“Amazing Grace”

This week my daughter related a story to me that brought me a laugh. As she was driving, she heard her three-year-old daughter Caitlin saying, “In your happiness, in your madness, in your gladness, in your sadness, in your fearedness, God is with you. God is with you in all your nesses. She may only be three, but she has that right. No matter what state our emotions are in or what circumstances we find ourselves, God is with us. He is with us in all our nesses.

You may be feeling lonely and abandoned, angry and hurt, fearful and afraid, or maybe excited and happy, but God is with us in all our emotions. He made us and knows what we are like. The Apostle Paul, in his first letter to Timothy, gave thanks to God for his marvelous grace. He was thankful that God chose him though he was an unworthy blasphemer who persecuted Christians. Paul says, “The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 1:14).

Are you aware of how much God’s grace has been abundantly poured out on your life? Paul had been a hard, arrogant, murderer who was obsessed with hunting down and persecuting Christians. Though he had once been the hunter, God had hunted him down, saved him, and called him to be his apostle to the Gentiles. When Paul thought about this, he was lost in the wonder of God’s amazing grace.

You may be familiar with the song “Amazing Grace,” but are you familiar with the author? His name is John Newton. He was born in London on July 24, 1725. He grew up the son of a merchant captain, so he learned the seas. Later, he was drafted into military service, but John’s depraved nature surfaced, and eventually he wound up on a slave ship, ultimately becoming a captain of his own ship. He treated people in a deplorable manner and lived as a reprobate. He had been abused, so he abused others.

He had had some early religious instruction from his mother, who had died when he was a child; he had long since given up any religious convictions. However, on a homeward voyage, while he was attempting to steer the ship through a violent storm, he experienced what he was to refer to later as his “great deliverance.” He recorded in his journal that when all seemed lost and the ship would surely sink, he exclaimed, “Lord, have mercy upon us.” Later in his cabin he reflected on what he had said and began to believe that God had addressed him through the storm and that grace had begun to work for him.

For the rest of his life he observed the anniversary of May 10, 1748 as the day of his conversion, a day of humiliation in which he subjected his will to a higher power.^[1]

Amazing grace! how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see.

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears relieved;

How precious did that grace appear The hour I first believed! (`Amazing Grace,’  John Newton, 1779)

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[1] Philip Graham Ryken, Exodus, Crossway Books, Wheaton IL, 2005, p. 519.

“Master Weaver”

God is the master weaver of all the events of our lives. He uses all things in his celestial designs. When Paul wrote these words to the Romans, he had that thought in mind: “ And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). We have such disdain for the bad things that happen, but we often forget that God is not limited in his masterpiece by our mistakes or the sins of others if we surrender to his will. He uses all things and works them out for the good, according to his design.

When Paul was imprisoned in Rome, some thought that Paul had suffered a setback, but the Apostle saw it differently: “As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. Because of my chains, most of the brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly” (Philippians 1:13-14). If Rome thought they were going to curtail this new sect by arresting Paul, they were dead wrong. Paul wrote his best letters from prison, and he inspired others by his fearless faith.

My family and I traveled from Buenos Aires to the Province of Tucuman in Argentina to make our home there many years ago. It was a trip of over 700 miles. We were driving a pickup that was pulling a trailer loaded with many of our possession, and among them were all of our major appliances. Just twenty miles before we reached our destination, a truck loaded with sugar cane pulled out in front of us which caused me to swerve to keep from hitting him. This resulted in the trailer coming unhitched and careening into a canal with about five feet of water. It was a discouraging sight to see all of our things in that canal in the water.

Some of our things had fallen out on the ground, and people were taking them. There sat all of our appliances in the canal. What do we do now? A generous family we had never met came out and invited Marilyn and our two small children to come into their house while I went looking for some means of getting us out of the ditch. I found a farmer with a tractor and was finally able to get the trailer out of the canal, and we were able to be on our way once again. The appliances had been damaged along with the pickup and trailer. It was extremely frustrating. However, years later we could look back and see that God opened incredible doors to meeting people as we sought help in repairing the pickup and all the damaged goods. There were people to whom we were able to share the gospel. In fact, some people came to know the Lord through that accident. Truly, he is the Master Weaver.

