Behold - your God!

Isaiah 40

whom the LORD would call his own
he chastens when they go astray
then tenderly would comfort them
bind up the wounds that he has made

when Yahweh's glory was revealed -
the Word made flesh, the Father's Son -
it showed itself in grace outpoured
in mercy, truth - salvation won

God has but to blow on man -
he withers, dies, a transient plant
no power to sustain his life -
but God's Word will forever stand

Behold! The Lord Jehovah comes
with mighty arm, with outstretched hand
the Ruler of the kings of earth
the Judge before whom none can stand.

Behold! He comes - to seek his sheep
the mighty One comes tenderly
the lambs to gather in his arms
the weak he carries, shields from harm
his weary ones he gently leads

The oceans fit within his hand
his fingers mark the stars' expanse
he knows how much the mountains weigh
he numbers all the grains of sand

what counsel would he need to seek?
what help, that he might understand?
all nations are as dust to him
inconsequential, weightless, chaff

to whom will you compare this God -
an idol that can never move
created by a man of dust,
itself consigned to turn to dust?

God rules the princes of the earth
makes them become as emptiness
he blows upon the mightiest
they wither, die, and are no more

To whom then will you liken God?
He knows the number of the stars
he made them, calls them all by name
his awesome might sustains them all

and yet the Everlasting One -
the infinite, the mighty God -
he understands my deepest needs
my ways, my thoughts - he knows them all

though he is high and lifted up
the weary he does not despise
the faint, exhausted, find in him
the strength to rise and soar the skies

Come, stand in awe of this your God
whose glories shine by showing grace,
whose mighty power, by tenderness;
the Infinite One knows my needs
the mighty God renews the weak
the stars appear by his command -
he carries me, his wayward lamb.

little foxes

little foxes

my fickle heart

so quickly swayed

to worship anything but God

to seek my satisfaction, joy

in all that is created

rather than allow those joys

to point to the Creator

it was a small, a good thing

a gift from God my Father

something pleasant, wonderful -

my heart began to chase it

to crave the satisfaction

the comfort to my soul

and always, wanting more

even when I knew

that this distracted me from Christ

I wanted both.

could I not thoroughly enjoy

a good thing - an end in itself -

and still hold fast to Christ?

and so I strove to do that

knowing Christ should be my all

yet pursuing something else

to be my satisfaction

one cannot have two masters

two rulers of the soul

only one will be obeyed

and here, while flesh still clings to me,

my heart will always stray

chasing satisfaction

from that which has been made -

a broken cistern which can hold no water -

never meant to satisfy the heart

but to turn me toward the Living Water

never think you are secure

unable to be tempted

nor that your hold on Christ is such

that you can safely grasp for other things

seek out your heart:

what are your loves?

what motivates your actions?

what pleasures turn you from the Lord?

where is your satisfaction?

beware the little foxes

they will destroy your vineyard

good gifts quickly turn to idols

for my heart forgets the Giver,

clings to what is seen and felt and touched

as though the gift did not point to the Giver

find the idols; cast them down!

ruthlessly remove yourself

from that which strays your heart

though it seem to be small

or is good in itself

for your flesh is too strong

do not deceive yourself

thinking you can keep idols, and Christ

for the idols will always win

until Christ tears them from you -

humbled, with Jacob's limp -

that you might cling only to Him

Shepherd

The mighty God, the LORD
tenderly cares for His sheep
yet they all go away
each to his own way.
The I AM puts on dust
the Shepherd comes in flesh;
to seek His sheep
He becomes one of them -
the Lamb of God
led to the slaughter
offering Himself up
to be crushed for their sins -
so that they would hear Him
follow Him
stay with Him forever;
so that never would their wandering
lead them to perish,
nor Hell nor sin nor Satan
snatch them
out of His hand.

----
Isaiah 40:10-11
Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him;
behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.
He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms;
he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.

Isaiah 53:6-7
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

Isaiah 53:5, 10
But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. … Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

John 1:29
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"

John 10:11
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

John 10:27-28
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

Our Hope is Christ

1 Peter 1:3-9
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

1 Peter 1:13
Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Titus 2:11-14
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

1 Timothy 1:1-2
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope, To Timothy, my true child in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

Colossians 1:27-28
To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

1 Corinthians 15:19-20
If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead…

"Occasionally, weep deeply over the life that you hoped would be. Grieve the losses. Feel the pain. Then wash your face, trust God, and embrace the life that he’s given you."
https://www.desiringgod.org/embrace-the-life-god-has-given-you
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/we-cant-grieve-however-we-want

Yes - weep deeply your sorrows and grieve them. Then look up, fix your eyes on Christ your hope, and pour yourself into serving your Master, the One who will soon return to reward His people and to make all things new.

