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: I Heard the LORD Call My Name

   Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? (John 6:28-30)

   Every day, as I spend time with my Father in his word and talk to him in prayer, there is a weaving together of his world and mine. He is not outside my world speaking in, but “God with us” in everything.

   Today, this ministered to me in another journey with God from one thought to another. Each discovery is an experience of knowing, and each truth known prepares for the next truth to be told.

   One of the most notable experiences of my present journey through John’s gospel is noticing themes that have not stood out before. And one of the most glaring is hearing Jesus teaching the same things to different groups in different words. It is like I am hearing a rhyming of thoughts emphasizing the realities of God for all people.

   For example, when Jesus talked with Nicodemus (John 3), he went straight to, “You must be born again”. No new birth, no kingdom of God experience.

   Then, in talking with the Samaritan woman (John 4), Jesus told her that if she had known who he was, she would have been asking him for living water, and that this living water would well-up within a person to eternal life.

   When Jesus got in trouble for healing an invalid on the Sabbath (John 5), he told the Religious Elite, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” Being born again, drinking the living water, hearing and believing Jesus’ words, are rhyming thoughts emphasizing the need to trust in Jesus for eternal life.

   And today, I’m in the midst of Jesus’ dialogue with the multitude that had experienced him feeding them with a miraculous distribution of bread and fish. First he confronted them with the fact that he knew they were looking for him only because he had filled their stomachs and they wanted more of the same.

   But what stood out was that it was the same kind of response as Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman. Nicodemus wondered how in the world he was to re-enter his mother’s womb so he could be born again. The Samaritan woman wondered how Jesus could give her this living water so she could stop coming to the well.

   And when Jesus began telling the multitude how “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent”, and the people wanted to know what works they were to do “to be doing the works of God”, Jesus reiterated, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

   And when they continued presenting their queries, he told them “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” As with the new birth, and the living water, the bread from heaven was all about Jesus.

   However, when the people replied, “Sir, give us this bread always,” it was the same as the Samaritan woman asking for the earthly version of the living water.

   In other words, Jesus kept speaking to the people the truth of God and watching the crowd to see who heard him. He would so often say something like, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” All seven letters to the churches in Revelation end with the same appeal of, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

   We cannot escape the fact that faith comes from “hearing”, not from “seeing”. The people all wanted to see signs. Even the religious elite who were bothered that Jesus gave the sign of healing an invalid couldn’t accept it because (to them) it was a violation of the law to heal on the Sabbath and so they asked for more signs. The multitude who went out to see Jesus because of his signs, concluded he was the Messiah because of his signs, and wanted a relationship with him based on his signs. However, he was only using the signs to reveal his glory so people would hear his voice and follow his words!

   And that’s when God took me back to seven years of age. I was in the front yard in Sandspit BC. Something made me suddenly look up at the sky and know God was watching me, and that it was good. Except that I didn’t “see” anything. No signs. But what God clarified this morning was that my experience was not of me thinking about him. It wasn’t me asking for or responding to a sign. Rather it was me hearing him call my name. In that childhood moment, I was responding to his thoughts about me as he chose to make them known right then and there.

   My next memory was of “hearing” my mom teaching our Sunday School class in Sandspit about Jesus. At twelve years of age, it was “hearing” the gospel and believing. At fourteen years it was “hearing” a certain facet of the finished work of Christ that settled that Jesus’ “once for all” death gave me my “once for all” salvation. And from there, the hearing and believing has continued to grow.

   I love what I have been able to share with you this morning as a golden thread in the divine tapestry, connecting the new birth, the living water, and the bread from heaven as God’s provision of salvation in Jesus Christ.

   But the greater thing is a testimony that if we will have a daily time with God in his word and prayer, and listen to sermons, Bible studies, biblical podcasts, Bible-centered videos, and even the Scriptures while driving places, we who belong to Jesus will constantly hear his voice, know what he is saying, and discern how to join him in his work.

   And, in doing so, we will keep getting to know the Triune God better every day than we have ever known him before.

