On This Day: The Ultimate Higher is Jesus Himself

   But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
(John 4:23-26)

   For a very long time I have had a verse of Scripture overlaid over everything I do, and everything I desire for other people. It is Jesus’ words in his High Priestly prayer of John 17, “And this is eternal life, that they KNOW YOU, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

   Everything the Scriptures say about eternal life is ultimately about knowing the Triune God. Everything we do in the church is about people knowing God. Every leader of anything in the church should have a testimony of knowing God in a constantly growing and maturing kind of way.

   With that in mind, when I look at Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman, and I consider his aim of leading her to drink of the living water that would well up within her to eternal life, and then I feel the weight of his concluding words, “I am he”, I see how masterfully he led her to HIM. He was leading her to KNOW him.

   As I consider a lifetime of Highers-Deepers with Jesus, I see how he led me through “the valley of the shadow of death” on so many occasions to get me to the next experience of feeding in green pastures and lying down beside quiet waters. These experiences were all coordinated by God to lead me to know that “The LORD” who is “my shepherd” is “Yahweh” the Son. Meaning, Jesus is the shepherd David was talking about.

   This is why David was so personal about everything long before “the gospel” (good news) rang out at Jesus’ birth. Because the Lord Jesus Christ is my shepherd, “I shall not want”, or be lacking in anything I need. And then it is so clear:

   “HE makes me lie down in green pastures.”

   “HE leads me beside still waters.”

   “HE restores my soul.”

   “HE leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”

   Therefore, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for YOU are with me; YOUR rod and YOUR staff, they comfort me.” Note the amazing change of focus from telling us about HIM, to speaking to HIM about how personally we can know him.

   “YOU prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies”.

   “YOU anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.”

   “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD (Yahweh) forever.”

   What David testified in Psalm 23 a thousand years before Jesus came was a prophecy of the believer’s life. It would be about knowing God. Our life “in Christ” would be all about knowing God. The grand conclusion to Jesus’ dialogue with the Samaritan woman gives us an enduring picture of what it looks like to come to know God.

   I often talk to God about why he chose such a lonely road for me. He often reminds me that his ways and thoughts are so much Higher than mine that I need to trust his sovereign goodness and join him in whatever work he shows me each day. However, he also reminds me that his Holy Spirit has directed me into my place in the body of Christ so I can just be myself in Christ and trust him to build up others as he chooses. 

    Which makes me want to encourage you all the more to set your heart on knowing God. Agree with him about every Higher he shows you in his word no matter how painful or hopeless your life appears to be. Admit to him every Deeper thing you come to next and present it to him the way the Samaritan woman did. And remind yourself that the Samaritan woman was interacting with Jesus for real before she even knew who he was!

   As I write this, I keep having Paul’s words echoing in my mind, “that I may know HIM and the power of his resurrection” (Philippians 3:10). Paul’s example is based on the universal gift of God to all who believe: eternal life. And that eternal life to all believers has a universal reality: to KNOW God.

   Our journey through the Higher-Deepers of the Samaritan woman, along with our own personal experiences of God’s gracious ministry to our souls, invite us to “hunger and thirst” for the “righteousness” of knowing God, because Jesus has already provided everything we need to fulfill the “they shall be satisfied” promise.

 

© 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.)

 

On This Day: A Baptism of Repentance and a Psalm of Forgiveness

   And he (John the Baptist) went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. (Luke 3:3)

   O Israel, hope in the LORD!
    For with the LORD there is steadfast love,
    and with him is plentiful redemption.
And he will redeem Israel
    from all his iniquities. (Psalm 130:7-8)

   One of the most important tools for interpreting the New Testament is the Old Testament. This is particularly applicable to the gospels where we see Jesus expressing his ministry to the Jewish people of Israel. Much of what he did and taught is understood from what was already prophesied, what words already meant, and what God promised to do through his Son.

   Part of the blessing of my time with God in his word this morning was to remind myself of the message of Psalm 130. In 1989 when I went through a season of unemployment, I began the new year with the “resolution” to try to write music to at least a portion of each of the Psalms using the 1984 version of the NIV translation. When I came to this psalm, the first four verses seemed to flow quite naturally into a tune that I have since sung to myself countless times. 

