Tried With Fire

“I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction.” Isaiah 48:10. "“I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction.” I chose you before you were here. Yea, I chose you before you had a being, and when all creatures lay before Me in the pure mass of creatureship, and I could create or not create as I pleased, I chose and created you a vessel of mercy appointed unto eternal life. And when you, in common with the whole race, had fallen, though I might have crushed you with them and sent you down to hell, I chose you in your fallen condition and I provided for your redemption. In the fullness of time, I sent My Son, who fulfilled My law and made it honorable. I chose you at your birth, when a helpless infant you did sleep upon your mother’s breast. I chose you when you did grow up in childhood, with all your follies and your sins. Determined to save you, I watched o’er your path when, as Satan’s blind slave, you did sport with death. I chose you when, in manhood, you did sin agai...

Christ is always the same. Here at the end of his letter, the author echoes a theme from its beginning, "To the Son He says:... 'You [remain] the same'" (Heb. 1:8, 12, citing Ps. 102:27). But now he makes explicit what earlier was implicit. The immutable One of Psalm 102 is none other than the incarnate One of the gospel. The practical implication of this becomes clear when we remember that Psalm 102 is possibly the most eloquent description of depression and despair to be found in the entire Psalter. The psalmist's mental salvation lay in his rediscovery of the immutability of God. Hebrews gives that truth flesh and blood dimensions in Jesus Christ. You can trust Him; He is always the same. Do not mistake the meaning. This is not the immutability of the sphinx - a Christ captured once for all in a never-fading photograph. This is the changelessness of Jesus Christ in all His life, love, holiness, grace, justice, truth, and power. He is always the same for ...

The Christian life is a life of communion with the Father who loved and loves us, with the Son who gave himself for us and who ever lives to protect and bless us, and with the Holy Spirit who brings us into the communion of the Holy Trinity and makes it his special delight to glorify Christ in us and to us (John 16:14). Is there anything in life to rival such astounding privilege? John Owen wrote, 'Our greatest hindrance in the Christian life is not our lack of effort, but our lack of acquaintanceship with our privileges.' How right he was! Your and my greatest privilege in life, this life and the life to come, is to know the Holy Trinity, and even more wonderfully to be known by the Holy Trinity. May the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, give us all the grace to become more personally acquainted with our privileges, the greatest of which is knowing this triune God to be our God. The Gospel-Shaped Life , Ian Hamilton, Banner of Truth Trust, 2017, pgs. 3-4. Photo...

Do not keep back from Christ under the idea that you must come to him in a disinterested frame, and from an unselfish motive. If you were right in this thing, who could be saved? You are to come as you are; with all your bad motives, whatever these may be. Take all your bad motives, add them to the number of your sins, and bring them all to the altar where the great sacrifice is lying. Go to the mercy seat. Tell the High Priest there, not what you desire to be, nor what you ought to be, but what you are. Tell him the honest truth as to your condition at this moment. Confess the impurity of your motives; all the evil that you feel or that you don’t feel; your hard-heartedness, your blindness, your unteachableness. Confess everything without reserve. He wants you to come to Him exactly as you are, and not to cherish the vain thought that, by a little waiting, or working, or praying, you can make yourself fit, or persuade Him to make you fit. “But I am not satisfied with my faith,” you ...

Faith then is the link, the one link, between the sinner and the Sin-bearer. It is not faith, as a work or exercise of our minds, which must be properly performed in order to qualify or fit us for pardon. It is not faith, as a religious duty, which must be gone through according to certain rules, in order to induce Christ to give us the benefits of his work. It is faith, simply as a receiver of the divine record concerning the Son of God. It is not faith considered as the source of holiness, as containing in itself the seed of all spiritual excellence and good works; it is faith alone, recognizing simply the completeness of the great sacrifice for sin, and the trueness of the Father’s testimony to that completeness; as Paul writes to the Thessalonians, “our testimony among you was believed.” It is not faith as a piece of money or a thing of merit; but faith taking God at his word, and giving him credit for speaking the honest truth, when he declares that “Christ died for the ungod...