The way it has always been

Peter continues with his chemo treatments, thankfully still with his blood counts having been good every time.  He has two more weekly chemos and then it drops to once every three weeks.  He has had recurring vomiting, but I think it is improving as we try different things; lately it has coincided with when he coughs vigorously, rather than resulting from nausea.  God's grace is new every day.

A common question we hear is, "How are you holding up?" or "How are the other kids handling things?"

When Peter was in the hospital, it did make life more difficult, and the family felt our absence. It was harder for me to manage life in two places at once.

But other than that, and the adjustment period to the cancer diagnosis and the treatment regimen - the truth is that this is just an extension of the way life has always been with Peter.

He has always had multiple appointments to go to, often with therapy once a week and random doctors' appointments regularly throughout the year.  He has always had issues to figure out and troubleshoot.  There has often been the weariness, the lack of free time, the hours spent researching some new thing in hopes of something else helping him.

So yes, it is God's grace that sustains us.  It is God's grace that has always sustained us.

But this is also normal life for many families whose kids have special needs: weekly appointments for therapy (which take hours out of your day), extra work to do during the day and evening, regular doctors' appointments for this or that, weariness, lack of free time, and struggles to make it to church.  If the kids have medical needs, they may end up with recurring hospital stays (we thank God that that has not been our normal).  Especially if the kids have mental or emotional needs, the parents often just don't go to church at all, or not as a family, because the church has no accommodations for them.

Our church has been so supportive during the last few months.  We are thankful for everyone's concern and prayers, and (for local folks) for the meals you brought when we were in the hospital in December, and for the many who have taken turns staying home with Peter so that the rest of us could be in church on Sundays.

That is the kind of support that parents with special needs could use on a regular basis - as they are often pushed to their limits (mentally, emotionally, physically, financially) more than those who have normal kids. And I am thankful that our church does seek to meet the needs of those who are in the church.

But there are plenty in our community who never get that support.

This is why I so wish we had a ministry to families with special needs. A program where they could show up with their child who is 10 but acts like he is 3, or who has autism that results in loud and disruptive behavior, and someone at church would be assigned to be their buddy during church, or sit with them in another room, or teach a special SS class for them, or whatever it takes to enable the parents to sit in the worship service.

These are parents who are regularly under a lot of stress and have a lot of needs - and who need the gospel.  Their marriages are often under more stress also.  But they are not just going to walk into a church without some provision for their child who is currently unable to sit in church.  Maybe they do need better parenting habits; maybe their children are just undisciplined; but maybe the problem is bigger than that, due to the child's brain damage from injury or a genetic problem or autism.  Maybe if they had the support of godly people, they could improve their parenting. Maybe at least they would find the grace of God if they had a way to come to church and hear the Word and find fellowship and refreshment.  These needy families are all around us in the community and often have little opportunity to hear the gospel.

The road of cancer treatment is long and uncertain. After treatment there is follow-up for however many months or years, and sometimes long-term effects from it all, along with the possibility of recurrence.

The road of raising a child with special needs can feel longer and more uncertain than cancer. It lasts a lifetime. It is full of hopes and dreams that often have to be denied and changed. It forever changes your expectations of family and parenting.

For God's children, any difficult road is a tool used by His Fatherly hand to prune us, to make us more like Jesus, to weed out our sin and to increase our love for Him.  Whether that road ends in healing or death or a lifelong sorrow - "It is the LORD. Let him do what seems good to him." (1Samuel 3:18).

Strive to enter

Hebrews 3:12-13
Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

"an evil, unbelieving heart" makes you depart from God.

What would a "believing" heart look like?

It would look like Jesus' mindset toward the Father: total trust in the Father's care and character and wisdom; total submission to His will; total faith in His Word being true and trustworthy and faithful.
It would mean never doubting the Word to be true, or the promises to fail, or the threats to be empty.
Never questioning the Father's clear will, nor rebelling against it, nor fighting His providence.
Never seeking to rule myself, but being yielded up to the Father unreservedly.
It would mean complete submission to the Father, devotedly, unquestioningly.

