Eternal Truths to Remember Each Day

August 1, 2013 / revheff / Leave a comment

In this summer’s issue of Randy Alcorn’s Eternal Perspectives magazine, he lists six biblical principles for living every day in light of eternity.

There are only two eternal destinations—heaven or hell—and I and every person I know will go to one or the other (Matthew 7:13-14).
This world (as it is now) is not my home and everything in it will burn, leaving behind only what’s eternal (2 Pet. 3:10-12).
My choices and actions in this life have a direct influence on the world and the life to come (Rev. 22:12).
My life is being examined by God, the Audience of One, and the only appraisal of my life that will ultimately matter is His (Rom. 14:12).
God is sovereign, and I can trust that He is working all things—including the most difficult things—in my life together for good (Rom. 8:28).
My ultimate home will be the New Earth, where I will see and enjoy God and serve Him as a resurrected being in a resurrected human society (2 Pet. 3:13)

Are you living each day in light of your eternal destiny? Truths like these mediated upon first thing in your day will certainly help.

Toughest School Ever (5)

July 30, 2013 / revheff / 1 Comment

Perhaps the most obvious reason why Christ’s school of contentment ranks as the toughest curriculum on the planet is the fact that it is a mysterious school.

Consider these words by Paul in Philippians 4:12 – I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need (emphasis mine).

The Greek verb translated I have learned the secret appears only here in the New Testament. That means we have to go outside the Bible into the literature of the first century to make some sense of what Paul means when he says this. The word is a cultic term that was used for describing the process of being initiated into various spiritual mysteries. Paul may have used it with irony in that frankly he discovered the secret of contentment within the mundane experiences of daily life, as opposed to some super-secret realities, whether plenty or hunger, abundance or need.

So what exactly makes Jesus’ school of contentment mysterious or secretive? I think we can point to at least two factors.

First, true Christian contentment consists of a paradoxical blend of rejoicing and sorrow. Contented believers have learned how to make a mixture of the gracious sweet and gracious sour of life together. This is indeed a mystery. The world doesn’t get it. Paul said it well elsewhere in 2 Corinthians 6:10 – as sorrowful yet always rejoicing.

I learned something about this paradox/mystery in 2005 with my head-and-neck cancer experience. Surgery, radiation, chemo, nausea, vomiting, hospitals, tests, doctors, shots, pain, for the better part of the year, plundered me over and over again with a sorrow unlike anything I ever experienced before. However, beneath the river of sorrow ran a current of joy that I can only chalk up to a consideration of things spiritually that made rejoicing in my blessings in Christ as superior to any physical suffering I endured. And that kind of thinking, if anything, is mysterious indeed.

I like how my Puritan friend put it (big surprise by now):

It may be said of one who is contented in a Christian way that he is the most contented man in the world, and yet the most unsatisfied man in the world; these two together must needs be mysterious. I say, a contented man, just as he is the most contented, so he is the most unsatisfied man in the world. You never learned the mystery of contentment unless it may be said of you that, just as you are the most contented man, so you are also the most unsatisfied man in the world. You will say, ‘How is that?’ A man who has learned the art of contentment is the most contented with any low condition that he has in the world, and yet he cannot be satisfied with the enjoyment of all the world. He is contented if he has but a crust, but bread and water, that is, if God disposes of him, for the things of the world, to have but bread and water for his present condition, he can be satisfied with God’s disposal in that; yet if God should give unto him Kingdoms and Empires, all the world to rule, if he should give it him for his portion, he would not be satisfied with that. Here is the mystery of it: though his heart is so enlarged that the enjoyment of all the world and ten thousand worlds cannot satisfy him for his portion; yet he has a heart quieted under God’s disposal, if he gives him but bread and water. To join these two together must needs be a great art and mystery.

No kidding. I’m not exactly sure what would be the plenty standing opposite to my want of cancer. But either way, abundance or need, I want to learn the secret – to be the most contented person is to be the most unsatisfied.