What peace for the stricken conscience is there in the truth that Christ died for the ungodly; and that it is of the ungodly that the righteous God is the Justifier! The righteous grace thus coming to us through the sin-bearing work of the “Word made flesh,” tells the soul, at once and forever, that there can be no condemnation for any sinner upon earth, who will only consent to be indebted to this free love of God, which, like a fountain of living water, is bursting freely forth from the foot of the Cross. Just, yet the Justifier of the ungodly! What glad tidings are here! Here is grace; God’s free love to the sinner; divine bounty and goodwill, altogether irrespective of human worth or merit. For this is the scriptural meaning of that often misunderstood word “grace.” This righteous free love has its origin in the bosom of the Father, where the only begotten has his dwelling. It is not produced by anything out of God himself. It was man’s evil, not his good, that called it forth....

Now all my heart's desire Is to abide In him, my Saviour dear, In him to hide, My shield and buckler he, Covering and protecting me; From Satan's darts I'll be Safe at his side. (Emmanuel T. Sibomana) "How do you know God is really for you? Where should you look for proof that God is for you? Does it lie in the fact that your Christian life has been unbroken happiness? Does it lie in the fact that your Christian life has been one of ecstatic joy? There is only one irrefutable answer to these questions. It cannot be found in our circumstances. It lies only in the provision that God has made for us in Jesus Christ. This is the whole point of Paul's question in verse 32 ( Romans 8:32 ). We can be sure that God is for us because this God, the God of the Bible, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up to the cross for us all. If this is true, Paul affirms, we can be confident He will give us...

And when I think of how, At Calvary, He bore sin's penalty Instead of me, Amazed, I wonder why He, the sinless One, should die For one so vile as I; My Saviour he! (Emmanuel T. Sibomana) "When God made His covenant with Abraham, He moved as a light between the two parallel lines of slain animals (Gen. 15). God said, symbolically, to Abraham, "If it costs Me My existence to bring this covenant promise of blessing to pass, I will pay that price." This is the heart of the gospel. That is the reason why God became man. That is the meaning of Jesus' life and ministry. That is the significance of the cross. The arrow of God's judgment against our sin penetrated the heart of God Himself on Calvary. As he brought His covenant pledge to fulfillment, God Himself took our guilt and and its judgment. The cross says: "I am bearing the penalty of your guilt Myself, and I will set you free from its bondage and its power." The e...

Not for my righteousness For I have none, But for his mercy's sake, Jesus, God's Son, Suffered on Calvary's tree -  Crucified with thieves was he -  Great was his grace to me, His wayward one. (Emmanuel T. Sibomana) "The two charges leveled against Jesus were blasphemy (that he had made Himself equal with God) and treason (that He had rejected lawfully constituted authority). Why were these two charges so significant? It was because these are the charges each of us faces before the judgment seat of God. In that court, I am guilty of blasphemy, because I have made myself rather than God the center of the universe. I am also guilty of treason, since I have sought to overturn His lawfully and graciously constituted authority over my life. Blasphemy and treason were also the crimes of Adam. These are the age-old crimes of which every one of us - old and young, rich and poor, wise and simple, famous and infamous - stands accused. We are on the same...

I'll be participating in a 6-month writer's cohort this year. Given that the point is to write, I need writing practice. I had set up another blog at Wordpress, so I am going to use that as my scratch sheet to get my thoughts out on a daily basis rather than here. For some reason, it feels different writing at a new site. I'm planning to still write here but we'll see how it goes. You can find me here - Persistent Thoughts .

My God has chosen me,  Though one of nought, To sit beside my King In heaven's court. Hear what my Lord has done O, the love that made him run To meet his erring son! This has God wrought. (Emmanuel T. Sibomana) "Until you have come to the end of the journey home to faith in Jesus Christ, it is likely that all you expect deep down from Christ is punishment. But when the prodigal makes the journey, he discovers a family party. The Gospels contain a number of references to celebrations and parties. This is wonderfully expressive of Jesus' view of what it means to belong to the kingdom of God, to the fellowship of His people, and to the church that He was beginning to build. We are invited to a celebration. Yes, there is another side to the Christian life, and it is expressed here - deep sorrow for sin, repentance, and costly grace. But joy in forgiveness is always there. The Christian life may appear from the outside to be a very sober way. It is, ...

