Writing for the Glory of God and the Struggles of Today…

I love to write.  But…it is hard, and many times, I don’t want to.  I had a good friend tell me once, “It is a discipline.”  I have finally come to terms with that exhortation.  It does take discipline.  I have begun taking the discipline more seriously.  This blog is an example.  I have been a capable writer for some time thanks to a wonderful high school English teacher who basically taught me how to write.  More than that, because of her teaching, I am able to survive and even excel in a writing-demanding college curriculum.  But it wasn’t until only recently that I’ve grown an affinity for writing for the glory of God.  I am not like my dear brother in College Station.  I don’t fancy creative writing, that’s his field and I relish watching him plow it.  My field is different…

For me, I have grown fond of biblical reflection and biblical exhortation.  These may take the form of a sermon or a letter or even a hymn of faith.  In fact, one might suggest I have a pastoral spirit.  Maybe I do…that is another struggle we will not talk about quite yet.

Why should I write anything?  I am not talking about surviving in America.  Our college is under new accreditation, and they are improving this next fall by making a point of teaching students how to write.  They will create a new writing lab personally designated for equipping Wayland students with writing skills.  I do think that is necessary.  However, success in life is not my motive here.

As I have said before, I want to glorify God with my writing.  But how does one do that?  Well of course, truth is first.  But what is that truth?  It is the person of Jesus Christ.  The Bible was written by the Holy Spirit to testify to the Son.  The Son came to testify of the Father.  Thus, the glorious three-person Godhead works in beautiful fellowship.  Three persons, one God over all.

So then, I must point to Christ Jesus in all my writing.  If that is not true of my posts, then I am to give up this blog immediately.

But how else should God be glorified with my writing?  I think he will figure that out when I’m dead.  That is my biggest motivation for writing these biblical reflections and sermons.  I want my children to read truth even when I am gone.  I want them to always see in my life an arrow toward the glorified Son of God, risen and powerful.  When I am dead, if all else is forgotten, they will see my writings, which I hope points to the LORD my Lord.

So what inspired this recent post?  It is this:

I have just filled my first journal of my Christian walk. Though it doesn’t track day by day, as I wish it did.  It begins in June 22, 2004.  That was three and a half years ago.  Though my thoughts have changed, and some finer points have been polished or corrected.  I see consistently that God is faithful.

 This journal means to me that God began a work in me, and he plans on finishing it. I have to stop and collect myself even as I wrote that last sentence.  God is not finished with me…that gives me hope to wake up tomorrow.  God is not finished with me…

If I have learned anything, it is this:  That I am a great sinner, and Christ is a great Savior.  Those are not my words, but that is the essence of God’s work in my heart since that day when he showed his glory to wretched eyes.  May He be praised for his outstreched arm which reached into the miry clay, set my feet upon a rock and put a new song in my mouth.  He saved a wretch like me…

So here is the last and most recent section which I wrote this morning, January 28, 2008.  May it show you some of what God has done to me even this week, and maybe tells you what he still plans to do with you.

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Job 42:2

“I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”

Indeed, I have sinned when I doubt the Most High can take care of me.  Surrounded with unwanted changes and new things, I am beside myself with wonder over whether or not I handled certain things correctly.  Indeed, it is true.  God takes care of His own.  “There is a time to bear the burden, but there is also a time to get going.”-Bro. Robert Malcolm.  That was an exhortation to me.  I never told him, but he knew that I felt burdened and he asked me first.  God does still speak to hearts, and He spoke to his.  He used Bro. Robert to set me straight.  “there is…a time to get going.”  I didn’t know how that applied to me, but then, as I drove home, I knew what was meant.  I was dwelling on my circumstances much like Job.  It was stealing my joy in the LORD.  Is that not my very strength?  i have confessed publicly that I am fighting for joy.  I thank the LORD also for using someone else to remind me of that verse Nehemiah 8:10.  God, indeed, I thank you for the testimony of Job.  “I know that you can do all things…”  I do know that; I believe that also.  Please help me with my unbelief.  I also know that “no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” I believe it.   Please help my unbelief.  Lord, make Job’s confession my confession.  I bore the cross of Christ, or at least I tried.  I was wrong.  That cross has already been bore and as Jesus gloriously confirmed in that last hour, “It is finished.” I have a different cross to bear, and that one is the simple phrase, “Be it unto me according to Thy word.” “Yea, Lord.” “Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth.”  That is the cross I am to bear, to be obedient to the will and word of a sovereign God.  And as always, when we are obedient, God gets the glory and we get the joy.  That is where the joy is that I have lost.  Thank you Father.

In Jesus mighty name, Amen

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Working with you to point to Christ and leave a legacy of truth,

Vince R. 

Into the Looking Glass: A Proper Reflection on God’s Children

I frequently look into the mirror.  There is a new mirror inside the closet door of my new room.  Every day when I wake up, I hobble over to get my morning toiletries.  When I open the door to my closet, I see a young man.  When I walk to the bathroom to put in my contacts, brush my teeth, wash my face or cleanse my hands, I see a young man doing the same things in front of me.  I look at him as I do my morning ablutions and oblations.  When I walk back to my room, the closet door is still open, and the mirror is there still.  It is a warped mirror.  It alters my image a bit like those of a carnival.  It makes me look wider and shorter from a distance.  When I get closer, I see myself more clearly, yet still, it is not quite the same image as those above my drawers at the centerpiece of the room.  Strange…

Every morning, I wake up to see myself.  I am everywhere.  As I look at my image, I often think about what I see.  Am I happy with what I see?  Sometimes, I wonder exactly what the person in the mirror really wants out of life.  Morbid self-examination perhaps, but I am notably introspective.  I think of who I am often.  When I ask the aforementioned question, I respond quickly with the orthodox answer.  “I want to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”  Clearly, a biblical retort. ”Yes, Mr. Puritan, but what do you want for real?” I ask again.

