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The God Who Comes to Us
Thoughts the carry me to Jesus, and to the Cross….
“LORD, show me your love, and save me as you have promised.” (Psalm 119:41, NCV)
“God did not choose us to suffer his anger but to have salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus died for us so that we can live together with him, whether we are alive or dead when he comes. So encourage each other and give each other strength, just as you are doing now.” (1 Thessalonians 5:9–11, NCV)
Come Thou Thyself, with Thine angels, into our temples and homes, as once Thou camest unto Abraham and Sarah. Let them accompany us upon all our ways and journeyings as they did unto Tobias. Let them save us from dangers and death, even as they saved the three men in the fiery furnace, a Daniel from the mouths of the lions, and a Peter from prison bonds. When we go upon paths of unrighteousness, cause them to hinder us, as they once hindered Balaam.
321 Apostolic soul, that intimacy between Jesus and you—so close to him for so many years! Doesn’t it mean anything to you?
As I think about my devotional time this morning, interrupted as it was, I have to start with St. Josemaria’s words,
What does the intimacy I have with God mean? Or as St. Paul points out, we were chosen, not to receive the wrath that is hell, or the reward of a paradise of our choosing (which I would argue is hell,) but to live with Him together. The intimacy that is described in Loehe’s prayer, the confidence that God will be with us in and through every trauma, leads us to be assured of our eternal home–with Him.
It is that confidence in God’s promise that can lead us with the Psalmist to cry out for help to beg for God to show us our love, whether it is to save us from our sin, or to save us from whatever life is throwing at us–again see Loehe the Lutheran trainer of pastors, who documents this in his prayer.
This is what will sustain us, what will empower us, what brings us to where we can serve the Lord our God. To know Him now, to be aware of His presence, to rejoice in His revealing us to himself, both generally in HIs creation and specifically, in great detail in the scriptures–this is that intimacy, to commune as we partake of Bread and Wine, Body and Blood, to know the presence of His Holy Spirit–this is what makes the difference.
Even when He or His angels have to hinder us from some horrendous sin, as the ange; did to Balaam.
This is our God – who loves us, who responds to our cries for help- to our cries for proof of His love.. who planned on it, well before the cross,
He is with us!
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Lœhe, William. 1914. Seed-Grains of Prayer: A Manual for Evangelical Christians. Translated by H. A. Weller. Chicago: Wartburg Publishing House.
Escrivá, Josemaría. The Way (p. 54). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Did You Mean It, When You Gave Yourself to Jesus?
9 The Israelites cried out to the LORD. So the LORD raised up... Judges 3:9 CSB
Then the Israelites cried oute to the LORD.. Judges 4:3 CSB
6 So Israel became poverty-stricken because of Midian, and the Israelites cried out to the LORD. Judges 6:6 CSB
Barth says, poignantly, that the situation “went right into [Jesus’] heart … so that their whole plight was now His own, and as such He saw and suffered it far more keenly than they did.” Jesus “took their misery upon Himself, taking it away from them and making it His own.”
Whom shall I fear, if Thou, O God omnipotent, art my light and my salvation? I give myself all to Thee. Accept me, and then do with me what Thou wilt; chastise me, show Thine indignation towards me when Thou wilt; kill me, destroy me, and I will say always, with Job: Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him.3 Whilst I am Thine, and Thou lovest me, I am content to be treated by Thee with every hardship; to be even annihilated, if it so pleases Thee.
Romans 12:1-3 is pretty clear about our reaction to the grace and work of Jesus Christ. Without restraint, we are to give our bodies to Jesus, a living sacrifice.
One of the aspects of that offering we see in the readings above. Are we willing to give God our lives in a way that allows Him to work in our lives? Does that mean we accept His discipline, discipline to the point of our need to call out for help, in the midst of despair. Israel, who needed that correction, and they experienced God’s faitfulness. For he didn’t allow them to go any further away…but used the consequences to bring them back.
Are we willing to do that?
de Ligouri’s prayer is to that very point. Setting aside fear and anxiety because we know God’s presence is here… we can accept that discpline? Can we accept God allowing us to suffer, that we might realie our need for Him to remove our sin from our lives?
