Where Do I Go From Here?

I am in an odd place with my Master right now.  I suspect that what I need is some different arrangement of my time with Him where I am more immersed in Scripture.  That is a problem for me because delving into Scripture takes a lot of time.  I suppose what I need is just more of a reliance upon it.  For instance, this morning, Chambers used John 16:14, which is a snippet from Jesus speaking about the coming of the Holy Spirit after He leaves.  There are statements about the Person and work of the Holy Spirit not found anywhere else.  It’s a very important and often overlooked passage by those pretending to focus on Him in their doctrine.

Here is where Jesus speaks of the work of the Holy Spirit in convicting of sin, righteousness and judgment.  He then proceeds to give reasons for this that are not easy to follow.  There are other statements about His work that are very interesting because they seem…peculiar as functions of the Spirit of my Master.  He is like a messenger in that He takes of Jesus and announces to the disciples.  He is like a judge in that He convicts, but He convicts the cosmos, not just the disciples or those who are believers.  And convicts the cosmos of righteousness because Jesus returns to the Father and the disciples no longer see Him?  That sounds odd.

There are elements to my understanding of the work and Person of the Holy Spirit where I simply have to be okay with not being able to reconcile with each other.  I confess that I don’t totally understand the work of conviction and the reasons given for that work.  I confess that I don’t always understand the way of communicating He uses.  But John refers to Him here as the Helper, literally the One coming along side.  I do understand that He is with me now, I do get that.  I may not be able to understand what and how He’s doing what He is, but I don’t doubt He is doing something.  I do sense His power at times.

I need more of the Spirit of my Master, I do sense that.  I want to hear the announcements of what is my Masters.  I want to sense the conviction of the cosmos.  I want to see the power of change working in my neighborhood.  I want these things.  But I’m not sure how I can experience them without proving the Spirit more to work with in me; which I believe happens when I spend more time in Scripture.  Perhaps once I have 360 entries I will begin to explore the book of John.  Then I will be immersed in the life of my Master, His Spirit, and be able to wrestle once again with my limited understanding of both.  Eternal life is knowing Him, right?

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, November 29

Wrath and Grace

The technical term is propitiation, but the sound of it suggests little of the devastating meaning it contains.  Jesus propitiated the wrath of God in His death on the cross.  The word brings with it both the terrifying wrath of the Creator and appeasement of that wrath.  I have heard people say that the God of the Old Testament is wrathful and the God of the New Testament loves.  Such a statement demeans what was accomplished by my Master on the cross.  The love of my Master is understood best when His wrath is laid alongside.

Just my sin incurred the wrath of my Master.  Sure I was born with it, but I also earned it.  It’s not reasonable to blame my Master for being penalized for the way I was made, I ensured the sin I was born in rightly applied by my own activity.  When I read that my Master died for the sin of the cosmos, I am immediately struck by an unimaginable enormity of what He took upon Himself in that act.  More than that though, it says literally that God put on Him the sin of the world, so that He was killed for that magnitude of sin.  And that is the essence of wrath; it is the high price paid to balance justice.

I remember feeling the shame for my addiction and it crushing me.  In a sense I needed to feel that, but in the sense of my guilt before my Master, not by succumbing to the crushing weight on myself.  He bore that crushing weight on Himself, and to take it back is ridiculous, and shows a lack of faith and understanding.  I was supposed to be aware of my guilt before the Creator of the cosmos, and therefore, His amazing love showed toward His human creatures through the sacrifice of my Master in our place.  In taking on more than that, I continued in my pattern of stacking more onto the wrath poured out on my Master.

Love and grace are best embraced in the face of wrath and justice.  I think sometimes I become so accustomed to the love and grace of my Master, I forget and take for granted the stark contrasting wrath and justice that makes them so glorious and powerful.  The closest I come to understanding what my Master has done on the cross is when I allow the conviction of my contribution His wrath to expand to include as much of humanity as I can imagine, and then extend that back into history and beyond.  There are realities of this life that I easily miss and so trivialize my relationship with my Master.  It’s a forest-trees thing.

The wrath of the Creator on His creation was laid on His Son, who obediently took it upon Himself.  A stunning truth which is then followed by another: the Resurrection.  It’s impossible to encompass the enormity of what Jesus did on the cross.  But when I extend that into the resurrection I find that the grace and love of my Master was not satisfied with removing the crushing weight of the wrath of God.  He also extended eternal life to that same rabble whose weight He bore.  I still can’t get there to wrap my mind around the enormity.  I can’t get my emotions to engage with it; it’s so huge I lose the sense of it permeating all life on earth (all life on earth is difficult at best to imagine all on its own).  I’m so overwhelmed I’m numb and easily fall into apathy.  I need to strain at the limits of my ability to imagine and describe this unimaginable indescribable reality in which I live.  That is my life’s work.

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, November 19