To Live My Scene Well

As I continue looking at John the Baptist preparing the way for Christ, one thing that really stood out today is that our blip of life on earth is really miniscule compared to what God has prepared for us in eternity. We know how God gave Zechariah and Elizabeth the gift of a son in their old age. But next thing we know John is preparing the way for the Christ. And not long after that he is beheaded and ushered into glory. 

While we must always be careful we don’t turn historical events into doctrinal teachings, I had so many examples come to mind where the primary thing we are shown about people is their place in the work of God. A few people are given a longer scene on God’s stage (Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, Paul), but most of God’s children that are mentioned in history are only described in terms of their specific place in one particular scene. 

I think of Stephen in Acts who was one of the men chosen as the first deacons. He was clearly known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. He would have served for a while in helping distribute food to the widows. But the spotlight quickly shifts to a day in which he is preaching to the religious elite, and they get so angry at him that they stone him to death. Scene ended. Job done. Death is exit-stage-right. 

So with John. And what it tells me is that I don’t get to tell God how my life turns out. I don’t need to live long to live well. I don’t need to have long-term friendships to have long-term faithfulness. I don’t need to be seen to have substance. I am a branch of Christ’s vine, a member of the body of Christ, and John the Baptist mentors me in living to the full wherever God has put me, to agapè-love to the full everyone he puts in my life, and to trust him to accomplish in me and through me whatever he has uniquely prepared for me to do. 

I now head into this day knowing I have heard what God was speaking to me through his word, seeing what he is doing in me to show me what he is doing around me, and I am ready to join God in his work just like my Savior did before me. I hope to see God glorified as I take my place on the divine stage and play my role with thanksgiving that he has called me into his-story. 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

 

An Empty Stage for the Fullness of Life

After an interlude in Psalm 51, I now return to my journey through Matthew. It is like a place I have visited many times and am once again able to travel a familiar road to see things I have never noticed before, and to treasure the familiar sights and landmarks that have already come to mean so much to me. 

This morning, I came to the first two verses of Matthew 3: “In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” 

What stood out was the stage John was given on which to herald the Christ to Israel and the world: “the wilderness”. 

As I pondered this in prayer, trying to picture the kind of places this would have involved, I was curious why the wilderness would have been better than Jerusalem or any of the other locations that are familiar to us. What did the wilderness give that those would have taken away? 

And then it hit me: the wilderness was the one place where everyone had to leave where they were, to go to where no one already lived, to hear a message that was exactly the same for all who heard it. The wilderness gave the most level-ground stage possible! 

The fact that John came “preaching” in the wilderness meant that he was heralding a message of hope that everyone needed to hear. In one sense, that meant it wasn’t about him, but about the message he was given. In another sense, it was all about him at that time because he was the only messenger of this good news. Everyone had to come to John to get ready for what was about to happen that wasn’t about John! 

On the level-ground of this empty stage, everyone heard two things that applied to them all. First, that everyone needed to “repent”. This spoke of a change-of-heart about sin. Everything we do comes out of our hearts. For God to change us from sinners to saints he must change the heart. We can’t live a new life out of an old heart, but must repent (change our minds about sin), so that we truly want to walk with God in the righteousness of faith. 

Second, “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” for everyone at that time in a way that no one had ever experienced. It was level ground because it was offered to all, and nobody already had it. Everyone was outside the kingdom of heaven. It was just as “at hand” for one person as another, and repentance was the key to get people ready to enter it. 

Over the course of John’s ministry everyone would discover that prostitutes and tax collectors were repenting and entering the kingdom of heaven, while the religious elite only came as far as spectators of John’s ministry but had no concept that they were not in God’s kingdom or that God would require them to repent to come under his rule. 

On one occasion, Jesus confronted the religious leaders about this. 

“Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him.”[1] 

For those who mistakenly think that Jesus hung out with prostitutes and sinners who were still living in their sins, the truth is that everywhere Jesus went he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom and many prostitutes, tax collectors, and sinners of every kind, were going into the kingdom. In other words, the sinners who fellowshipped with Jesus were the ones who repented and entered God’s kingdom, not the ones who were still quite happy to continue living in their sin! 

