Upness
He built his sanctuary like the high heavens.
-Psalm 78:69
Solomon’s temple stood atop Mount Zion—not the highest mountain in the world, not even the highest mountain around—but high enough to get the point across: God dwells up there. The temple itself took an upward form as well, being 30 feet wide and 45 feet high.
Solomon’s temple is long gone but God Most High remains the same. We may not live by any mountains at all, but let us improve all upward things we do see—hills, trees, the palatial clouds of summer—to this end: that we may meditate upon the wonders of he who came down to call us up.
Sunsets of Autumn
You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy.
Psalm 65:8
Morning and Evening is a great devotional by Spurgeon, but the Lord has a better one that all the world observes. These are holy moments none can ignore. People everywhere grow still when those shrill trumpets sprout dazzling banners of red, pink, and orange at the coming and going of the greater orb. If you can’t dig sunrises and sunsets, you can’t be human.
The year also comes in and goes out with a bang: the cheerful colors of spring and the breathtaking finale of fall. So too are our Christian lives. Our conversions scented with the sweet fragrance of flowers and our last days crowned with the brilliance of late leaf both alike announce God’s glory to all.
Like autumn sunsets, the Lord Jesus has saved the best for last. By his death he has sweetened death. Let us then enjoy the spring, summer, and autumn of our days without fear. In this way the church ought to be a forest of mixed seasons—a sky where, here and there, sunrises and sunsets are always singing.
From Littlefaith to Lethal
And nothing will be impossible for you.
Matthew 17:20
Mountains don’t move easy. But faith handles them like Amphion’s golden lyre which could roll boulders with its tune. Thanos the Mad Titan had an assistant Squidward who could move things with his mind—a handy art for bringing destruction to the universe. At one point Thanos himself throws a moon at Tony Stark. But in the hands of faith, mountains are moved to save life and make it prosper. So let’s play that moving music of faith upon the golden gospel harp. We need only play a little jingle and whatever’s in our way, be gone with it in Jesus’s name!
I Send It Back
Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.
Matthew 15:27
The Canaanite woman is one of those “great faith” people in the Gospels. She cried out for Jesus to heal her demon-oppressed daughter but his response was soul-crushing: “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
Any ordinary faith may at this point turn away in confused obedience. Yet even in what appeared to be a cold-blooded rejection, this remarkable woman saw a way forward: It may not be right for dogs like me, but they still find a way to eat and so shall I.
Let us likewise take whatever trouble the hand of Providence throws our way and send it back to God in even more humble faith.
Arthurs of Our Own
Apparently, CS Lewis thought of his friend JRR Tolkien as the return of King Arthur. Philologist Elwin Ransom aka Mr. Fisher-King aka the Pendragon, the star of Lewis’s space trilogy (Ransom Trilogy for the smarty-panses) was based on the Middle-Earth man.
Was JRR really kidnapped by an evil physicist and a slick conman and taken to Mars? Probably not. But it is a fact that he acquired new tongues. In his thought, Tolkien seems to have pieced through the veil, bringing down some or other timeless power of heaven in his strange words.
He also brings back something dead and buried, ancient and forgotten—quite unwelcome to our modern sentiments but undeniably delightful to every human heart. It is the magic of earth. For of course Merlin, “the horrible old man” (as he might seem to us) returns out of the deep past to aid Ransom in his fated triumph.
Thus it may be that we taste in Tolkien’s writings the harmony of heavenly glory and magical earthiness. And what is this combination if not true humanity? Molded of earth yet heaven-born, the God-Man himself calls us onward and upward. So let’s bring the ruckus on our modern age with celestial truth and earthy wisdom in beautiful harmony. May star and soil arm us in our various Camelot quests in this technological age of wonders, horrors, and madness.
The Best Rest
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Mark 11:28
The gospel is the deepest revelation of who God is (as the context of this verse makes clear). This revelation of God is bound up in his Son and the work he was sent to do, namely, taking our burdens upon himself, putting away our sins, and giving us eternal rest. All this reveals that the living God is a saving God. He delights to bestow mercy upon all who come to him. Let us do so today and always, ever seeking the best rest.
Mirror See
But go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.
Matthew 9:13
The goody-goodies scolded the disciples for their Teacher’s questionable affiliations. When Jesus heard them, he clapped back with gospel rounds, out Bibling the Bible guys: God doesn’t want your self-righteous sacrifices; he wants your broken spirits.
Had the Pharisees instead embraced their fellow-sinnership with the despised crowd and reclined at table with Jesus, they too would have found salvation that day. Let us not fall short of it. May we prioritize our Christianity like so: get mercy, show mercy, love mercy.
The Reformed Doctrine of Keeping It Cool, Part 2
Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?
Matthew 8:26
The quickest way to test if we are doubting God is to ask ourselves, “Am I afraid?” The disciples were thrown into a panic by the storm. But Jesus, after rebuking them with his question, coolly calms the storm with a word.
What are we afraid of? Is not our Lord the God of waves and winds and storms and seasons? He governs all. He’s never worried, never scared. Therefore let us rest in the sweet care of our Heavenly Father even in the midst of the storm. He takes more thought for every moment of our lives than all of us have ever taken for ourselves combined.
High Beams
The eye is the lamp of the body.
Matthew 6:22
Just as the eye admits light into the body, allowing us to see the world around us, so too does the mind allow the light of heaven into the soul so that we may see things as they really are. If our thoughts are clouded by worldliness, we will live our lives in darkness and sin will fester freely. But if our mind-eye is clear, open upon the bright beauties of the invisible God, then we will be illuminated. We will see ourselves, others, and the world more clearly. So let us bask our minds in the light of him who is the very radiance of God’s glory.
The Other Shoe
Apprehensions about the future can haunt us like monstrous shadows in the night, but turn on the light and we realize it was only a shirt hanging over the clothing chair. We give life to our creations of fear but that does not make them real. True, the future may bring grim tidings our way, but even if so, we will find ourselves supported in that hour by the incomprehensible peace and presence of God. And when all the scary things our worldly future has in store for us are gone and done, the other shoe will drop: a gospel shoe shod with tidings of joy which will hasten us into an eternity of transcendent well-being and heavenly delight with the Lord Jesus, who went through the real horrors for us on the cross.