Reverence and Awe

Good Evening Everyone. I pray that you had a blessed day as I did and am praising Him for all He has done.

If your day didn't go as planned or you are battling sin, my prayer is that you will find comfort in tonight's reading.

Spurgeon writes "we rejoice in Him whose faithful word is sweeter than honey or the honeycomb. In every trouble we should first seek to realize God's presence with us." We see throughout the book of Job the trials and tribulations that he faced. Spurgeon points out that in Job's extremity he cried out after the Lord. I am so blessed by Spurgeon's next comment. "The longing desire of an afflicted child of God is once more to see his Father's face."

I was reading tonight's prayer update regarding our team in Vietnam, and was blessed to hear that things were going so well and excited to hear how God is blessing the people. They have and are experiencing grave trials yet have found comfort and refuge in Him. But how easy is it to run the other way from God? It is our sinful nature to run from His affliction, yet I am thankful that as a believer I find shelter in Him. As Spurgeon puts it, "God's children run home when the storm comes on. Have you ever been so boastful when things are going great? We get all puffed up sometimes and think we are doing it. We don't need anyone else's help. We are doing just fine. Nothing can stop us. And then bam!!! Out of nowhere our whole world is picked up and shaken upside down. Oh what a blessing that I can cry out to my Lord and savior.

Oh that I might know where to find Him that I might come to His seat. - Job 23:3

Amen

Labels: Morning and Evening, Reverence, Spurgeon

Before I begin, I am overwelmed with joy as today my parents will be celebrating 35 years of marriage. In a worldly view where marriage doesn't mean much anymore, but as Christians, I am delighted that God has blessed them and has shown them the significance of the covenent that they made so long ago. They would be the first to tell you that it was only God that made this happen. I look at them as such great examples, as tomorrow will be my anniversary with Cindy celebrating our 5th year of marriage; and it is God who I put my trust in to guide me through.

"Thy gentleness hath made me great." Psalm 18:35

As a sinner, I am so blessed by this verse. Spurgeon looks at Thy gentleness as a few different points of view, thy goodness, thy providence, thy help, thy humility, they condescension, and thy discipline.

We see that in all these it is God making Himself little which is the cause of our being made great. I am so glad that God is gentle and corrects me with love and discipline. Spurgeon writes, "My sins were the scourges which lacerated those blessed shoulders, and crowned with thorn those bleeding brows: my sins cried Crucify Him, Crucify Him and laid the cross upon His gracious shoulders." After reading this, God should have and could have used no condescension or humility and crushed all of our wretched souls. I praise Him, as should you, that it is finished. God sent Jesus to pay for these sins.

He makes Himself little that we can be made BIG. He gives us the ability and the cause to do great things. He is the cause of our significance. Do not boast in what you have done, but what He has done. As we meditate on Him today, remember who and what put Him on the cross and the wrath that should have been place on us was put on Jesus. Yet also remember that it was God's perfect plan and His gentleness that saved us from that wrath. Praise Him!

Labels: Morning and Evening, Reverence, Spurgeon

» Today's reading at Blue Letter Bible

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Please forgive the tardiness of this entry as God is showing me patience with my sweet daughter Sienna. The night was long as she was up every hour, or so it seems, as my mind drifted back to sleep she would be calling again. Oh there are so many to whom I write that have the same experiences. Please pray for Cindy and me that we shall have some sleepful nights before us. And if we don't I am encouraged, by you who have gone before us, that will someday end.

What an encouraging devotion this evening reading from the Book of Nahum, a book I personally don't think I have ever read, but what a powerful verse:

The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked. The Lord has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet.

I love the description here as the writer describes the clouds are the dust of His feet. Indeed they are, the thought is mind blowing to say the least. He is so magnificent. Spurgeon writes, "The Lord is slow to anger, because He is GREAT IN POWER. He is truly great in power who hath power over himself." What a blessing because if He were less divine, Spurgeon continues, "he would long ere this have sent forth the whole of His thunders, and emptied the magazines of heaven; He would long ere ths have blasted the earth with the wondrous fires of its lower regions and man would have been utterly destroyed." We deserve this wrath that God has for us, but praise him brothers, Jesus is our saving Grace. I am so thankful that God is slow to anger and that he has given us mercy that we do not deserve.

Labels: Devotional, Morning and Evening, Reverence, Spurgeon

Good Morning!

This morning Charles has brought us to ponder one of the great contrasts found in scripture, the contrast of darkness and light. Throughout scripture we see this contrast used as a metaphor for good and evil, for righteousness and sin. This is displayed not only through physical light we see with our eyes but also, and more importantly, by the spiritual light we receive from the Holy Spirit.

As roaches and rats scurry at the flick of a light switch so too am I able to see clearly the filth of my own sin and pride under the penetrating light of His word, or as Spurgeon says "...we behold sin in its true colours...". This revealing is a practice my own soul needs daily.

All the while knowing that if it were not for the Holy Spirit illuminating God's words to my eyes I would look upon them as gibberish unable to decipher His truths, unable to be led. What a gift He gives us in the knowledge of His truths.

May His words ever be a lamp unto our feet and a light onto our path (Ps 119:105) and may we not forget that we were once lost in darkness but have now been brought out of that darkness and into His wonderful light and are now called to walk in that light. (1Pet 2:9; Eph 5:8-14)


Good Evening!

In keeping with a "light" theme C. H. Spurgeon closes our day with some meditations about the light that God has put into believers.

Like a seal of ownership God "...sees "light" in your heart, for He has put it there, and all the cloudiness and gloom of your soul cannot conceal your light from His gracious eye."

This makes me have great thoughts about how Christ is the author and the finisher of my faith. (Heb 12:2) And though I may have times of despair and times of feeling far from God or a dryness in my spirit, He preserves the light that He had originally placed within me. Oh what great comfort that comes from knowing and trusting in an almighty God who is sovereignly in control of my salvation.

In closing I love the thought that Spurgeon ends with that "the light within is the dawn of the eternal day." This really causes me to think eternally. Knowing that there will be a day when we will see His glory and there will be no need for a sun or a moon to shine for the glory of God will illuminate the city, and the lamb will be our light. (Rev 21:23)

May the Lord bless your evening and give you rest. God bless!

Labels: Devotional, Morning and Evening, Reverence, Spurgeon

Welcome to the first posting on the Reverence 'n Awe, a blog of Reverence Bible Church. We desire to talk about the LORD (God the Father, God the Son--Jesus Christ, and God the Holy Spirit), theology, religion, church-life, culture and whatever else might be applicable. Our goal (and hopefully we will always reach it), will be to do such in a God honoring manner and to have people worship God with reverence and awe.

Labels: Reverence