the calmer of the seas

"The Calmer of the sea Here in this room with me So gently welcoming The weakest things in me You are the blood over The door of my heart What pain You spared me from How could I know it all? Oh Jesus, You became what was my deepest shame That at Your very name My calloused heart would change How could You, oh perfect One Love me, when I have done nothing that's worthy of My freedom You have won?" --Bethany Dillon, "Let your light shine down"

The God of the Bible, the one True God, here--with me? The depths of my heart have been so aching over divisions on doctrines. And how graciously, yet firmly God has revealed to me the importance of standing on the Word alone... and the necessity of division.

"God gives good press to doctrine... In God’s book, knowing his Son and believing true things about him is liberty. “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). God’s self-revelation in the Bible is not a wax nose. Paul calls it “the standard of teaching to which you were committed” (Romans 6:17). It’s a standard, a yardstick, a pattern. You measure truth by it. Elsewhere he calls it “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27), and the “pattern of the soundwords” and “the good deposit entrusted to you” (2 Timothy 1:13-14). It does not change. Our everlasting salvation is determined by whether we believe it: “Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son” (2 John 1:9). Depart from the doctrine, and you depart from Christ. Or, better, keep watch over your doctrine and “you will save . . . yourself” (1 Timothy 4:16). " --Desiring God Ministries

It is therefore much needed that we pursue the Truth, and right-thinking in the Word relentlessly--so that as ideas of man or even doctrines of a church or school of thought arise that declare to be of the Bible...we measure it by the Truth...holding it up to the entire Word, and examining it by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The quest for joy is found so fundamentally in the truths of Scripture--and that is why we must have right thinking about all the Bible teaches. And what could be better or of more value than this? That by doing so, God is most glorified in us because of Jesus Christ--who is the centerpiece of the Bible--because of his death for sinners, and his ressurection--which is "history's only essential message (CJ Mahaney)."

Ephesians 4:25-27 "Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil." along with Ephesians 4:1-16 has continually led me to stand firm, striving to speak truth in love--yet how slow of a student I am!

He can calm the seas--he can surely calm my heart. God says, "Be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). What stillness and peace comes even in the midst of struggle, loneliness, or longing when the Absolute Sovereignty of God is so clearly evident in all of Scripture.

"God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him" (John Piper). May Paul's heart be my prayer: "Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith--that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. NOT THAT I HAVE ALREADY OBTAINED THIS OR AM ALREADY PERFECT, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:8-14).

Grace Abounds,
Sara