God's Word Revitalizes

I began reading my selected scriptures today with, to be honest, zero interest. I only had a slight desire to even find interest in it today. There's no special reason other than my wicked flesh, and perhaps my cat's attitudinal fight with me over my reading space. The point being, I wasn't even halfway through my reading, when my heart just softened, and I was drawn into what I was reading!

In Numbers 35-36, I saw the genius of the Old Testament legal system, and inheritance system. In Proverbs 12, I was reminded about the very basic principle building upon foundations for life, and their consequences. And in Mark 15 I was moved again by the depiction of Jesus Christ suffering mockery and excruciating death for my sake. Just a few minutes worth of my day, but I'm reminded of and refreshed by the wisdom and kindness of God towards such a worm as myself. I recommend gty.org for their daily Bible reading list. Personal opinion: I noticed that Mark mentions that the veil separating the holy of holies in the temple from the outer courts was torn "from top to bottom"; this immediately made me think of God being the one who works redemption in His people; from Him to us, not the other way around.

Still wrestling with those previously mentioned issues as a result of reading Scougal's book: The Life Of God In The Soul Of Man. Some help in this area has come from another book I'm going though called Precious Remedies from Satan's Devices, by Thomas Brooks, which I hope to write a (shoddy) review of in the next few days. Song recommendation for the fellow-wrestlers out there: "Refugee" by West Coast Revival

Book Review: The Life of God in the Soul of Man, by Henry Scougal

The Life of God in the Soul of Man

by: Henry Scougal

Book Length: 121 pages, not counting introduction by J.I. Packer, and the handbook at the end of the book, Rules and Instructions for a Holy Life, by Robert Leighton

Who is this book for?:

Mind you, this is according to my own insights and opinions: Are you a Christian, who wants to be a real Christian? Do you find that though your spiritual life, while compared to others may be above average, it still seems a bit muted? What I mean by that is, do you have even a dull, nagging sense that while you pass the bar in others eyes of what a spiritual person ought to look like, there is more to be had of God? If that's so, this book is for you. If you've been feeling that way, I think that's a very good thing. After all, we are the called-out ones, but it seems that Christians of our day often are called-out only in the sense that they go to church, don't necessarily cuss, and believe that Jesus alone is Savior.

General Thrust of the book:

There is another kind of life or as the Puritans often phrased it "experimental life" with God, that is available not only to pastors, missionaries etc, but to all who have the Spirit of God through faith in Christ and repentance from sin. Scougal spells out this "sweet felicity of soul" in good detail, and then goes about giving you a basic game plan for experiencing it in your own life. His basic argument is that like Switchfoot says, we were meant to live for so much more; namely for God's glory, through finding our joy in Him. God has wired man with capacities of experience and satisfaction, that can only be met by His infinitely satisfying Person. Scougal basically says that is why all other pursuits inevitably come up short in truly satisfying the soul of man, leaving him with that ever-present restlessness in his heart, that can masquerade as boredom or loneliness.

It could be my personality, but I am the kind of guy who likes lists. I don't mean some kind of pharisaical legalism in order to please God by works, but I really appreciate it when someone kind of spells out how to generally achieve whatever picture they paint about the victorious Christian life. Scougal does a nice job in giving plain advice in how to attain the picture he does so well to paint for us, in providing a kind of list for what to do, and what not to do, and I like that. The humbling kicker about this book is the age of the author. I probably missed where it said his age when penning this letter/book, but it was no later than his mid-twenties. It used to only depress me when I would find a person who is more mature or advanced in study than I am in the Christian life, but by God's grace, it more-so humbles me than anything else, and drives me to want to make up for lost time and seek the same results, according to the grace that God gives me that is.

Be warned though: this book will present to you that higher standard you wished to see before opening it. Scougal will help you to really look at your life, your heart, and identify those darling idols that it turns out you were already generally aware of, and perhaps knowingly guarding. As someone who's just finished the book, I can say right now, that it will cause you, if you really do want to live how God intends, to begin to wrestle with some big lifestyle questions.

