Mark's Daily Reading Journal

A friend asked me what I thought it meant to be surrendered!  After I thought and prayed for a moment I said that I love the word yielded, to be completely surrendered to the LORD is to be yielded to HIM.  I thought of Andrew Murray’s work, Absolute Surrender, hard to beat on what it means and looks like to be surrendered to the LORD.  It is the greatest commandment lived out in the power of the Holy Spirit…to love the LORD your God with ALL your heart, soul, mind and strength.  To be surrendered means that there is no part of your life that is off limits to our Savior, LORD and King!

As we were talking my sense was that I was looking at it more from the human side…almost a negative side.  The thought might go something like this… “since I now see and understand what Jesus did for me through His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, knowing that He is praying for me, knowing that He took my place on the cross and clothed me in His righteousness the least I can do is surrender my all to Him, here is my life LORD.”

While I was talking along those lines God reminded me of the many life transforming encounters His people had with Him throughout His precious Word.  When you meditate on surrender from this perspective it takes on a whole new meaning.

In Ezekiel 1:28, we see Ezekiel’s response to God, “…Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking.”  What was Job’s response and conclusion at the end of Job?  In Job 42:5–6, Job says, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; 6 therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”   The Apostle John, the one whom the LORD loved, the one who reclined on Jesus at the Lord’s Supper, the one who was present at the transfiguration, when John saw Jesus in a vision in Revelation his response was appropriate and immediate.  In Revelation 1:17, John writes, “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last.”  Remember Paul on the road to Damascus?  I think you could say Paul had a life transforming encounter with the King of kings.  Question, do you think any of these thought, “well in the light of all He did for me the least that I can do is surrender to HIM.”  I’m thinking…hmmm…NOT!

The last encounter that I mentioned as we talked about the surrendered life was Isaiah in Isaiah 6 and then David Platt preached on this very passage in our concluding Awesome August service…it truly was awesome!

In Isaiah 6:1–7 we read, “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” 4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” 6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

In John chapter 12 as John is explaining the unbelief of the people he quotes Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 6, John writes, “so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” 39 Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said, 40 “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.”  Then John says these breath taking words in John 12:41, “Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him.” 

What was Isaiah’s response to a vision of Jesus on the throne ?  We see in Isaiah 6:8, Isaiah says, “And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.””  The point if very simple….if you have “seen” HIM, truly “seen” HIM you KNOW that HE is the TREASURE, HE is the Pearl of Great Price!  There is NO thought of “well since Jesus has done so much for me the least I can do is…”  That is absurd!  When you “see” HIM you are captivated, you are in awe, the breath is sucked out of you and in great joy, joy inexpressible and full of glory, you begin to run to HIM crying in a loud voice here am I send me! 

To “see” HIM is to know HIM and to Know HIM is to love HIM and those that love HIM keep HIS commandments!

Staying on Target, pursuing HIM together!

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Treasure, take a moment and think about how many movies you have watched that have been about treasure maps and treasure, the National Treasure series would be the most recent.  Man’s passion and pursuit of treasure is insatiable.   Man is willing to do basically anything to have and to posses treasure, for a few dollars treasure hunters are willing to kill!  Why do you think that is?  Blaise Pascal put it like this, “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus”  Until that vacuum is filled man will not rest…our problem is that we try to fill it with everything but God. 

In 2 Cor 4:7 Paul told us that we have THIS TREASURE in jars of clay…why?  To show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.  In 1 Corinthians 2:5 we hear a similar message from Paul, “that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”  The stunning, breath taking, awe striking, mind blowing, heart stopping GOOD NEWS is that God gives HIMSELF to those who ask, seek, knock and pursue HIM!  Don't pursue the gifts, pursue the gift giver!  Don’t waste your lives pursuing treasure on earth, pursue true treasure, God Himself.  When you seek HIM you will find HIM (Jer 29:13).  In 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 Paul challenges us, “do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”  You and I are not the treasure, HE is!  How does this work?  The Creator God of the Universe, the one who spoke the whole Universe into existence, has taken up residence in those who were created and then recreated through redemption in HIS image…how does HIS life and light flow through HIS children?

