The Means of Success

Nehemiah knew what brought him success.  Look at Nehemiah 2:8, 18, 20:

• ...the good hand of my God on me...
• ...the hand of my God had been favorable to me...
• ...the God of heaven will give us success...therefore we His servants will arise and build...

Nehemiah knew that it was the Lord that both enabled and gave success.  The Lord gave the means to be in the position to rebuild the wall and would also lead to the end of the project.  He is both the means and the end of any and all that we do.

I was going to say that He is both the means and the end of all that we do for Him but the reality is that He is the means and the end of all we do.  

Read John 1:3, “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”  

And just to make it clear John repeats this in John 15:5, which you probably have memorized: “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”

So, what can we do, what success can we have apart from Him?  Zero, zilch, nada.

Trying to do otherwise, may look good for a while, but it will end very badly.

Spiritual Discipline – Study

A couple of days ago I suggested, as an exercise, to read through the book of Ephesians (here @ Bible Gateway) and to write down what we have as a result of being in Christ, what we have as a believer.

That exercise could be either a quiet time, however, it is also an example of a Bible study.  You are analyzing a passage, writing down your observations, and in so doing you are understanding more about your relationship to Christ.

That also works with journaling.  The act of writing down what you see in the Scripture does a couple of things.  It slows you down and allows you to think about what you have seen as you record it.  Second, it sets up a place for you to return to see what you found in the Word.

Tomorrow, we will examine the notion of a personal testimony.

Spiritual Discipline – Pause

Before we go any farther in looking at these disciplines, there is something I think we need to clear up.

These disciplines we will be exploring are not the end.  The Christian life, discipleship, is not about being good or consistent in spiritual discipline.  No, the Christian life, discipleship is about knowing Christ more deeply and growing in our love for Him.

That is what is important.

The things we will be talking about are means.  They are the means we have to get to know Christ and thus be more and more in love with Him.

This is an important distinction.  I know those, many in fact, who have focused on getting the disciplines correct, to the point that the disciplines become the end.  Paul was like that.  He shared his journey through that into love for Christ in Philippians 3 (here @ Bible Gateway).

It would be profitable for you to invest a few minutes and read that chapter.  Notice how Paul describes how his attitude changes and especially the contrast between how he describes himself as a Jew as opposed to how he describes his pursuit of Christ…

End of pause.  Tomorrow I will pick up where we left off yesterday.

Spiritual Discipline – Abiding

Last couple of days we have looked at the notion of discipline.  Paul addresses it in 1 Timothy 4:7 – 8 (here @ Bible Gateway).  He reminds us that while bodily discipline has a little profit, spiritual discipline profits now and in eternity.  We also saw that Jesus said in John 8:31 – 32 (here @ Bible Gateway) that if we are to follow Him, we must abide in His Word.

How does that work?  Well I have written on that before.  Read this earlier blog post and then come back here.

So, to begin, why not try that out.  If you are already doing something like that, here is another idea.  This was a great idea that was presented in the film “Overcomer”.  Read through Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (here @ Bible Gateway).  Write down all the things you see in there that you are in Christ.

We will consider that in some detail tomorrow.

Spiritual Discipline

Yesterday we learned from Paul that while we need to take care of ourselves, physical discipline, spiritual discipline is much more important.

The Wheel Illustration

So, what is spiritual discipline?  The answer will depend a great deal on who you ask.  Since this is my blog, you will get my answer.  My wife and I were on the staff of the Navigators for about 10 years.  We served in the collegiate ministry.  Much of my view of spiritual disciplines comes from our experience with the Navs from being involved in the ministry before we were on staff, and as leading ministries as staff.

The founder of the Navs, Dawson Trotman, developed over the years an illustration that helped him communicate what it meant to be spiritually disciplined.  Its last form was the Wheel. 

Christ is the center and the four spokes are areas of discipline.  The rim speaks to the need of believers to obey the Lord. 

Space in one blog post doesn’t allow covering all the spokes.  In John 8:31 – 32 (here @ Bible Gateway) Jesus tells us that if we are going to be His disciples we must abide in His Word.  So, we will start there.

To abide in the Word means simply to live in it.  Practically, that suggest that we are in an intentional habit of daily engaging in the Word of God.  There are several different ways to do so.  Some are:

• Quiet Time or Devotional
• Reading
• Study
• Memorization
• Meditation

Another may be to hear.  I omitted that one from the list because in my experience those who are believers don’t have much of a problem hearing the Word and frankly it is the least effective way to engage. 

