On This Day: To Glory in Seeing Jesus’ Glory

   The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. (John 17:22-24)

   I was in grade 8 when my dad came home from work with a box of ice skates for all us kids. I quickly fell in love with skating (after the embarrassment of knocking some cute girls over while learning to skate!). The next year I joined hockey and was hooked.

   At the same time (coincidentally) my uncle had opened a sports’ shop with a special focus on hockey. I was able to take my full $114.00 from strawberry picking and buy all my hockey equipment, skates included! I never did learn what kind of “family deal” my dad got, or whether he paid anything extra behind the scenes. All I knew is that hockey was now my favorite activity.

   As a promotional opportunity for his store, my uncle bought 4 season tickets to Vancouver Canucks’ games, and I had a couple of opportunities to attend games in the early 70’s while the Canucks were in their infancy. I know what it felt like to be absolutely fascinated with the on-ice play, the feeling of glory whenever the Canucks put the puck in the net, and particularly when they won a game.

   All that to say that Jesus talking about glory is not a foreign concept. People have no problem feeling glory, expressing glory, delighting in the glory of their favorite people or teams. The ONLY problem they have with glory is attaching to Jesus’ glory even though he is our Creator, and the only Savior of the world.

   What gripped my heart this morning is that Jesus had a “desire”. It isn’t that this brings him down to my level, since desires have been the wreck of me on one side, and a driving force on the other. So, to think of Jesus having pure desire, holy desire, righteous desire, good desire, is fascinating.

   QUESTION: Do I have a right to put myself in the picture? When Jesus expresses to the Father his desire “that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am,” do I really have the right to include myself in this?

   ANSWER: Absolutely! We are still in the paragraph Jesus introduced with, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word”. I am one of the people who have come to believe in Jesus through “their word”. Their word is the New Testament. The four gospel accounts. The history of the book of Acts. The instructional leadership of the letters to the churches. The apostles’ writings have been guiding and directing me for six decades.

   This means that Jesus’ “desire” is for me “also”. I have been given to Jesus by the Father. And Jesus’ desire, even before going to the cross, was that I would be included in that great numberless multitude that will be with him in glory glorying in his glory!

   Over my decades, I have watched so many people either fall away from the church, or slink back to the safety of institutional religion, because they believe they were failed by other “Christians”. 

   At the same time, even as I have been failed by so many church-folk (including the first pastor I worked under who got so angry at me for asking questions that he wouldn’t talk to me and was later caught in adultery!), it has all fallen into the “for those who love God all things work together for good” reality that brings me to today’s viewpoint of Jesus wanting me to be with him enjoying the overflowing joy of his glory.

   My primary reason for sharing this is to encourage anyone who has been hurt by the church, discouraged by people who don’t want to be with you, heartbroken by sinful actions from people you thought were loved ones, however any of us would describe anything that entices us to stop following Jesus, to keep before you what Jesus himself said:

   “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”

   How do we know if we are one of the people Jesus’ is speaking of? By examining whether we have responded to the command of the gospel to repent and believe in Jesus. If we have confessed with our mouths that “Jesus is Lord”, and believed in our hearts that God raised him from the dead (meaning all that these things mean in the New Testament), we are saved. We have eternal life. We will be with Jesus forever in the new heavens and the new earth.

   If you are one of those people, “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the GLORY THAT IS TO BE REVEALED TO US” (Romans 8:18). 

   So, instead of turning from Jesus because of hurts or disappointments, turn to Jesus WITH those hurts and disappointments, admit and confess how inglorious they are, and tell Jesus how much it fills your heart with wonder that he “desires” to have you with him in his eternal home to rejoice in the constant glory of his glory.

 

© 2026 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.)

 

On This Day: When ‘The Old is (NOT) Good' Enough

   He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’” (Luke 5:36-39)

   My personal reaction to reading those last words, “‘The old is good,’” was that I know too many church folk like that! 

   The above conversation took place while Jesus was at Matthew’s house having a meal with “tax collectors and sinners”. At the same time, “some Pharisees and their scribes” were peeking in to see what was going on and “grumbled” at Jesus’ disciples why Jesus would hang out with such people. 

   Jesus never played favorites or showed partiality to his friends. He alone was without sin; everyone else needed the “good news of great joy” that could only be found in him. So, Jesus customized a parable for both groups of people, the “sinners” who had come to dinner and the religious devotees who were judging everyone.

   Because Jesus’ illustrations for the religious devotees are easy to understand, our focus must be on how we are doing at receiving the “new covenant in my blood”. Jesus didn’t die merely so we could have a fire-insurance policy for when we die. He died to make a new covenant between God and sinners. Through Jesus’ death, God “has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14). 