More on this mysterious school in my next post, Lord willing. And with that I will try to be content.

Toughest School Ever (4)

July 24, 2013 / revheff / 1 Comment

Imagine my shock upon receiving my first grade on any paper in undergraduate school. I got an “F.” That’s right. I flunked my first college assignment. I wrote an English essay that the prof deemed utterly unworthy of the language. Talk about a reality check. Here I thought I could write. She begged to disagree. Guess who won? She did. I set about remedial composition instruction without delay.

Imagine my dismay upon discovering a certain course had little to do with its name, or at least so it seemed to me. When I signed up for Astronomy 101, I possessed a delusion of a cool curriculum of star-studying and universe-exploring. The joke was on me. The whole deal was a math class masquerading as science. I can’t recall how many early Saturday mornings I spent with the prof in extra help sessions just to survive that monster.

Yes, those were demanding curricula. However, neither compared to the requirements inherent in my toughest school ever – Christ’s school of contentment. In previous posts I have talked about the compulsory nature of the curriculum and its excellence. This post takes me to its degree of difficulty. I don’t know that it could ask more of me and those who enroll than it does.

For instance, Philippians 2:14 commands: Do all things without grumbling or disputing. Grumbling or murmuring is the opposite of contentment. The Bible leaves absolutely no room for fudging at all on this matter. There are no exceptions. We are to do all things without a discontented spirit. Good grief! Who is adequate for such a standard.

Then we have Jude 14-16.

It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires; they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage.

Notice the first vice in the list for which the Lord comes with ten thousands of His holy ones to execute judgment: grumbling. About this, my Puritan friend remarks:

These ungodly ones are murmurers; murmurers in Scripture are put in the forefront of all. You had need to look to your spirits; you may see that this murmuring, which is the vice contrary to this contentment, is not as small a matter as you think. You think you are not as ungodly as others, because you do not swear and drink as others do, but you may be ungodly in murmuring. It is true there is no sin but some seeds and remainders of it are in those who are godly; but when men are under the power of this sin of murmuring, it convicts them as ungodly, as well as if they were under the power of drunkenness, or whoredom, or any other sin. God will look upon you as ungodly for this sin as well as for any sin whatever. This one Scripture should make the heart shake at the thought of the sin of murmuring.

If that won’t do it, then consider Numbers 14:26-27. And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, “How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me (emphasis mine). In actuality, the congregation in the wilderness spoke against Moses and Aaron. However, God took it personally. He considered it an affront against Himself that the people griped the way they did. To oppose the Lord’s anointed was to oppose Him.

If I kept in my mind every time I felt tempted to complain, that ultimately my grumbling piqued God’s irritation quotient, I think I might think twice before giving way to murmuring.

There’s no escaping it. The bar is set immeasurably high. There simply is no room in this particular school for a grumbling spirit. Demanding indeed.

But the news with this reality is not necessarily all bad. Again I turn to Jeremiah Burroughs for help:

There is no way to set about any duty that you should perform, you might labor to perform it, but first you must be humbled for the lack of it. Therefore I shall endeavor to get your hearts to be humbled for lack of this grace. ‘Oh, had I had this grace of contentment, what a happy life I might have lived! What abundance of honor I might have brought to the name of God! How might I have honored my profession! What a great deal of comfort I might have enjoyed! But the Lord knows it has been far otherwise. Oh, how far I have been from this grace of contentment which has been expounded to me! I have had a murmuring, a vexing, and a fretting heart within me. Every little cross has put me out of temper and out of frame. Oh, the boisterousness of my spirit! What evil God sees in the vexing and fretting of my heart, and murmuring and repining of my spirit!’ Oh that God would make you see it!

Without seeing it, without feeling the sting of conviction that comes from the law, how will we ever cling to the cross and the hope of the gospel that we might experience the secret of contentment that rids us of the vice of murmuring and discontent?