   So, when I found myself singing these words in my head while making my morning coffee, I had to look up the psalm they were coming from and spend some time talking with Father about his thoughts on this scripture. 

   Reading, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD!” tells us how deeply sin affects us. And there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile when it comes to sin! 

   The cry of, “O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy!” speaks of the longing we have when we are overwhelmed by the guilt, shame, and fear of sin but desperately want our God to hear us anyway.

   I marvel at this admission, “If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.” No one, Jew nor Gentile, could ever stand before God if he refused to forgive us when we repented. But when we do repent, God forgives, and a sense of fear, reverence, awe, and wonder come over us that such a thing can happen to people like us.

   What this does to our souls is described so beautifully, “I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.” John’s baptism was a message of repentance and forgiveness to people who were waiting for Yahweh to come to their rescue. 

   And when we know how forgiving and good Yahweh is, we call out to our people, “O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.” We cannot escape this, that God’s “steadfast love” and his “plentiful redemption” would have been on the minds of the people of Israel when John the Baptist began preaching to them. 

   Those who heard this “good news” came to John for his baptism of repentance, and in so doing, they not only were forgiven of their sins, but their hearts were prepared for the one who would make this redemption possible, Jesus Christ our Lord.

   I encourage you to pray through Psalm 130 for yourself. So few people repent of their sins these days. But those who do, and who do so from their hearts, find in Jesus Christ the “good news of great joy” that was announced at his birth. He alone is the Savior, Christ the Lord, who redeems all who trust in him. 

© 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.)

The Glory of Forgiveness of Sin

I am now going through Psalm 65 applying the first verse to the whole rest of the Psalm. The first verse identifies Zion as the place where God’s children give him our praise, and each verse highlights different aspects of the praiseworthiness of our God. 

This morning I began here: 

1 Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion,     and to you shall vows be performed.

3 When iniquities prevail against me,     you atone for our transgressions.

What filled me with awe and wonder was the “everyday” sound to this. It wasn’t referring to David’s big sin with Bathsheba and his manslaughter charge against her husband. It was just describing a generic experience of being overcome by sin. 

Under the Old Covenant, Zion was the place where God atoned for the transgressions of his people. David didn’t say, “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day”[1] because he perfectly kept the Ten Commandments. He rejoiced in God’s law because it had provisions for any kind of sin that could overcome him!

If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities,

    O Lord, who could stand?

But with you there is forgiveness,

    that you may be feared.

(Psalm 130:3-4) 

This has been a favorite expression in the Psalms for a long time. I like the way the NIV expresses verse 3, “If you, LORD, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand?” If God had a record book where he marked down our iniquities, sins and transgressions, rhetorically speaking, who could possibly stand in his presence?! 

But everyone under the old covenant knew there was forgiveness of sins. Every conceivable way someone could sin had a provision for it in the covenant. The people simply had to have the faith to obey and observe what was required, but they knew that it was their God, glorious in Zion, glorious in the Most Holy Place of the Tabernacle, who forgave their sins through the death of a sacrifice. 

It is fascinating to me that I felt compelled to begin a journey through the scriptures to learn why Christians, especially us Gentile ones, could appreciate what it means in Hebrews that, “you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem…” What is the imagery of Mount Zion that would give us so much hope and encouragement even when being persecuted and beaten down by worldly authorities? 

I have already gained so much from this journey, and stopping at each viewpoint to take in whatever new facets of Zion are revealed in the scriptures, but today’s vantage point is to see the praise that is due to God in Zion because that is where the Tabernacle was, and that is where the people observed all the sacrifices that provided for the forgiveness of their sins, and that is where my mentor would go whenever he was overcome by sin, iniquity and transgression, absolutely assured that Yahweh God would forgive him. And for that, Yahweh was worthy of overwhelming praise! 

And that was all under the Old Covenant! 

Under the New Covenant, we have so much more!!! 

