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Several years ago, Edward Farrell, a priest from Detroit, went on a two-week summer vacation to Ireland to visit relatives.  His one living uncle was about to celebrate his eightieth birthday.  On the great day, Ed and his uncle got up early.  It was before dawn.  They took a walk along the shores of Lake Killarney and stopped to watch the sunrise.  They stood side by side for a full twenty minutes and then resumed walking.  Ed glanced at his uncle and saw that his face had broken into a broad smile.  Ed said, “Uncle Seamus you look very happy.”  ”I am.”  Ed asked, “How come?”  And his uncle replied, “The Father of Jesus is very fond of me.”

If the question were put to you, “Do you honestly believe that God likes you?” – not loves you because theologically he must – how would you answer?  God loves by necessity of his nature; without the eternal, interior generation of love, he would cease to be God.  But if you could answer, “The Father is very fond of me,” there would come a relaxedness, a serenity, and a compassionate attitude toward yourself that is a reflection of God’s own tenderness.  In Isaiah 49:15, God says: “Does a woman forget her baby at the breast, or fail to cherish the son of her womb?  Yet even if these forget, I will never forget you” (JB).

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In all companies, on other days, on whatever occasions persons met together, Christ was to be heard of, and seen in the midst of them.  Our young people, when they met, were want to spend the time in talking of the excellency and dying love of Jesus Christ, the glory of the way of salvation, the wonderful, free and sovereign grace of God, his glorious work in the conversion of a soul, the truth and certainty of the great things of God’s word, the sweetness of the views of his perfections, etc.  And even at weddings, which formerly were mere occasions of mirth and jollity, there was now no discourse of any thing but religion, and no appearance of any but spiritual birth.  Those amongst us who had been formerly converted, were greatly enlivened, and renewed with fresh and extraordinary incomes of the Spirit of God; though some much more than others, according to the measure of the gift of Christ.  Many who before had laboured under difficulties about their own state, had now their doubts removed by more satisfying experience, and more clear discoveries of God’s love.

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Per the dedication of the book to his father:

When grace abounds, the yoke of the law is easy and the commandment is light.  You have been to me grace upon grace these 41 years, and therefore I find nothing easier or lighter than to obey the holy statute: Honor thy father.

Respectfully with all my heart,

Johnny

(continued…)

I look back to my childhood and see mother laughing so hard at the dinner table that the tears ran down her face.  She was a very happy woman.  But especially when my father came home on Monday.  He had been gone two weeks in the work of evangelism. Or sometimes three of four. She would glow on Monday mornings when he was coming home.

At the dinner table that night (these were the happiest of times in my memory) we would hear about the victories of the gospel. Surely it is more exciting to be the son of an evangelist than to sit with knights and warriors.  As I grew older I saw more of the wounds.  But he spared me most of that until I was mature enough to “count it all joy.”  Holy and happy were those Monday meals.  Oh, how good it was to have Daddy home!

Agape is not a mere emotional by-product of action but a supernatural outpouring of the grace of God infusing all our behavior with the life of Christ.  It is the love of God which “has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Rom. 5:5 NASB).  This kind of love, as Augustine never tired of insisting, is the pivotal factor in the church’s life.”

The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied.  To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here.  Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance.  These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams.  But God is the ocean.

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Tim Keller, King’s Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus, pp. 57-58:

We have a resource that can enable us to stay calm inside no matter how the storms rage outside.

Here’s a clue: Mark has deliberately laid out this account using language that is parallel, almost identical, to the language of the famous Old Testament account of Jonah.

Both Jesus and Jonah were in a boat, and both boats were overtaken by a storm—the descriptions of the storm are almost identical.

Both Jesus and Jonah were asleep.

In both stories the sailors woke up the sleeper and said, “We’re going to die.”

And in both cases there was a miraculous divine intervention and the sea was calmed.

Further, in both stories the sailors then become even more terrified than they were before the storm was calmed.

Two almost identical stories—with just one difference.

In the midst of the storm, Jonah said to the sailors, in effect: “There’s only only thing to do. If I perish, you survive. If I die, you will live” (Jonah 1:12). And they threw him into the sea.

Which doesn’t happen in Mark’s story.

Or does it?

I think Mark is showing that the stories aren’t actually different when you stand back a bit and look at it with the rest of the story of Jesus in view.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says, “One greater than Jonah is here,” and he’s referring to himself: I’m the true Jonah. He meant this:

Someday I’m going to calm all storms, still all waves.

I’m going to destroy destruction, break brokenness, kill death.

How can he do that?

He can only do it because when he was on the cross he was thrown—willingly, like Jonah—into the ultimate storm, under the ultimate waves, the waves of sin and death.

Jesus was thrown into the only storm that can actually sink us—the storm of eternal justice, of what we owe for our wrongdoing. That storm wasn’t calmed—not until it swept him away.

If the sight of Jesus bowing his head into that ultimate storm is burned into the core of your being, you will never say, “God, don’t you care?”

And if you know that he did not abandon you in that ultimate storm, what make you think he would abandon you in much smaller storms you’re experiencing right now?

And, someday, of course, he will return and still all storms for eternity.

If you let that penetrate to the very center of your being, you will know he loves you. You will know he cares. And then you will have the power to handle anything in life with poise:

When through the deep waters I call you to go,
The rivers of woe shall not overflow;
For I will be with you, your troubles to bless,
And sanctify to you your deepest distress.

The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.

The spiritual journey is not about living as we should so life works as we want.  It’s not a linear path.

It’s not about growing up into the maturity of a good self-image and developing the energy to do good things; it is about growing down into the brokenness of self-despair and deepening our awareness of how poorly we love compared to Trinitarian standards.  It’s not about working hard to get it right so we can present ourselves before God to receive the blessings we desire; it is about coming before Him as we are, honestly, pretending about nothing, becoming increasingly convinced that we can’t get it right though we try as hard as we can, then listening for the whisper of the Spirit, “Welcome!  You’re home.  You’re loved.  You’ll be empowered to speak with your unique voice as you hear the Voice of God singing over you with great love.

The Spirit is inviting each one of us to walk a very different path, to embark on a radically different journey.  We’re bidden to come as we are, boldly, without fear, even though our souls still sometimes seem a cesspool of foul muck with no living waters in sight, abandoning ourselves to God for whatever He chooses to allow, waiting for Him to reveal how near we are to Him already in every circumstance of life, and to then draw us nearer.  That’s the new way of the Spirit.

Theologian Jonathan Edwards, in his book The Nature of True Virtue, argued that human beings will only be drawn out of themselves into unselfish acts of service to others when they see God as supremely beautiful.  Here’s an example to illustrate what he means.  If you listen to the music of Bach because you want people to think you are cultured (or because you want to think it of yourself), then the music is only a means to achieve some other end, namely the enhancement of your reputation.  But if you play Bach because you find it not just useful but beautiful, then you are listening to it as satisfying in and of itself.

Edwards taught that if, through an experience of God’s grace, you come to find him beautiful, then you do not serve the poor because you want to think well of yourself, or in order to get a good reputation, or because you think it will be good for your business, or even because it will pay off for your family in creating a better city to live in.  You do it because serving the poor honors and pleases God, and honoring and pleasing God is a delight to you in and of itself.

It takes an experience of beauty to knock us out of our self-centeredness and induce us to become just.

Galatians is a letter for recovering Pharisees….  The Pharisees were hypocrites because they thought that what God would do for them depended on what they did for God.  So they read their Bibles, prayed, tithed, and kept the Sabbath as if their salvation depended on it.  What they failed to understand is that God’s grace cannot be earned; it only comes free.