A sample of the questions I am currently planning to get in the ring with:

-is it necessary, or am I willing to say goodbye to video games, most movies, most tv, and and some web-surfing?

-how much prayer time ought I really be spending daily?

-am I willing to not keep company that will only encourage vain living?

-am I willing to pay the price of my friends looking on me as even more of a "legalist" or "judgmental" guy?

-how does this understanding affect my interactions with those I consider my brothers and sisters in Christ? How much to I hold them to this new standard? Or in other words, if what Scougal wrote is biblical and true, do I not have a responsibility to make others aware of it, or is God who is first and foremost Holy, okay if only some professing Christians are concerned with living how He wants them to? In my experience, Christians often tell me to let God change them etc, and basically mind my own business. While it is true that God does indeed need to do the work in a person, He primarily does that work through His own people, who share rightly-interpreted scripture with one another in love-iron sharpening iron.

Quotes from the book:

I literally killed my highlighter when going through this book, but here are some choice-cuts from The Life of God in the Soul of Man:

"The love of God is a delightful and affectionate sense of the Divine perfections, which makes the soul resign and sacrifice itself wholly unto Him, desiring above all things to please Him, and delighting in nothing so much as fellowship and communion with Him, and being ready to do or suffer any thing for His sake, or at His pleasure. Though this affection may have its first rise from the favours and mercies of God toward ourselves, yet doth it, in its growth and progress, transcend such particular considerations, and ground itself on his infinite goodness, manifested in all the works of creation and providence."

(referring to Jesus) "He had none of those sins and imperfections which may justly humble the best of men; but He was so entirely swallowed up with a deep sense of the infinite perfections of God, that He appeared as nothing in His own eyes; I mean, so far as He was a creature."

"He who, with a generous and holy ambition, hath raised his eyes toward that uncreated beauty and goodness, and fixed his affection there, is quite of another spirit, of a more excellent and heroic temper than the rest of the world, and cannot but infinitely disdain all mean and unworthy things; will not entertain any low or base thoughts which might disparage his high and noble pretensions."

"Perfect love is a kind of self-dereliction, a wandering out of ourselves; it is a kind of voluntary death, wherein the lover dies to himself, and all his own interests, not thinking of them, nor caring for them any more, and minding nothing but how he may please and gratify the party whom he loves: thus, he is quite undone, unless he meets with reciprocal affection; he neglects himself, and the other hat no regard to him; but if he be beloved, he is revived, as it were, and liveth in the soul and care of the person whom he loves; and now he begins to mind his own concernments, not so much because they are his, as because the beloved is pleased to own an interest in them: he becomes dear unto himself, because he is so unto the other."

"There is no slavery so base as that whereby a man becomes a drudge to his own lusts, or any victory so glorious as that which is obtained over them. Never can that person be capable of any thing that is noble and worthy, who is sunk in the gross and feculent pleasures of sense, or bewitched with the light and airy gratifications of fancy; but the religious soul is of a more sublime and divine temper; it knows it was made for higher things, and scorns to step aside one foot out of the ways of holiness for the obtaining of any of these."

"And this purity is accompanied with a great deal of pleasure: whatsoever defiles the soul disturbs it too: all impure delights have a sting in them, and leave smart and trouble behind them. Excess and intemperance, and all inordinate lusts, are so much enemies to the health of the body, and the interests of this present life, that a little consideration might oblige any rational man to forbear them on that very score..."