On the night that Jesus would be betrayed by Judas, deserted by all the disciples, and denied three times by Peter, our Savior said these words, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”[2] What Jesus’ death the next day would provide forever was a new covenant in which we would never again need to bring a sacrifice for sin in order to receive forgiveness. Jesus himself is that sacrifice, “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”[3] 

The point in this is that we must bring David’s expression, “Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion,” and let it attach to our own experience of, “When iniquities prevail against me,” so that we are all the more convinced that “you atone for our transgressions,” under the New Covenant in Jesus’ blood than David understood under the Old Covenant in the endless sacrifices that were required. 

After all, that is the point of the passage in Hebrews 12 that spurred me on to make the journey through scripture to get to know Mount Zion. We have not come to Mount Sinai where the Old Covenant with all its laws was given to Moses. 

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.[4] 

This reality gives us every bit as many reasons to praise Yahweh and Jesus Christ in the heavenly Zion as David worshiped with sacrifices of praise in earthly Jerusalem. God still forgives sin, but by a much greater sacrifice than David had ever seen. 

It is no wonder that Hebrews would conclude with such a glorious expression of praise as this: 

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.[5] 

 And all God’s people said, “AMEN!!!!!!!”

 

© 2023 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] Psalm 119:97

[2] Luke 22:20

[3] John 1:29

[4] Hebrews 12:22-24

[5] Hebrews 13:20-21

Summoned by Creator God

 

THERE ARE so many times when I meditate on God’s word that he shows me something that changes my mind for the rest of my life. Sometimes it is an abrupt about-face that leaves me letting go of a wrong belief to receive what is true. But most often it is an addition to the journey that gives me an awareness of something that will always be with me, a facet of wisdom and knowledge that will now influence everything I see and experience. 

THIS MORNING, it was the description of God as, “The Mighty One, God Yahweh,” who “speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.”[1] 

I GET that beginning this song with “The Mighty One” sets the stage, so to speak, for all that follows. Every prop, every scene, and every act, is what it is because Yahweh God is the Mighty One, the One and Only. Whatever we are told about him is supreme because of who he is. Period. No exceptions. No challengers. Utterly unstoppable in being himself and doing his will. 

TO THEN picture Yahweh God as the Mighty One who “SUMMONS” the whole world of humanity, and discover that the meaning of “summons” is, “to authoritatively communicate a demand for the presence or participation of”[2], tells me that every day of our lives, everything we see from God’s glorious creation, every time we notice the sun, or the moon, or the stars, or the mountains, or the oceans, or the trees, or the creatures of land, sea, and air, we are seeing and hearing a summons that has the authority of Yahweh God behind it. 

SINCE, THEN, Almighty God is summoning us with authority, and he is doing this all day long, around the whole planet, following the journey of the sun from every minute degree of rising to setting, what is the summons? Is it the encouraging summons of Yahweh Father God calling his beloved children to delight in him for our good and his glory, or is it the terrifying summons of the Judge of the whole earth who sees the sinful things man is doing and is calling us to account? After all, the Almighty God, Yahweh, is both Father and Judge. 

AT THIS POINT, answering that question would cheat us out of a viewpoint in the trail that has something to offer if we will stop and consider this view before seeing what is next. And this viewpoint makes us look directly into the eyes, and heart, and mind, of Almighty God Yahweh and let it sink in that he is the reason we stand at attention to his summons. 

YES, THAT IS IT! Almighty God, Yahweh, Jesus Christ, the Holy One, is all the reason we need to acknowledge the summons of the Triune and stand quietly before the Father and the Son in anticipation of what they have chosen to say every day of our lives. 

AND THE ONLY thing that matters here is whether we are summoned to them as their beloved children or their despised enemies. 

AFTER ALL, if we come before the Almighty Triune God as his enemy, with a stubborn, stiff-necked, and rebellious heart to remain so, all the glory and goodness he has revealed through his word and his creation is an indictment on us that we are without excuse.[3] However they judge us will be terrifyingly just. 

AT THE SAME TIME, if we come before the Triune God as his beloved children, and the awareness of his summons through his word and creation causes us to feel the fear and trembling they are due,[4] and fills us with the reverence and awe that belong to them alone,[5] whatever they must say to us will be agapè-hesed-love telling us the truth. Whether affirmations of our growth in righteousness, or condemnations of our sins and transgressions, God’s summons will be love and kindness bringing us home to the heart of our Savior. 