Because our attachment to God in his word should always deal with us first (how the branch is doing with the vine determines what kind of fruit it is able to bear), what does this have to say to someone who has believed in God for 58 years, has trusted in Jesus as my Lord and Savior for 52 years, and is now a senior who has many stories of getting to know God better every day of my life? 

For starters, John’s wilderness stage seems like the ultimate in level ground. Nobody could make the mistake of thinking that they got bonus points just because John started preaching in their town instead of somewhere else (pride), and no one could think they were excluded because John didn’t begin in their community because other folks were more important (despair). 

The wilderness was level ground. Everyone had to leave what they had and come hear the good news about something no one had. This would lead to the level ground at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ where everyone would have to admit they were a sinner, and that Jesus Christ alone was the Savior for the whole world. 

Recently, I had my eyes opened to another place of level ground that continues to bless me personally as an old guy treasuring a new thought: every believer in Jesus Christ has level ground at the throne of God. “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”[2] Every sinner must come to the level ground at the foot of the cross to be saved, and every saint (saved person) must come to the level ground at the “throne of grace” to “receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” It is the same for everyone, and I need that at my age as much as you do at yours. 

It is only a few weeks ago that God transformed my level-ground understanding from the cross to the throne. Today he takes me back to the beginnings of the gospel to show me that it has been level ground from the very beginning. The good news was introduced in the wilderness where everyone had to leave where they were and go to the same place to hear the same message of God’s kingdom. 

And that still applies to everyone reading this. God doesn’t come into our lives to give us the impression we can add him to whatever we are already doing. We must deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and follow Jesus wherever he leads. 

Jesus gave a simile to help us appreciate what John was introducing and what Jesus would continue proclaiming. “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”[3] 

That’s what it looks like to come to the level ground of the wilderness and the cross. We all discover the same treasure in Christ and his gift of salvation. We all must give up everything we already have in ourselves and our own good works. And we all must buy the field. This is not suggesting we have money (good works) with which to do it, but that we must break ties with what we had in our lives of sin (repentance) and take possession of God’s gift of salvation by grace through faith. 

Today, the empty stage of the wilderness gives everyone the same standing before God as condemned sinners meeting God’s fullness of life. For those who believe in Christ, we receive the same standing as saints set apart unto God as his beloved children. Everyone must leave our self-made lives of sin, and everyone must trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation. Those who do this enter the kingdom of heaven just like everyone else who has received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

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[1] Matthew 21:31-32

[2] Hebrews 4:14-16

[3] Matthew 13:44

The Delightful Newness of Level Ground Faith

I first knew about God 58 years ago. I have been growing to know him better ever since. 

One of the advantages of age is that it humbles a guy with the awareness that things I once thought I had all figured out in my younger years were saturated with childish immaturity that didn’t even know how much I didn’t even know! 

In my knowing-God-much-better-than-I-used-to stage of life I can now appreciate and marvel at things I am still learning in a genuine getting-to-know-God kind of way. 

For example, just in the last couple of weeks I came to realize that picturing God’s children coming to the level ground in front of the throne of grace is vastly superior to what I had thought for decades about the level ground at the foot of the cross. 

Fact is that people only come to the level ground at the foot of the cross once. That is when they understand the good news of great joy that God sent his Son to be their Savior, they feel God’s kindness bringing them to repentance, and they know that Jesus Christ died for them, was buried, and was raised from the dead to be their Lord and Savior forever. 

At that place at the foot of the cross they are “delivered… from the domain of darkness and transferred… to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” The cross became the door by which they enter the kingdom, and they never need to go back to the cross for anything because it has already given them EVERYTHING! 