Watchman Nee, in The BREAKING OF THE OUTER MAN AND THE RELEASE OF THE SPIRIT puts it this way:

The treasure is in the earthen vessel.  Who needs to see your earthen vessel?  The church lacks the treasure, not the earthen vessels.  The world lacks the treasure, not the earthen vessels.  If the earthen vessel is not broken, who will find the treasure within?  The Lord woks in us in so many different ways for the purpose of breaking the earthen vessel, the alabaster flask, the outer shell.  The Lord wants to prepare a way to bring His blessing to the world through those who belong to Him.  This is a way of blessing…How crucial the breaking of this outer man is!

What does it mean to be broken?  In Psalm 34:18 we learn that, “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”  Psalm 51:17 teaches us that, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”   In Matthew 5:3 Jesus tells us that, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  In Luke 4:18-19 Jesus quotes Isaiah 61:1 but HE adds a phrase…“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

That is helpful, but what does it look like to be broken?  Through life’s circumstances God broke Jacob, and because of this we see Jacob dignified standing before Pharaoh, and worshiping God at the end of his life.  Peter was broken denying our Lord three times and then running away, contrast him with the Peter of Pentecost.  Thomas was broken and restored at the sight of Jesus and cried, “my Lord and my God.”  Do you remember what Job cried as he was being restored?   I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; 6 therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes (Job 42:5–6).”

There is something radically transforming about seeing Jesus!  Not with physical eyes, but with the eyes of the heart.  Consider Psalm 146:8 “the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous.”  Now let’s circle back around to 2 Corinthians 4:6 where Paul teaches about God creating light in Genesis and God creating light in our hearts.  “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.”  Remember in Acts 16:14 we are told that the Lord opened Lydia’s heart.

Let me try to sum this up.  All men radically pursue treasure in radically different ways.  When we come to the end of ourselves, desperate, broken & humbled we are ready to receive the one true treasure, the Pearl of Great price.  It is in seeing Jesus with the eyes of our hearts that we are broken, transformed and continually filled with HIM…“Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water (Jn 7:38).’ ”

Taste and see that the Lord is good…

Staying on Target, pursuing Him together!

Psalm 34:8 commands us to “taste and see that the Lord is good!" Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!”  Why is that man or woman blessed?  Because they are saved, they are new creatures, redeemed, recreated and God Himself has taken up residence within this adopted child and God is their refuge.  God’s adopted children are His heirs and joint heirs with Christ…now that’s radical!  My conviction from the beginning is that it is impossible to love God in the way HE commands unless you have been born again.  In 1 Peter 1:8 we are told that, “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.”  This kind of love and this kind of joy can have no other source than the very heart of God.  Hold on to the thought of the command to “taste and see,” AND “though you have not seen him you love him.”

In 2 Corinthians 3:16–18 Paul teaches us that, “when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”  One Pastor put it this way, “Beholding is becoming!”  Think about this, beholding the glory of the LORD will transform you.  If you behold something it means that you see it!  In Ephesians 4:24 Paul instructs us to, “put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”  The natural question for me is if beholding is becoming, if this is how I grow and mature in Christ, if this is how I experience a transformed life then how do I do it?  How can I behold Him and not see HIM.  I believe that Paul will provide the answer in the next few verses. 

Let’s pick up in 4:3, Paul tells us that, “if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. 4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” [Paul looking back to the creation account in Genesis] has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

The adopted child, the new creature, the one who has taken refuge in Christ, is hidden in Christ and knows that Jesus drank down the Cup of the infinite wrath of God on sin and cried out, “it is finished.”  This adopted child is so humbled and divested of pride that he/she is able to behold the exalted glory of the Lord.  What an insanely radical concept…Death with Christ brings “clarity of vision.”  We enter death with Christ by faith (Gal 2:20, Eph 2:8-9), the righteous shall live by faith and continue in faith.  The author of Hebrews puts it this way, 12:2 “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Beholding Jesus, the Word incarnate, in His Word we become like Him, looking unto Jesus we are transformed…death with Christ brings clarity of vision and we are transformed and we love Him with an everlasting love, we love Him with a sacrificial love, we love Him with a divine love.  All this because He has “shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”   How do we hold this treasure?  In Jars of clay… “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”

Staying on Target, pursuing HIM together!

