So often, I think that I’m living for God, but instead I’m actually trying to use him for other things.  For example, I think that I’m living for God when I seek his help in loving my wife and kids, but in reality my strength is dependent on what my wife and kids think of me.  The examples could continue on and if you want me to share some more, I’d be happy to.

I’m writing this quick post to say that we use God all the time to try and get the gifts, and…  I don’t think we even realize we’re doing that most of the time.  God is the gift that we truly need, have, and must pursue.

Remember that God can use suffering to ‘awaken’ a person to some sin – as a kind of ‘intervention.’  But interventions are only done by people out of love.  God can and will treat you roughly if you need it, like a loving parent will do with a wayward child – but all out of deep concern.  If you are a Christian, God has sent all your punishment on to Christ.  All his wrath for you fell into the heart of Jesus and was swallowed up and absorbed there – it disappeared forever.  He has no wrath left for you.

“…the way to God is wide open. There is nothing standing between the sinner and his God. He has immediate and unimpeded access to the Savior. There is nothing to hinder. No sin can hold [you] back, because God offers justification to the ungodly. Nothing now stands between the sinner and God but the sinner’s “good works.” Nothing can keep him from Christ but his delusion… that he has good works of his own that can satisfy God… All they need is need. All they need is nothing… But alas, sinners cannot part with their “virtues.” They have none that are not imaginary, but they are real to them. So grace becomes unreal. The real grace of God they spurn in order to hold on to the illusory virtues of their own. Their eyes fixed on a mirage, they will not drink real water. They die of thirst with water all about them.”

Per Keller – Gerstner again shows that what keeps people from Christ is not their sins, but the imagined value of their “virtues” and good works. It is not so much refusal to repent of their sins that damns them, but the refusal to repent of their “righteousness.” Only when they repent of both sin and righteousness can they be said to have had their “mouths stopped.”

Before [you can be sure you are at peace with God] you must not only be troubled for the sins… of your nature, but likewise for the sins of your best duties and performances. When a poor soul is somewhat awakened by the terrors of the Lord, then the poor creature, being born under the covenant of works, flies directly to a covenant of words again. And as Adam and Eve hid themselves among the trees of the garden, and sewed fig leaves together to cover their nakedness, so the poor sinner, when awakened, flies to his duties and to his performances, to hide himself from God, and goes to patch up a righteousness of his own. Says he, “I will be mighty good now — I will reform — I will do all I can; and then certainly Jesus Christ will have mercy on me. But before you can [know you are at peace with God] you must be brought to see that God may damn you for the best prayer you ever put up; you must be brought to see that all your duties — all your righteousness — as the prophet elegantly expresses it–put them all together, are so far from recommending you to God, are so far from being any motive and inducement to God to have mercy on your poor soul, that he will see them to be filthy rags, a menstrous cloth — that God hates them, and cannot but away with them, if you bring them to him in order to recommend you to his favor. My dear friends, what is there in our performances to recommend us to God?

I can say that I cannot pray without sin — I cannot preach without sin — I can do nothing without sin; and as one expresses it: my repentance needs to be repented of, and my very tears to be washed in the precious blood of my dear Redeemer. Our best duties are as so many splendid sins. Before you can know you are at peace with God, you must not only be made sick of your original and actual sin, but you must be sick of your righteousness, of all your duties and performances. There must be a deep conviction before you can be brought out of your self-righteousness; it is the last idol taken out of your heart. The pride of our heart will not let us submit to the righteousness of Jesus Christ. But if you never felt that you had no righteousness of your own, if you never felt the deficiency of your own righteousness, you cannot come to Jesus Christ. There are a great many now who may say, “well we believe all this,” but there is a great difference between talking and feeling. Did you ever feel the need of a dear Redeemer? Did you ever feel the want of Jesus Christ, upon the account of the deficiency of your own righteousness? And can you now say from your heart, “Lord, thou mayst justly damn me for the best duties that ever I did perform?” If you are not thus brought out of yourself, you may say to your heart “Peace! Peace!” but there is no peace.”

…..

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.

I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are very wise and very beautiful; but I never read in either of them “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.”  – Augustine

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.

“There is a righteousness which Paul calls “the righteousness of faith.”  God imputes it to us apart from our works – in other words, it is passive righteousness…  So then, have we nothing to do to obtain this righteousness?  No, nothing at all!  For this righteousness comes by doing nothing, hearing nothing, knowing nothing, but rather in knowing and believing this only – that Christ has gone to the right hand of the Father, not to become our judge, but to become for us our wisdom, our righteousness, our holiness, our salvation!  Now God sees no sin in us, for in this heavenly righteousness sin has no place.  So now we may certainly think, “Although I still sin, I don’t despair, because Christ lives, who is both my righteousness and my eternal life.”  In that righteousness I have no sin, no fear, no guilty conscience, no fear of death.  I am indeed a sinner in this life of mine and in my own righteousness, but I have another life, another righteousness above this life, which is in Christ, the Son of God.

Christians never completely understand (this) themselves, and thus do not take advantage of it when they are troubled and tempted.  So we have to constantly teach it, repeat it, and work it out in practice.  Anyone who does not understand this righteousness or cherish it in the heart and conscience will continually be buffeted by fears and depression.  Nothing gives peace like this passive righteousness.  The troubled conscience has no cure for its desperation and feeling of unworthiness unless it takes hold of the forgiveness of sins by grace, offered free of charge in Jesus Christ, which is this passive or Christian righteousness…  Once you are in Christ, the Law is the greatest guide for your life, but until you have Christian righteousness, all the law can do is to show you how sinful and condemned you are.  But if we first receive Christian righteousness, then we can use the law, not for our salvation, but for his honor and glory, and to lovingly show our gratitude.