 

© 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: Surprising Evidence that Jesus is God

   So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:18-20)

   I have had JW’s come to the door and tell me that Jesus is not God (I must be a marked man because I see them come to our neighbourhood, but no longer to my house!). I have watched videos of Muslims demanding that the Christians show where Jesus ever said the words, “I am God”. I have seen atheists defending their faith that there is no God. And I grew up with the agnostic claim that we can’t ever know if there is a God for certain.

   From a young age, I knew there was a God and that he was watching over me in a good way, so that ruled out atheism and agnosticism.

   Over the subsequent decades, I have seen the Triunity of God all through the pages of Scripture. It has been amazing to me how people can claim otherwise when it is so clearly revealed.

   A big part of the focus on the Trinity is whether the Bible ever presents Jesus as God. To me, that’s a silly question. Read your Bible. It presents Jesus as God.

   However, the older I get, and the better I get to know the Bible, the more delightful it is when God completely surprises me with something I have never noticed before. And all the more so when it is in a familiar section of Scripture!

   When Peter and John said, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God,” I suddenly saw two persons. The apostles first pointed upwards (with their words) to “in the sight of God”. For their Jewish listeners, in God’s sight meant in the sight of the God of Israel, the one we call “Yahweh”. God was in heaven above, so to be in his sight meant he was looking down on the proceedings, evaluating what both parties were doing (the apostles vs the religious elites).

   The second person was the one the apostles had listened to as “to God”. We could fill pages upon pages with examples of Jesus identifying himself as God, with the apostles and prophets revealing him as God, and how Jesus was the one who told the apostles to teach the “good news of great joy” announced by angels and fulfilled in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ the Lord.

   After the apostle John told us that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1-2), he added, “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” (vs 14). This is what the apostles had seen.

   The apostle Peter wrote of himself, “as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ” (I Peter 5:1). And, of course, Peter’s witness of the sufferings of Christ included the unforgettable experience of denying his Savior three times while Jesus was suffering on his way to the cross!

   There are such good resources online addressing Jesus’ deity in general, but also in specific response to Muslims, JW’s, Jews, and Mormons who all claim Jesus was not God. However, today God had a very personal ministry to me (after asking him to make my time with him feel like I was with him, not just me trying to understand his word), showing me afresh the multi-faceted revelation of his word that doesn’t require the exact words from Jesus, “I am God”, to show he, his Father, and the Scriptures, all bear witness to the deity of Jesus Christ our Lord.

   Did you need to see this treasure of wisdom and knowledge as much as I did? I certainly hope so. But if not, part of the lesson in sharing this is that God speaks through his word, so make sure you are in God’s word each day, hearing what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Whatever God shows each of us will be equally delightful in ministering to our souls exactly what we need in Jesus’ name.

 

© 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: To Rest in What is Revealed

   In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 
   All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (Luke 10:21-22)

   One of the biggest things I want people to know is that eternal life is to KNOW God. Jesus said, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). 

   Yes, that is the essence of what it means to receive eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus has secured the salvation by which we can return to the God who created us and know him as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

   This means that our daily interest should be in how well we know God. And, for some of us (at least people like me), how well I know God rests completely on how he feels about knowing me. 

   The stage on which Jesus has made his heart known to me over the years has been one littered by broken relationships. I grew up in a family that was broken. My attachment-light got stuck in the “always on” position because I was desperate to not miss the hope-springs-eternal time that someone might actually want to attach to me. When I learned that the term “hyper-vigilant” describes a mindstate that has been trained to be on guard against danger, I wanted to know how to bring that into my relationship with God.

   Or, how God was shining his spotlight onto my broken radar system so he could heal what was wounded and bring me to peace in my relationship with him.

   Since I had my first conscious awareness of God’s interest in me almost 6 decades ago, and then learned how to listen to him in his word in the most real and personal of ways almost 33 years ago, I can chart a relationship with God that has been growing because I am God’s child. My security with him doesn’t rest on how well I hang on to him, but on how settled his love is for me. My significance to him doesn’t depend on what I do for good, but what his goodness has delighted in for me before I was even created. My acceptance with God doesn’t rest on my good behavior that must always be that 1 ounce more than anything I do wrong. Rather, my acceptance with the Triune God rests on him accepting me in his beloved Son.