Are you thus convicted?

Toughest School Ever (3)

July 18, 2013 / revheff / 5 Comments

In Philippians 4:11, the Apostle Paul makes an amazing statement: I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. He doesn’t say, I am learning or I hope to learn. He speaks as if to suggest some degree of mastery of the contentment curriculum. He is adamant. He adds in v. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound.

Honestly, I can’t yet speak so confidently. But this gives me hope. Such a lofty goal is attainable. Contentment, though often it seems the opposite, does not lie outside our spiritual reach in this world.

No doubt, as I explained in my previous post in this series, Christ’s school of contentment is a compulsory school. As followers of Jesus, shaped by the gospel, we must strive for the same gracious frame of spirit to which Paul attained. However, we should indeed think positively about our prospects for growth in light of the excellency of the Instructor.

I say this first, because of the nature of God Himself who teaches in this school. My Puritan friend explains:

‘Content’, signifies a self-sufficiency, as I told you in opening the words. A contented man is a self-sufficient man, and what is the great glory of God, but to be happy and self-sufficient in himself? Indeed, he is said to be all-sufficient, but that is only a further addition of the word ‘all’, rather than of any matter, for to be sufficient is all-sufficient. Now this is the glory of God, to be sufficient, to have sufficiency in himself. El-Shaddai means to be God having sufficiency in himself. And you come near to this. As you partake of the Divine nature by grace in general, so you do it in a more peculiar manner by this grace of Christian contentment, for what is the excellence and glory of God but this? Suppose there were no creatures in the world, and that all the creatures in the world were annihilated: God would remain the same blessed God that he is now, he would not be in a worse condition if all creatures were gone; neither would a contented heart, if God should take away all creatures from him. A contented heart has enough in the lack of all creatures, and would not be more miserable than he is now. Suppose that God should keep you here, and all the creatures that are in the world were taken away, yet you still, having God to be your portion, would be as happy as you are now.

So our first encouragement about the prospect of growth in contentment comes from the excellencies of His nature as the all-sufficient God, unshakably happy in Himself. In Him through Christ that character takes hold and transforms us over time from murmuring malcontents to rejoicing sons and daughters.

But there is one more word of encouragement about the seemingly impossible mission of attaining contentment related to the excellence of the Teacher. That has to do with the content from which He teaches. For example, consider again Hebrews 13:5-6.

Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?”

From where does the writer draw in backing the exhortation to avoid covetousness in favor of being content with what one possesses? God’s word from the Old Testament in Psalm 118:6.

Another wise saint from the past, J. C. Ryle wrote about the significance of this:

The main point I want to impress on men’s minds is this: we ought to make the texts and promises of the Bible our refuge in time of trouble and the fountain of our soul’s comfort. When St. Paul wanted to enforce a grace and recommend a duty, he quoted a text. When you and I would give a reason for our hope, or when we feel that we need strength and consolation, we must go to our Bibles and try to find out suitable texts. The lawyer uses old cases and decisions when he pleads his cause. “Such a judge has said such a thing; and therefore,” he argues, “it is a settled point.” The soldier on the battlefield takes up certain positions and does certain things; if you ask him why, he will say, “I have such and such orders from my general, and I obey them.” The true Christian must always use his Bible in like manner. The Bible must be his book of reference and precedents. The Bible must be to him his captain’s orders. If anyone asks him why he thinks as he does, lives as he does, feels as he does, all he has need to reply is, “God has spoken to such an effect: I have my orders, and that is enough.”

Does the Christian virtue of contentment seem far beyond your reach in the flesh. Take heart. Though enrolled in the toughest of schools we have the best of instructors teaching the most superior content.

O happy day when we will say with Paul, I have learned and I know.

Toughest School Ever (2)

July 10, 2013 / revheff / 4 Comments

In my first post on the virtue of content, I likened it to schooling that takes place over one’s lifetime under the providence of God.