I ANTICIPATE that this journey through Psalm 50 will speak in so many ways of the glory of the God who summons us that I can rest today in the viewpoint Yahweh God has drawn me into, and I can enjoy the blessing and satisfaction of knowing that I know him better today than I have ever known him before. And that, while knowing I will be further along the trail tomorrow!

 

© 2023 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] Psalm 50:1

[2] Bible Sense Lexicon from Logos Bible Systems

[3] Romans 1:20 (in context of Romans 1:18-32, which appears to be an amazing commentary on Psalm 50!)

[4] Philippians 2:12-13, Psalm 2:11

[5] Hebrews 12:28

The Glorious Tapestry of the Pleasures of God

Yes, I know that people mock the very idea that the Bible is the word of God. And, yes, I know that people claim that king Darwin has dethroned the Creator with his fanciful fairy tales of the evolutionary religion. 

HOWEVER!!!!!!! 

While the blind lead the blind away from the glories of God’s word, the poor in spirit open the treasures of God’s wisdom and knowledge and are moved with awe and wonder at the splendors of their Father’s mind. 

One of the treasures of God’s Book that constantly delights me is the way he weaves his words together like the threads of a tapestry so that the combination exalts the big picture of history as God’s glorious work of making a people of his very own, his treasured possession, his beloved and cherished children, and, at the same time, the big picture of the tapestry draws attention to one thread after another so that the very intricacies of the connections glorifies God for so masterfully revealing himself through words, and by his Spirit, that we can feel the joy of knowing God as our God. 

Here is a glimpse into the way God masterfully wove together so many threads of wisdom and knowledge this morning that my praise to him had to be directed into praise about him. 

For a while, God has drawn my attention to a scene in the tapestry that is described as, “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.”[1] This is written to Jesus’ church, the people of the new covenant. It is telling us that, while we face persecution and trouble in this world, we are not to think of God as some scary being that is totally unapproachable.[2] Instead, we are to see what Jesus has done for us in the new covenant and come before God in a way that is illustrated by God’s people coming to Mount Zion while under the old covenant.[3] 

This has taken me on a journey of following the “Mount Zion” thread from its first appearance in the tapestry all the way to the glorious scene I just mentioned, and even further into the final book of God’s word that gives such majestic and glorious revelations of the heavenly Jerusalem that will be the home of God’s children forever. 

Here are some other threads God wove together in my mind and heart so I could see the picture of what it means to come to Mount Zion today in the kingdom of God as illustrated by all the ways God made himself known through the Mount Zion of old. 

In the last couple of days, I have followed the “Mount Zion” thread into Psalm 48. There I read that Mount Zion is God’s “holy mountain, beautiful for elevation”. Both “holy” and “beautiful” indicate that Mount Zion, the place associated with God’s presence with his people, is set apart and exalted above and beyond any of the locations the nations use to worship their gods and idols. 

This thread wove into another that reminded me of the way “God has highly exalted” Jesus[4] so that the holy and beautiful elevation of Mount Zion includes the holy and beautiful exaltation of Jesus Christ our Lord. 

But then I noticed another thread attached to these others as it reminded me that God “raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”[5] This means that even while we are here on earth looking up to the Mount Zion of God’s presence in heaven, there is another side to this in the way we who are “in Christ” are raised up with him and seated with him in the heavenly places. Somehow, already, our spiritual position is at the foot of Mount Zion where Jesus is exalted, and we are seated with him at the right hand of the Father. 

These threads added another that reminded me that, “in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”[6] We do not let ourselves adjust our emotions to the evil of the world, but we attach to the realities of Mount Zion that is filled with joy because of the joyfulness of God, and where Jesus himself is seated at the right hand of God’s eternal pleasures giving real pleasure to his beloved brothers. 

As I pondered and meditated on this, considering how we are both living as “sojourners and exiles” in this world[7] while also seated with Christ in the heavenlies, I saw how this thread was woven all the way back to Abraham who lived in tents while “looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.”[8] Abraham, the Father of our faith, lived like a stranger in the land that God has promised him, not looking only so far ahead as to consider the nation that would come from his son, but even further to the heavenly city he already knew was the focus of the story. 