This intro has gotten longer than I anticipated.  I will extend this to tomorrow’s post and focus on Quiet Time or Devotional then.

If you have a moment, reply and tell me what you are doing in your Quiet Times.

The Rich Struggle of Scripture Memory, Part 2

Last post I shared some of my journey in Scripture Memory.  Currently…well…for about the last year, I have been working on memorizing Psalm 119 (here @ Bible Gateway).  John Piper’s message on William Wilberforce was the impetus for this project.

As I mentioned in the previous post, it is much harder now for me to memorize scripture.  But the exercise is rich.  The effort to repeatedly go through a passage endeavoring to commit it to memory is essentially prolonged meditation on the passage.  In doing so, much more is revealed than I see in simply reading through the passage.

For example, look at the first four verses:
1 How blessed are those whose way is blameless, Who walk in the law of the LORD.
2 How blessed are those who observe His testimonies, Who seek Him with all their heart.
3 They also do no unrighteousness; They walk in His ways.
4 You have ordained Your precepts, That we should keep them diligently.

Do you notice the repetition?  These words are repeated: way, walk, and the concept of intentional sustained obedience; “with all their heart” and “keep them diligently”.

In Hebrew poetry the second phrase is repeating the first, reinforcing, emphasizing, and clarifying the point.
So in verse 1, a blameless way is to walk in the Law of the Lord.  In verse 3 to “do no unrighteousness” is to “walk in His ways.”  So to walk in the Law of the Lord is to walk in His ways.  The implications of this are staggering.

When we consider the way of someone, we are contemplating how they behave.  How they live their life.  How we observe their character played out in the way they relate to others and to the world around them.

How many times have we said, heard, or thought of someone in trying to deal or explain their behavior with something like, “Oh, that is just the way he is,’’ or “that is just like him.”  It is that person’s “way”, we know what to expect because we have observed a consistency in their behavior.

What these four verses are revealing is that the Law is God’s “way”.  It reflects His character.  It reflects how He behaves.  Thus, if we keep the Law, we are behaving as God does.  We are, as it says in verse 1, blameless.  Why, we are acting, behaving in a manner that is consistent with the nature and character of God.

Big problem…

There is no wiggle room.  We have to do that with all of our heart and keep them diligently.  The testimony of the Bible is that only one person did that, Jesus.

The good news is that through His life, death, resurrection, ascension, and immanent return we can be joined into His obedience and delivered from the reality that we do not diligently keep the Law or seek Him with all of our heart.

The other implication is that we can learn much about God by studying His Law.  Because it reveals who He is, His way.

The Rich Struggle of Scripture Memory

At the first Christian conference I attended after committing to follow Christ as Lord, I met with a man who was on staff with the ministry and was somewhat older.  He challenged me to begin to memorize Scripture.  He suggested Psalm 27:4 (here @ Bible Gateway) as a place to start.

As soon as the meeting was over, I went to the materials table.  I purchased both blank verse cards and a copy of the Topical Memory System.

Soon Scripture memory was part of my everyday discipline.  I finished the TMS, and begin to memorize passages.  Romans 12 (here @ Bible Gateway) was the first chapter I memorized.  Then books.

I found that my time in the Word, both quiet time and Bible study was impacted.  While studying or reading a passage, others that I had memorized came to mind as cross references.  A few years back I was leading an seminar on Bible study in Trinidad and Tobago at a Bible college.  During discussion on a passage that the participants had spent some time studying I suggested several cross references, I was asked how I came up with those parallel passages, I realized it was from memory work and study I had done over the previous thirty some years.

I am not blessed with a photographic memory.  Memorizing Scripture is hard work for me.  It is much harder now than it was when I was younger.  But that difficulty has, for me, a marvelous benefit.  That benefit is that in reviewing the passage, re-reading it over and over in the process of memorizing it, layers of meaning that otherwise would be overlooked are observed.

This happened again this week.  In the next post I will share those observations.  But, it seemed necessary to lay this as a foundation and context.

There is one other thing that seems to be important.  In the fall of 1987, I entered seminary in pursuit of a ThM.  At the time we had three young children, the fourth was born the next year.  I was working 30 – 40 hours a week, part time.  Going to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  I committed to not study while the kids were awake.  With few exceptions I was able to do that during the four years it took to finish the degree.

The point is that that under that load, something had to give.  That something was Scripture Memory.  Every minute for that four years seem to be scheduled with either assignments from classes, something at work, or a commitment with my family.

It was a great time.  But, my discipline of Scripture memory has never recovered to the point that it was before that season.

Again, I share that for context.  I trust that it will deepen the understanding of the next post…