Real faith believes, submits, obeys.
Satan would deceive us, making sin and self-rule look attractive and making submission to the Father a repulsive choice.  The deceitfulness of sin can harden your heart toward God, such that you mock His rule, ignore His Word, and run toward destruction as though that were life.

How can we exhort one another against the deceitfulness of sin?
We must be willing to bring God's Word to bear on one another's lives. Which means WE must know the Word enough to do that. We must be willing to be salt and light to one another, not just smiling and nodding and having happy social times. We must be willing to call out one another's attitudes as being incongruent with imitators of Christ.

Hebrews 3:18 - 4:1
And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.

Hebrews 3:12-13
Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Hebrews 4:11-13
Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/the-word-of-god-living-active-sharp

Those three passages are tied together in this way:
It is unbelief that causes us to fail to reach Heaven.
It is the deceitfulness of sin that hardens us.
It is the Word of God that can pierce the heart and expose the unbelief lodging there, and show sin's deceit for what it is.

So to help one another make it safely Home, we must wield the Word of God with one another - exhorting daily! - applying it to each other's lives and hearts and attitudes and words, that we might be a prod to get others back on the right Path when sin lures them to wander off it.

This is why studying the Word itself is so important.  It is not devotionals that will pierce our hearts and expose our sin - it is the Word itself.
This is why memorizing and meditating on the Word is so important.  It is a tool the Spirit can use to keep US from being deceived by sin, and it is a tool that we need to help others get safely to Heaven.

Strive to make your calling and election sure - because Christ has cleansed you from your former sins

2 Peter 1:5-11
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Do you want to know if you are a true believer?
Do you want a way to evaluate whether someone else is truly a believer?
Do you fear being an ineffective and unfruitful Christian?

According to these verses, those who have certain qualities, and are striving to increase them, are the ones who will make it to Heaven.  By diligently seeking to have and increase these things, they manifest a confirmation that they are truly in the Way; and so doing will also keep them from falling, and it will make them effective and fruitful in their Christian walk.

Those who lack these qualities have forgotten that they were cleansed from former sins.  They have drifted away from the truth; they have not paid all the closer attention to the gospel. They have neglected their salvation.

Hebrews 2:1,3
Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. … how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?

Here are the qualities Peter mentions, in the order of the chain of connection:
Faith
Virtue / excellence
Knowledge
Self-control
Steadfastness / perseverance
Godliness
Brotherly kindness / brotherly affection
Love

Each one should result in the next one; to each one we are to add the one that follows.
Faith is the essential beginning of salvation.
To faith, add excellence; don't just believe and stay there - feed your faith, deepen it, have a robust faith.
Growing your faith will require saturating yourself with God's Word. So to your excellence of faith, add an increasing and deepening knowledge of God and His Word.
Knowing the Word gives us more insight into God's character and holiness, and more view of our own sin. This must lead to self-control, a striving to rule one's self by the Scriptures.
Self-control will enable perseverance and keep us from giving up when we wish, for we are ruling ourselves by Scripture and by the Spirit's help, rather than letting our flesh rule us.
Perseverance in the Way will bring us closer to God and make us more like Him (godliness).
When we become more like God, we will grow more out of ourselves and more focused on others, with brotherly kindness, especially for the brethren.
And brotherly kindness should lead to a God-like, self-sacrificing love for others.

If you are striving for these things, they will be evidence that you are Real; they will keep you from falling; they will cause you to be effective and to bear fruit for Christ; and they will bring you safely into Heaven at last.  These things will be used by God to keep your soul and to make you persevere true to Him all the way to the end.

So if you fear being fruitless, or you wonder if you will stay on the Narrow Way, throw your energy into this chain. Begin somewhere. Feed your faith, that it might grow strong. Soak in the Scriptures, that you might know God, for it is this that will lead to more hatred of sin and more progress in virtue. Know God, and apply that knowledge to your spiritual walk; where do you have sins to deal seriously with, or areas of the flesh to gain self-control over?

Strive, to make your calling and election sure.

Evidence of salvation is found in those who are constantly striving to know more of God, to fight sin more strongly, to love more sacrificially. All for God's glory. All because Christ has cleansed me from my former sins.