Lay Your Burdens Down

With a few exceptions, we try not to “borrow” devotions from the same source more than every six months, but Stephen and Brooksyne Weber at DailyEncouragement.net are an exception. This is my personal “go to” devotional blog, and I try to make it the first click when my computer boots up in the morning, but sometimes email interrupts!  When I read this, I thought of the video I wanted to include with it, Chuck Girard’s Lay Your Burdens Down, and then realized a few days later that they had the same idea. There’s also a great illustration in the middle of this that I hope to remember. To read today’s devotion at source, including pictures and other suggested videos, click this link.

“Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens” (Psalm 68:19). “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). “Casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).

In our final session at the chaplaincy training conference this week we heard Doug Clay share a message on coming to Jesus for our needs. He based his message on the story of the blind man in Mark 8 who came to Jesus to be healed and then came back a second time because he saw men as “trees walking”. Doug shared that this illustrated a persistence in coming to Jesus concerning our needs. One of the lines I really liked from his message was, “Starve your doubts and feed your hope”.

Following his message he asked the various leaders on our chaplain team to come to the front and then extended an altar call for any who may have come to the conference with a special need for which they wanted prayer. I think he was only expecting a few but long lines formed. As I observed the lines I thought of the burdens these people were bearing. For some it was a physical need, for others perhaps a matter in their marriage and family. For others it might have been a financial burden. Perhaps it was a special challenge or hard time for some in their ministry. Brooksyne and I sure recall going to meetings with a heavy heart due to ministry matters in past years.

As I observed the line I considered the burdens those we minister to are enduring. Encounters we have in the course of our chaplaincy, notes and prayer requests we receive from Daily Encouragement readers and those in our church and churches we have served. It was a long line in my mind as I considered specific situations people have and are experiencing.

One of our favorite writers is Robert J. Morgan, a pastor in Tennessee who shared an interesting illustration: he had been on a long trip and was travel weary as he walked through the airport. He was physically relieved when he spotted a long moving sidewalk and headed in that direction. It was here that the Lord spoke to his heart.

He had a bag in each hand but in his fatigue he didn’t even think to set them down. “I was still carrying my load while the moving sidewalk was carrying me. Not until halfway down the hall did I have the presence of mind to release my bags and let the moving sidewalk carry them for me.”

Can you can identify with Morgan’s illustration? In regard to my burdens I tend to set them down (trust) and then pick them back up again (doubt).

As we write this message today I consider several I know who face heavy burdens, part of the long line of people who need God’s tender touch.

“Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.” In Scripture God often emphasizes the unit of time we call the day.  In fact it’s the very first unit of time that is referred to in the Bible and the most frequently mentioned starting with Genesis 1:14.

Certainly each of us knows about burdens and we can readily identify with the Lord’s statement that “each day has enough trouble [burdens] of its own” (Matthew 6:34b). A commentary considers the meaning of the daily text in this way: “God daily carries us as a manifestation of His protective and sustaining care.” Such an interpretation brings to mind “Footprints in the Sand” written by Mary Stevenson during her teen years in 1936 as she endured major obstacles in her young life.*

What assurance His Word brings. Believing friend, God is bearing your burdens today, and wants to lighten your load. He loves you, and the trial you are presently enduring does matter to Him. He is faithful and He will see you through to the other side! Don’t try to shoulder your burdens for the heavy load will surely break you.  Instead lay your burdens down at the foot of the cross. Jesus will meet you there.

Be encouraged today,

Stephen & Brooksyne Weber

*I didn’t want to edit the devotional, but I’ve always heard “Footprints” credited to Margaret Fishback Powers. Either way, the illustration applies. (At least a half-dozen people have claimed the poem was ‘theirs,’ Powers is widely considered to be the author of record.)

God’s Default Design for Marriage

With so much discussion taking place these days about marriage, it is important for believers to be firmly grounded on this subject when it arises. This appeared at the blog Faithviews; as always you’re encouraged to read at source.

The Divine Pattern of Marriage

By Nancy Eskijian

Nancy Eskijian is Senior Pastor of Bread of Life Foursquare Gospel Church in Los Angeles, California, and author of Restoration NOW!, nominated for 2012 Christian Small Publisher Book of the Year. Her latest book, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex and Gender and the Bible, What’s Hot and What’s Not According to Scripture, deals with the issues of same-sex attraction, abortion, gay marriage and other issues affecting today’s culture.  Along with being a pastor in an inner city church, Nancy worked for several years as a lawyer in the position of Vice President and Senior Counsel for a major Southern California corporation. Visit www.RestorationNowMinistry.com for more information.