   So, “when we were dead in our trespasses,” and God “made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:5), he brought us into the new covenant. It is a binding relationship in which God is the adoptive Father who has made us his adopted sons.1  

   What I want to leave with everyone is the reminder that the new covenant cannot be added to anything and cannot be replaced by anything. It doesn’t supplement our systems of good works, and it doesn’t pale in comparison to “the old is good”. It is the only relationship by which sinners can receive eternal life. Period. 

   Do you lean more to the religious devotee who struggles to give up self-reliance to trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation and restoration to God? Or are you more tempted to settle for the drunken stupor of sin that thinks the old is quite good enough? Either way, in Jesus “was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4-5). 

   So the only question is, are you one of the people who “walk in the light, as he is in the light,” so “we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (I John 1:7), or are you one of those who “loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:19)? 

   Jesus still comes to tax collectors and sinners by any name or label. He still calls religious devotees to leave their sin and follow him. No matter where we are in relation to Jesus, we all have the same call to deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and follow Jesus Christ into the fullness of life.

© 2025 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.)

Footnote 1: Yes, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29), which is why “all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Romans 8:14), “in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (Galatians 3:26), “For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering” (Hebrews 2:10). The expressions of “brothers and sisters” or “sons and daughters” is NOT in the Bible and is NOT what God means by “sons”. We all have the exact same status with God in our spiritual identity, the same status as Jesus, which can only be conveyed through “sons” and “brothers”. It is a horrible mistake to tell people the Bible SAYS there are two categories when God himself breathed out one category of “sons” who are “brothers” to Jesus Christ as our Firstborn.

A Warning About Concussions and Abscessed Teeth

A week after my concussion (bonked my head on the ice at public skating Dec 22) I had to go back up to ER because of severe pain in one of my teeth. When I got in to see my dentist after Christmas break, he discovered a tooth was cracked all the way down the middle. I got it removed yesterday. 

In the instructions for recovery, a familiar warning was included. There is something called “dry socket” (sounds painful just to say it) that results when the clot is dislodged from covering the wound. I have heard of this numerous times. In fact, I was waiting in a dentist office years ago and overheard the receptionist talking to someone who was obviously frantic because they had dry socket and she had nothing she could tell them to make it better. 

Why this update on how I’m doing? Because I keep hearing people say that the Bible’s talk about God’s judgment against sin is just a bunch of scare-tactics or fearmongering. But when I hear about dry socket, something I have never personally witnessed, it scares the heebie-jeebies out of me enough that I want to follow the instructions to the T, as they say. 

In the same way that the goal of the instructions is the ultimate healing of the extraction wound, and the warning about dry socket is just a fact of life we need to know about to help us do the right things for healing, the goal of the Bible is to lead people to know the God who created us so we can return to him. It’s just that there’s a lot working against us in that department and the wide road that most people prefer just happens to lead to destruction. 

So, while age and life continue to take their toll, and the headlines even just of the Coquihalla Highway around Merritt this week have been full of bad (and even deadly) news, warning people to have proper snow tires, carry chains, have an emergency bag in the car, and drive to conditions, are not scare-tactics or fearmongering (just ask someone who has seen the devastation on icy and snowy roads), and neither is it a scare-tactic to tell people about the end of the road that leads anyone away from the only true God. 

The fact is that the Creator created us to be like him. We preferred being like his arch enemy the devil, the one responsible for all the suffering, death, and war in the world. God sent his Son to provide salvation from sin. Most people still don’t want God’s love while the world’s love for the devil seems to be growing exponentially. 

But telling people that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” or that “the wages of sin is death,” or that the wide road leads to “destruction”, is not scare-tactics or fearmongering. It’s just as much just telling the truth as everything I have heard about the warnings for dry-socket and dangerous road conditions. 

So, as I eat my very soft bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, I trust that this will save me the horrible discomfort of that dreaded condition of dry-socket, I thank God that I will soon be well enough to get back on the ice (while appreciating the necessity of wearing a helmet from now on), and I thank the Creator for Jesus Christ his Son who has guaranteed my eternal life with no threat of condemnation or destruction. 

Thank you, our Father in heaven!

 

© 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.)

 

A Wounded Coach's Look at a Wounded Team's Spirit

I came away from my morning time with Father feeling like a long-standing struggle has been resolved.

I often swing between two extremes. On one side is a confidence that God can use me as a pastor. On the other is an almost helpless and hopeless awareness of things wrong with me that prove me nothing of the sort.

