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Monday, May 5, 2014

Pastoral Pings ~ The Mercies that are New Every Morning


The steadfast love of the
 Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
    “therefore I will hope in him.”[1]
          Sometimes my morning time with God produces a specific lesson that grips my heart with appreciation for the leading of the Holy Spirit in answer to some need or problem I have been facing. I imagine that I am not the only one who faces such things, so I trust that sharing those daily lessons will be of help and encouragement to someone else who is seeking to live by faith in Jesus Christ.
          Other times, my morning with God leaves me with a more generalized experience of how God consistently opens up his word to us so that we leave our time in his word with the reminder of how faithfully he leads us to know the mind of Christ for his church.[2]
          I know what it is like to face a Scripture passage and wonder what in the world the Spirit could possibly get through to me, and come to the end of that morning time with a wondering smile on my face as the Spirit taught me things I hadn’t noticed before, and reminded me of things I already knew. This too must have some application to others who face discouraging thoughts about learning from the word of God.
          When we understand that this is about the ability of the Holy Spirit to do his work of teaching and reminding,[3] we suddenly face a passage with hope and expectation that God has something for us that we can’t see at the moment. While our sight cannot pick out any hint of what God might teach us, faith rises up to enter into the quarry of God’s word with confidence in the Holy Spirit’s work of leading us to a greater experience of the mind of Christ.
          This morning I returned to Revelation 6 after taking a few weeks to explore other Scriptures. I quickly remembered that I had been meditating on the fourth seal, and wondering what it would look like to see people killed with sword, famine, pestilence, and wild beasts.[4] While the world tries to solve every problem so that there is no sense of God’s judgment against sin, God tells his church that we will see these kinds of tragedies all through the last hour of the end times.
          While there are times that meditating on the word feels more like the Holy Spirit is focusing on his ministry of teaching, this morning was one of those times when he focused more on his ministry of reminding. He left me with a fresh experience of his teaching ministry driving home something I had already learned, and a fresh appreciation for how consistently and faithfully God will get through to me if I humbly show up to discover what is on his heart for me and his people.
          The conclusion was simple: when facing any of the things described in this fourth seal, or reading stories from around the world that fit what is described, don’t forget that the work of Jesus Christ through his church is to go out “conquering, and to conquer.”[5] The Church’s work is not to stop Death and Hades from doing what they have been authorized to do. The work of the Church is to proclaim the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ so that souls in bondage to the evil one experience the victory and deliverance that come only through faith in the Son of God who loved us, and gave himself for us.
          This means that the news stories, or the up-close-and-personal experiences of these tragedies, are not to sidetrack us into trying to make the world a better place. They are to remind us that people are dying all around us, and we must save as many people as we can into a better kingdom. There is a better place for all those who receive the Lord Jesus Christ, but it is never going to be in this world.
          The twofold blessing of this morning time with God is that I felt the conviction to focus my heart on being “more than conquerors through him who loved us.”[6] And I felt the gentle reminder of the Spirit that he will teach me something fresh and edifying tomorrow morning as surely as he did once again today. His mercies are new every morning. Why not start the day opening our hearts to see them by faith.
© 2014 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)






[1] Lamentations 3:22-24
[2] I Corinthians 2:16
[3] John 14:26
[4] Revelation 6:7-8
[5] Revelation 6:1-2
[6] Romans 8:37

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