Instead of coming to the level ground at the foot of the cross, I now see that we come to the level ground at the throne of grace. Every child of God comes here. All believers have the same “great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God”. All Jesus’ disciples have the same level-ground calling to “hold fast our confession.” And the reason for the level-ground at the throne of grace is that, in the negative, “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses,” and, in the positive, we have “one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” 

And so, as the level-ground continues, God invites all his children to, “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” 

The “throne of grace” is level ground because God is pure holiness. It is his throne. It is his grace. He relates to each of his children based on the cross, but the cross that has brought us to his throne. 

God’s “mercy” is level ground because it is MERCY!!! He always shows mercy to all his children all the time. The cross has already told us that every child of God has already experienced the mercy of God pouring out his wrath against our sin on his Son. Because of this, God can freely and fully show mercy to every one of his children in a level-ground kind of way since we are all forgiven, cleansed, and adopted in the exact same salvation. We all entered the kingdom through the same door, which is faith in Jesus Christ crucified. 

And all God’s children will “find grace to help in time of need” because with our Father in heaven there is no favoritism, no injustice, no partiality, no bribery, no blindness, no busyness that can’t see what is going on. 

Instead, God’s grace is the grace of the holy God who knows all, sees all, loves all his children, knows the most intimate realities of our secret hearts, and has both the wisdom and knowledge to do what is absolutely best for each of his children, always working everything in each of us for the greatest good of making us more like Jesus Christ his Son. 

I share this because I had another dream about a third person who needs to reconcile with me. As I was praying through Psalm 51 for them, particularly asking God to lead them to pray this prayer of repentance for themselves, I was again reminded that the level-ground I long for with them is at the foot of the throne of grace where we will all receive the grace, and mercy, and help we need to walk in the “obedience of faith” in reconciliation. 

It wasn’t just the reminder that this level-ground that we once found at the foot of the cross already led us to the level-ground at the throne of grace, but also the awareness of a humble maturing within me that has only happened through meeting with God in his word and prayer almost every day for over thirty years. 

I simply found myself smiling with the knowledge that I now know something that hadn’t occurred to me until just a couple of weeks ago, and now it has transformed the way I think of Christians reconciling in the level-ground of the kingdom of God, the level-ground that welcomes every child of God to the throne of grace where we all will always receive the mercy, grace, and help that God deems the perfect fit with whatever we are going through each day, including whoever we need to reconcile with to the glory of “our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” 

Is there any fellow believer you need to reconcile with, perhaps someone who has been unwilling to even consider their need to repent to you for what they have done? I highly recommend going to the throne of grace in intercession, and using David’s prayer of repentance in Psalm 51 to ask God to do for them what David prayed for himself, and even to lead them to pray this prayer of repentance for themselves so they will meet you at the level-ground before the throne of grace where all believers are helped to reconcile with God and each other to the glory of the Savior who died on the cross to make such things possible.

 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

The Return to Joy of a Willing Spirit

I recently woke up in the early morning from a very good dream about someone wanting to reconcile with me. It had such an emotional effect that I had to immediately get out of bed and pray for this person. As I did so, I was drawn to David’s prayer of repentance in Psalm 51 and realized that this is what I needed to pray for them in the hope that my dream would turn into reality. 

However, it is impossible to pray Psalm 51 in an intercessory way (bringing the needs of others before God with the hope of bringing God’s grace and goodness to others) without first praying it in a humbly repentant way for us first. 

Since then (about 9 days), I have begun each morning with prayerful meditation on David’s prayer, praying it for myself as needed in the branch-of-the-vine kind of way,[1] and then praying it for the person who had reconciled with me in my dream, and anyone else I can think of who would be blessed to experience David’s prayer of repentance for themselves. 

My meditation has settled into asking for three things. First, that God would do for me whatever David prayed for himself. Second, that God would do for others what David and I prayed for ourselves. Third, that God would lead others to pray each of these prayer requests for themselves the way David and I prayed them. The aim is that God would answer their prayers with as much gracious blessings as David and I could wish for ourselves. 

With that as background, I am up to this request in David’s prayer: 

Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

    and uphold me with a willing spirit. (vs 12) 

Let’s look at how we can pray about this in the three ways we are considering. 