Some days, both my pastoring and my pain seem to be almost plumb[1] because I am attaching to God in whichever one he is working on with a genuine desire to be my best on the team. Other times, I don’t even know whether I am facing things the Father is showing me in the Beatitudinal Program[2] or confronting the enemy’s schemes to stop me from accepting the training I need.

Lately, I have been combining the imagery of coach and shepherd to help our home church work together on how our team/flock is doing. We can never let go of the beauty of the shepherd/sheep relationship that is all through Scripture. It is the way Jesus wants us to see our relationship with him, and it is his choice of imagery for how pastors and churches relate to one another.

At the same time, there are so many aspects of the coach/team relationship that are familiar to us today that it has some benefit to add that facet of understanding how things work in each church. It is this metaphor/simile that opened the door for me to picture what our team is like right now, including my place in the mix.

Our personal identity is determined by the team Owner and was set in place before any of us were born. It really has nothing to do with our life-experience; it has everything to do with the Owner’s heart. This is about him picking us for his team, including what position each of us is to play.

But then life happened. We were all on the bus when disaster occurred. Everyone was hurt. Injuries galore. Incredible confusion. Brain injuries, PTSD, and lots and lots of pain. Trauma has been no respecter of persons, so everyone is left dealing with what happened to them irrespective of who they are on the team.

Triage has tried to sort out the urgency of all the treatments needed and the nature of what each person’s care should be. The Owner has it all working, but the injuries of all the teammates means there is a whole range of how well each person is attached to his purposes, how aware they are of his activity in helping them, and how they feel about his choice of treatment.

The one thing that does not change is the identity of our team and our players. We are who we are as a unit, and we are who we are in the positions that each person holds. We are just injured.

What this imagery settles for me is that I am still who I am on the team even when God shows me wounds that need addressing. My injuries say nothing about who I am, only about what I am capable of doing at the moment. This means that I am a coach injured in the same accident as the rest of the team, not a loser because my injuries have left me unable to be my best as a coach.

What does a good coach do when he discovers injuries that were hidden behind anesthetic or shock? He lets the owner prescribe his treatment for healing while he continues to contribute to the team out of the health that is still working as designed. He leads as far as his current ability allows, trusts team doctors to contribute treatments to the players that are beyond his area of expertise, and stays in constant contact with the Owner about how each player is doing and what they need.

Maybe this is one of those “please-show-me-something-in-words-or-pictures” moments where Father has again used my love of writing and describing things to let me see for myself what he wants for our team. I hope it encourages all our players to be who we are on the team while letting the Owner prescribe the treatment for our injuries as he sees best. Even while healing continues, we can contribute to building our relationship with the coach and the team so that we are helping the healing and training that is going on right now.

I hope that this word-picture also helps you see your place, position and condition on your local team more clearly. Maybe it will help you recognize how you can contribute to your own healing and physiotherapy by joining the treatment the Owner has prescribed for you and that it will actually encourage the rest of your team that you are doing what is needed for your injuries and training while everyone else is doing the same for theirs.

If each of us sees ourselves as the players the Owner has made us, accepting that we have as much to give the team as the Owner wants to do through us even when focusing on our own healing is all we can do, it will still build up and encourage the team that we are joining the Owner in his work and getting better for the sake of the team.

And, that may sometimes include what the Owner gives you to encourage your coach during those times that he is more aware of his injuries than his position.

If we all remember who we are, and who each teammate is, we will attach to the group dynamic of healing with the expectation that the Owner is making us a victorious team as we keep in step with what he is doing among us. I can see how he has encouraged me in this today, and I hope that my sharing about it, combined with your awareness of his work in you, will bring more hope, healing, and victory to our lives even today.

 

© 2021 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] “Plumb” refers to the “plumbline” that hangs vertically true. It has been used since ancient times to measure the vertical line of walls, and to guide wall-builders in building walls that are vertically true. God uses the imagery of the plumbline to illustrate how he accurately measures how his people are relating to him, so it is nothing new to consider the illustration, even if it needs some explaining. Here are the Scriptures that refer to this: https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=plumb+line&resultspp=250&version=ESV

[2] The “Beatitudinal Program” is a way of referring to the Beatitudes of Matthew 5:1-12 as it would be described as a team training program to get every player in their best shape for the game. 

Monte’s Faith is For the Birds

Yesterday was a very rainy day, so I was quite intrigued with how busily the little birds were eating at our backyard feeders, not seeming to care about the weather. Perhaps the cool and wet day increased their demand for energy and so feeding was a bit more urgent.