In this post and those to come, I wish to continue working the same metaphor describing various aspects of the curriculum from the Scriptures.

The place to begin, I believe, is with the nature of this discipline as a compulsory subject. Anyone who has done any higher education grasps the difference between required courses and electives. I loved electives in college. I got to pick and choose what I liked. Motivation wasn’t an issue. When it came to the required stuff, I had no choice. I either took the class or faced dropping out.

Certain texts make it clear that we can’t do an end-around on the school of contentment. Hebrews 13:5 says, “Keep your life free from the love of money, and be content with what you have.” There’s no denying it. God commands that we stay clear of the desire for more stuff and find satisfaction in whatever He has given us, big or small, or in between.

Then we have Paul’s words in First Timothy 6:8. “But if we have food and clothing, with these will be content.” Really? Talk about setting the bar low when it comes to your possessions. He doesn’t even include shelter in his short list. Grub in the belly and clothes on the back. Enough for me. Satisfied. No problemo. Yikes!

But here’s the kicker in that same context. If you back up to verse 6 you read this: “But godliness with contentment is great gain.” You can’t miss the duty in v. 8, nor back in Heb. 13:5. We have an obligation to pursue contentment. It’s a gospel necessity. We can’t skip this course. We can’t clep out of it. We’ve got to take the class, if we belong to King Jesus.

But don’t miss the glory of it, as my new-found friend Jeremiah Burroughs would say. For that we go back to First Timothy 6:6 where Paul touches on what makes for great gain. Anybody NOT interested in great gain? I didn’t think so.

He doesn’t say that godliness in-and-of-itself amounts to great gain; he contends that godliness with contentment is great gain. Here’s how I read that. Without contentment, whatever gain belongs to godliness isn’t as great as it is with contentment. As for me and my house, not settling for less than great gain!

Of course, all this begs the question “What is contentment?” I can’t improve on the old Puritan’s definition. I’ll end with it:

Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.”

Have you enrolled? The course is not optional for followers of Jesus. It is decidedly compulsory.

Submit to the duty, but go for the glory.

Toughest School Ever

July 8, 2013 / revheff / 5 Comments

I don’t make a big deal out of it, but I have three earned degrees. I like to say I am officially educated beyond my intelligence. My bachelors at UCF in Liberal Studies didn’t really demand that much of me. The M. Div. at seminary put me through a great deal more pain, especially on certain subjects. The D. Min. at RTS focused on such a practical curriculum that I can’t really say that I found its challenges all that great. The one exception to that came in the form of writing my dissertation. I thought I would never finish that monster.

By far, the toughest school in which I ever enrolled, and in which I continue to matriculate quite honestly, is the school of contentment. I call it a school because of the way Paul writes about this virtue in Philippians 4:10-13.

I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Paul wrote from prison. They did things differently back then. Jailers didn’t feed their inmates. Prisoners depended upon outside help for provision. The Philippian church so loved Paul that they sent a gift to him. He responded with this letter, including something of a thank you note at the end.

Quite obviously they pleased him. Their gift caused him to rejoice greatly in God. He commended them for their gospel grace of generosity. But not so fast. Lest they get the wrong impression, he made haste to point out a surprising absence of need in what to most readers most certainly would have seemed quite the opposite. He categorically denied anything of the like.

And with that he spun off into a testimony of his own enrollment with Christ in the school of contentment. Again, I call it a school because of the repetitive terminology Paul uses. “I have learned.” “I know.” The language suggests a process of instruction over time in the school of God’s providence that brought Paul to an enviable state of contentment he enjoyed regardless of his circumstances, including a dungeon!

