Love through me, Love of God;
There is no love in me.
O Fire of love, light Thou the love
That burns perpetually.
Flow through me, Peace of God;
Calm River, flow until
No wind can blow, no current stir
A ripple of self-will.
Shine through me, Joy of God;
Make me like Thy clear air
That Thou dost pour Thy colors through,
As though it were not there.
O blessed Love of God,
That all may taste and see
How good Thou art, once more I pray:
Love through me—even me.
This week I had a conversation with a friend regarding a recent sermon on submission. The sermon stirred up troubling, even resentful feelings in some members of the congregation.  That conversation caused me to think through the reality and the powerful hold that feelings have over our lives. More specifically, I pondered what role they should play in our spiritual formation.
 The temptation we face when our feelings are doing an “emotional squirm” as we listen to a message from Scripture is to reject the uncomfortable message. At that moment, I think we began to ask ourselves the wrong question–we ask ourselves, “How do I feel about this?”. If the answer is,  “I feel guilty or uncomfortable or ashamed” we are tempted to reject the message that incited those feelings. I wonder if we would be better served to ask “What does God want me to believe about this in spite of my feelings?” In Living the Cross Centered
Life, C. J. Mahaney addressed this issue by quoting D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.  Jones warned “Avoid the mistake of concentrating overmuch upon your feelings. Above all, avoid the terrible error of making them central” He adds, that those who make their feelings the focus are “doomed to be unhappy…what we have in the Bible is Truth; it is not an emotional stimulus…and it is as we apprehend and submit ourselves to the truth that the feelings follow.”  Mahaney goes on to clarify why this is so important to consider, “Knowing and believing the truth will always bring you, in time, to a trustworthy experience of truth. But if you trust your feelings first and foremost, if you exalt your feelings, if you invest your feelings with final authority—they’ll deposit you on the emotional roller coaster which so often characterizes our lives.” The only thing I can guarantee about my feelings is that they will change–they shift like beach grass in the wind and cannot be relied on. Today, I want to offer up my feelings to the Lord and trade them for His laser-beam, solid, unchanging truth! Remember–Feelings are always real but they are not always True!
“For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes, Jews first and also Gentiles. This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.”   Romans 1:16-17 NLT
If someone asks you about the Gospel, do you know why it is powerful? Can you communicate what it is, but more importantly, what it isn’t?  Take time to look over The Gospel Page and clarify in your mind once again how God makes us right in His sight! Settle once and for all why the Gospel is glorious and religion is defeating!
“Then Saul broke off his pursuit of David and went to meet the Philistines. That is why they call this place Sela Hammahlekoth (rock of parting). And David went up from there and lived in the strongholds of En Gedi.”  (1 Samuel 23:28-29)
David on the run! Hounded by Saul who wanted this perceived rival dead, David was hunted like an animal. It is clear that David was running for dear life–yes, his life was dear to God if not dear to the death loving Saul. Saul pursued his purpose which was extinguishing life–God pursued His purpose which was preserving life as dear! To that end, God directs David to the oasis–the refreshing refuge of En Gedi. As Eugene Peterson has written, “Saul was the occasion for David’s being in the wilderness, Saul neither defined nor dominated the wilderness. The wilderness was full of God, not Saul.”  God is our En Gedi!
 Protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
  I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord;
  I have no good apart from you.”The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;
   you hold my lot. ÂThe boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
I keep the LORD always before me;
   because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;
   my body also rests secure.Âselected verses from Psalm 16
If I am understanding Galatians 2 rightly, Â it is a stunning correction to one of my deepest inclinations!Â
According to Paul–and my heart agrees, my greatest temptation is the strong inclination to reject grace in favor of rule-keeping, moral behavior as a basis of relationship with God.  I can not ponder this too often or make too much of it.Â
When I seek to make my behaving the basis of my relationship with God I have torpedoed the glorious gospel of grace. In fact, if my arms are not open wide receiving then I am rejecting Christ’s perfect and complete work by offering. Do I really think I have any thing to offer to the gift of salvation? He said “It is finished!” To reject grace is to substitute self effort! Â
Sinclair Ferguson reminds me that the glory of the gospel is that God has declared believers to be rightly related to Him in spite of our sin. That is the amazing part of amazing grace!  But our greatest temptation and mistake is to try to smuggle some of our faulty, blemished character into His complete and perfect work of grace.Â
My greatest need is to be reminded daily that I contribute nothing but my sin to my relationship with Christ and He graciously and freely covers my weakness with His perfection! That is a great and amazing gospel.
My attempt to achieve acceptance or forgiveness or approval from God through any effort of my own is really a twisted form of self worship.  Thomas Schreiner put it this way, ” The desire to obey the law, though appearing commendable is actually an insidious way to gain recognition before God”.  Sounds serious enough that I want to REPENT and RECEIVE!  My arms are open and ready to receive today’s grace gift Lord!
I am under the heady influence of C.J. Mahaney’s sermon, “Enjoying Grace and Detecting Legalism”.
Psalm 130 shouts to my soul that waiting is a purposeful attitude of the heart!
 “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord…”
So many times my inner thoughts shout back, “Lord, why so much waiting–what have you got against “now”?’Â
My impatience is conclusive evidence of how much unbelief still lives within. Impatience has become a siren that lets me know that I am resisting and rejecting the truth.Â
In waiting, I have noticed that my faith mushrooms from childish, spoiled ranting to a settled, secure confidence that no matter how long it takes my God is worth waiting for!Â
That movement of the soul is from wanting something to wanting the all-satisfying someone! Waiting whets my appetite for God and what I hunger for is to know Him better. When that happens Warren Wiersbe says, then living becomes not a mirror in which I see myself better but a window through which I see the Almighty!