   No matter who I talk with, and no matter who I imagine might read this, my supreme interest is in how they know God. I regularly remind people to see the grace and peace of God in the Beatitudinal Valley because the way God blesses us is typically so different than religious (and irreligious) life has taught us. We need to attach to God in our poverty of spirit in order to know what it means to truly have peace with God. 

   Today it feels like God is comforting me in some of the most painful losses I have experienced as he shows me the reality of his desire to find me and have me as his own. Yes, the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Yes, the judge of all creation. Yes, the eternal Father, the glorious Son, the comforting Holy Spirit. They have a personal desire for me to know them and have gone through hell (so to speak) to have me. 

   If no one has told you this, stop pretending, and meet with God as you are. Tell “our Father in heaven” how you are doing. Be the child. Lay your complaints before him. Tell him what you don’t understand. Be honest. Be real. 

   And then listen. 

   Yes, open God’s word and listen to him. He is speaking. His Holy Spirit is with us to teach us all things and bring to our remembrance things we have already known. Whatever stands out, talk to him like that is what he is saying to you. Converse. Dialogue. Meditate on what he says. Cling to it with all your heart. 

   And today, let my testimony that learning “the Son CHOOSES (desires) to reveal” the Father to his beloved brothers encourage you that he will do the same for you as much as for me. Why? Because the level ground at the throne of grace is faith. Not necessarily great faith. Not even mature faith. Just faith that comes like a child and wants to get to know God. Yes, get to KNOW him!

   Eternal life comes through believing in Jesus Christ. And Jesus gives eternal life to us because we must be alive to know the Triune God. As John wrote, “In him (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).

   The darkness has not overcome Jesus’ work to pour the love of God into my heart by the Holy Spirit he has given us. Come to Jesus as you are and let him overcome the darkness in your life so he can lead you to know God better than you have ever known him before. 

© 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: Down in Humility; Up in Exalting

   As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:57-62)

   My wife was just reminding me a few days ago about what happened the first time I was going to teach through the Beatitudes in our home church ministry. We were in a series through Matthew that brought us to chapter 5. I initially thought I could do a summary of the eight Beatitudes in one message.

   However, as I was meditating on them leading up to that particular Sunday, the things I was learning about what it looks like to be blessed by God surprised me. What I had once thought was a “to do” list for believers turned out to be a “God is doing” list for the kingdom of heaven. 

   This was so mind-changing that I knew there was no way I could make do with an eight-point summary. I had to lead our church through these one at a time so we could be transformed by the mind-renewal God had given us (Romans 12:1-2). 

   The next big surprise was that, when I announced my change of plans from one message to eight, people voiced their despair that I was going to take that much time to look at these qualities. As one man said, “You’re taking the highest standards of the kingdom of God and you’re going to take eight weeks to tell people who already feel like crap about our walk with God all the things we are failing at?!”

   I couldn’t help smiling at how God had prepared me that week with a far different view from what we had been taught. For the next two months, we had a very uplifting time of considering NOT what were these “highest standards” of what God required OF us, but what were the marks of GOD’S blessing when HE was working IN us. 

   In other words, the Beatitudes do not list eight things we are to do to be blessed. Rather, they show us eight of the qualities we will find happening in our lives when God is blessing us. For what I now call the “downside” of the Beatitudinal Valley, we don’t try to be poor in spirit so God will bless us; God is blessing us with the “poor in spirit” experience so he can give us his kingdom. We don’t try to mourn so God will bless us; we accept that God is blessing us when we find ourselves mourning whatever is wrong between us and him because he wants to comfort us beyond our comprehension. We don’t try to attain meekness; we accept God’s work of blessing us with the meekness that admits we can’t fix ourselves and so we surrender to Jesus’ authority to save us, heal us, fix us, and transform us. And we don’t try to make ourselves hunger and thirst for righteousness so God can bless us; we acknowledge we are being blessed when we feel starving for the righteousness we do not have because we know God will satisfy that longing. 