A Glimpse of God's Holines - A Panorama of His Love

A Glimpse of God's Holiness -A Panorama of His Love- Pondering God's holiness is a rarity for me, to be honest. In most cases, that hits my brain in the same category as pondering the vastness of space, or the concept of eternity-abstract and hard to grasp. To my shame, this is the excuse I use to practically merely assent to the fact that God is holy. I mean, God's holiness is self-evident in the fact that just one sin against Him qualifies man for an eternity of punishment and torment in Hell, but does His holiness extend beyond His absolute Justice? Theologians have written tomes of beautiful books on the subject of God's holiness, and I am a fool to think I could add to what's already out there, but I have been pondering a few passages of scripture that have been helpful for me to see better Just how holy God is, specifically in the person of Jesus Christ; scriptures which have also blown my mind in revealing all the more just how much Jesus loves the sinners whom He died for. In the Old Testament, God had the Israelites fashion a sort of box known as the Ark of the (Mosaic) Covenant, which would represent God's presence and covenant with His people known as Israel. This ark was carefully kept with the Israelites as a sign that God was with them according to His covenant; and was greatly revered. However, it was not merely a symbol of God's presence, for He did manifest Himself with it on more than one astounding occasion. There is much that could be talked about with the ark, like why God chose the specific items He did to be its contents, but today I'd like to focus in on one particular event that happened in 2 Samuel 6-9: 6"But when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out toward the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen nearly upset it. 7And the anger of the LORD burned against Uzzah, and God struck him down there for his irreverence; and he died there by the ark of God. 8David became angry because of the LORD'S outburst against Uzzah, and that place is called Perez-uzzah to this day. 9So David was afraid of the LORD that day; and he said, 'How can the ark of the LORD come to me?'" If this is your first time reading this passage, it might have been quite a shocking event to read about. The Israelites were transporting the Ark (which is supposed to represent God being with His people), when suddenly the Ark nearly fell off the cart; Uzzah tried to make a save and ended up getting killed instantly! If you are like me, then your first reasoning here is going to be man-centered. "Why did God kill poor Uzzah for just trying to do a good thing and steady the precious Ark?" We can see that David was having similar struggles in processing what had just happened: "David became angry because of the LORD'S outburst against Uzzah…" As fallen humans, we gravitate naturally towards Uzzah's defense, but we ought to be looking at the fact that God did this-and He is never capricious. Why would God kill anyone? Is there anything about man that warrants death? We can see in the book of Genesis that Adam, our forefather and representative on behalf of mankind, committed mankind's first sin forfeiting his eternal life and introduced death into the world. Since that time, man has been born in a state of sin, and lives his days in both covert, and overt rebellion and warfare towards God. Now that we import that background information into the context of Uzzah's death, we see the problem: Uzzah was a sinner. Perhaps Uzzah was a good and virtuous man in the eyes of other men, but God sees the inward workings of the heart as well as outward actions. Any time sinful man comes into direct contact with Holy God, God's holiness and justice demand enforcement which inevitably is death and an eternity in hell. Uzzah's problem is the same problem man (even religious man) has today: people often recognize God's kindness and compassion etc, but make the fatal error in thinking that those attributes override His holiness. So Uzzah presumptuously reached out to steady the Ark, forgetting that it was holy and that he dare not touch the sacred object (which again represented God's presence), and exposed himself to the holy wrath of God. We see this confirmed in verse seven: "And the anger of the LORD burned against Uzzah, and God struck him down there for his irreverence; and he died there by the ark of God." I'd like to point two things before moving forward: Firstly to the Christian, we must remember not to compromise what we know to be true and right in order to 'help' God fulfill His purposes in any given thing. And we must not forget that God is always Holy, and while we can rest safely in His presence thanks to Christ' imputed righteousness and be fully accepted by Him, we dare not tread lightly on His holiness. We can see the result of that when Ananias and Saphaira were struck down by God for telling even one lie (and that was in church!). If God wanted to keep the Ark from falling, He didn't need Uzzah's 'help'; He need only say "stand" and the ark would obey. God is the Sovereign Lord over all of creation, and He commands every atom of it to do exactly what He deigns necessary to fulfill His purposes. If God promises something in His Word to you believer, and you are correctly interpreting a promise intended for you, He does not need help fulfilling that promise; He Himself will do it for His glory. Secondly for the unbeliever: this account of Uzzah's death should make you fear God- that would be the beginning of wisdom for you. Most people believe