QUESTION 1: What are we asking God to do for us when we pray this for ourselves?

We must begin with the admission that we have lost the joy of God’s salvation and become weak and demoralized about what we have done. David had already addressed how he couldn’t hide from his sin, he knew God was blameless in any judgment he meted out, he could feel his sin as a curse from conception, and he was desperate to know that God would “cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me” (vs 11).

When he prayed this “restore” and “uphold” prayer, he was asking God to let him have back the things he had lost because of his sin. He could not erase the sin from history, as much as he wished it could happen (he likely had no idea that people 3,000 years later would still benefit so much from his prayer), but he could call on the God of “steadfast love” and “abundant mercy” (vs 1) to restore what he had destroyed and repair what he had ruined. 

When we pray this for ourselves, we freely admit to God how our joy has taken such a beating because of our sins that we have fallen prey to a spirit within us that struggles to be willing to walk in the righteousness of faith. As a distressed father of old pleaded with Jesus, “I believe; help my unbelief!” we can pray, “I am willing; help my unwillingness!” 

I often find myself on a Beatitudinal Journey through whatever God is teaching me. As I walk through the eight Beatitudes Jesus used to introduce his Sermon on the Mount, I see a fresh valley of blessings pouring into my life, helped along by my meditation on how they apply.[2]

I can see how the “poor in spirit” admission that I have lost joy because of sin and fallen pray to an unwilling spirit because of iniquity is God’s blessing to lead me to honest repentance. The blessing continues as I express myself as one of “those who mourn” and enter the blessing of God’s comfort through forgiveness. When I interact with God in acknowledgment that I cannot fix myself but rest in the authority of Jesus Christ to save me from my sin, I find the blessing of meekness that knows I am a joint heir with Christ of all that is his. And when I find myself “hungering and thirsting for righteousness” no matter how horrible my sin, I know I am being blessed with the satisfaction of righteousness that is mine only by grace through faith. 

That is what I see in David’s prayer, that God would restore to him the joy of his salvation and uphold him with a willing spirit. David had arrived at the bottom of the Beatitudinal Valley where God could satisfy him with the super-abounding grace that restores sinners from our horrible experiences of sin into a life where “the righteous shall live by faith” once again (David’s sin was a faith problem after all). And I know God is just as loving and gracious to answer this prayer for me as he was to return David to joy and restore his broken and contrite spirit. 

QUESTION 2: What are we asking God to do for others as we pray this prayer for them in an intercessory way?

The first test in praying this for others is whether we are in the “blessed are the merciful” experience where we want God to be just as merciful to people who have wronged us as we expect him to be with us in our wrongdoing. We will also discover whether we are in the “blessed are the pure in heart” reality where we want only one thing, that God would be glorified in all of us as we all find our satisfaction in him. We will also know whether we are blessed as a “peacemaker” by our heart’s desire in asking God to do for people who have wronged us the same return to joy and willing spirit as we have experienced for ourselves. And we will know we truly want the same thing for others as ourselves when we are willing to be blessed as one of those who “are persecuted for the sake of righteousness” even while we pray for our persecutors as Jesus instructed. 

If we have truly prayed David’s prayer for ourselves, knowing that “where sin increased” in us, “grace abounded all the more” for us,[3] We will be just as eager to see God restore to our church-going opponents the joy of his salvation as he has returned us to joy more times than we could ever deserve, and we will want him to be just as gracious in upholding them with a willing spirit as we have felt him do for us more times than we can count. 

QUESTION 3: What are we asking God to do for others as we intercede for them that they would pray this prayer for themselves? 

When we pray for others, it never means God will just do what we ask for them without engaging them in a relational way. 

For example, once we know that the Bible never teaches us to forgive unrepentant people, when we obey Jesus’ command to pray for our persecutors, and we take up his prayer from the cross, “Father, forgive them,” we know that God cannot and will not answer that prayer without bringing them to repentance. 