Inspired Confidence

Some people are so committed and skilled at what they do that they inspire confidence. They are reliable—having done the task well many times that their work speaks for itself.

On one occasion I was returning home from a trip, and the alternator went out on the car. I found a mechanic who said he knew how to make the repair. The more I watched him work, the less confidence I had that he knew what he was doing. He was hesitant and reluctant in his work. He put a new alternator on the car, but a nut was missing from the assembly. He told me it had been lost in the process, but that it didn’t matter in the function of the alternator. Somehow I just knew that nut was more important than he said it was, but nonetheless, I was on my way once more. However, a considerable distance down the road I heard an awful noise, and the alternator light came on again. I had to cripple my way into another shop in another city and buy another alternator.

When the second mechanic pulled the alternator off, he found a loose nut that had fallen inside the alternator and had caused the damage. My lack of confidence in the first mechanic had been justified.

Once, I went to the dentist with some serious tooth pain. The major problem for me was I couldn’t tell which tooth was causing the problem. Though the x-rays showed nothing, the dentist drilled into one of my teeth to find the source of the pain.  As I listened to the sound of the drill and felt the small spray of water hitting my mouth, I realized that I don’t like to going to the dentist, I knew I was in good hands because I had confidence in the man.  An hour and a half later I was walking out, root canal and abscessed tooth dealt with. My confidence was well placed in a competent dentist with experience who knew which tooth to work on and how to fix the problem.

We all deal with situations everyday where we either have confidence or a lack of confidence. For anyone who has known God for any length of time, their confidence in Him will grow. It will grow because God is faithful. He keeps his promises. He is full of mercy, and his grace is abundant. The more we know him, the more we trust him. This is why the writer of Hebrews wrote: “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:12-16).

“Emotional Intimacy”

What so many people long for, but never find, is emotional intimacy. They search and search but always come up short. They dive into relationships and experience physical and even sexual intimacy, but emotional intimacy—what their hearts long for, never happens. No matter how many relationships, it eludes them.

Emotional intimacy doesn’t happen on its own. Oh, it might happen for a short while—what I call roller coaster intimacy. It can be what some people experience on an intense vacation or spending spree, but, that is not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about experiencing a close emotional connection with someone over many years.

That only happens when two people really love each other and are willing to guard that intimacy. They make sure their words are not stones that inflict wounds on each other. They keep their promises no matter how hard it is. They hold on to the intimacy even when it feels like it’s gone—and amazingly it comes back. Whenever they find confusion in their relationship, they talk it out no matter how hard it seems. They guard this intimacy with mutual honesty, respect, and honor. They share a deep, authentic faith in God and acknowledge that what they have is a gift from him. They cherish each other and what they have because they have learned to treasure their emotional intimacy. The following story illustrates this kind of intimacy.

A book called A Promise Kept is the story of Robertson McQuilkin, a former missionary and seminary president who gave up his post because his wife Muriel had Alzheimer’s disease. He decided to dedicate himself full time for as long as the Lord deemed necessary to take care of his wife.

He wrote of traveling with his wife: Once our flight was delayed in Atlanta and we had to wait a couple of hours. Now that’s a challenge. Every few minutes we’d take a fast-paced walk down the terminal in earnest search of what? Muriel had always been a speed walker. I had to jog to keep up with her.

An attractive woman executive type sat across from us, working diligently on her computer. Once when we returned from an excursion she said something without looking up from her papers. Since no one else was nearby I assumed she had spoken to me, or at least mumbled in protest of our constant activity. “Pardon?” I asked. “Oh,” she said, “I was just was asking myself, “Will I ever find a man to love me like that?”

