New Year's Nearness to God

“For me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge that I may tell of all Your works.” –Psalm 73:28

The New Year is a time we think about new habits, new ideas, and new ways of improving our lives in the coming year. The great magnitude of blog posts on Bible reading plans alone reflect the craving for deeper spiritual habits. As your pastor, I strongly encourage you to find a good Bible reading plan and stick to it. Find a good rhythm for prayer time and, of course, regular Sunday attendance to be spiritually nourished by God’s ordinary means of grace.

What will make your spiritual habits more enduring and deeply satisfying is nearness to God. Notice the Psalmist is confident in this: it is good to be near God. Good! Literally, it is good to draw near to God. Good means pleasant or enjoyable. And near does not mean God is not present everywhere. Nearness is a trusting intimacy with God. By trusting, I mean by faith in Christ. In Christ, it is pleasant to intimately draw near to God.

To truly appreciate our approach to God in faith in Christ, we need to answer: who is God whom we desire to approach? He is a perfectly holy God and so fearful that even seraphim cover their faces and feet (Isaiah 6:2-3). Moses approached God and trembled with fear (Hebrews 12:21). God commands us to worship Him with fear and rejoice with trembling (Psalm 2:11). The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him (Psalm 147:11). God reveals to us that He is holy, a perfect judge with holy wrath, and He is scary beyond our overwhelmed senses of fear.

We cannot approach our holy God with any blot, any sinfulness, any wrongdoing or we would be judged according to God’s eternally holy law. Therefore, we as sinners are tempted to simply know a lot about God without truly knowing Him. We are tempted to study God without fearfully drawing near through Christ. Again, the Psalmist teaches us, it is good to draw near to God.

Does your study of God and spiritual habits draw your heart to greater affection for God? If not, all of your study of God will be a knowledge that puffs up rather than humbles you to love (I Corinthians 1:8). All of your spiritual habits such as prayer, Bible reading, and even church attendance will be reduced to a cold duty rather than a delightful treasure. You will find yourself sacrificing spiritual habits for worldly things rather than making time and sacrificing worldly things for deeply enjoyable spiritual habits drawing near to the Lord.

Beloved, look to the spiritual habits of drawing near to God as enjoyable, pleasant, good. Why? Because God is good and merciful. In Christ, every blemish of sin is cleansed and in exchange you receive the perfect righteousness of God. This wondrous spiritual truth of being reconciled to God means you can draw near to God and enjoy Him. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you (James 4:8). Delight in God is the fuel which drives us to endure and be satisfied in our spiritual habits. Such intimacy with God will prevent you from falling out of healthy spiritual habits in this New Year.

Heavenly Father, draw us nearer to You and fill our hearts with a high affection for You. Teach us to forsake worldly things in favor of habits of grace to draw near to You, treasuring our God with such delight in our time with You. Bless us by Your needed mercies. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Peace on Earth

“There is no peace,” says the LORD, “for the wicked.” –Isaiah 48:22

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s brilliant poem “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” encapsulates the heartbreaking gravity of a peaceless world of human enmity when he says, “And in despair I bowed my head, "There is no peace on Earth," I said. For hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men.” Longfellow’s wife Frances had passed away the previous year, and he penned this poem in the height of the American Civil War just months after his oldest son Charles was seriously wounded at the Battle of Mine Run. Hearing the cheery bells and carols while surrounded by such human carnage and rage seemed to Longfellow a mockery.

Longfellow’s suffering gives me pause before God who says, “There is no peace for the wicked.” All human experience this side of Genesis 3 is a hopelessly peaceless existence of pain, death, and enmity, enough to cause great despair which cannot be overcome. A restlessness accompanies the human heart in slavery to sin and death. Despair, in the most profoundly ugly way, mingles with the human drive for earthly pleasure and any sense of happiness. The wicked crave and pursue such peace, but the Lord promises, “there is no peace for the wicked.”

Jeremiah’s prophecy makes mention of shepherds claiming “peace, peace,” where there is no peace (Jeremiah 6:14). Humanity pursues a false peace, seeking and searching then giving a listening ear to false shepherds offering any sense of the peace and joy we so deeply crave as if such peace and goodwill can be found in the things God hates. Yet, generation after generation of humanity caves to despair of such mocking cheerfulness in this place of sin and death like wave after wave crashing into a rocky shore.

Yet, Longfellow followed up his despair with the final stanza:

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men."

Such gracious redeeming of such worthless people in such a dark world is a wonder of wonders that our God would be so loving. Isaiah, upon being confronted by the mighty and fearful God, did not claim himself above the wicked people and wicked world around him; rather, he said, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Isaiah 6:5). You are not above the despairing futility of a hopeless pursuit of peace. You and I are not foreigners to this fallen world. You and I need rescue.