When we obey Jesus’ command to “bless those who curse you,” our prayers for our cursing opponents cannot be applied except in the Beatitudinal way Jesus presented. He can only bless a cursing person by bringing them to see their poverty of spirit that is making them such a miserable person. He can only bless them by leading them to mourn what they are doing. He must bless them with the meekness that surrenders to the authority of Jesus Christ and hungers and thirsts for the righteousness of being like Jesus. 

In other words, Jesus taught us to seek what is best for others (that’s what agapè-love is all about), and to answer our prayers he will always engage with a person in a relational way that leaves them aware that they are dealing with the living Christ and must humble themselves and receive the good news with great joy and thanksgiving.

With all that in mind, it isn’t enough for us to pray for sinning people that God would return them to joy and build up their spirits. We must pray that God would show such kindness to them that would lead them to repentance so they would call on him to restore to them the joy of his salvation, and to uphold them with a willing spirit. We must ask God to bring them to the place of praying this prayer for themselves just as we have prayed it for ourselves. We want them to know God as the gracious and loving Savior who has forgiven them just as we have come to know him by letting David mentor us in how to pray. 

So many church-folk have no idea how to live in “the joy of your salvation” because they have never really prayed in repentance and faith. They languish with an unwilling spirit because they have never confessed how desperately they need God where they have so horribly sinned. 

The cure is to meet with God in David’s prayer so we know the joy of restoration and forgiveness for ourselves and then actively seek the same experiences for others, including the personal repentance and faith that attaches to God in everything we go through. 

The fact that God led David in his prayer, and then led his people to include David’s prayer in the Bible, means that it is God’s will that we be restored to the joy of his salvation after any sin, and it is God’s will to uphold us with a willing spirit. If we will take this kind of praying to heart for ourselves, we are already doing the same thing we want God to do for someone else. 

And so, we keep praying for ourselves and others according to the word and will of God and wait expectantly for God to do God-sized things in all our lives that were once nothing but a dream.  

 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

[1] John 15:1-11 is where Jesus spoke of himself as the vine and us as his branches. His emphasis was on our need to abide in him in order for us to bear much fruit. This means we always deal with how we are doing in our walk with God first, and then look at how he wants to bless others out of that abiding attachment to him. It is easy to apply this to David’s prayer as we make sure we are caught up on everything we need there for ourselves and then asking God to do the same things for others as we seek God to do for us.

[2] Matthew 5:1-12 (in context of the whole Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5-7)

[3] Romans 5:20

A Hope-filled Prayer for Cleansing

WHEN SIN entered the world, Adam and Eve immediately felt guilt, shame, and fear. The horror of that moment, that they had sinned, that the curse of death would now be upon every child they would bear, and that it was impossible for them to fix it, can only be imagined in those moments when we have done the unthinkable and know we cannot take it back.

HOWEVER, within minutes, God revealed the lifeline for the whole human race. God promised that a particular “offspring” of the woman “shall bruise” the serpent’s head (authority) while the serpent “shall bruise his heel.” In other words, God would send a Savior through the woman, born of a virgin, who would absolutely defeat sin, death, hell, the grave, and Satan himself, but through suffering in our place for our sin. 

DAVID’S PRAYER was, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” David is using some delightful rhyming thoughts here. “Purge me with hyssop (a medicinal plant)” rhymes with “wash me”. “I shall be clean” rhymes with “I shall be whiter than snow.” 

DAVID KNEW the horror of being convicted of sin that can never be taken back. There is no way we can do enough good to undo our sin because our sin already makes us guilty of violating God’s law and we are all without excuse. 

THE ONLY HOPE is cleansing. David understood his need then, and we must understand our need now. “For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” and “the wages of sin is death”. Period. 

EXCEPT THAT Jesus is the one “in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Why in Jesus and only in him? Because “for our sake God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus suffered God’s judgment against our sins so we could receive God’s righteousness in our place. And the righteousness of God is as clean as it gets. 

HERE IS God’s promise: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” That is the new covenant way of asking for what David poured out from his heart, the cleansing from sin that only comes through faith in Jesus Christ our Lord.

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)