Psalm 104

"...He makes grass grow for the cattle,

and plants for man to cultivate -

 ...the birds make their nests;

 

the stork has its home in the pine trees...

 the high mountains belong to the wild goats;

the crags are a refuge for the coneys.

 

The moon marks off the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down.

 

 You bring darkness, it becomes night, and all the beasts of the forest prowl.

The lions roar for their prey and seek their food from God.

The sun rises, and they steal away; they return and lie down in their dens...

 How many are your works, O Lord!

In wisdom, You made them all;

the earth is full of your creatures.

There is the sea, vast and spacious,

 

teeming with creatures beyond number

 

living things both large...

 

and small...  

 

...These all look to You to give them their food at the proper time.  

When You give it to them, 

they gather it up; 

when you open your hand, 

they are satisfied with good things...

May the glory of the Lord endure forever; 

may the Lord rejoice in His works - 

He who looks at the earth and it trembles, 

who touches the mountains, and they smoke...

Praise the Lord, O my soul.

Praise the Lord."

 Happy belated Earth Day.

Persevere!

I'm not really sure when it happened.  Sometime over the last week it hit me that I'm about to leave Berry, my home for the past four years.  

I still remember the day I moved in freshman year.  I met the precious girl I had the privilege of living with until the end of my junior year.  

 I remember my first church service on campus.

I remember my first campus event,

my first class,

and my first day of work.

Then I thought about how much God has done in me during my days on this campus.

He has humbled me.

He broke through some dark, bitter roots in my heart.

He healed me.

He taught me about His birds.

He showed me how to love when it's difficult.

This list doesn't even really begin to scratch the surface of my college experience, but hopefully it gives you a little bit of an idea.  

God has changed me a LOT.

I will graduate from this beautiful place in a short 17 days from now.

That is a crazy thought.

Especially when I consider how many times I wanted to quit.  

Let me just tell you, it was a LOT of times.

I came really close to leaving.

Out of fear,

out of selfishness,

and out of just pure discontentment.

But by the grace of God, He sustained me and faithfully gave me the strength to endure the trials I've faced during my time here.

Some days were very long.

Sometimes it felt like it would never really be over.

Graduation felt 100 years away.

And yet,

it will be here very soon.

 I'll put on that robe and my cords.  

I'll walk across that stage when my name is called

and it will be finished.

So what is my point in all of this?

My point is this:

"Do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.  You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God you will receive what He has promised.  For in just a very little while, He who is coming will come and will not delay.  But my righteous one will live by faith.  And if he shrinks back I will not be pleased with him." -Hebrews 10:35-38

Perseverance.

It's a difficult concept.

A great idea,

but hard to do.

Jesus said "Behold!  I am coming soon!" (Revelation 22:7)

I'm here today to tell you that He will come back soon.

He is coming.

So if your days feel long 

and you just keep wishing whatever fire you're in right now was over already;

take heart and be encouraged that He will not delay. 

He is coming back for you.

Keep going at whatever He has given you to do!

Don't give up. 

 

Because one day, 

those who's names are written in the Book of Life will see the One with a robe reaching down to His feet and a golden sash around His chest (Rev. 1:13).  

The One who said 2,000 years ago "it is finished" (John 19:30). 

This life will soon be over, so keep going!

It may feel like a bottomless pit that just keeps taking things from you, but one day you'll wake up and realize your time is up.

Persevere.

It will be worth it if you have Jesus.  

Promise.

 

"[God] has made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you.  Each man's life is but a breath."  

- Psalm 39:5 

He chose us

For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My Own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from My Father. 

(John 10:17–18)

Why does Jesus say this? Why does he stress his willingness to die? Because if it weren’t true—if his death were forced on him, if it weren’t free, if his heart weren’t really in it—then a big question mark would be put over his love for us. The depth of his love is in its freedom. If he didn’t die for us willingly—if he didn’t choose the suffering and embrace it—then how deep is his love, really? So he stresses it. He makes it explicit. It comes out of me, not out of circumstances, not out of pressure, but out of what I really long to do.

Jesus is stressing to us that his love for us is free. He seems to hear some enemy slander saying, “Jesus doesn’t really love you. He’s a mercenary. He’s in it for some other reason than love. He’s under some kind of constraint or external compulsion. He doesn’t really want to die for you. He’s just got himself somehow into this job and has to submit to the forces controlling him.” Jesus seems to hear something like that, or anticipate it. And he responds, “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.” So he is pressing this on us to see if we will believe his protest of love, or if we will believe the opposite—that his heart is really not in this. Anybody who makes a statement like that is either mentally deranged, or lying, or God. 

