His graces,” and ironically, that is one of the most inspiring, powerful, motivating factors to help you move away from sin and actually live with purity that is deeper, longer, more profound. The battle line’s moving in a better place where you are now advancing toward the enemy and your struggle is in a different place than it used to be. We’ll all be tempted until the Lord comes. We will all have sins of pride, greed, selfishness, lust, until the Lord comes. But we eagerly desire that those battle lines keep being pushed further and further, and further away from action, further away from our willful patterns into moments of slipping, rather than moments of racing the other direction, and guiltless indulgence. Those little victories are the things to zoom in on and recognize if the Lord is present, and if you are learning to grieve your sin more, then there is no square one reset."

Candy's thoughts: I just LOVE that Groves reminds us that "every day, every battle, every fight, every victory, every little tiny fruit of the spirit that we are tasting is not square one." So often we feel like giving up our fight against sin because we think no progress is being made. But the very fact that we feel "discouraged" is progress... the very fact that in 5 seconds we can recognize our temptations... the very fact that we desire to be sin-free is actually an acknowledgement that we are further along than when we first began. Let's all keep advancing forward in sanctification! Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow!

Part 2 of Paul Tripp on James 1:2-4

"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trails of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."  (James 1:2-4)

Tripp's thoughts: "James is saying that the bad things you endure are a tool of a very good thing that God is doing in you and for you. So in the very moment when you and I think we've been forsaken, we're actually being graced with God's rescuing, transforming, and delivering power. And what is it that we're being delivered from? James's answer is clear: we are being delivered from ourselves. It is humbling to admit that the greatest disaster in our lives is not what we suffer, but the sin inside us, which separates us from God and always leads to death. While we tend to be intolerant of hardship and difficulty, God is intolerant of our sin and so he uses hard things to deliver us from it. The only name for this is grace. It's true that grace often comes in uncomfortable forms. When we cry out for grace, we're often already getting it, but it's not the grace of release; it's the grace of rescue and transformation, because that's the grace we really need.

In our suffering God is at work to give us something much better than what we want. He's not content to dispense temporary relief, when eternal change is what we really need. In the zeal of redeeming love, he uses hard tools to produce soft but sturdy hearts, and that's a very good thing. Think of the power in suffering to change us:

1. Suffering has the power to destroy our self-reliance. We were created to be dependent on God and mutually dependent on one another. 

2. Suffering has the power to expose our self-righteousness. We like to tell ourselves that we're spiritually okay, but suffering also exposes the bad things that are still inside of us. In our pain we're irritable, envious, demanding, impatient, doubtful, and angry. Suffering doesn't make us this way, but it draws out what's been inside us already.

3. Suffering has the power to lay waste to our idols. Suffering has a way of exposing what's really dear to us, what we feel we can't live without, and what truly rules our hearts."

Candy's thoughts: I occasionally wonder if CandyceLand readers believe there is too much of a focus on "suffering" on this blog. If so, I guess I plead guilty. I write about troubles with the hope that we will help one another to face our trials together. May we sympathize with our friends and family and learn to find fresh encouragement, and sometimes even necessary correction, in the midst of our worst afflictions. Tripp's words may seem like bitter medicine to those who are already hurting, yet they could be important for us to consider in order to see God's light in a very dark providence.