God chose fit to lay me flat on my back on Tuesday, along with my youngest son. And Paul needed to come home early after having one of his spells. Pray for my wife as she tends to three sick members!
I was created to worship and praise God. I was redeemed that I should worship Him and enjoy Him forever.
That is the primary issue, my brother or sister. That is why we earnestly invite men and women to become converted, taking Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord.
God is not asking you to come to Christ just to attain peace of mind or to make you a better businessman or woman. You were created to worship. God wants you to know His redemption so you will desire to worship and praise Him.
Sick or well, ‘normal’ or living with disabilities, we were created to worship Him and enjoy Him forever.
Pastor John paused this past Sunday to go over that foundation of joy. I was encouraged by this ‘classic sermon‘ and especially recommend it to you if Christian hedonism is a new concept for you.
The accounting of the man who was paralyzed going before Jesus by being lowered through the roof his companions vandalized is one of the best-known healings in the entire Bible. It is told in three different Gospels, including Luke 5:17-26.
There is so much packed into those 10 verses! It is easy to focus on the gifts that are provided – forgiveness of sin and healing of paralysis.
I deeply appreciate how Charles Spurgeon guides our attention away from these extraordinary acts of forgiving sins and healing paralysis to the actor who made both of those things possible:
After our blessed Lord had taken away the root of the evil, you observe he then took away the paralysis itself. It was gone in a single moment. Every limb in the man’s body was restored to a healthy state; he could stand, could walk, could lift his bed, both nerve and muscle were restored to vigor.
One moment will suffice, if Jesus speaks, to make the despairing happy, and the unbelieving full of confidence. What we cannot do with our reasonings, persuadings, and entreaties, nor even with the letter of God’s promise, Christ can do in a single instant by his Holy Spirit, and it has been our joy to see it done.
This is the standing miracle of the church, performed by Christ to-day even as aforetime. Paralysed souls who could neither do nor will, have been able to do valiantly, and to will with solemn resolution. The Lord has poured power into the faint, and to them that had no might he hath increased strength.
Pastor Kenny Stokes – again! – recognized the God-granted value of children with disabilities during the dedication of children on Saturday evening. This section of his remarks is about a minute long.
I am deeply grateful for pastors who intentionally and carefully recognize that not all children will be the same, nor will the paths of parenting be the same.
Pastor Bud Burk closed the dedication with a wonderful, encouraging prayer. I’m glad we caught that as well.
There are scores of women who have children of all ages who cannot speak an intelligible word because of their cognitive disabilities. Or their children, like my son, have some language, but those children can never make a spontaneous call of deep affections for their mother.
There will be no handwritten cards, telephone calls or gifts from those children to their mothers today.
Yet, most of those children have mothers who pour their lives into them, sometimes for decades beyond what they anticipated when that little life first starting growing in their bodies.
For all of you moms in that circumstance, know that this proverb is still for you, just not yet!
Her children rise up and call her blessed. Proverbs 31:28
Why do I believe this?
1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6 And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. 7 The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. Revelation 21:1-7
Those mothers who cling to Jesus for daily strength and as their future hope have a glorious eternity waiting for them.
Someday, I believe my son will tell me things almost too wonderful for me to comprehend about what he experienced in this present age. And I expect one of the things he will talk about is his tender, eternal regard for the woman who cared for him without a thought about what she would receive from him in return. On that day, he will rise and call his mother blessed!
If you still haven’t downloaded Paul Miller’s book, A Praying Life(still free as of Friday for the Kindle and the Kindle app which can work on most computers and mobile devices), I hope this will encourage you to do so:
I was walking down from our campsite to our Dodge Caravan when I noticed our fourteen-year-old daughter, Ashley, standing in front of the van, tense and upset. When I asked her what was wrong, she said, “I lost my contact lens. It’s gone.” I looked down with her at the forest floor, covered with leaves and twigs. There were a million little crevices for the lens to fall into and disappear.