   The same is with the other four qualities that describe the “upside” of the Beatitudinal Valley. We don’t try to be merciful so God will bless us; we agree that we are being blessed (and have been blessed) when we see how God is leading us to be merciful towards others as he has been merciful towards us. We don’t try to earn God’s blessing by purifying our hearts; we rest in God’s blessing as we join his work of purifying us from the inside out. We don’t try to make ourselves peacemakers so we can earn God’s blessing; we receive God’s blessing of turning us into his peacemakers who want nothing more than to see other people experience peace with God. And we don’t try to earn brownie points for good behavior when we are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, but we know we are being blessed by God when our walk with Jesus Christ receives the same hatred as he did when he was here.

   I share all that because today I needed to be reminded that we can face the absolutely most painful, hopeless, discouragements, and those days when feelings can’t even be described in words, and know that “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:17). 

   Two other Scriptures I really need to review so often are,

   For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.” (Isaiah 57:15)

   “All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the LORD. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” (Isaiah 66:2).  

   Today I’m being honest with God about things in me I can’t even explain. I’m trembling at his word that speaks of the exact things I am feeling and facing with such a gracious invitation to “draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8). And I’m going out on a prayer walk along a favorite trail that will help me experience the blessings of the Beatitudinal Valley God has set before me today. 

   And even though I don’t know all the specifics that await, I do know that humbling myself under the mighty hand of God today will lead to him lifting me up in due time however he decides is the most blessed way of doing so. 

© 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.)

A Personal Journey from Shame to Honor

LONG AGO, when God first showed me the “Deeper” of my orphan-mindedness, he began leading me on a journey of getting to know the Triune as the “first” of my family. Each “higher” that followed revealed to my orphan-mind what it meant to have a Father in heaven, a Firstborn Brother as Savior and Lord, and a Helper in the Holy Spirit who would be Jesus with me always. 

HOWEVER, in one memorable Deeper I discovered that, of the three persons of the Triune, it was Jesus who triggered the most negative-emotion reaction in me. I realized that I had a “fear-based identity”, and the fear reactions seemed to come from a stronghold of shame that was free to do whatever it wanted in my life. I also learned that the shame felt strongest when I pictured Jesus looking at me. 

THIS MORNING, I was traveling through a deeper layer of the familiar orphan-minded territory. I was facing how my life has been affected by the reviling and harsh criticism Jesus is talking about in his Beatitudes. And God totally surprised me with one word of his word: “HE”. 

I HAD BEEN praying through the first chapter of John’s gospel in a surprising journey of statements I was affirming as true in themselves, but also very real to me personally. I acknowledged that Jesus was the true light who came into the world, that he was the Creator who made all things, that the world did not know him and his own people did not receive him, but that there was this glorious contrast in God’s gift of grace to those who did receive him, and who did believe in his name. 

AND THEN it hit me: “HE gave the right to become children of God”, and that “HE” is talking about JESUS!!! 

WHEN I REPLAYED my life, starting with my first awareness of God at age seven, and knowing that I had been one of those in the world who did not know him or receive him, God was adding Jesus to the picture in a way I had never seen him before. What I have always thought of as “God” letting me know he was watching over me even from an early age now had this distinctive addition, that it was JESUS who was giving me “the right” to become a child of God! 

THE POINT is not that I have been a dufus all these years and had never noticed the left-brain-obvious. 

RATHER, the point is that today was the day God chose to expose a “deeper” of woundedness infected with shame that needs to be healed for me to rejoice in the persecutions of the past, present, and future. His love, grace, and mercy chose this for today because it was the only way I would notice the “higher” of “HE” (Jesus) gave me the right to become a child of GOD! 

WHICH MEANS THAT, in the most real and personal of ways, Jesus Christ my Lord was granting to me, a seven-year-old boy, the divinely-given right to become a child of God right then and there (1965). And, because Jesus did this, personally giving me the right to become a child of God, I was “born, not of blood (my human lineage) nor of the will of the flesh (me trying to be born) nor of the will of man (my parents wanting to have children), but of God (by God foreknowing me, and predestining me to the adoption of sonship, and calling me to himself by the gospel, and justifying me by grace through faith, and glorifying me in his presence when I will be just like Jesus when I see him as he is).” 