McQuilkin answered the woman, “Oh yes, you can find a man like that, because I’ve found a man like that. The only reason I love my wife the way you see me loving her is because the man Jesus first loved me. The resources I have to draw upon to love my wife the way I do are the resources he gives me. Mirrored in my relationship here with my wife you can see the faithful love of God for me.”[1]

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[1] Preaching Today Tape 204 August 2003 Greg Lafferty, Passion for God’s Covenant.

“The Price of Our Freedom”

It is hard to see things with perspective when you are up close. Take for example the world’s opinion of Hitler in 1939. It was good. He was a genius who had taken Germany from economic disaster to model success. People were saying that we need to learn from what Hitler is doing in Germany. Even with the invasion of Czechoslovakia in March of 1939, and Poland in September, surprisingly many people still supported Nazism. After killing more than 100,000 Polish soldiers, and 35,000 civilians Hitler told journalists to “…take a good look around Warsaw and see I can deal with any European city.”[1]

Then, in April, Hitler invaded Denmark and Norway and in May, Holland and Belgium. By June, France capitulated to Germany, surrendering one of the world’s largest armies. By July, Hitler was bombing Britain with the hope of killing hundreds of thousands of British.

Then on June 22, 1941, Hitler invaded Russia with an army of 3 million soldiers and thousands of planes, tanks and artillery pieces. The invasion force was so large it could have been seen from outer space. Within a few months it looked as if the Nazis would conquer Russia. They were knocking on the door of Leningrad and Moscow, and Russia’s oil fields were now in imminent danger.

Then on December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and the United States entered World War II. However, though we had entered the war, we were nowhere near prepared to fight. Our equipment and weaponry were in pathetic condition. Soldiers trained with drain-pipes for antitank guns, stovepipes for mortar tubes, and brooms for rifles. Only six medium tanks had been built in 1939, and if you can believe it, the army still believed there was a place for the horse Calvary. The Army’s cavalry chief assured Congress in 1941 that four well-spaced horsemen could charge half a mile across an open field to destroy an enemy machine-gun nest without sustaining a scratch.^[2]

Our first encounter with the German army came in North Africa. A strange place, but in retrospect, it was a blessing because it is where we learned to make an amphibious landing against a hostile enemy. Just about everything that could go wrong in North Africa went wrong. However, as North Africa claimed some 70,000 allied, wounded or missing, our army learned to fight.

With time, subtle changes could be sensed in the Americans. They were gradually learning fieldcraft: how to keep off ridgelines, how to camouflage slit trenches, how to flush German crews from their tanks and how to win battles. The soldiers shied away from officers who were glory seekers and appreciated those who remained calm and tactically alert.

The price of freedom is expensive. Our soldiers paid with their lives to contain the threat from Germany and Japan in this four year war. We are grateful to God for his blessings on our country that came so close to peril in those dark years. Today I am extremely grateful to all those who paid the ultimate price for our freedom.

Rick Atkinson writes:

TWENTY-SEVEN acres of headstones fill the American military cemetery at Carthage, Tunisia. There are no obelisks, no tombs, no ostentatious monuments, just 2,841 bone-white marble markers, two feet high and arrayed in ranks as straight as gunshots. Only the chiseled names and dates of death suggest singularity. Four sets of brothers lie side by side. Some 240 stones are inscribed with thirteen of the saddest words in our language: “Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God.” A long limestone wall contains the names of another 3,724 men still missing, and a benediction: “Into Thy hands, O Lord.”[3]

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[1] Manchester, William; Reid, Paul (2012-11-06). The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Defender of the Realm, 1940-1965, Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

[2] Atkinson, Rick (2002-02-22). An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943, Volume One of the Liberation Trilogy (p. 9). Henry Holt and Co.. Kindle Edition.

[3] Atkinson, Rick (2002-02-22). An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943, Volume One of the Liberation Trilogy (p. 1). Henry Holt and Co.. Kindle Edition.