In subsequent posts I hope to share insights from the text, as well as other Scriptures about the nature of this most rigorous school of contentment. But let me close with this analogy and insight from Puritan Jeremiah Burroughs (1599-1646) from his classic The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment:

When the yoke is first put upon a heifer and it wriggles up and down and will not be quiet, if after many months or years it will not draw quietly, the husbandman would rather fatten it and prepare it for the butcher than be troubled any longer with it. “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby” (Heb 12:11). It is true: our afflictions are not joyous, but grievous. Though it is very grievous when our affliction first comes, afterwards it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness. When you have been a long time in the school of afflictions, you are a very dullard if you have not learned this contentment. “I have learned,”said Paul, “in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content” (Phi 4:11). Paul had learned this lesson quickly, [but] you have been learning many years! A new cart may creak and make a noise; but after it has been used a while, it will not do so. So when you are first a Christian, perhaps you make a noise and cannot bear affliction; but are you an old Christian and yet will you be a murmuring Christian? Oh, it is a shame for any who have been a long time in the school of Jesus Christ to have murmuring spirits.

This particular heifer feels that shame more than he cares to admit after 40 plus years in the the school of contentment but still struggling with a murmuring spirit. Oh for grace to learn better the secret of contentment. More on that to come in the reflections on my toughest school ever.

After all, who wants to be dullard, whatever that means.

Fasting – an Expedient Appointment

March 28, 2013 / revheff / 3 Comments

That’s what John Calvin called voluntary absence from food for spiritual purposes. “Whenever men are to pray to God concerning any great matter, it would be expedient to appoint fasting along with prayer.”

He had good reason to advocate this given the godly examples we have in the Scriptures.

When Moses went up to Mt. Sinai to receive the law of God on tablets of stone, he went without bread and water in a supernatural fast for forty days and nights (Deut. 9:9).

When Nehemiah got word about the disastrous condition of Jerusalem’s walls and gates, he fasted and prayed for days about the situation (Neh. 1:4).

When Daniel perceived the seventy years that needed to pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, he sought the Lord with pleas for mercy with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes (Dan. 9:3).

Lest we think examples lie only in the Old Testament, the New Testament reveals that even Jesus practiced fasting for forty days when He went into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (Matt. 4:2).

The apostolic church followed suit by committing important decisions like sending out missionaries (Acts 13:2-3) and setting apart elders (Acts 14:23) for their work of ministry through prayer accompanied by fasting.

In the spirit of these examples, our elders have called our congregation to a 24 hour period of fasting and prayer for a special purpose. As many of our people know, our sister Chantel has fought for years now a battle with sleeplessness. We want to believe God for a breakthrough in 2013 restoring to Chantel normal and restorative sleep. The tenacity of this affliction and its wear and tear on our sister and her husband warrant our joining together in a concerted effort of fasting and prayer beginning at sundown tonight and ending with Communion tomorrow in our Good Friday service at 6 PM.

Again I would remind you, if physical limitations prohibit you from fasting from food, consider some other form of gospel-motivated self-denial in its place.

Regardless of your form of this expedient appointment to go with your praying, please remember these insightful words of Edith Schaeffer about fasting:

Is fasting ever a bribe to get God to pay more attention to the petitions ? No, a thousand times no. It is simply a way to make clear that we sufficiently reverence the amazing opportunity to ask help from the everlasting God, the Creator of the universe, to choose to put everything else aside and concentrate on worshiping, asking forgiveness, and making our requests known-considering His help more important than anything we could do ourselves in our own strength and with our own ideas.

May God hear our pleas and grant deliverance to our sister for His glory and our joy.

Sweet Fruit of Gospel Accountability

March 21, 2013 / revheff / 1 Comment

For several years now I have enjoyed a relationship with another pastor outside our city. We meet not as often as I would like. But my life has been much enriched by his fellowship and partnership in the gospel.

In our last encounter he shared quite vulnerably with me about an area of his life and ministry for which he felt great concern. I sensed the weight of his burden. The Lord nudged me to propose a mutual forty-day exhort-one-another-daily accountability campaign of sin-killing in the spirit of Heb. 3:13. So for several weeks now we have engaged in daily contact whether by text, email, or phone – all bathed in prayer designed to pull down strongholds.