         Much has been written about the Supreme Court of the United States opening the door for same sex couples to marry. While any nation may pass civil laws and call same sex unions “marriage,” enabling rights and privileges under the law, such unions have little in common with the Biblical significance, intention and definition of marriage. For those of us who believe in the God of the Bible as the originator and Creator of life, then we accept that everything flows from Him, and all relationships have a spiritual dimension, especially marriage. In the beginning God created man in His image. Genesis 1:27 – 28 (NKJV) states: “²⁷So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. ²⁸Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply.”

Let’s ponder that statement for a moment: gender is part of the very image of God, and that is why it is so important and non-negotiable. We also see that God blessed them, male and female, as individuals and as a unit, with the charge to be fruitful and multiply. There are many things we can have and be in this life, but not everything is blessed. In the scripture, we see God blessed their individual identity and unity, releasing them to multiply and exercise dominion, as the rest of the scripture goes.

In Genesis 2:23, the creation of woman and the origin of marriage are described further and merged together.  God put Adam into a deep sleep and took a rib out of Adam’s side.  Genesis 2:23—“²³And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man ²⁴Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”   That’s why husbands are to love their wives for no man hates his own flesh.  The oneness means that she is physically part of him. It’s now personal—the woman is taken out of his side.

Jesus Himself reiterated the Genesis scriptures in Mark 10:6 – 9 (NKJV) “⁶But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’ ⁷‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, ⁸and the two shall become one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. ⁹Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Here are a few important points that express God’s order, intent and revelation in marriage from a Biblical perspective:

1.  From the beginning of creation, God created male and female, and He physically designed them to be joined together and they reflect His image. He blessed their gender and unity as “one flesh,” forming a new creative order. Similarly, when we come to the Lord we merge with His body spiritually through the Holy Spirit and become a new creation, His body, and bride, under the new covenant, taken out of His side, the second Adam.

2. The married couple leaves family of origin to start something new. The Lord sets out a personal governmental order, the family unit, with husband and wife, mother and father, if there are children.  The man departs from one home to create another governmental structure with himself and his wife.  As believers, we leave an old life to be merged in Christ for a new life under a new headship.

3.  As the man cleaves to his wife, neither is to be self-identified any more, but instead identified with the new family unit. This is an important spiritual point, too, as we enter into Christ. We are no longer just self-identified, but part of Him under the new covenant.  Marriage reflects the divine purpose of God to form a new covenantal order.

4.  The family unit is where the Lord sets out human sexual order, because it unites God-ordained and God-designed creations, for sexual relations, and to be fruitful and multiply.

5.  Reproductive order:  A new creation has occurred (man and woman as one) to give birth in the natural to other new creations (babies), just as Christ is married to His church, (a new creation), and that union expands His family (spiritual babies).

6.  God’s stamp of approval is on marriage because it reflects a divine pattern of Christ and His church. So, the union reflects a divine order.

In short, the human covenant of marriage, as revealed in scripture, expresses a deeper spiritual pattern. It has roots in heaven just as other profound realities in the Bible. God’s relationship to His covenantal people, Israel, is described in the Old Testament of the Bible as marriage. The relationship of Christ and His church is described in terms of marriage.  There is the marriage supper of the Lamb. The New Testament instructs husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her. The mystery of marriage is the mystery of Christ and His church:  Ephesians 5:31 – 32 (KJV) “³¹For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. ³²This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” That doesn’t mean that marriages are perfect. It just means that the pattern is perfect, expressing something on earth as it is in heaven.

The earthly relationship of marriage is a reflection of a divine pattern, for unity, fruitfulness, fulfillment, responsibility, and a divine covenant. In fact, all of creation and redemption (God’s act of love to give us a new life through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ) is reflected in the marriage relationship and covenant.  This simply cannot be altered by men and women in black robes or by popular vote.

The Right Kind of Family Fight: Fight For Your Family

Mark O. Wilson, author of Filled Up, Poured Out, which I reviewed a few weeks ago, posted this at his blog the week after Mother’s Day under the title Kilkenny Cats and the Home Squabble.

“The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands, the foolish one tears hers down.” Proverbs 14:1

I used this verse in my sermon last Sunday, reminding the mothers to build up the house. Of course, this doesn’t apply to mothers. Anybody who lives in a house is responsible for the upbuilding.

