day no. 15,269: ye fearful saints fresh courage take

"God Moves in a Mysterious Way" by William Cowper

God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform.
He plants his footsteps on the sea, And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines, of never-failing skill;

he fashions up his bright designs, and works his sovereign will.

God of mercy! God of grace!

Give us eyes to see!

Eyes to see Your smiling face

within the mystery,

within the mystery!

Ye fearful saints fresh courage take, The clouds you so much dread,
Are big with mercy, and shall break, With blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust Him for His grace.
Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face.

Refrain

His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour.
The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan His work in vain.
God is His own interpreter, And He will make it plain.

Refrain

Grace teaches our heart to fear and grace our fears relieves. God is holier than we imagined and more gracious than we deserve. His light reveals our dust. It was invisible to our eyes until we saw Him, but now that the light is coming through the windows of our soul, the dust is unveiled. Yet the fact of His presence in that light assures us that the dust will not prevail. The darkness does not make the dust go away, it only conceals it. The light reveals what dust is already there, but it shines through it and provides a way out of the dust-ridden darkness.

day no. 15,268: an indictment before a delight

"Christmas is an indictment before it becomes a delight. It will not have its intended effect until we feel desperately the need for a Savior." - John Piper,  Good News of Great Joy

The fact that Christ had to come speaks initially to how bad our situation was without Him. There was no other way. No amount of time or effort on our part would have ever produced what was required of us. We could never have done what Christ came to do. If He had not come, we could never had recovered from our sin. It was not an illness from which we could convalesce. We were terminally ill and all of our best technologies had failed to produce a cure.

The fact that Jesus came accuses us of failure, but it also assures us of His success. The fact that He came means our bankruptcy was accounted for by His abundance. 

It would be a shocking discovery to get word that you are penniless, but it would be even more shocking if the messenger who brought you this news was also a long lost, wealthy Uncle who was dying and wanted to leave his entire fortune to you.

day no. 15,267: love for the Son by the Father through the Spirit

"Jesus’s longing and goal is that we see his glory and then that we be able to love what we see with the same love that the Father has for the Son. And he doesn’t mean that we merely imitate the love of the Father for the Son. He means the Father’s very love becomes our love for the Son—that we love the Son with the love of the Father for the Son. This is what the Spirit becomes and bestows in our lives: Love for the Son by the Father through the Spirit." - John Piper, Good News of Great Joy

John 17:26
I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.

Jesus prayed everyone would come to love Him as the Father already did. This is accomplished through the Spirit by the Father for the Son. The Trinity conspires to provide, procure, and produce for us and in us the end to which we were created: to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

day no. 15,266: the destroyer of Satan's handiwork

1 John 3:8
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

"Thus says the Lord: the meaning of Christmas is that what is good and precious in your life need never be lost, and what is evil and undesirable in your life can be changed. The fears that the few good things that make you happy are slipping through your fingers, and the frustrations that the bad things you hate about yourself or your situation can’t be changed—these fears and these frustrations are what Christmas came to destroy." - John Piper, The Dawning of Indestructible Joy

All the good we work so hard to uphold and build upon will not be all for not.

1 Corinthians 15:57-58
But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

Our labors are not in vain. God promises. So work hard.

Also, all the bad we work so hard to resist and break down will not ultimately overcome us.

John 1:5
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

The light that shines is shining in us and just like it cannot be overcome out there, it will not be overcome in us.

2 Corinthians 4:6

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Our darkness is becoming light in Christ. All the bad we despise about ourselves will not win out in the end.

1 John 3:1-3 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

day no. 15.265: something better

“The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men.” - E.M. Bounds

Methods are inescapable. If you want to do anything, you will have to find a way to try and do it. There are, of course, better ways to do some things than others. But the way we do something is only part of what needs to be done. Who we are and who we are likely to become based on what methods we employ must not be overlooked. 

God is wanting us to be better men by conforming us to the image of the Best Man, Jesus Christ. What we do, why we do it and how we go about it does influence others, but who we are when we influence them is of utmost importance.

Romans 8:29
For those whom He foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son

day no. 15,264: history as our inheritance

"We are indignant at the thought that our fathers, long since gone from the scene, could possibly have any kind of authority over us. We want to think that the placement of individuals in history is nothing more than a random number sequence, with no authority given to those who came before. But the Lord of all history placed them there, with the command that they leave an inheritance to us. Our duty is to receive that inheritance, build upon it, and become in turn a blessing to our covenantal grandchildren." - Douglas Wilson, Angels in the Architecture: A Protestant Vision for Middle Earth

Tradition does not hold every veto, but it should retain a vote.

"No one should ever be allowed to tear down any fence unless they could explain why it had been erected in the first place." - G.K. Chesterton

Our ancestors are often marginalized, discriminated against and boxed out from voting in our current affairs based simply on the unfortunate fact fact that they are dead.

“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.” - G.K. Chesterton

Landmarks and boundary markers were not arbitrarily placed. Someone thought it through using the best that they knew to do. It doesn't stand to reason that our reasons for wanting to move them are anymore wise than theirs were merely because ours happen to be more contemporary. Things do not become cumulatively better merely because they are more current.

Proverbs 22:28
Do not move the ancient landmark that your fathers have set.

Proverbs 23:10
Do not move an ancient boundary stone or encroach on the fields of the fatherless

Deuteronomy 27:17
Cursed is he who moves his neighbor's boundary stone. And let all the people say, 'Amen!'

Deuteronomy 19:14
Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the LORD thy God giveth thee to possess it.

Job 24:2
Men move boundary stones; they pasture stolen flocks.

We are not bound to keep everything exactly as it always has been, but we must at least consider why it was set where it was before we move it to where we'd prefer it to be. If we make a regular habit of thrashing our ancestors, our descendants, not surprisingly, will do the same to us.

"A people which takes no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants." - Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay

"People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors." - Edmund Burke

day no. 15,263: the day that made me

Today is my dad's birthday. If it were not for him, it would not be for me. 

Acts 17:24-26
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place

On this day, my parent's also were married back in 1977. If it were not for that day, it would not be for me.

Ephesians 3:14
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named

Happy birthday, dad!
Happy anniversary, mom and dad!