As I went out to refill the feeders, I suddenly noticed that one little female Cassin Finch was not flying away with all the rest. In fact, it wasn’t moving at all, just standing on top of a birdhouse with its eyes closed and face raised to the light rain.

View from window

At first, I wondered whether birds just enjoy the feel of rain. It almost seemed lost in sensation of something that made it oblivious to me being only a few feet away. I was able to sneak back into the house to get my camera, take a shot through the window just so I had something in case it was gone when I returned, and then snapped some more pics as I again snuck closer to its resting place. I was overwhelmed with the wonder that a bird may actually enjoy something like the soft rain falling on its head.

First shot before getting too close

As I saw the same bird come back a couple more times during the day, just sitting with its eyes closed like that, I suddenly wondered if it could be the mate of one of the dead birds we have found in the yard. I was immediately overwhelmed with grief. What happens to these little creatures when something happens to one of their family? I know that God sees every sparrow that falls. Does he see the ones that live?

Lost in something

And then I wondered if the tears that betrayed me saw this as a picture of me? Could the heartaches of one child of God look like this, that the Father in heaven sees a heart lifted up to him in the rain and cares very deeply for what I feel? Could my experience of loss look like this, an overwhelmed creature stopping everything, even in the midst of the continued flurry of activity all around it, and looking heavenward because looking anywhere else was simply too painful?

This morning, these thoughts and feelings seemed just as fresh as the day before, so I had to look up the passages where Jesus talks about our worth in contrast to that of a few small birds. Luke’s version quotes Jesus as saying,

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.[1]

For anyone who thinks that “worth issues” are a contemporary creation, Jesus was dealing with such things as he shared the good news and encouraged his disciples in the cost of following him. No matter what happens to us because of our faith in Jesus Christ, we are to see ourselves as having the greatest worth of all God’s creatures.

This means that, when Jesus said, “not one of them is forgotten before God,” and, “you are of more value than many sparrows,” we cannot ever think that we would be forgotten by God our heavenly Father in our suffering for Jesus’ sake.

Matthew records Jesus as saying, “And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.”[2] When we also add this to the, “you are of more value than many sparrows,” we are urged to think of our potential “falling to the ground” in persecution as far more significant to God than when we find a dead bird in our yard and wonder which neighborhood cat is the culprit.[3]

When Jesus said, “Fear not,” he meant even in relation to the threat of death.[4] In other words, the worst thing we could face as followers of Christ is persecution. Persecution brings with it the possibility of martyrdom. Death is scary. Jesus knows that. So he picks a little creature that was treated as almost without value, tells us how God even has concern for the smallest of his creatures, clarifies that we are of “more value” than even the least of his animals, so we should never question our worth when facing persecution and the threat of death.

This brought to mind what Paul said about such things, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”[5] I realized that we have so little sense of “the glory that is to be revealed to us,” and what it means to our heavenly Father to complete his work of making us like his Son, that we don’t feel the contrast Jesus is making between us and a few sparrows. What God will one day complete in bringing to himself a people in the image and likeness of his Son is so glorious in every way that even the worst suffering and death experienced by the children of God is almost not worth comparing to the coming glory. We are simply of too much worth to God for him to fail to do what he has promised.

This whole emotional encounter with a little bird in the rain is a most surprising picture of God seeing me in everything I go through. It is getting quite easy for him to number the hairs of my head as I age,[6] but the point is still there. If he concerns himself with the number of hairs on our heads, and a few sparrows in the marketplace, or a tiny bird falling to its death, how much more will he be with us in intimate concern as we suffer for his sake.

Tears immediately come to my eyes as I replay how I found that little Cassin Finch standing in the rain in such stark contrast to all the other pairs of finches flying around our feeders fighting to get a turn to eat. I now realize that, as Father made sure I would see this, and multiple times through the rest of the afternoon, even this would affirm that I am of greater value than I know, and what is going on with me matters more to him than I could possibly feel about what was going on with that little finch.

Head tucked in and all alone

And that means that, even the underlying reasons that this little wet bird would impact me so profoundly are known to him, and one day he will wipe away all such tears and their reasons for being there.

 

© 2020 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] Luke 12:6-7

[2] Matthew 10:29 (note: I think the difference in phrasing in the different gospel-writers could be because the human authors are summarizing longer teaching sessions, highlighting whichever wording stood out to them, or compiling into one account what they may have heard multiple times as Jesus taught the same things to different groups of people, phrasing things slightly differently on each occasion)

[3] We have asked our little mutt Finnian if he thinks he is supposed to protect our yard from birds but he looks at us like he doesn’t know what we are talking about.