Wisdom builds the house. Foolishness tears it down.

When we fail to think before we speak and act, we’re likely to tear the house down. We’ve been given two ears and one mouth, and they should be used in that proportion.

Sometimes, in a passion to say right things, we say things wrong and hurt people. We’re wrong in our rightness, and unwilling to budge an inch in spirit. I think this is at the heart of the polarization in our state and nation. People are eager to share their opinions, but few are humble and patent enough to take the time to listen and understand others.

Too many homes are marked by unhealthy conflict and misunderstanding. Sometimes, it’s just a slow simmer of frustration. Frequently, it leads to checking out, and giving less than one’s best. Occasionally, it erupts into full-scale, brutal warfare. In the squabble, hurtful and destructive things are spoken that can never been undone. Rash words in a fit of anger can destroy the very fabric of the relationship.

As the old rhyme goes:

There once were two cats of Kilkenny.
Each thought there was one cat too many.
So they fought and they fit,,
And they scratched and they bit
‘Til excepting their nails
And the tips of their tails,
Instead of two cats there weren’t any.

Perhaps this is why Proverbs 19:11 reminds us it is “to one’s glory to overlook an offense.”

It’s very possible to win the battle (argument) and lose the war (relationship.) Here’s a question: Is what we’re fighting over worth the fight?

Occasionally, it is. Sometimes, there is a significant principle or human right at stake, and only a good fight will set it straight. However, most of the time, our conflicts are over lesser things. We let our selfishness stand in the way, then hold stubbornly to our opinions as a “matter of honor.” Little issues become major eruptions when we stake our significance on them.

Conflict is an emotional state, and the issue will not be resolved when either party is in that state. You can’t argue someone out of it. The only way to help another person move from the state of conflict is through kindness and patient understanding.

Argument may force the other person into a corner, forcing him to agree – but it will only be a surface agreement, and definitely not be an agreement of hearts. As the old adage goes, “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”

Here’s an idea: fight FOR your family instead of fighting against them. What dreams and hopes to you have for your family? What actions can you take to gently move in that direction? If you don’t do anything different, you will keep following the same path with the same patterns. I appreciate Andy Stanley’s observation, “Direction, not intention, equals destination.”

Weigh your words. Bite your tongue. Think twice. Then, as Colossians 4:6 says, “let your conversation be full of grace, seasoned with salt so that you ay know how to answer everyone.”

~Mark O. Wilson

Song of Songs (Song of Solomon): What’s it ‘Really’ About?

“I am the rose of Sharon,
The lily of the valleys.”

“He has brought me to his banquet hall,
And his banner over me is love.”

~Song 2:1 & 4 (NASB)

Remember the old Certs commercial? “It’s a candy mint. It’s a breath mint. No, it’s two, two, two mints in one.”  Do we apply this logic to the book of Song of Solomon? Can it be about the love relationship between a man and a woman and be about the relationship between Christ and his bride, the church?

I’ve always leaned toward the latter view. The best explanation is that within the Godhead we have a relational model — God is three in one — and we see dynamics of that relationship in various parts of both the old covenant and new covenant scriptures.

But lately, it seems like every radio, TV, internet and megachurch speaker is doing a sermon about sex.  Someone has observed that the church needs to talk more about sex, but pastors need to talk about it less.  Suddenly a host of subjects that would never be mentioned in the church gym on a Thursday night are getting addressed from the pulpit on Sunday morning; and books that Christian bookstores might not have carried a few years ago are being displayed front and center. The sex pendulum is currently swinging away from the place of balance, leaving people asking, “Why can’t the pastor just speak about Galatians like he used to?”

So how do we interpret this book which our forebears chose to include in the canon of scripture?   I was glad to see Dave Bish address this a few days ago…

Six reasons for a Christological reading of the Song of Songs

I’m persuaded that The Song of Songs has a BOTH-AND meaning. It has much to say about marriage and also much to say about the True and Greatest Marriage, the Typical Marriage, the Real that all marriages echo and shadow – the marriage of Christ and his people. Because:

#1 Marriage is really about Christ.
This is Paul’s argument in Ephesians 5. Really, he’s talking about Christ and the church, though he’s talking about marriage. That doesn’t mean husband’s and wives don’t apply Ephesians 5 to their marriages, but that they’re meant to finally look to Christ and his church. The greater and eternal marriage sets the stage for our smaller and temporal human marriages.