Luke 24:32 is one of my favorite verses in God’s precious Word.  ALL of God’s Word is perfect, infallible, inerrant, glorious…but these precious few words speak to the quality and effect of God’s Word.  The Word of God rightly heard and understood, the Word of God rightly opened will the ignite the human heart, rightly exposed to the intense heat of God’s blazing Word your heart will explode with passion and love for God!  In Luke 24:32 we learn about the two guys on the road to Emmaus, remember what they said after their encounter with Jesus?  “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”

OK God commands us to love HIM with all our being and enables us to love HIM by saving us, by recreating & redeeming us and filling us with HIMSELF!  As we see in John 17:26 that not only does God place His love in us but Jesus takes up residence in God's children.   Jesus praying to the Father says, “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.”  STOP!  Please reread those Words of Jesus.  Jesus is praying to the Father that the Father would love us with the same love with which HE loves Jesus!  Talk about radical…our great God was infinitely radical in HIS love toward us and if this Awesome God has taken up residence in us through Jesus Christ, really taken up residence, do you think we would be radical in our love toward Him and toward others?

Paul confirms this in Col 1:27 when he says, "to them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. "  In Romans 5:5 we learn that, "hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. "  In Luke 11 we see Jesus teaching His disciples to pray.  After He gives them an outline for prayer He begins to teach them and in Luke 11:13 he closes with "if you then who are evil, know ow to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give you all kinds of great stuff."  Sorry, that's not what it says..."How much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!."  Don't miss this...the breath taking, awe striking, mind blowing, heart stopping GOOD NEWS is that God gives HIMSELF to those who ask, seek, knock and pursue HIM!  Don't pursue the gifts, pursue the gift giver!

In his Confessions St. Augustine wrote these words, “Oh! that I might repose on Thee! Oh! that Thou wouldest enter into my heart, and inebriate it, that I may forget my ills, and embrace Thee, my sole good!”  You have to think that Augustine had Ephesians 5:18 in mind “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.”  Until I read Augustine I had never really thought about it that way…what happens when someone drinks too much wine?  What is Augustine’s prayer?  His cry is that God would “enter into my heart, and inebriate it.”  A heart aflame, burning hearts, inebriated hearts…hearts consumed and filled with the creator God of the universe.  Insane?  Radical? Oh yea!

Jeremiah 29:13  You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

 On Target, pursuing HIM together!

As we search the scriptures there is never a time where God is satisfied with His people keeping the external laws and yet having a rebellious heart.   A fruit of our  love for God is a burning desire to walk in obedience to HIS Word.  The key is that it is a fruit of a life that has been transformed from the inside out.  What did Paul teach us in Romans?  Do not be conformed to the world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind (Rom 12:2).
So when Jesus says,  "If you love Me, keep My," what, "commandments." This is not anything new.  God's has been saying this from the beginning. If you love me you'll keep My commandments. We are people who love God if we are new creatures in Christ...1 John 4:19 says, "We love Him because He, what, first loved us."  We are described as a people that love God in Ephesians 6:24.  "Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love."  God’s grace is given to those who love Him, to those who love Him with an incorruptible love.  God calls and commands people to love Him. Is He worthy of all my heart, soul, mind and strength?  Yes!  Once you come to the Father through Jesus Christ and you being to see and comprehend the depth of the Father’s love for us, when your eyes are opened to His Everlasting love, His Sacrificial love, His glorious love, your new heart responds in love.  We become partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4) at a great cost to our LORD.

Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6 in Matt 9:13, “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”  Paul in Philippians 3:10-11 expresses the desire of his heart, “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.”

In a sermon on the greatest Commandment John MacArthur quotes several scriptures that point to characteristics of someone that loves God.  What God desires from men is that we love Him and that we know Him. And what kind of love is this?

It is a love that focuses on God's glory. We see that in Psalm 18. It is a love that trusts in God's power. We see that in Psalm 31:23  It is a love that seeks fellowship with God. Psalm 63:1-8 talks about that buring desire. It is a love that secures the peace of the soul Psalm 119:165  It is a love that is sensitive to how God feels Psalm 69:9  It is a love that loves what God loves Psalm 119:72 , 97, 103. It is a love that loves whom God loves 1 John 5:1. It is a love that hates what God hates Psalm 97:10. It is a love that grieves over sin Matt 26:75. It is a love that rejects the world 1 John 2:15. It is a love that longs to be with Christ II Timothy 4:8. But more than all of that this love is a love that obeys, that obeys, that obeys.