AT PRAYER MEETING last night we were just talking about how, when we pray about things, we do not decide what to look for that will match our expectation of how God will answer our prayers. Instead, we pour out our hearts to God like children, and then watch what happens in the coming days to see how God is working everything together for good in our lives. We know that whatever he does next will come from his thoughts and ways that are so much higher than our own that we can’t possibly imagine we can tell him how to answer our prayers! 

WHICH MEANS THAT, noticing the beautiful pronoun “HE” is like a one-word answer to my prayers from last night. It serves as the first domino falling into every truth and reality about Jesus Christ my Lord that God wants to be far more real and personal to me than ever before. 

AND, it is knowing Jesus Christ as the Savior who personally granted me the right to believe in him, and to receive him, and to become a child of God by grace through faith, that shines in direct contradiction of all the shameful things this orphan-minded child has ever felt, and all the fear-based-identity reactions that have hindered my walk with God, so I could feel the attachment to my Savior that he was not merely doing what his Father told him to do, but he was doing for me what his own love delighted to do! 

AND SO, I “consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that I may not grow weary or fainthearted” in the hostilities that have come against me because of knowing him. HE granted me the gift of the new-birth into the adoption of sonship. And HE is worthy to be worshiped by me rejoicing in the reviling and harsh criticism that is now a badge of honor instead of a bruise of shame. 

I HAVE heard what God is speaking to me about this morning. I can see what he is doing in me to prepare me for things he is doing around me. And I am joining him in his work by praising Jesus for personally granting me the right to become a child of God by grace through faith, and by practicing joy in response to any form of persecution that may come today, and in every memory of harsh criticism and reviling that plucks at the heart-strings. 

AND I HOPE that facing these things in my walk with God this morning is as helpful to you as it has been to 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.)

The Stage for Getting On With It

Okay, this is how real it gets! 

If you have ever been blind-sided by intense attachment-pain for any reason whatsoever, do I ever have a testimony for you! 

Instead of giving story-specifics, something that always seems to involve other people, I will use Paul’s example when he referred to his “thorn in the flesh” without telling us what it was.[1] That description invited everyone to identify with him in anything that feels similar in our lives, and look at Paul’s testimony of how God helped him through his situation so we can be encouraged about how God will help us through ours. 

Let me just say that my situation involves the very common experience of attachment-pain, and any kind of attachment-pain situation can relate. 

The generic applies-to-everything answer to this and every other situation in life is, God speaks to us through his word, he shows us what he is doing (usually starting with is work in us), and he invites and helps us to join him in his work. We need to know God like that every day of our lives no matter what we are going through. 

However, there is a specific and personal testimony of how God is helping me with my attachment-pain experience, and it may add some personalized details that will encourage you as well. The aim is to help you listen to what God is saying to you through his word, admit what he is doing in you and around you, and build up your courage to join him in his work no matter what lovingly-heart-searching things you must feel or express to know him in your situation. 

Context: There is something on today that heightens the possibility of encountering a sensitive and painful situation where attachment-pain has already happened. There are lots of feelings about this, and I am staying close to Father about it. There is one set of emotions in play considering what might happen to cause new attachment-pain, and another set at the ready if nothing takes place at all (a different facet of attachment-pain). 

Prelude: last night (I think as I was praying in bed), God made clear that my earthly-relationships side needs to take a backstage role to my agapè-hesed-love-disciple-of-Jesus side.[2] Jesus is not telling me to stop feeling grief in any attachment-pain I experience, but he is telling me that I need to attach to him so that, should I encounter the circumstances-of-concern, my interest is in how anyone else involved will experience God’s best for them rather than a resolution to anything that has happened between us. This orients me to where my heart ought to be because I am pursuing the agapè-hesed-love of God towards everyone I meet, enemies included. 

Spotlight: My time with God: 

1.     I began by considering how Jesus related to the things he experienced with Isaiah 53:3 in mind, “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” Astounding and inviting!

2.    This means he truly knows what I have gone through and is giving me permission to use these very words to describe my experience.

