Verse and Thought: Brain Tumor

“John answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven.” 

- John 3v27

Thought: I just received a email message on my phone telling me that a 9 month old in our church was flown to Children’s Hospital today, because of a brain tumor. The message was calling for members and loved ones to pray. At 8 o’clock this evening there was even an emergency prayer meeting for the family and 9 month old. I read this just before I sat down to write this evening and I’m faced with this verse, about all things are given from heaven. “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven,” how true, but yet how cruel and twisted does this sound? I mean, don’t you when you read this think, “Man, isn’t God terrible for letting this happen?”

What a hard truth it is to tell someone, not that God gave their baby brain cancer, but that he was completely and totally within his reigns of preventing it. God is often to blame for the most horrific of instances and even the most petty of grievances. Obviously, we know that it was not by God that sin entered the world, it was us, but what do we do? We keep an eye open fixed upon the absurdity of the instance and label it as "injustice." Injustice that harms us, but it is the same injustice that keeps our eyes blind to the truth and open to the thistles of our hearts. 

What a treacherous people we are! Don’t you know that we look at the crowd that crucified Jesus the same way? We say, “Well if I was living back than I wouldn’t have murdered Jesus!” And another thing I think we believe, but would never say is, “I don’t think that today with all the understanding, love and affection that I have for Christ, I would of have denied Jesus like Peter did.” 

What mound do you pitch from? Who do you say Jesus is? What would you do if you just received a phone call from your spouse telling you your 9 month year old was just airlifted to Children’s Hospital? Would you praise God in that moment? I hope you would fall to your knees and ask the Lord for help. I hope you would go to Jesus. I hope you would be on your knees with tears creating a pool in your praying hands, before you would lose trust. I hope your trust in Jesus would never fleet. 

My heart goes out to that family tonight. I don’t know where they are, but I pray that they are resting in Jesus. I hope and pray that they read John 3v27 and trust that the Lord is still on the throne, that He is looking over His little loved one. After all their child first belonged to Him. The hard truth and tough reality conceived is that, though sin is actively eroding what God intended for good, God is just despite what happens. Better yet, He never loses that which is already His. 

The thing to be careful of here is that we do not fall into the lie that God owes us anything or that he needs to answer to us. God owes you nothing. You and I owe Him everything. It was by us and our choosing that we rebelled against His legality, because we believed that we could make God answer to us for the things that He has and still does without our permission. What lucent numb-nut with three pounds of meat between their ears believes that God ought to head his counsel?

God is innocent. We are guilty. He gave us life that we might live abundantly in the grace that He lavishes within Himself. Jesus takes our guilt and gives us His life. This is the Gospel. The gift is Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection. No one receives anything unless it is given to him from heaven, that includes salvation. Faith is given to those who are ill-deserving, not because there is something great in them or about them, but because Jesus is God and He loves His beloved. All that Jesus gives or allows, he does so for His name sake.     

   

Verse and Thought: Unwavering Light

“And this is the judgement: the light has come into the world and the people loved darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” 

- John 3v19

Thought: Lord, you rule with an iron fist. You are unwavering, my God. You care for man, but are completely aware of what is in man and yet you delight in him. With all integrity you do not vindicate your wrath, without first interceding in the works of men for eternal salvation. You make it clearly seen, Father that man’s good works for salvational history have been carried out in God, that man is an extension of your righteousness. With vigilance you execute your redemptive succession upon the hearts man, making all things new. You work all things for the sake of your name and the good of those who love you. Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people (Jn. 2v24). The Lord leads man down cool streams of water and quenches his thirst with a waterfall of promises. If man abides in the good works as unto the Lord and believes in Jesus as the forerunner on his behalf, he will obtain the promise set before him by the faithfulness of God.  

The Word of the Lord says that, “Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise” (Hebrews 6v15). Saving faith may appear to come to brother and sister, father and mother, friend or foe, but if what the rain pours out upon the soul produces thorns and thistles it is worthless. Saving faith is a spring welling up to eternal life, it floods the pastures and overtakes the town. It does not loose momentum, it patiently waits to obtain a promise. 

Abraham is often said to be the “father of faith”, because it was in him that God promised that he would become the father of many nations and Abraham believed the Word of the Lord. So it is that we, the faithful, are decedents of an ancient work, a work of God in the hearts of man. Works carried out by God for the hope of assurance set before man, that he might obtain the promise, like our father Abraham did.    

My soul waits on the Lord, for he is my refuge and my light. He is my delight and my salvation (Psalm (27:1-2). The Lord is the first and the last. The Lord is the promise I cling to, by his steadfast love I cleave to his Word and hold out for the hope set before me. It is written, “And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise”, so it will be said of me, because of the hope stored up in me. I patiently wait on the Lord. What doubt could possibly convince me otherwise? I will hold fast to the Lord and praise him all the days of my life, in sorrow and celebration I will consider it all joy to the glory of Him who has made me well.   

Prayer: Father God, I wait for you. Thank you, Father, that I can rest in your promise, I can stand confidently in the shadow of the cross, in the completely assurance of my salvation. I ask Father that your saints would furiously seek after you and desire you with the uttermost affection. I pray as they are, that they would cleave to the promise set before them and delight in pools of joy everyday. 

I pray for those that do not understand the truth of the hope set before them, the confidence we have in Jesus as the forerunner of on our faith. Believers ought to know that “we have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf” (Hebrews 6v19-20). We ought to believe and have the assurance as children of God. Lord speak through your Word that they might see and clearly perceive the goodness of the Lord in the cross of Christ.

Also, I pray for those who do not know you or that are not known by you, that they upon receiving rebirth might see you as the steadfast anchor of their soul and therefore cleave to your promise. I ask all these things in your beautiful name. Amen.  

Verse and Thought: The Wind of God

“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with all who are born of the Spirit.”

-John 3v8

Thought: Who can know the mind of God? Who can anticipate His next move? “Our God is in the heavens, He does all that He pleases” (Psalm 115v3). The Lord is just and sovereign over all the earth. Like the wind, you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes nor where it goes. Who has come before the throne of God and said, “Come my way, that I might know You.” Before Abraham trusted the Lord, did not God come to him; did not God pursue him? 

It is God who has elected the sons of obedience from among the tainted files of wicked traitors once before. Did God not from out of the dust of the earth make man that man might know Him? In John 2, at the Passover Feast in Jerusalem many believed in Jesus’ name when they saw the signs that He was doing. But Jesus did not entrust Himself to them, because He knew all that was in man.

I have prayed for friends and family that they might receive the Spirit, but the Spirit is not tamed. He is free, moving about where He pleases. I hear Him and I feel His touch, but He is swift. Conviction, is His weapon of choice. With a sharp edged and clean thrust the Spirit prunes the heart of man. In the depths of man’s depravity the Spirit washes. The Spirit shines light in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. 

The Spirit of God shines forth from the Son of man. In Jesus is life, and this life is the light of men. He is the true light, which enlightens everyone. To all who were enlightened, who have trusted in the Son of man, He gave the right to become children of God. And this is key: “who were born not of blood nor the will of the flesh nor the will of man, but of God (John 1:13)”.

The Spirit gives life to whom He wills. The Spirit enlightens whomever He wills and you cannot tell Him what to do or where to go. He does as He pleases, in whom He pleases for the glory of God and their eternal joy.