#2 History
By far the dominant reading of this book historically is to take it Typologically, pointing to Christ. This is to say we’ve got really got to it’s meaning, intention or application if we’ve not heard it speak of Christ’s love for his people. We might draw a true word for human relationships but the road goes further. Sometimes Typological commentators slip into fanciful allegory – but those who leave the song in the human bedroom do the same! To say it’s *just* about human marriage a popular view today, but is the minority view in the story of the church. The Reformers, Puritans and Church Fathers, Edwards and Spurgeon were not bad handlers of the Bible. They were persuaded that Christ casts his shadow over all of it.

#3 The Language of The Song
This isn’t just love poetry it’s love poetry about a Shepherd King and the one he loves, with wilderness and myrrh, about ‘the lover of my soul’ and love that’s strong as death. The Song is written in the language of the Pentateuch, the language of the LORD’s relationship with his people.  It’s not just any old poetic language and imagery, it’s gospel-laden.

#4 The Beauty of Christ
Christ is beautiful and we need the wasfs of The Song, the love poems that call us to dwell upon the beauty of Christ, to let our hearts sing of him. Human marriage needs the intense contemplation of poetry too, but so does the church’s relationship with her Saviour.

#5 He loves us
Some are reluctant to speak of this, suggesting it’s not substantial enough or is subjective etc. The Love of Christ for his people, demonstrated at the cross, won at the cross, flowing from the eternal love of the Trinity is unmatched and has to be sung of forever. The Song gives words for this relationship – and we do sing it even when we might not realise it. “For I am his and he is mine”, “Altogether lovely”. The Song serves, in this, as an antidote for individualism because it invites our first thought to be of Christ and the church, though Galatians 2:20 tells us he also loves ME, leading careful exegetes to say that The Song does speak of the church but also of each of her members.

#6 The Divine Romance
Martin Luther lifts his language for the gospel from the genre of The Song, Hosea and Ezekiel to speak of the King who marries a prostitute. Why should divine romance OK from Hosea, Ezekiel and Psalm 45 but then not The Song? Jesus is the husband to the church, who has a divine jealousy for us – whose love burns when we’re seduced away, whose love laid down his life for us, whose love is our hope. Human marriage has union between husband and wife because there is union with Christ through the gospel…

~Dave Bish

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*Note, the word wasfs in Dave’s 4th point is not a typo, see here and here.  It refers to an enumeration of the physical traits of a bride and groom. 

Looking for more of this type of article?  Here’s six approaches to the story of Joseph; there are more “six” articles at Dave’s blog.

Interceding Specifically

This week I returned for a few more chapters of Penetrating the Darkness a book on intercession by Dr. Jack Hayford, who for years was lead pastor at Church on The Way in Van Nuys, California.

In chapter four, Jack indicates that intercession involves three elements:

• praying for somebody else; praying on behalf of
• reliance on the Holy Spirit for guidance and help to pray beyond the intercessor’s knowledge or understanding
• a challenge to our helplessness to deal with the larger issues of life

Later in the chapter, he teaches three easy-to-remember terms:

• intersection
• intervention
• interception

I might come back to those at another time, and I do want to challenge you to get a copy of this book for your own, especially those of you who have a prayer and intercession ministry.   One couple in Jack’s church was Michael and Stormie Omartian and if you’ve read Stormie’s The Power of a Praying… series of books, this makes an excellent companion. 

…This morning at 5:00 AM, I woke up and felt led to pray for a man we know who has been estranged from his wife for nearly a decade.  As I thought about their situation, I felt led to pray very specifically for a number of things that need to happen.  I prayed that:

• God would soften her heart
• she would feel led to reopen communication
• there would not be a barrier created by pride; that she would be humble
• that she would be truthful with people to whom she may have painted a one-sided picture of their situation
• that she would repent of wrongdoing on her part
• that she would seek reconciliation and restoration of the relationship
• that the decision she makes would stick over the long-term

I also prayed for him, that:

• he would be open to receive her forgiveness and accept it at face value, in expectancy of reconciliation over the long-term
• he would do his best to be the kind of person she needs
• God would heal the wounds and scars that the last few years have created

Usually, I have great creative and spiritual clarity at that hour, but when I go to the keyboard many hours later, I have forgotten everything.  (I even considered finding a pen at 5:00 AM and making notes; I say that with apologies for those of you who are up at that hour anyway; I’m not!)  However, this time, I have recorded here point-for-point what came to me earlier in the day.

I think it’s important — it’s necessary — to pray specifically like this, and there are probably other aspects of this I could add to the example, but I want to preserve the anonymity of the people involved.