3.    I looked up all the key words in that verse so I could meditate on them more in-depth. It is quite mind-blowing to consider what Jesus went through, and how it was prophesied that he would do so, which means he KNEW IN ADVANCE!!!

4.    The biggest “AHA! Moment” was considering what Jesus did next. And that takes me into Isaiah’s description of Jesus laying down his life in order to give us life. The lesson to me is obvious. There are things to “lay down in love” so they become stepping-stones to loving better rather than stumbling-stones to loving less.[3]

5.    And that brought me to another experience of this scripture: “But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.”[4] A weaned child becomes calm and quiet because they are no longer crying and screaming and demanding that they need to keep nursing. Once the child is “weaned”, the process of weaning is finished, the child is resigned to being a big boy or girl, and there is no further demand to go back. The application is obvious.

6.    All of this was still in the context of John 5 that even when despised and rejected, Jesus did NOTHING of himself, and ONLY what he saw the Father doing. That is clearly what God is working into me even while living with my own experience of similar things.

7.    I will make this the last one, that there was a thought hovering over all my meditations the whole time, and that was what it was like for Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. I believe that, in Gethsemane, the way Jesus prayed is what it looked like for him to interact with the Father over the most intense and pure sorrows and grief the human heart could ever experience and never once separate himself from the Father because he was angry, or hurt, or disappointed (I have lots of examples of people shutting down to God when they are hurt, angry, or disappointed, so this is amazing).[5] 

As you may imagine, this was way too much for me to take in this morning. It was like watching the Spirit show me all the props on the stage, explaining why each one was there, but now I will see the scene unfold in real life over the next while so that I get to know Jesus as the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief more than ever, and will attach to him in laying down my life in love for anyone he chooses, including the worst enemies who have caused me the greatest harm.[6] 

By the end of my time with God I was in awe and wonder at the realities of the word, and the personal ministry of the Spirit to overwhelm me with his wisdom and knowledge for my good and the Father’s glory. I hope it helps you get to know your heavenly Father better than you have ever known him before! 

 

© 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.)

 

[1] II Corinthians 12:7-10

[2] “Agapè” is one of the Greek words in the New Testament that is translated “love” in our English Bibles. However, it is referring to the distinctive nature of God’s love. When us children of God are called to agapè-love others just as Jesus has agapè-loved us, it is calling us to love with that distinction that we are imitating and expressing God’s love rather than limiting ourselves to family-love, friendship-love, or brotherly-love. “Hesed” is the Hebrew word from the Old Testament part of the Bible that speaks of God’s covenantal love, or the distinct love God has for his own people as expressed through his covenants. This word is so deep with meaning that it is typically translated with double expressions like, “unfailing love,” or, “steadfast love”. It includes the qualities of mercy, kindness, and goodness towards God’s children because of their distinctive relationship with him. Both Hesed and Agapè combine for God’s children in Christ as they show us so clearly how God loves us and how undeniably this love expects us to pass on to others what we have freely received in Christ.

[3] John 10:17 and John 15:13 relate to Jesus laying down his life for us; I John 3:16 shows the expectation that we “ought to lay down our lives for the brothers”.

[4] Psalm 131:2

[5] Matthew 26:36-46; Mark 14:32-42

[6] Psalm 27 is one of the scriptures that I have been able to attach to in my situation, and so is Psalm 119:81-88. There are others that describe similar situations, so we know we are never unique in what we go through.

My Prayer Journal: The Mutual Blessing of God and his Child

I am going to edit my prayer-journaling into a shareable version in the hope that it will encourage someone with how to be utterly open and honest with God so he can surprise you with the blessing of hearing him speak through his word, watching him show you his work, and joining him in whatever he is doing. This morning was such an extreme contrast in how I began and ended my time with God that I am even more eager to find out who would benefit from the benefit I received. 

The context for me is waking up each day with a very painful experience of grief. I have lost some people who have been family to me. It has triggered that old fear-based propensity to figure out what to do to avoid (or reverse) such rejection. God has been training me how to replace that planning and strategizing with listening and prayer. And the way he has helped me has magnified the blessing of how God speaks through his word, shows us what he is doing, and draws us to join him in his work. 