[4] This is in the context of both Matthew 10:26-33 and Luke 12:1-12.

[5] Romans 8:18

[6] Matthew 10:30 and Luke 12:7 speak of God even knowing the number of hears on our heads in order to affirm that, if he cares to know such things as that, how could he ever relate to our suffering and potential martyrdom with no interest at all.

Praying in the Radiance of God’s Glory

This morning, a number of Scriptures came together to help me appreciate all the more why Paul bowed his knees before our Father and prayed “that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith…”[1] It helped me to see this in illustration form, so I share this with you in the hope that it will encourage you in your devotion to prayer.

It began by considering afresh the significance of our standing “in Christ Jesus”.[2] For us to be in Christ, it also means that we have the Holy Spirit in us.[3] I know that this relationship with the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ is the starting place for prayer, as God encourages us to keep “praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication”.[4] God’s children pray in the Spirit instead of in the flesh. It is part of our new identity and relationship in Jesus Christ.

To be “in Christ” and to pray “in the Spirit” calls us to consider who we are in when we pray. This reminded me of that glorious description of Jesus Christ, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature”.[5] When we pray in the Spirit, as those who are in Christ, we are in him who is “the radiance of the glory of God.”

Suddenly I realized the beautiful connection with Paul’s prayer, that we pray “according to the riches of his glory”.[6] Instead of thinking of the riches of God’s glory as something far away, something we must try to reach with our prayers, we are to pray in the Spirit, in Christ Jesus, who is the radiance of the glory of God.

Let me illustrate what this looked like for me.

First, we are to pray according to the riches of God’s glory.[7] Everything about God is glorious, and all his glory is rich beyond compare. When we pray, we do not pray according to the circumstances, or according to our past experiences, or according to the status quo. Paul’s example is that we pray according to the riches of God’s glory. We pray according to what God is able to do for us out of his glory. In other words, we pray God-sized prayers based on what God is like, not what we are like. His book gives us plenty of teaching and examples of what to pray according to the riches of his glory.

Second, Jesus is “the radiance of God’s glory”. This is synonymous with Jesus being the Word of God,[8] the image of God,[9] the Son of God.[10] Jesus’ place in the Godhead is as the one who makes the Father known. This is his inherent nature, and was demonstrated most graciously when Jesus came into the world. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”[11]

Third, the church is “in Christ Jesus,” which means we are in the radiance of God’s glory. We are in the person who is the radiance of God’s glory. This is why Paul would write, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”[12] Why would the church see “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”? Because Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory.

Fourth, this brings us to how we pray. Paul prayed “according to the riches of his glory”,[13] because the church is in Christ, in the radiance of God’s glory, and we do not honor God to pray based on anything to do with the world, the flesh, or the devil. We have seen the glory of God in the face of Christ, and can only pray according to the riches of that glory.

What God is doing in me is convincing me more and more, or deeper and deeper, that the only prayers that are worthy of God are the ones that are according to the riches of his glory. He has revealed that his glory is not far away, but is as up close and personal as Jesus Christ, the radiance of that glory.

This is why we must see ourselves “in Christ Jesus”, and pray “in the Spirit”. When we see ourselves only as the product of bad experiences, and pray the way our sarky flesh prays in pride, or in shame, guilt, and fear, we cannot possibly connect with what the grace of God would do from the riches of his glory. When we see ourselves in Christ, who is the radiance of God’s glory, praying according to the riches of God’s glory is the best thing we could ever do.

This illustrations are just that, illustrations. However, they have helped me see how immersed the church is in the radiance of God’s glory, our Lord Jesus Christ. We couldn’t possibly need more than this to be devoted to prayer that is according to the riches of God’s glory.

© 2016 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.)

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[1] Ephesians 3:14-17 (Ephesians 3:14-21 as the context)

[2] Romans 8:1-2

[3] Romans 8:9

[4] Ephesians 6:18

[5] Hebrews 1:3

[6] Ephesians 3:16

[7] Although Paul did not tell us to pray these words, he does tell us to follow his example (Philippians 3:17; 4:9; II Thessalonians 3:9)

[8] John 1:1-3

[9] Colossians 1:15

[10] Mark 1:1

[11] John 1:14

[12] II Corinthians 4:6

[13] Ephesians 3:16

Pastoral Pings (Plus) ~ The Best of Big Brothers

          I represent the many people who struggle to believe God could accept us when we are not well behaved. I also represent the work of God that brings us to know that God loved us at our worst, and he demonstrated his love for us through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross while we were sinners.[1]

          There is in humanity an inherent desire to be good due to the fact we were originally created in the image and likeness of Jesus Christ.[2] There is also a desire for close, personal fellowship with God, since this is included in being like Jesus.[3]

          However, this desire for deep and personal fellowship with God, based on a standard of goodness that is identical to Jesus’ righteousness, is IMPOSSIBLE! By this, I mean it is impossible for the human soul to be so good, and to do such good, that we can attain fellowship with God based on our own righteousness.