My point today is simply that to pray only, “God, bless__________;” is inadequate and even to pray, “God, bless ____________ and __________ and bring them back together;” is to miss the many barriers that often need to come down before something like that can happen.

Well then, what shall I do? I will pray in the spirit,  and I will also pray in words I understand.  ~ I Cor. 14:15 NLT

The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know. Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way our Savior God wants us to live.  ~I Tim 2: 1-3 The Message

 

Postscript: Feel free to join us in praying for our friend and his wife.

Men Who Will Lead

I remember doing the Bringing Up Boys DVD course put out by Focus, and there was a statistic that when kids are old enough to choose, if they were brought up with a mom who went to church, there’s something like a 20-30% chance that they’ll continue the tradition; but if the dad went to church, it jumps up into the 70% range.  Wow!  Another argument for men to take a strong spiritual leadership role in the home.

And then, this week I was flipping through the blog of our local Salvation Army officer, and I came across his post Lead Me which featured the song below from Sanctus Real, and in its portrayal of wives looking to their husbands for spiritual leadership, and children looking to their fathers for spiritual direction, I was again reminded of the calling that rests on a man’s life within his home.

This is a message that all of us, married or single, male or female need to be reminded of.   Our churches put a great deal of emphasis on living out our faith in the broader community — at work, at school, in the marketplace, with extended family members, in the neighborhood — but really Christian living begins in the home.  In fact, let’s take it even a step further and remember that, in the title of an old Bill Hybels book, what counts most is Who You Are When No One’s Looking.

I look around and see my wonderful life
Almost perfect from the outside
In picture frames I see my beautiful wife
Always smiling
But on the inside, I can hear her saying…

“Lead me with strong hands
Stand up when I can’t
Don’t leave me hungry for love
Chasing dreams, what about us?

Show me you’re willing to fight
That I’m still the love of your life
I know we call this our home
But I still feel alone”

I see their faces, look in their innocent eyes
They’re just children from the outside
I’m working hard, I tell myself they’ll be fine
They’re independent
But on the inside, I can hear them saying…

“Lead me with strong hands
Stand up when I can’t
Don’t leave me hungry for love
Chasing dreams, but what about us?

Show me you’re willing to fight
That I’m still the love of your life
I know we call this our home
But I still feel alone”

So Father, give me the strength
To be everything I’m called to be
Oh, Father, show me the way
To lead them
Won’t You lead me?

To lead them with strong hands
To stand up when they can’t
Don’t want to leave them hungry for love,
Chasing things that I could give up

I’ll show them I’m willing to fight
And give them the best of my life
So we can call this our home
Lead me, ’cause I can’t do this alone

Father, lead me, ’cause I can’t do this alone

Marriage Re-Enacts a Larger Theme

Today’s post appeared on April 11th at the blog of Ohio pastor David Paul Dorr, where it appeared under the title Marriage Doesn’t.

Have you heard the phrase, “marriage isn’t supposed to make you happy, it’s to make you holy?”That sounds about as appealing as a punch in the face.

We say this with good intentions. When we make marriage about our personal happiness, then our well-being is a house built without a foundation. Whenever we don’t feel happy in our marriage we feel insecure about our decision. If we are REALLY unhappy, then we are convinced that the marriage should end.

So to counter this harmful view of marriage, we say marriage is more about character development, i.e. holiness. This means we can stick the marriage out, no matter how we feel. We say, “We might be miserable, but we are committed, and it all works out for the best because this is making me a better person.”

But that is still building on the wrong foundation. God didn’t give me a spouse for personal gratification or personal improvement. He gave me a spouse so I could be a storyteller. Our marriage’s purpose is to tell an age-old tale.  A story of how God loves His people, and how they flourish under His care as they respect and honor Him.

Paul says in Ephesians 5:32 that marriage is a “profound mystery.” It is not a mystery because we can’t figure it out — it’s a mystery (something hidden that now is revealed) because marriage reflects Christ and His church.

So our marriages are like a play. Men, we have the part of Jesus Christ — loving, nourishing, and cherishing our bride. Women, your part is the church — respecting, honoring, and submitting to your husband. To the degree that we “play” our parts faithfully, our marriage will be gospel proclamation. In an evil world filled with broken relationships, love and honor can thrive.  And those in and around our marriage: the couple, the children, the extended family, the church, the community, will get a practical demonstration of God’s love for them.

~David Paul Dorr