One of the biggest lessons of late was in Jesus’ words to Peter, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!”[1] That turned into an application of, “If it is my will that (anything to do with anyone about anything at all), what is that to you? You follow me!” The point being, even my plans and strategies for how to win back the people who have disowned me are none of my business. Whatever his will is for them is just that, HIS will, and of no immediate concern to me until he tells me otherwise. However, he does have something he is doing with me, and he wants me to follow him without any limitations because I am busy imagining what he should do with someone else. 

With all this as my morning intro, Father had a surprise for me as I came back to the passage I have been meditating on for a while now. 

And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”[2] 

My focus was on the unified declaration of all the angels: “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” The sevenfold declaration resonates with the glorious symbolism of the book of Revelation. The “Amens” are as two witnesses giving parenthesis to the truthfulness of the sevenfold expression of praise to the Almighty. 

And so, my focus followed the spotlight to: “Blessing… be to our God forever and ever!” The definition of the Greek word translated “blessing” is: 

Blessing: blessing n. — the speech act of praying for divine favor or protection; especially with the idea that even the audience (as well as the recipient) receives a benefit from the utterance.[3] 

What began to capture my mind, heart, and soul, was this reality that the things I do in the material realm somehow affect what God experiences in the spiritual realm even though I am bound by time and he is exalted in eternity. If he hears our cries, pleas, and petitions, and answers us according to his good, acceptable and perfect will, the hearing and answering are somehow mirrored in eternity as they unfold in time. And, yes, it felt good to my brain to let my mind meditate on this! 

But what began to form in my mind was an amazing realization that my heavenly Father is “blessed” in blessing me. The “blessing” that is his forever and ever, that his children are constantly attaching to him in prayer for divine favor and protection, means that he is delighted in my confession of need for him. 

Here is how I expressed this in my prayer-journaling: 

“Father, let me rest in this, that if blessing is to be to you forever, then it is to be to you now. I am to rise up into this gracious and glorious gift of blessing your name, and trusting in you, and delighting in expressing myself to you. You do not tire of me asking you for divine favor. You do not tire of me asking you for divine protection.

“How is it that you would receive a benefit from this child asking you for your favor and protection over me and my family and my church and your kingdom throughout the world during this time of grief and sorrow? How is it that you would find something personal in me reaching up to you for help? Is it trustworthy for me to think of what it is like to be a caregiver to children?

“Father, this is my mind change today, that the act of your children blessing you, expressing your worth in seeking divine favor and protection, is of MUTUAL benefit. How wonderful is that, O God!

“Father, I am letting this sink in today. You are blessed in a way that benefits you. It is good for you. I do not know how it is that you are in eternity, unbound by time, with this moment being known to you forever, and yet you are relating to me with genuine responsiveness. It is such a wonder, O God, that this timebound child with his timebound and childish expressions to you is coming with mutual benefit to me and the Almighty because that is the way the Almighty is. I have not made you this way. I have not shaped you being the way you are. You cannot change into someone else at all or ever.

“And so, Father, I enter the benefit of this thought to me. To pray to you now for your divine favor and protection is so beneficial. To pray this in relation to the people who have disowned, rejected, and falsely accused me, and consider that it is to my benefit to pray to you like this, and it is to your benefit to receive prayers like this… it is so mindbogglingly wonderful that I am going to revel in it to the glory and praise of God! Praise be to the name of God Most High for me to be taught by the Spirit in words of ultimate and perfect wisdom and knowledge and truth and love.

“O God, right now, I could suddenly picture that the Holy Spirit is smiling on me to teach me this very truth today. “Abba! Father!” he cries, and smiles! He draws me into this ultimate good of something that is of mutual benefit.

“Father, the picture that is fleetingly shown to me of the Spirit makes me want to know you like that. I have never considered the Holy Spirit with a smile on his face, and yet it is the thing I must know. The kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or what we drink, or any kind of rules about anything at all. Rather it is about “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”[4] What wonders these are! 

