Sabbath-time is definitely not a time for catching up on household chores, exhausting recreation, or parties. Sabbath-time is retreat, withdrawal. In it, one worships, meditates, and seeks a filled inner spirit. At its conclusion, one is refreshed.
–Gordon MacDonald
When a man reaches a point where he seeks no solace from any creature, then he begins to relish God perfectly. Then also he will be content no matter what may happen to him. He will neither rejoice over great things nor grieve over small ones, but will place himself entirely and confidently in the hands of God, who for him is all in all.
–Thomas à Kempis
Happy Valentine’s Day!
I hope that God is your all in all today.
A warning from Martin Luther as to why it is important to win the heart of a person:
Dear friends, a man must not insist in his rights, but must see what is useful and helpful to his brother. I would not have gone as far as you have done if I had been there. What you did was good, but you have gone too fast, for there are brothers and sisters on the other side who belong to us, and must still be won….
Faith never yields, but love is guided according to how our neighbors can grasp or follow it. There are some who can run, others who must walk, but still others who can hardly creep. Therefore we must not look on our own, but on our brother’s powers so that he that is weak in faith…may not be destroyed.
…Let us therefore throw ourselves at one another’s feet, join hands and help one another….
We must first win the hearts of the people. And that is done when I teach only the Word of God, preach only the Word of God, and if you win the heart, you win the whole man.
–Martin Luther
God, help me to bow down in humility to others, join hands, and help those who need more patience, care, and concern. Help me not run so far and so fast that I unwittingly trample over those who need more tenderness and compassion.
Here in America, we have been taught that we should never be deprived of anything. We’ve been led to believe that deprivation is a “bad word.” But God might be trying to teach us something different. Perhaps deprivation can actually lead to God’s Glory. As J. I. Packer tells us:
You know what kind of life it is that Christ calls you, as his disciple, to live. His own example and teaching in the Gospels make it abundantly clear. You are called to go through this world as a pilgrim, a mere temporary resident, traveling light, and willing, as Christ directs, to do what the rich young ruler refused to do: give up material wealth and the security it provides and live in a way that involves you in poverty and loss of possessions. Having your treasure in heaven, you are not to budget for treasure on earth, nor for a high standard of living—you may well be required to forego both.
You are called to follow Christ, carrying your cross.
What does that mean? Well, the only persons in the ancient world who carried a cross were condemned criminals going out to execution; each, like our Lord himself, was made to carry the cross on which he was to be crucified. So, what Christ means is that you must accept for yourself the position of such a person, in the sense that you renounce all future expectations from society and learn to take it as a matter of course if the people around you give you the cold shoulder and view you with contempt and disgust, as an alien sort of being. You may often find yourself treated in this fashion if you are loyal to the Lord Jesus Christ.
None of this, of course, is strange to any of us. We know what kind of life Christ calls us to; we often preach and talk to each other about it. But do we live it? Well, look at the churches. Observe the shortage of ministers and missionaries, especially men; the luxury goods in Christian homes; the fund-raising problems of Christian societies; the readiness of Christians in all walks of life to grumble about their salaries; the lack of concern for the old and lonely and for anyone outside the circle of “sound believers.” We are unlike the Christians of New Testament times.
Paul tells us that there is no ultimate loss or irreparable impoverishment to be feared; if God denies us something, it is only in order to make room for one or other of the things He has in mind. Are we perhaps, still assuming that a person’s life consists, partly at any rate in the things he possesses? When it comes to cheerful self-abandonment in Christ’s service we dither. Why? Out of unbelief, pure and simple.
May we learn to say with Habakkuk in face of economic ruin or any other deprivation: “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign LORD is my strength” (Hab 3:17-19). Happy the person who can say these things and mean them!
I hope that I can learn cheerful self-abandonment in order to exalt Jesus Christ. I hope I can learn to be joyful in Jesus even when I do not find myself “rich” in the ways of the world.
(Quotes in today’s post are from Knowing God by J. I. Packer)
Many priests there are, and few;
many in name, and few in works.
See, therefore, how you sit in the official chair,
for the chair does not make the priest, but the priest makes the chair:
the place does not sanctify the man, but the man the place.
Not every priest is holy;
but every holy person is a priest.
–John Chrysostom
Another “workplace pastor” quote reaching all the way back to 400 A.D.
Chrysostom realized that each of us has the role to be a holy person that serves others, even if our paycheck wasn’t written by a church. Your role is to be a holy person, and therefore to serve as a workplace pastor for those who you are around everyday.