And that led me to Paul talking about our earthly life as living in a tent,[9] just like Abraham, because this earth is not our home. This earthly body is not the one we live in for eternity (falling on the ice at public skating Friday has reminded me in new and painful ways that this body just ain’t what it used to be!). We will one day be clothed with immortality as we are given our resurrected bodies, and in that much superior version we will rejoice in heavenly joy forever.[10] 

The conclusion of all these threads weaving the picture God wants me to see right now is that everything he wants his children to think about in the darkness and evil of this world is that we are not coming to our nations, or our governments and leaders, or other world leaders and evil elites, but we are coming to the God who reigns from the heavenly Mount Zion where we are positionally seated with Christ in the most joyful and pleasurable place that exists. That is where we set our minds while the world’s evils try to wear us down. 

As the writer of Hebrews had already stated, 

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses (like Abraham), let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.[11] 

There we have it: Jesus is seated at the right hand of the throne of God on Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the Great King, where we are seated with him, where the fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore pour into our hearts from above while we endure the darkness of this evil world below, and as we “consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself,” we will “not grow weary or fainthearted.”[12] 

And I trust that my considering of the Triune God of Mount Zion helps you in that direction as much as it has helped me.

 

© 2023 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] Hebrews 12:22

[2] As described in Hebrews 12:18-21 when God came to Mount Sinai to give Israel the Law through Moses

[3] The rest of the scene is described in Hebrews 12:22-25 but my focus at this time is on the Mount-Zion thread

[4] Philippians 2:9-11

[5] Ephesians 2:6

[6] Psalm 16:11

[7] I Peter 2:11

[8] Hebrews 11:9-10

[9] II Corinthians 5:1-5

[10] Paul gives an extensive description of our resurrected bodies in relation to the resurrection in I Corinthians 15.

[11] Hebrews 12:1-2

[12] Hebrews 12:3

In2Freedom Vlog: Comfort for Attachment Pain

I don’t know when I first heard the word “attachment”, but as I learned what it meant, I realized that it was the bridge between things I knew inside me and what I saw revealed so clearly in God’s word of the love, joy, and peace of the Spirit that conditions the fellowship of God’s people. 

I can recall reading about people struggling to explain the Greek word “koinonia” which is translated into English as “fellowship”. I could sense that various writers had come across a treasure of close relationships in the early church that they longed to see reproduced in every generation. 

I can remember hearing about how Paul’s heart was expressed in the book of Philippians in such a personal way and knew that I wanted to get to know Paul like that. I could see for myself that he wrote the little book of Philemon to address a very personal and sensitive issue between two brothers in the Lord, and I knew that he had something going on in his relationships that was almost foreign to me. 

My point is that my discovery of the word “attachment” seemed to shed so much light on this quest to know and understand how important love-relationships were to God, and even how the triunity of God was so significant to what it meant for us to be made in the image and likeness of the Triune. 

In a very helpful book on developing relationships in the church, The Other Half of Church, I found this description of attachment: 

Attachment is the strongest force in the human brain. It is not an emotion, although we feel it strongly, and attachment runs much deeper in the brain below willful control. Attachment is the best word scientists could find for what glues people together and little creatures to their parents. It produces an enduring care for the well-being of another. Attachment is a life-giving forever bond with no mechanism in the brain to unglue us. If God has an enduring love for us that brings us good, the only force in the human brain that can understand such lasting kindness and care is the brain’s attachment system.[1]

My point in sharing this is simply that it explains how God designed our brains to match his design of our souls and spirits. He wants us attached to him in a love-relationship with him that consumes us in heart, soul, mind, and strength, and he wants us loving our neighbors as ourselves, loving our enemies as he loved us while we were enemies, and loving one another in the church in the very same way as Jesus loved us from the cross. Such a high and lofty aim has a level of reality to it that is absolutely stirring, while explaining why we are so traumatized by anything that is wrong in our relationships. 

If you’re still with me, this Vlog post is just a few minutes more of showing how personally God’s word speaks to our need for attachment, and for healing when attachments go wrong. May the word of Christ dwell in us richly even in this![2]

 

© 2022 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] Wilder, Jim; Hendricks, Michel. The Other Half of Church (pp. 81-82). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.

 

[2] Colossians 3:16