I look into my heart, and I know…I really want to glorify Vince and enjoy him forever.

Indeed, I am a very selfish and proud man.  In my sorrow for this sin, I look to the great Psalms.  They are what John Calvin called “the writings most dear to the heart of a sinful saint.”

I read the waxy page, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24).  We are often afraid to pray this verse.  Often, we don’t want silence alone with God.  He just might speak…

As I ask the Lord, He tells me of the wickedness.  I find it interesting that many of my brethren fall to the same sin.  I can’t imagine what the fairer sex goes through, but it must be of some similitude.  The sin is this: A wrong view of a child of God.

I often hate the mirror.  I often love the mirror.  It is the psychosis of a fallen heart.  We love that which we hate.  The mirror reminds me of everything of which I don’t need to be reminded.  As I stare at the image, I don’t survey its beauties, I don’t survey its qualities.  My action is to survey its infirmities.  I want to know its imperfections.  I take note in my mind those things which trouble me.  “I sure wish I looked different than I do.”  That is the heart of this believer, often.  I think it is the heart of many of my brethren. 

“You are not as good-looking as you would like.  You are not as handsome as those on the T.V.  Your fatty deposits are bulgy and unattractive.  You are, in fact, close to repugnant.” Or at least, you are close to going so far as that in your mind. What matter of unholiness is this?!!

 ”Look at your accomplishments.  Look at the awesome fruits of your labors in the gym.  Notice your qualities, and notice your imperfections which another six weeks in the gym will remedy.”  What matter of ungodliness is this?!!!

What an abomination it is to the most High to debase or glorify his creation!  Are you not fearfully and wonderfully made?  Yet Are you not also made from dust?  Do you really believe that He has accepted you in the Beloved?  Also, do you really believe you are a sinner graciously saved from a wrath unspeakable?  Are you not daily conformed to His image? Are you not aware that the current image will change in the future?

Ponder the questions and do not fight the conviction of the Holy Spirit…

Your pride will result in more unbelief.  Your unbelief will result in more sin.  Your sin will result in death.

Man, you are guilty of an abomination when you debase or glorify the image you see in the mirror.  You are God’s chosen.  You are, in fact, his object of delight.  But you are also a horrid sinner.  You were, in fact, his object of wrath.

Why would you talk to yourself so wrongfully? What pride do you display when you debase God’s image as ugly or insufficient!  What pride do you display when you glorify your image as primary or preiminent!

You have sinned when you don’t see in and through that image to the God most High, the giver of life and breath and everything (Acts 17:25).   Many will try to retort that there in nothing wrong with improving your image.  In fact, they would be right.  But note the apostle Paul writing to young Timothy, “For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come” (1 Timothy 4:8).

Repent therefore and stop listening to yourself.

 As D. Martyn-Lloyd Jones once proposed in his book on spiritual depression,  “Why do you think you are so despondent?  It’s because you spend most of your time listening to yourself rather than telling yourself truth.”

So here is the truth:  Stop beating yourself up friend.  Stop glorifying yourself friend.  You are not lacking.  You are not ugly.  You are not unworthy.  Also…You are not self-sufficient.  You are not primary.  You are not yours. 

To say these things, believer, is to sin.  Remember the truth…You are being conformed to his image (Romans 8:29).  You are his delight (Zephaniah 3:17, Psalm 147:11).  You are made worthy by the blood of Christ.  And that last point, my friend, is the key.  It is not by your worth that you are worthy, but by the worth of the Son of God.  That, believer, is all there is to it.  It humbles the proud.  Search yourself.  In which category do you fall?  I fall into both.

Then note, that both are prideful.

 Rejoice then, and take delight in your God who saves you for Himself, to enjoy Him forever.

 Is He your exceeding joy (Psalm 43:4)?  If not, you are not seeking Him as you ought.

Is He, Himself, your great reward (Genesis 15:1)? If not, you are not seeking Him as you ought.

 Do not fall victim to the glory of man and its flesh which fadeth away like a flower in the sun.  But seek to know and receive the Word of the Lord which remains forever.  (Isaiah 40:8) 

Surely I am not the only one who tries to separate the voices in his head.  One man says flesh, the other says spirit.  Which do I follow?  I think the answer is obvious.  (Galatians 5:16, Romans 8:12-17). 

Get a right view of yourself, friend.  You are sinning when you compare yourself to other men.

Work to be a man of God…Do not work to be a god of men.

Repent and stop looking in the mirror.  As David Trapp, a bible commentator, once noted, “The true reflection of any man is not a mirror, but the Word of God.”

So then note what it says.  What is that in which we may glory?

“Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I AM the LORD which exercies lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.”  Jeremiah 9:23-24

Working with you to view yourself biblically,

 Vince R.