I have authority from inside death, as a dead man, to take life back again, when I please. Now what’s the point here? Well, which is harder: to control when you die, or to give yourself life again once you are dead? Which is harder: to say, “I lay my life down on my own initiative”? Or to say, “I will take my life back again after I am dead”?

The answer is obvious. And that’s the point. If Jesus could—and did—take his life back again from the dead, then he was free indeed. If he controlled when he came out of the grave, he certainly controlled when he went into the grave. So here’s the point. The resurrection of Jesus is given to us as the confirmation or evidence that he was indeed free in laying down his life. And so the resurrection is Christ’s testimony to the freedom of his love.

Of all the great things that Easter means, it also means this: it is a mighty “I meant it!” behind Christ’s death. I meant it! I was free. You see how free I am? You see how much power and authority I have? I was able to avoid it. I have power to take up my life out of the grave. And could I not, then, have devastated my enemies and escaped the cross?

My resurrection is a shout over my love for my sheep: It was free! It was free! I chose it. I embraced it. I was not caught. I was not cornered. Nothing can constrain me to do what I do not choose to do. I had power to take my life from death. And I have taken my life from death. How much more, then, could I have kept my life from death! I am alive to show you that I really loved you. I freely loved you. Nobody forced me to it. And I am now alive to spend eternity loving you with omnipotent resurrection love forever and ever.

Come to me, all you sinners who need a Savior. And I will forgive you and accept you and love you with all my heart forevermore.

John Piper

© Desiring God.

Website: desiringGod.org

 

 

 Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?

(Matthew 26:53)

 

He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.

(Ephesians 1:4) 

 

He did it for you.  Happy Resurrection Day, my friends.

He is risen.

He is risen, indeed.

side note: i really like the song in this video...

and darkness covered the land

²⁶ As the soldiers led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. ²⁷ A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. ²⁸ Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. ²⁹ For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ ³⁰ Then

“‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!”
    and to the hills, “Cover us!”’

³¹ For if people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

³² Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. ³³ When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. ³⁴ Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

³⁵ The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.”

³⁶ The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar ³⁷ and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”

³⁸ There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the jews.

³⁹ One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”

⁴⁰ But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? ⁴¹ We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”

⁴² Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

⁴³ Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

⁴⁴ It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon,⁴⁵ for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.⁴⁶ Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.

 

Luke 23:26-46

He is Trustworthy

“I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he.”
(John 13:19)

Jesus himself taught that all the prophecies about him would be fulfilled. In other words, we have a testimony, not only that the writers themselves saw Jesus’s life as fulfillment of prophecy, but that Jesus did, too. For example, in Luke 22:37, Jesus says, “I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors.’ For what is written about me has its fulfillment” (see Isaiah 53:12). Jesus saw that the predictions of the Messiah and his sufferings would be fulfilled in himself.

Jesus took up the principle of John 13:19 and foretold numerous details of what was going to happen to him so that we might believe when they happened. “He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mark 8:31). Jesus saw the predictions of the Messiah and
his sufferings being fulfilled in himself. 

› He foresaw that his death would be by crucifixion (John 3:14, 12:32).

› He predicted that the disciples would find an unridden colt when they entered the town (Luke 19:30).

› When the disciples entered Jerusalem that last Thursday, he predicted they would meet a man with the water pitcher who would have a room for them to meet in (Luke 22:10).

› After three years of waiting, he knew the exact hour of his departure out of the world (John 13:1).

› Jesus knew that he would be betrayed, and who would betray him, and when it would happen (John 6:64, 13:1; Matthew 26:2, 21).

› He knew and predicted the fact and the time of Peter’s three denials (Matthew 26:34).

› Jesus predicted that the disciples would all fall away and be scattered (Matthew 26:31; John 16:32; Zechariah 13:7).

› Jesus prophesied that he would be “lifted up from the earth” (John 12:32). That is, he would not be stoned  but crucified—not by Jews but by Romans. So the decisions of Pilate and the Jews of how to dispose of him were a fulfillment of his prediction. 

He makes all these predictions, according to John 13:19, so that we would believe he is God, that what he says about himself is true. In other words, Jesus is saying, “If you are struggling to believe that I am the promised Messiah, that I am the one who was in the beginning with God and was God (John 1:1), that I am the divine Son of God, who can forgive all your sins and give you eternal life and guide you on the path to heaven, then I want to help you believe. And one of the ways I am going to help you have wellgrounded faith is by telling you what is going to happen to me before it happens, so that when it happens, you will have good reason to believe in me.”

-John Piper

© Desiring God.