I said, “Ashley, don’t move. Let’s pray.” But before I could pray, she burst into tears. “What good does it do? I’ve prayed for Kim to speak and she isn’t speaking.”
Kim struggles with autism and developmental delay. Because of her weak fine motor skills and problems with motor planning, she is also mute. . .
Prayer was no mere formality for Ashley. She had taken God at his word and asked that he would let Kim speak. But nothing happened. Kim’s muteness was testimony to a silent God. Prayer, it seemed, doesn’t work.
If you’ve ever thought that, I encourage you to read his book.
R.C. Sproul answers this question: Can suffering in general rather than suffering for our Christian faith be counted as sharing the sufferings of Christ?
I think it can. If the suffering is done in faith – that is, throughout the suffering we place our trust in God – then I think we are participating in the sense that we are willing to suffer and to trust God in the midst of suffering, even as Jesus trusted the Father. . .
In regard to the man born blind (John 9), the question was asked of Jesus, “Who’s sin was it, this man’s or his parents’, that he was afflicted with blindness?” Jesus said it was neither. In other words, the question was a false dilemma. And those who asked it were trying to reduce to two options something that had more than two. There was another option. Jesus said, “It wasn’t because of his sin or his parents’ sin. This person was born blind so that the power of God and the grace of God may be made manifest.” That person was suffering not from persecution. His suffering was used by God to bring honor and glory to Christ.
I mention this instance because it is a clear biblical case in which suffering has theological value – not merit, but value – insofar that it is useful to the purposes of God. Christ himself tells us that we are going to have afflictions and suffering in this world. He certainly indicates that we are going to suffer persecution, and he gives a particular blessing to that in the Sermon on the Mount, saying that the reward will be great. He also indicates that there will be other kinds of suffering that come our way and that we are suffering in him and with him.
This is a fantastic book, and the author understands what living with disability is like through his daughter with autism and developmental delays.
Paul Miller spoke at the most recent Desiring God Conference for Pastors: Helping Your People Discover the Praying Life. He also lead devotions the next morning, and that was even better.
I do not know what you need, but I do know Christ has it. I do not know the full of your disease, but I do know Christ is the physician who can meet it. I do not know how hard and stubborn and stolid and ignorant and blind and dead your nature may be, but I do know that “Christ is able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by Him.” What you are has nothing to do with the question, except that it is the mischief to be undone. The true answer to the question of how you are to be saved lies yonder in the bleeding body of the immaculate Lamb of God! Christ has all salvation in Himself. He is Alpha, He is Omega. He does not begin to save and leave you to perish, nor does He offer to complete what you must first begin. . .
If I might only have it to utter one sentence, it would be this one, “Your help is found in Christ.” As for you, there never can be found anything hopeful in your human nature. It is death itself! It is rottenness and corruption. Turn, turn your eyes away from this despairing mass of black depravity and look to Christ! He is the sacrifice for human guilt. His is the righteousness that covers men and makes them acceptable before the Lord!
The celebration of communion included some great music yesterday.
God Moves in a Mysterious Way has always been a moving hymn, especially knowing how William Cowper struggled his entire life with depression.
But the combination of this hymn, my oldest son with his arms wrapped around my neck as I held him, and anticipating the celebration of the Lord’s supper – tears came to my eyes at the wonder of God’s extraordinary goodness as we sang these verses:
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.
His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour; The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower.
We sang a different musical arrangement at church, but I like how the Sovereign Grace team put the version below together. Enjoy our great and merciful God today!
The Works of God 
“What good does it do?”
Posted in Book Commentary, Quotes on May 7, 2011| 1 Comment »
If you still haven’t downloaded Paul Miller’s book, A Praying Life (still free as of Friday for the Kindle and the Kindle app which can work on most computers and mobile devices), I hope this will encourage you to do so:
If you’ve ever thought that, I encourage you to read his book.
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