Tuesday 13 October 2009

Antidote.

    It has been two weeks of antidotes. Back and forth. Illness and cure. Depression and peace. Sorrow and joy. Mockery and worship. As I struggle to dispell this cloud that has settled over me for the past four or so days, I thought that maybe writing it out would help since I can't seem to discover why it's here. So I begin in a rather selfish vein, I'm afraid. I do so hope you'll forgive me. 
    I think there must be this residue that is clinging onto me. And I am afraid that I choose to listen to it rather than the Voice of truth ever knocking on my heart (....or the mice currently squeaking in between the walls of my room). Why is that? I wasn't particularly going anywhere with that thought....
    ....Or maybe I was. I don't know about you, but I can get so bogged down in the longings and desires of this life. And maybe they're not bad longings. Maybe they're noble ones, ones we were created for. But they're still substitutes. And that Voice is ever calling....
    Oh my brothers and sisters....The grace and mercy of Almighty God is overwhelmingly good. I shall be utterly confounded throughout eternity by it, because IT has existed from before time began and shall exist evermore. Tozer said, 'If we could remember that the divine mercy is not a temporary mood but an attribute of God's eternal being, we would no longer fear that it will someday cease to be....Nothing that has occurred or will occur in heaven or earth or hell can change the tender mercies of our God. for ever His mercy stands, a boundless, overwhelming immensity of divine pity and compassion. As judgment is God's justice confronting moral inequity, so mercy is the goodness of God confronting human suffering and guilt.....' He goes on to say about grace that it is, 'His goodness directed toward human debt and demerit....Grace is the good pleasure of God that inclines Him to bestow benefits upon the undeserving....Its use to us sinful men is to save us and make us sit together in heavenly places to demonstrate to the ages the exceeding riches of God's kindness to us in Christ Jesus.'  
    The grace of Jesus Christ is the cure - the antidote - of the world. And it is only through Your wounded hands, my Lord, that we might be made whole and healed. 
    'We must keep in mind also that the grace of God is infinite and eternal. As it had no beginning, so it can have no end, and being an attribute of God, it is as boundless as infinitude.....We can never know the enormity of our sin, neither is it necessary that we should. What we can know is that 'where sin abounds, grace did much more abound.' To abound in sin: that is the worst and the most we could or can do. The word abound defines the limit of our finite abilities; and although we feel our iniquities rise over us like a mountain, the mountain nevertheless, has definable boundaries....But who shall define the limitless grace of God? Its 'much more' plunges our thoughts into infinitude and confounds them there. All thanks be to God for grace abounding.' (Tozer)
    Oh wanderer return. Return to Him and His astoundingly large heart of love. Let His grace lift that heavy weight of shame from your shoulders. It can be almost an hourly thing, I know....and it takes trust. But He is so gentle with our hearts. He is on our side.

     So I have returned to what seems like a theme here....A theme that won't go away no matter how much shame I pile on, trying to bury myself away. No matter how depressed I get, how foggy my mind becomes, how despairing of this world, or how lost I feel, this theme remains. This theme of Christ's everlasting grace....waiting on God. Be still my soul. And sing. For You have taken it all away. My punishment and shame, sin and disgrace, hurt and pain. BE GLAD, and REJOICE. For I have been delivered from my enemies. The King, the Lord is WITH me, and never ever again will I fear harm. My hands will no longer be limp, my eyes downcast, for You, my Lord God are with me....and You are MIGHTY to SAVE. You take an unfathomable delight in me. You quiet me with Your love. You rejoice over me with singing' (paraphrase of Zeph. 3). 

      We have a LIVING HOPE.



Sorry about this post not being quite that put together. I'm not really sure if I was trying to say anything in particular or if I said all I was originally going to say. It just kinda came out....and whatever left, in its place is a peace.


Thanks for listening, little corner of the world. Farewell....'with eyes wide open to the mercies of God' (Romans 12).




1 comment:

Emerly Sue said...

He is on our side. It's good to remember that.