I joined Goodreads  towards the end of last year. I hadn't joined before because I didn't want to get pulled into another social media black hole, but I think this will be different. I am able to track my progress on books I'm currently reading or listening to. (Tracking audio books is a bit of a challenge, though, since you enter a page number. I usually take a guess based on the chapter number.) Rather than feeling pressured to finish, my lack of progress may be an indication that I've lost interest or that this is a book that is just going to take a lot of time. Goodreads also keeps a running list of books I want to read. This keeps me from forgetting the books that have been waiting on the shelves, which are more than I want to count. You can get recommendations based on your reading tastes too. I just added a few titles, some of which are at my public library. Some of the recommendations can be puzzling. I use the phrase "grimly fascinating" for the ...

O how the grace of God Amazes me! It loosed me from my bonds And set me free! What made it happen so? His own will, this much I know, Set me, as now I show, At liberty by Emmanuel T. Sibomana "How, then, does Christ set us free? John had answered that question earlier, in the most famous verse in his Gospel. This God, this Father, so loved the world, this world in its sinfulness and bondage, that He sent His only Son into it. He had only one Son, but He sent Him to die on a cross in order to save everyone who believes in Him (John 3:16). The Son would be "lifted up" - lifted up on a cross exposed in public shame, hanging between heaven and earth, under the judgement of God against our sins - so that those who believe in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 12:32, 3:16). Jesus Christ is able to set us free because He has dealt with the sin that enslaves us. We can never atone for our own sin. We can never break its power. We...

I don't like unexpected change especially when the future outcome is unknown, and I was hit with a possible big change last week. As I wait, fear is trying to rise up even as I struggle to fight back. And it's not just fear of the final result. It's a fear that is directly related to my present actions. It's trying to sow doubts like - Are you praying enough? Are you doing enough? Should you be doing more? Are you doing too much? What if you make a wrong decision? What if the outcome hinges on that decision? Will you miss out on God's will? Can you really trust him to see you through this time? This fear tries to remove God from the picture or at least minimize his active role as much as possible. Its intent is to make me feel alone like a lab rat in a maze. No maps or external help allowed. It's all up to me to navigate my way, which would be terrifying if it was true. But there's an added twist. Depending on which path I take, I could miss the grand p...

From the parable of the prodigal son, Luke 15:11-32: "Count the sons. One left home and returned. A second stayed at home, but remained far away. Where is the third son? The third son is the Son who is telling the story. He is the Son who was at home with His Father but came to the far country. If we miss Him, we miss the meaning of the parable. For the characters in it - however real to life they may be - are imaginary. Jesus, however, is not. He is the One who, through costly grace and great humiliation, provides the way for prodigal sons to be welcomed home. This is what the story is really all about. As He told it, Jesus was talking to both prodigal sons and elder brothers, and inviting them to come to Him, to trust in Him, and to experience the joy of being His... It is natural enough - and right - to ask: Where am I in this story? Do you see yourself? Are you the prodigal or the elder brother? But it is even more important to ask: Do you see Jesus as your Sav...

Do not look back — as Lot's wife did. Do not look within — as too many do. Do not look around — as David did. But "look up!" Look up to God — He is your Father, your Friend, your Savior. He can help you. He will help you. He says, "Look unto Me, and be delivered — for I am God!" Look up for light to guide you — and He will direct your path. Look up for grace to sanctify you — and the grace of Jesus will be found sufficient for you. Look up for strength to enable you to do and suffer God's will — and His strength will be made perfect in your weakness. Look up for comfort to cheer you — and as one whom his mother comforts, so will the Lord comfort you. Look up for courage to embolden you — and the Lord will give courage to the faint; and to those who have no might — He will increase strength. Look up for endurance to keep you — and the God who preserves you will enable you quietly to bear the heaviest burden, and silently to endure the most painful afflictio...