Perhaps Longfellow’s hope of God’s right prevailing was invested in a Union victory. Perhaps we can look to our governing powers and judges for some minor victories of justice. From the carnage of war to street crimes to the modern Herodian slaughter of the innocents at Planned Parenthood, true and everlasting peace is despairingly out of reach. Dear reader, such peace from God on earth and His goodwill are only reserved for those “whom He is pleased” (Luke 2:14).

To be pleased by God requires God’s perfect righteousness. As we enter Advent, we look back to the manger with wonder that God would step His holy feet upon Adam’s cursed ground of thorns only to wear those thorns as a crown in such a violent display on the cross. Our wrong of sin and the embrace of death in our dark world is defeated by the resurrected and soon appearing of the rightful King.

There is plenty to bring despair in this world. Advent reminds us we are not to find peace and joy in the world or the world’s kingdoms. We long for the King’s return to right every wrong. Beloved, your faith means no condemnation. Take comfort, o downcast soul, in your promised eternal worship of God and rejoice. For the King has conquered sin and death to bring peace on earth in His kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Dear Christian take heart, lift your head to God’s holy mountain of hope and rejoice.

Heavenly Father, our fallen world and abiding sin gives plenty of evidence to despair. Deliver us from evil, Lord. Guide us by Your Word to be a lamp unto our feet on this dark, dangerous, and narrow path. Speak, dear Good Shepherd, that Your sheep may hear and follow as we long for You to right every wrong. Bless Your church with Your mercies of peace and joy. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Dear Gloomy Christian

 “For His anger is but for a moment, and His favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” -Psalm 30:5

The Word of God is both true and lovely. We find in this single verse the full and honest truth about human grief as well as the refreshing help from heaven. Our anxieties, griefs, depressions are not hidden behind a veneer of “it’s nothing,” nor is the cure some flippant cliché. The honest darkness we experience as fallen creatures covers our thoughts and days like thick gloom, and the help of our merciful God is like a warm sun ray piercing through the clouds.

As a sinner before a holy God, I fear His anger. Yet to know the Father’s favor on Christ’s righteousness is on me for a lifetime is a great comfort, welcoming me to confess sin and repent knowing I am warmly welcomed by my forgiving God who is long-suffering with me.

With such a warm welcome like the father to the lost son, the second half of this verse is deeply refreshing for my often weary heart. “Weeping may tarry for the night,” sings the Psalmist. I must carry on, but what can I do with my anxiety, grief, sadness? The counsel may come from the seat of scoffers to simply toughen up, stop being so wimpy. Trust me, I have tried that. I have tried hiding my weeping behind a determined face to show the world that I am strong and I am fine. 

The Psalmist later writes, “You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness” (Psalm30:11). Notice, the Psalmist did not turn himself into being glad. He did not simply toughen up or straighten his crown and carry on. God, by His rich mercy, turned the Psalmist’s gloom into gladness.

This, dear brother or sister, is a warm invitation from our heavenly Father. His anger for me and my sin was poured out on Christ who became a curse for me (Galatians3:13). God is not angry with me. His mercy is on my lifespan and shall follow me all of my days (Psalm 23:6). Perhaps you need to hear this, beloved: in Christ, God is not angry with you. He invites you and me with sin, anxiety, sadness, gloom, to come to Him through Christ. His Holy Spirit draws us to Him. Our Lord is full of love, forgiveness, mercy, and wisdom for the gloomy child who comes to Him.

Go to Him in faith and go now, go often. God lifts the burdens we cast upon Him, and He is both mighty enough and caring enough to lift them (I Peter 5:7). Yes, even if the Lord does not take away from the causes of our pain, like Paul’s thorn, we hear the Lord say, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” Let us, like Paul, “boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (II Corinthians 12:9).

The Lord’s mercy turning my gloom to gladness has a purpose that I “may sing Your praise and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever” (Psalm 30:12). Go to the Lord trusting His mercy for you in Christ. He takes your gloom and gives you gladness that you will not be silent in the darkness but rejoicing with thanksgiving in the light of His glorious grace.

Heavenly Father, we come to You in honesty. We are sinners. Our flesh weakly falls into gloom, covering the thoughts of our hearts with sadness. Forgive us Lord and do not be angry with Your children in Christ. Lift our burdens as we cry out to you from the darkness and gladden our hearts that we may sing of Your glorious grace! In Jesus’ name. Amen.