          Last night, I had a dream about a frustrated little boy who was peeved with his big brother because his big brother was so good, and the little guy simply could not be the same. The little brother looked up to his older sibling and wanted to be just like him, but try as he might, he could never do the things his big brother could accomplish.

          I think it was the look on the big brother’s face that brought me home. The little boy was frustrated to the point of anger at himself for not being good enough. He so wanted to be like his big brother, but with a sense that he had personally accomplished all that the older brother could do.

          While the boy was beating himself up for his inadequacies, the big brother smiled on him with such love and affection that included accepting the little brother even in his state of frustration and anger at not being able to do what was “good enough." He was accepted as someone who was not good enough, and as someone who was wasting time in a world of frustration because his self-dependent efforts to be good enough were not working.

          In Biblical terms, the little boy in my dream was what the Bible calls, “blessed… in the Beloved.”[4] He was frustrated because he wanted to have the same inherent goodness as his older brother, he knew he couldn’t do it, and was angry it wasn’t working for him. The whole while, his big brother was loving him beyond what he could ever deserve.

          Which brought me to my time with God this morning, and the verse that is central to my meditation, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.”[5]

          With the fresh-in-my-mind imagery of a frustrated child wanting to prove he is good enough for his big brother, I couldn’t help seeing the contrast between rejoicing “in the Lord,” and rejoicing in ourselves. When we want to feel joy in our relationship with God because we have attained a level of good works and achievement that are sure to impress him, we will not know joy at all, let alone know what it is like to be joyful in the Lord.

          On the other hand, when we receive all that is in Jesus, all the salvation, all the forgiveness of our sins, all the justification by faith, all the heart-changing power of God that transforms us into the image of Jesus Christ “from one degree of glory to another,”[6]and all the hope of that eternal life where we will be fully like Jesus forever,[7]we discover that we can rejoice in Jesus in a way we could never rejoice in ourselves.

          While I do not give any authority to dreams, I found myself feeling quite thankful that I could see the struggle of so many people in an illustration that helped to make a lot of sense of what Scripture teaches about our identity in Christ. God the Father predestined those he foreknew “to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”[8] Jesus is “not ashamed to call them brothers.”[9]We enter this by grace through faith, “And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”[10]

          All of this tells us that God’s work to make us like Jesus includes showing us that Jesus has done all the work. We can boldly come into the presence of God in the most holy place because Jesus has made us righteous enough to be there.[11] The Father accepts us in his Son. It is a waste of time to feel frustrated that we cannot make ourselves good enough for God when God has already received us as righteous through justification, and will complete our perfect conformity to Jesus’ righteousness in our glorification.

          What God wants for his sons now is that we can rejoice in our big brother as the perfect satisfaction of God’s justice, and the perfect provision of our peace with God. He has already done the work. It is finished. Let’s rejoice in him, and in our fellowship with him.

© 2015 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.)

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[1] Romans 5:6-8

[2] Genesis 1:26-27

[3] John 5:1-47 records Jesus’ explanation of why he healed a man on the Sabbath. It revolved around the nature of his relationship to the Father. John 5:19 captures the essence of Jesus’ relationship to his Father, and gives us insight into what we can expect in our relationship to God.

[4] Ephesians 1:6 (see context of Ephesians 1:3-14)

[5] Philippians 4:4

[6] II Corinthians 3:18

[7] I John 3:2; Romans 8:28-30

[8] Romans 8:29

[9] Hebrews 2:11

[10] Ephesians 2:8-9

[11] Hebrews 4:16

Considerations ~ Detecting the Warnings that Lead us to Joy

Early this morning I had to pull the battery out of our smoke detector in order to stop it from “chirping”. The chirping was to warn me that something was wrong. All it took was popping out the battery to silence the warning, and quiet was restored.

After the deed was done, I realized that this is the way some people handle the things they do not like to hear. If they can remove a person from a position of influence or authority over their lives, they can silence the warnings and admonitions so that a sense of quiet is restored.