Paul in Phil 1:9 says, "I pray that your love may more and more abound in all knowledge." 

Staying on Target, pursuing Him together!

In John 14:21  We learn that if we love HIM we will keep HIS commandments.  How can we keep HIS commandments?  This is only possible because we have a new nature, we are new creatures in Christ, as we see in 2 Cor 5:17.  For God's children, those that have been born from above, we learn in 2 Peter 1:4 that we have become "partakers of the divine nature," and we are called by God to "put on” the "new self created after the likeness of God ( Eph 4:24 )."

Even with this understanding we must be very careful…God is never pleased with outward compliance and inward rebellion, NEVER!  These words in Deuteronomy 28:47-48 are astounding, “Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, 48 therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything. And he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you.”  WOW!  Please pause and take a moment and read the rest of Deuteronomy 28, listen carefully to the curses for disobedience.  After you finish look back at the reason in verse 47  “Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart.”  The demeanor, the position, the attitude of your heart is VERY important to God!  As I continue to meditate on what it means to “love God” I am more and more convinced that only the broken & humble have the ability to “love God.”

We know that loving God is not merely in the external expression of religious activity...God hates this!

Isaiah 1:14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates;  they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.

Isaiah 29:13 And the Lord said:   “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me,   and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,

Mark 7:6  “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,   “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;

In Mark 2:8 we see Jesus ability to see our hearts… “And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, “Why do you question these things in your hearts?”  Again in Luke 5:22 we see the same thing, “When Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answered them, “Why do you question in your hearts?” 

In one sense this is terrifying because we can never clean our hearts on our own, on the other hand it is delightful because when we approach HIM broken & humble & repentant HE creates is us a clean heart and gives us a new nature to know HIM and Love HIM!  Kathryn Scott wrote a beautiful song inspired by Psalm 139.  This song is my prayer for you and for me.

Psalm 139:23–24  Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

Staying on Target, pursuing HIM together!

The other day I was sitting at my desk at church reading and replying to emails when my wife called to share some information about one of our children.  While she was talking I received an email that caught my attention and I began reading, we both finished about the same time and then I asked her a question.  There was a long silence on her end and I realized that I had just asked her the question that she had just spent five minutes answering.  I had that horrible sinking feeling in my stomach and I quickly apologized, but the damage was done.  Because I love Diane typically I work hard to give her my undivided attention.  With three young children we have to work to have the time with each other, but more than just time we have to work to communicate daily. 

Years ago, like in the early 90’s God pierced my heart with 1 Peter 3:7 “Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.”

My thought here is two fold, there are huge spiritual consequences if we do not labor to “live with our wives in an understanding way,” and the second is that the same can be said about our relationship with our heavenly Father.  If you truly love someone you will listen to them, you look forward to spending time alone with them and there is a strong desire for intimacy spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically (the last one is ONLY for our wives).  When you are together you don’t just talk all the time you listen!  You don’t look at your iphone all the time or read the paper or read a book or watch TV…you LISTEN!

If you truly “love God” you will pursue Him, seek Him and when you find Him (Jer. 29:13) you LISTEN to Him.  Remember the Inn Keepers response to Joseph and Mary?  There is no room in the Inn!  In our frantic paced culture I’m afraid that most of us leave no room to hear, even if our eyes and ears have been opened to Him we fill the room with everything else.

Psalm 90:14 is a prayer to God to “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”  My question to you and to me is who or what do we cry “satisfy” me to?  Satisfy me, satisfy me, satisfy me…our hearts, if we are honest, are craving machines.  We may cry satisfy me to our jobs, spouses, children, homes, stuff…we can even say it to ministry, yes ministry.  Augustine put it this way, "God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you."  Only by crying out to the one true God through Jesus Christ will we be satisfied…“Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”

Tozer had a haunting word some 50+ years ago for his culture…I’m afraid it is more true today.

The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart. The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness or our worship and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all.”  A.W. Tozer 

If we truly love God we will pursue Him and seek Him…when we find Him we will listen like Mary at the feet of Jesus and our souls will rejoice, be nourished and will be at peace, the peace that goes beyond understanding.

Seeking Him, staying on Target, pursuing Him together