These thoughts of praise led me back to the personal and practical issues of life where I had to consider how the church of the Nicola Valley is doing, and what kind of letter Jesus would write us after the fashion of the ones he wrote to the seven churches of Revelation. What would he teach us, rebuke and reprove us, correct us, and train us in righteousness,[5] if only we would repent of losing our first love, and of allowing division and idolatry to poison the oneness of the body of Christ[6]? 

However, as my mind was brought back to the angels that surround the throne of God, with the reminder that they are, “all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation,”[7] I realized that these ministering spirits would be delighting in what I know today. With fear and trepidation and reverence I allowed myself to wonder if they were reading my prayer journaling over my shoulder since they can’t read my mind? 

“Is it their joy to know that I am learning something so wonderful about you, that you draw me into the blessing that is to you forever? And the Holy Spirit is smiling at me, and towards me, and with me, at the mutuality of this blessing, that the prayer for divine favor is of mutual benefit to him and to me." 

This led into a prayer that expressed my desire for God give me divine favor with the very people who have wronged me. I genuinely wanted the mutual benefit with God and me to extend into a mutual benefit to and with them. I wanted God to take the things Satan had intended for harm and division to be multiplied back to us in unity and oneness in our Lord Jesus Christ. 

“O God, you are pleased to have me pleased in asking you for this. It is your good pleasure to tell me today that it delights you to be blessed with prayers for your divine favor. And it is your timing today, while grief takes its hold on me so painfully, to not only tell me this in words, but to show it to me in pictures, and mutual mindstate about your goodness and grace.

“Father, this is just the beginning. Having these thoughts this morning is just the invitation. And yet, they are the invitation into what is happening right now, while showing me that you are inviting me into a lifetime of this, of knowing that you are delighted in me being delighted in you.

“Father, what a delight to me! And this must be a delight to you! And all because a word of Scripture has pierced my heart and mind so that I KNOW you are somehow experiencing something in relation to me that is right now. It is this moment. I do not know how that is in eternity. I do not know what the mind of God experiences when you know you are going to teach me this today, and you are already delighted to do so, and delighted with the outcome, and so pleased with me as your son even though it is all your work to do this, and yet it is so pure and real and personal and sincere and genuine on my part because of the wonders of how you have made us in your image and likeness!

“O God in heaven, I give my ‘Amen!’ with the angels’ ‘Amen!’ ‘Blessing… be to our God forever and ever! Amen!’ The mutual blessing of me asking for your divine favor and protection today, with your delight in your child asking for this, and my delight in you receiving my request and answering according to your will, is not only of mutual benefit to you and me, to you as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together, and to me as your born-again son, but you have shown me that the angels are delighted to look into these things with pleasure that what they know about you is being received and granted to me as they minister to my spirit in the spiritual realm, O God.

“What joy you give me this morning, and I want to bless others with it, and to bless you in my sharing it with others, and to bless and honor you as I leave it in your hands how you choose to show me your favor and protection.

“I ask for this blessing now for the whole body of Christ in the Nicola Valley, that you would show us divine favor in experiencing the fullest possible measure of revival and restoration. Make us one, Father, no matter how much reviving-or-removing you must do to anyone. You are God, and you have a will, and all I want is for you to do whatever it takes today to pour out your blessing on your church in the Nicola Valley and turn every heart of every child of God back to first love in Jesus’ glorious and wonderful name!”         

And now that God and I are delighted with this mutual interchange of blessing, I head into today with anticipation that God will show me what else he has in mind by turning me from the grief and strategizing that joined me as I met with him, to blessing others with the blessing I enjoy with God simply because I attached to him in his word and prayer. 

“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

 

© 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] John 21:22 (context: John 21:20-25)

[2] Revelation 7:11-12

[3] Bible Sense Lexicon

[4] Romans 14:17

[5] As per II Timothy 3:16-17

[6] Summarizing some of the issues Jesus presented in the seven letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3. It also includes a reference to Jesus’ High Priestly prayer in John 17 where it is so clear that being “one” is a non-negotiable, and anyone who deliberately causes division in the church is guilty of direct defiance of Jesus’ own prayer. Yes, it is that serious.

[7] Hebrews 1:14