Today I received from my brother the text of a hymn over which he had wept and prayed earlier this morning. The hymn is by John Newton (written in a particularly difficult season in his life) entitled I Asked the Lord.

I asked the Lord that I might grow,
In faith and love and every grace,
Might more of His salvation know,
And seek more earnestly His face.

It was He who taught me thus to pray,
And He I trust has answered prayer.
But it has been in such a way,
As almost drove me to despair.

I hoped that in some favored hour,
At once He’d answer my request.
And by His love’s constraining power,
Subdue my sins and give me rest.

Instead of this, He made me feel,
The hidden evils of my heart.
And let the angry powers of hell,
Assault my soul in every part.

Yes, more with His own hand, He seemed,
Intent to aggravate my woe.
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.

“Lord, why is this?” I trembling cried.
Will You pursue Your worm to death?”
“This is the way” the Lord replied,
“I answer prayer for grace and strength.”

“These inward trials I employ,
From self, and pride, to set you free;
And break your schemes of earthly joy,
That you may find thy all in Me.”

This is an example what I call sweet fruit of gospel accountability. Do you have someone in your life waging war with you against sin in gospel grace? Pray that God gives you such a brother or sister and enjoy the spoils that will come your way. Challenge someone to do this with you soon, particularly if you are locked in a battle you are struggling to win.

For a soulful treatment of this hymn by Indelible Grace click here.

Bible Study Tools

March 5, 2013 / revheff / Leave a comment

If I learned anything setting up a homestead in Idaho, I learned, often the hard way, the importance of having the right tools for any given job.

The same is true for the hard work of studying the Bible. There are a variety of tools to bring to the project of unearthing the jewels in the mine of a book or section of Scripture.

A while back I was asked to speak on this very subject in the current equipping hour class on studying the Bible.

For your convenience and help I want to post Bible Study Tools here as a ready reference.

What's On Your Heart?

January 17, 2013 / revheff / Leave a comment

Or should I say, “What’s in your chest pocket?”

If you heard last Sunday’s message, you get the picture. I’m talking about meditation as a means of treasuring up the Word of God on our hearts. If you missed the message, you can listen to the audio here.

By way of reminder, I wanted to put two things from the message in this post.

The first is Don Whitney’s definition of and helpful analogy about meditation:

Let’s define meditation as deep thinking on the truths and spiritual realities revealed in Scripture for the purposes of understanding, application, and prayer. Meditation goes beyond hearing, reading, studying, and even memorizing God’s Word. A simple analogy would be a cup of tea. You are the cup of hot water and the intake of Scripture is represented by the tea bag. Hearing God’s Word is like one dip of the tea bag into the cup. Some of the tea’s flavor is absorbed by the water, but not as much as would occur with a more thorough soaking of the bag. In this analogy, reading, studying, and memorizing God’s Word are represented by additional plunges of the tea bag into the cup. The more frequently the tea enters the water, the more effect it has. Meditation, however, is like immersing the bag completely and letting it steep until all the rich tea flavor has been extracted and the hot water is thoroughly tinctured reddish brown (Spiritual Disciplines For The Christian Life, Colorado Springs: Navpress, 1991, 44).

The second is my eight-step plan for doing meditation:

1	M	MAKE a text selection by reading Scripture.
2	E	EXAMINE a text’s details by questioning Scripture.
3	D	DETERMINE a text’s meaning by studying Scripture.
4	I	INTERNALIZE a text’s content by memorizing Scripture. Psalm 119:97
5	T	TAILOR a text’s content by personalizing Scripture.
6	A	AMPLIFY a text’s ideas by paraphrasing Scripture.
7	T	TAP a text’s power by praying Scripture.
8	E	EMBRACE a text’s impact by applying Scripture.