This is, in fact, what happened to the forerunner of the Christ, John the Baptist. A woman did not like the way John relentlessly addressed the sinful relationship between her and her husband, and so she strategically orchestrated his execution.

This is also what happened to the Christ. The religious leaders were incensed that Jesus would confront them with their sin, while welcoming forgiven prostitutes, tax collectors, and drunks, into the kingdom of heaven. Their solution? Execute him so that he would be quiet; and use crucifixion as the means of execution so that the publicity and shame of his death would silence his disciples.

There was another woman whom Jesus personally confronted with her five failed marriages, and her current sin of adultery. Her response was to humbly welcome him as a prophet, and then to open her heart to him as the Messiah she was waiting for. Instead of conspiring to get rid of him to silence his conviction of her sin, she went to her village and invited everyone to come and meet Jesus. After a couple of days of listening to his teachings, they thanked God for what this woman had shared with them.

And then there were those disciples who saw Jesus die the shameful suffering of crucifixion. They witnessed Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. They witnessed Jesus ascending back into heaven where he is now seated at the right hand of his Father. And they became the powerful witnesses of the life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and glorious salvation of Jesus the Christ.

Now, to clarify, I am putting a fresh battery in my smoke detector because, while I have silenced the warning that the battery was running low, leaving it without a battery would mean I have also silenced its ability to warn me of fire and smoke danger. I want the warning of fire and smoke danger because I would like to continue enjoying my home, and all the people who share it with us.

At the same time, I am filling my heart with time spent with my heavenly Father in his word and prayer so that, while I must welcome his warnings as a child respecting his Father’s loving discipline, I get to hear the words of God calling me into the fullness of joy that the necessary warnings are faithfully guarding.

I encourage us all to be sure we are up-to-date in receiving whatever ministry God is sending into our lives to warn us of danger, and invite us into his joy. Let us also make sure we are not shutting out his servants who remind us of these things our heavenly Father is doing.

© 2014 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com

Pastoral Ponderings ~ The Friendship between Doctrine and Experience

I have often thought of doing a video where I would take a couple of old books to represent Bibles, and portray a scenario where someone would tear out of the Bible all the pages that describe relationship with God in terms of experience. To be fair, this would also require that someone else tear out of the Bible all the pages that describe God in terms of doctrine. The point would be to illustrate how much experience and doctrine are woven together in the Scriptures, showing us how doctrine and experience ought to be woven together in life. Take either one out, and the Bible is no longer the Bible. Of course, the video would end with the disclaimer that no real Bibles were hurt in the making of the production.

The video would revolve around two people discussing the two sides of the doctrine vs experience debate. One person would exaggerate doctrine without experience, while the other would exaggerate experience without doctrine. Both would use their Bibles to show how God is represented in their preferred manner. Mr. Doctrine would read beautiful expressions of what God is like. Mr. Experience would read the moving descriptions of God’s activity. By focusing on the one-or-the-other approach, they can never come to any kind of agreement.

After a while, a third person enters the scene. His name is Mr. Accord. He listens long enough to understand where Mr. Doctrine and Mr. Experience are coming from, and then makes a suggestion. He tells Mr. Doctrine to tear out all the pages of Scripture that describe God, or relationship with God, or the life of the people of God, in terms of experience.

“You must begin at the beginning,” Mr. Accord insists.

Mr. Doctrine opens his Bible to Genesis 1 and ponders the description of God’s work in creation. “Hmmm…” he considers quite reluctantly, “it appears that this chapter describes God doing things, so that would need to be removed.”

“Only fair,” Mr. Accord affirms.

“And the second chapter, elaborating on God creating Adam and Eve,” Mr. Doctrine continued, “that would definitely be an experiential description.” And out came chapter two of the Bible.

By Genesis 3, Mr. Doctrine was feeling a strange mix of shock, reluctance, and resignation. Eve’s deception, and Adam’s fall into sin, were clearly described in terms of their experience. This page had to go.

And so it went all through the Old Testament. Mr. Doctrine realized that page after page of the things he believed, and loved, were described in terms of experience between God and his people. He had never realized how much he knew about God through the things that God did, or the things God said in the midst of something he was doing.

So the threesome journeyed through the pages of Scripture, tearing out the pages describing God’s work through Noah and the flood, the dispersing of the people at the tower of Babel, his calling of Abraham, all the pages showing the early decades of Abraham’s descendants growing into the twelve sons of Israel, Joseph’s experience with his brothers, and his rise to prominence in Egypt.