that if they lead a 'good' life, that God will accept them into heaven. However, if you live by that philosophy, when you die, your sin will come to meet God's holy wrath head on, and you will not withstand it. Just as a criminal cannot bribe a judge with works of reform or charity, so the sinner cannot please God while being a law-breaker on the run. God provided a sacrifice in Jesus Christ so that by His perfect life, death, and resurrection if applied to you, you may enter safely and confidently into God's holy presence. But salvation is only found in Jesus Christ; there is no other payment for the sins you've committed. To refuse such a kind and undeserved offer will only add to your condemnation. So please, do take that offer; repent of your sins and trust only in what Christ has done on behalf of sinners so that you will be clothed in Christ's righteousness before God both now, and whenever it is that you die, or He comes again. Christ Himself taught a parable of a wedding banquet (representing a sort of coming together- party' for those who have trusted in Christ and repented of their sins to be untied with Christ) in which a man tried to sneak into the banquet without proper wedding clothes (representing Christ's righteousness) and when the host of the banquet found him (God) He cast him out into outer darkness (eternal hell) for daring to enter His house with filthy rags, after refusing His proper invitation (the gospel) and offer to properly clothe him. Condescension is a Good Thing Now let us fast-forward to the first century: nearly 1000 years have gone by; Israel is laboring desperately try to keep the law of Moses, and making animal sacrifices over and over to temporarily cover their sins against God, exhaustedly awaiting their Messiah to come to satisfy God's demand for justice. I'm sure Uzzah's death made a lasting impression in every Israelite's mind. I'm sure every Jew reading the Torah growing up had no doubt that because of their sin, they could not approach God directly, the unholy could not touch the Holy. When Jesus Christ the Messiah (God in human flesh) 'came to town' as it were and began preaching and teaching, both peasant and scholarly master alike heard the authority I His words. They saw His supernatural authority demonstrated again and again as He forgave sins and healed the lame and sick. The God that was rightly separate and above all creation, the Holy One of Israel took a huge plunge into this wicked and sinful world, clothed Himself in flesh and took on humanity. Jesus Christ being the exact expression of God was exegeting and displaying His character to the fallen world, especially His unfathomable grace. Lepers were common in 1st century Israel. Most believed that having leprosy was a sign of God's particular displeasure-perhaps lepers were greater sinners than others, or so the physically well would assume. Lepers were ceremonially unclean, and if someone came into physical contact with a leper, that person had to go perform ritualistic washings to be clean again. When lepers had to venture out into public, they had to do it shamefully calling out to those around them "unclean", so that everyone would stay clear. And of course, everyone could see-these people were untouchable and cursed. Can we imagine what that would be like for even a day? Then one day, Jesus Christ the God-man came into town: "While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, 'Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean'. Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. 'I am willing,' he said. 'Be clean!' And immediately the leprosy left him." -Luke 5:12-13 In this deeply moving exchange, we see Jesus demonstrate both His power and His graciousness. Normally when a person touches a leper the leper extends his disease and corruption to that person; but when Jesus touched this leper, He extended His power and purity to that poor man -giving his dead flesh new life and vigor in an instant. The God who killed Uzzah so that we may know that He is holy, and that sin is abominable to Him, directly touched this unclean man Himself. God is so amazing in His providence and in the way He arrays history to show how great He is. We can see this in the same way He gave Moses the Ten Commandments from a thundering mountain and gave such strict regulations regarding sin and cleansing, so that He Himself could step off of His throne, come down amongst us, and cleanse us from our sins with His own two hands being nailed to the cross-that we might grasp how horrible our sin truly is; how antithetically to His very being sin is, and at what great a price God paid for such a great salvation. Remember the Ark, and how touching the mere representation of God's presence cost a man his life? Now think about sinful men laying their murderous hands on God Himself, abusing, taunting and mocking Him. This treatment to God went beyond the physical pain –to the posture of the creation to its Creator. Isaiah 53 says that at the cross, Christ was put to grief; and Hebrews 12:2 says Jesus "…endured the cross, despising its shame…" The highest of all beings, the God who created the universe and upholds it by His will alone, came down to the lowest, and died for them. I thank God that He is holy holy holy, and that He is also love and shows great mercy and incredible grace towards such an unworthy person as myself.I hope you do too, and I hope this blog helped you to see God as holy and just and merciful; and that you would embrace Him in repentant faith if you haven't already done so. Thanks for reading-Mike