Website: desiringGod.org

the depth of His love

While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 

(Romans 5:6–8)

As I have pondered the love of Christ for us, and the different ways that the Bible presents it to us, I have seen four ways that the depth of Christ’s love is revealed.
 

First, we know the depth of someone’s love for us by what it costs him. If he sacrifices his life for us, it assures us of deeper love than if he only sacrifices a few bruises. So we will see the depth of Christ’s love by the greatness of what it cost him.

Second, we know the depth of someone’s love for us by how little we deserve it. If we have treated him well all our life, and have done all that he expects of us, then when he loves us, it will not prove as much love as it would if he loved us when we had offended him, and shunned him, and disdained him. The more undeserving we are, the more amazing and deep is his love for us. So we will see the depth of Christ’s love in relation to how undeserving are the objects of his love (Romans 5:5–8).

Third, we know the depth of someone’s love for us by the greatness of the benefits we receive in being loved. If we are helped to pass an exam, we will feel loved in one way. If we are helped to get a job, we will feel loved another way. If we are helped to escape from an oppressive captivity and given freedom for the rest of our life, we will feel loved another way. And if we are rescued from eternal torment and given a place in the presence of God with fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore, we will know a depth of love that surpasses all others (1 John 3:1–3). So we will see the depth of Christ’s love by the greatness of the benefits we receive in being loved by him.
 

Fourth, we know the depth of someone’s love for us by the freedom with which they love us. If a person does good things for us because someone is making him, when he doesn’t really want to, then we don’t think the love is very deep. Love is deep in proportion to its liberty. So if an insurance company pays you $40,000 because you lose your spouse, you don’t usually marvel at how much this company loves you. There were legal constraints. But if your Sunday School class makes all your meals for a month after your spouse dies, and someone calls you every day, and visits you every week, then you call it love, because they don’t have to do this. It is free and willing. So we will see the depth of Christ’s love for us in his freedom: “No one takes my life from me; I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:18).

To push this truth to the limit, let me quote for you a psalm that the New Testament applies to Jesus (Hebrews 10:9). It refers to his coming into the world to offer himself as a sacrifice for sin: “I delight to do your will, O my God” (Psalm 40:8). The ultimate freedom is joy. He rejoiced to do his redeeming work for us. The physical pain of the cross did not become physical pleasure. But Jesus was sustained through it all by joy. He really, really wanted to save us. To gather for himself a happy, holy, praising people. He displayed his love like a husband yearning for a beloved bride (Ephesians 5:25–33).

-John Piper

© Desiring God.

Website: desiringGod.org

He Set His Face for Jerusalem

"When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. And they went on to another village."
(Luke 9:51–56)

In Luke 9:51–56, we learn how not to understand Palm Sunday. To set his face towards Jerusalem meant something very different for Jesus than it did for the disciples. You can see the visions of greatness that danced in their heads in verse 46: “An argument arose among them as to which of them was the greatest.” Jerusalem and glory were just around the corner. O what it would mean when Jesus took the throne! But Jesus had another vision in his head. One wonders how he carried it all alone and for so long. Here’s what Jerusalem meant for Jesus: “I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem” (Luke 13:33). Jerusalem meant one thing for Jesus: certain death. Nor was he under any illusion of a quick and heroic death. He predicted in Luke 18:31–33: “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him.” When Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem, he set his face to die.

Remember, when you think of Jesus’s resolution to die, that he had a nature like ours. He shrunk back from pain like we do. He would have enjoyed marriage and children and grandchildren and a long life and esteem in the community. He had a mother and brothers and sisters. He had special places in the mountains. To turn his back on all this, and set his face towards vicious whipping and beating and spitting and mocking and crucifixion, was not easy. It was hard.

We need to use our imagination to put ourselves back into his place and feel what he felt. I don’t know of any other way for us to begin to know how much he loved us. “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). If we were to look at Jesus’s death merely as a result of a betrayer’s deceit and the Sanhedrin’s envy and Pilate’s spinelessness and the soldiers’ nails and spear, it might seem very involuntary. And the benefit of salvation that comes to us who believe might be viewed as God’s way of making a virtue out of a necessity. But once you read Luke 9:51, all such thoughts vanish.

Jesus was not accidentally entangled in a web of injustice. The saving benefits of his death for sinners were not an afterthought. God planned it all out of infinite love to sinners like us, and He appointed a time. Jesus, who was the very embodiment of his Father’s love for sinners, saw that the time had come and set his face to fulfill his mission: to die in Jerusalem for our sake. “No one takes my life from me,” Jesus said, “I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:18).

-John Piper

© Desiring God.

Website: desiringGod.org