That is why we need to hear Barth’s input. We need to see Jesus taking on our suffering, living in our misery. He made our sin His own, and welcomed a discipline that we deserved….
Why do we still need to cry out? As we do today?
I would assume no one would deny we need what Bard descrived with these words, “Through Jesus, God confronts the situation in Nain when the “alien will and unknown power invaded the general course of things” and actualized an aspect of the realm of God in the very presence of the people.”
We need to cry out because we forget God is there, we forget Jesus took on the consequences of our sin, and we forget to confess our sins, sure of our forgiveness.
And He is here… always here.. always raising up those who cry out, always preparing those who are there to minister to us…
This is our God, who willinging takes on our brokenness… that we would be made whole… for we are His.
Ronald J. Allen, Thinking Theologically: The Preacher as Theologian (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008), 52.
Alphonsus de Liguori, The Holy Eucharist, ed. Eugene Grimm, The Complete Works of Saint Alphonsus de Liguori (New York; London; Dublin; Cincinnati; St. Louis: Benziger Brothers; R. Washbourne; M. H. Gill & Son, 1887), 100.
Have you tried this simple thing yet?
Devotional Thought of the Day:
When I bring you home from the places where you are now scattered, I will be pleased with you, just as I am pleased with the smell of the smoke from your sacrifices. Every nation on earth will see that I am holy, 42 and you will know that I, the LORD, am the one who brought you back to Israel, the land I promised your ancestors. 43 Then you will remember your wicked sins, and you will hate yourselves for doing such horrible things. They have made you unacceptable to me, 44 so you deserve to be punished. But I will treat you in a way that will bring honor to my name, and you will know that I am the LORD God. Ezekiel 20:41-44 CEV
My friends, the blood of Jesus gives us courage to enter the most holy place 20 by a new way that leads to life! And this way takes us through the curtain that is Christ himself. Hebrews 10:19-20
I thought that continence (sexual self-control) arose from one’s own powers, which I did not recognize in myself. I was foolish enough not to know … that no one can be continent unless you grant it. For you would surely have granted it if my inner groaning had reached your ears and I with firm faith had cast my cares on you. (quoted from Augustine’s Confessions)
The prophets are not progressives advocating a new order. Like the Church—which formulates creeds only to distinguish old orthodoxy from new heresies—the prophets hold God’s Word against the stream of the spirit of the times, against the world, the reigning era, the new human fashion.
I, on occasion, get to help people in their struggle with sin. I believe, as we realize that we are in the midst of God reviving people, it will be come more frequent. Enough so that it didn’t surprise me when these readings all came up today in my devotional time.
We all struggle with sin, whether we dwell in guilt and shame, beating ourselves up as if we can beat it out of ourselves, or whether we deny the power of temptation and its ability to cause us to submit.
As well, Satan, that foe of ours, would love for us to believe this is our battle. That we have to overcome temptation by our own strength, or we will never qualify to be God’s “good” people. That is a lie, straight from the Hell that has been prepared for the Devil and His angels.
Look at Augustine’s revelation to himself, he cannot, on his own control his desires, and he reminds himself of the grace and love of God that he should cry out to in those times.
Kreeft reminds us of the prophetic message God has sent, to help us deal with sin, to call us back into the covenant where God promises forgiveness, mercy and comfort to those broken.
Even more authoritative, because it is God’s holy word, are the verses from Hebrews, we enter God’s presence, the place of mercy, the place of His defending us, our safe sanctuary and fortress, by the blood of Christ. We have to depend on that, in time of temptation, in time of struggle, and in times where we fail…
And that is where Ezekiel comes in… go back and re-read it, slowly and carefully. God brings us back and we deserve to be punished. We realize that, even as many of us do now. Read the promise again….
But I will treat you in a way that will bring honor to my name, and you will know that I am the LORD God.
This doesn’t give us the permission to sin more.. but it tells us of His love for us, and His promise of grace.
So cry out, even as Augustine suggested we should. Cry out for help when temptation draws close, when the world is assisting temptaiton by making it seem ok. Cry out to God… He will be there… and will help redeem and restore you… and He will overcome it…
Cry out to Him….
Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Ed. (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), 604.
Peter Kreeft, The God Who Loves You (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 126.