Mr. Doctrine was humbled by the realization of how many pages he had to remove from his Bible because they revealed God through experience. He had never noticed this before. He was shocked at how little of his Bible was left when the experiences were removed. By the time he got to the gospels, and realized that everything Jesus did was expressed in terms of some experience, he was weeping uncontrollably at how much of his Bible he was losing because the doctrines he loved were revealed through the experiences of God and his people.

When Mr. Doctrine reached the end of his Bible, and was left with so few pages that contained doctrine written in purely doctrinal terms, with no experience woven through the descriptions, it was Mr. Experiences turn.

Strangely, although Mr. Experience had seen how many pages Mr. Doctrine had to remove because they involved experience, he was not brimming with confidence that he would fare much better. He had already noticed that the stories that had encouraged him to value the experience of knowing God also contained teachings of truth that he had missed, or ignored.

As Mr. Experience turned to the first chapter of his Bible, he realized that the experience of God creating the world was filled with doctrine regarding creation, and the origin and identity of man. The second chapter expressed the details of God’s experience of creating Adam and Eve, but it was full of the doctrine of man as male and female, their relationship to one another, and to the world around them. The third chapter was the horrifying experience of Satan luring Adam and Eve into sinful disobedience, but it contained the doctrines of sin, and judgment. It even introduced the doctrine of redemption, as one would come who would crush the serpent’s head through the bruising of his own heel.

The further along Mr. Experience moved through the pages of Scripture, the more he realized that each experience was framed with truth about God, things that were measured by the nature and perfection of the Triune. He could not look at Noah’s flood without seeing descriptions of what God is like, and what he thinks of sin, and his willingness to judge what is contrary to himself, and to his purposes for the world he created. He could not read about the tower of Babel without seeing that it only made sense when measured by the nature and purposes of God. The calling of Abraham, the birth of Isaac, and on through the twelve sons of Israel, and Joseph in Egypt, all revealed what God was like, and what his people were like in relation to God.

The book of Exodus showed what it meant that God was a covenant-keeping God. It revealed his power and glory in delivering his people. The rest of the books of Moses described life in relation to God in so many details that Mr. Experience could not miss how many things laid the foundation for the little bit of doctrine he had considered. Even traveling through the wonderful experiences of the gospels, and the book of Acts, forced Mr. Experience to acknowledge that doctrine was everywhere.

By the time Mr. Experience had completed his journey to the last page of the book of Revelation, he too was weeping at how much of the Bible he had lost because he had limited his understanding of God and his work to his enjoyment of experience.

Mr. Accord was not quick to speak, since both men had already arrived at the desired conclusion. However, he noted that both men were looking down at the tattered remains of their Bibles, unable to look up and acknowledge each other. While their minds had come to far more agreement than either had ever imagined possible, both were struggling to let their hearts share in the experience.

It was not long before both men had moved from their introspective conclusions, to the uncomfortable awareness of the other person. First they could only look as far as the tattered Bible in their opponents hands. However, even this acknowledgement had a humbling effect that denied any possibility of gloating. Both had lost too much to think that they had anything better than the other. No matter what either one had left in their hands, both knew there was far too much lying on the floor at their feet.

         

“It would be very hard to put this all back together,” Mr. Accord observed.

“Yes, very,” Both Mr. Doctrine and Mr. Experience agreed.

“Do you think you both might be ready for one of these?” Mr. Accord asked, as he held out two complete Bibles.

“Yes, very,” Mr. Doctrine and Mr. Experience again responded.

As the two men took their new Bibles, both held them as a treasure that had been theirs for a very long time, but had lain hidden under the extremes and limitations of their distorted views of God and his word. They felt the wonder of finding something new, and the grief of knowing it had been theirs the whole time.

“Anyone for a Bible study?” Mr. Accord suggested.

Both Mr. Doctrine and Mr. Experience broke into smiles as they opened their hearts to the wonderful opportunity just presented to them. Their godly sorrow over their limited and divisive understanding of God’s word suddenly turned into the joyful hope of looking at Scriptures together, and discovering how doctrine and experience as revealed in God’s word would lead them to the experience of living out the doctrines of God in real life.

“So, where would you like to begin?” Mr. Accord encouraged.

“How ‘bout in the beginning?” both suggested.

“After all,” Mr. Experience observed, “it does feel like we are starting all over again.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Mr. Doctrine affirmed.

And so began a wonderful relationship of truth spoken in love, building a fellowship of God’s children who were all the worshippers in spirit and in truth that God had been forming for longer than anyone knew. The Church learned what Mr. Experience had to offer in ways that Mr. Accord helped to see was fully in line with what was shared with Mr. Doctrine. And the Church grew as it built up one another in love.

© 2014 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com