Come Quickly!

Pondering the first moment I see Christ

He who testifies to these things says, "Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:20)

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:21)

I'm still musing over death and dying, and eternity as a whole. Basically, I can't wait until I see Jesus face to face! It's not about how cool heaven will be (Revelation 21:21, 22:1-5, etc). It's not even about all the awful things that won't be in heaven—fear, suffering, pain, sadness (Revelation 21:4). I can't wait to finally "praise the One who paid my debt and raised my life up from the dead" with every fiber of my being, for the rest of eternity. I can't wait to finally savor Jesus Christ, and to embark on a never ending journey in knowing how infinitely worthy He is of all praise, honor, and glory. I can't wait to finally see the lion-like Lamb, the lamb-like Lion; Jesus truly is an admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies! (Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ)

What will happen the first time I see Christ? My heart yearns for that moment, but my mind can barely begin to comprehend it; how can I even dare to imagine it?! I wish I could see Jesus face to face now, then come back and live the rest of my short life here on earth (Job 7:7, 7:16). That way, perhaps after seeing Christ in all His glory, I would have the boldness I need to make every moment count for Him… I would understand how beautiful Christ is and how despicable and worthless sin is (Jeremiah 2)! An eloquent preacher (whose writing style you may recall) said it this way, "Resolved: to endeavor to my utmost to act as I can think I should do if I had already seen the happiness of heaven and hell's torments." (Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards)

Here's a song that talks about how wonderful it will be to finally see Christ, for the first time ever. It's called "Arrived" (by Enfield).

Watching and waiting our whole life through
For the moment when we arrive in glory
We'll be standing before His emerald throne
Oh, what a day it will be

All tears are gone and suffering ceased
Perfect new life, no earthly strife
When we finish the race, run to His embrace
Oh, what a day it will be

When we've arrived, stunned and surprised
All things resolved in the blink of an eye
No more distractions, no sin left to fight
First glimpse of Jesus, and faith becomes sight

Feel the ground shake, hear thunder roll
See lightning strike and seraphim fly
All amazed we will fall, yet the Father will call,
"Stand, I've made you my own."

A choir with angels, martyrs and saints
Singing His praise with no end to the days
Shouting, "Holy! Holy! Holy!" to Almighty God
Oh, what a song that will be

When we've arrived, stunned and surprised
All things resolved in the blink of an eye
No more distractions, no sin left to fight
First glimpse of Jesus…

When we've arrived, stunned and surprised
All things resolved in the blink of an eye
No more distractions, no sin left to fight
First glimpse of Jesus,
First glimpse of Jesus,
First glimpse of Jesus,
And faith becomes sight

Just Some Thoughts on Death

"She came when we were freezing, but she left us burning up!"

Sometimes I think about the songs I want played at my funeral. I know that SOUNDS morbid, but I love thinking about how fleeting this life is and how permanent eternity is; it's like a wake-up call for my soul! Jonathan Edwards said in one of his seventy resolutions, "Resolved: to think much on all occasions of my own dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death" (Resolution #9). And Jonathan Edwards is certainly someone I want to emulate!

One of the songs that I'd like to have played at my funeral is "Amy's Song" (by Switchfoot, off the New Way to be Human album), with the hopes that at my death my friends and family would think of it as "Amber's Song"… that the way Amy lived would be the way I lived my life too. Here are the lyrics:

Amy's gone

And time rolls on

How far? how fast? how long?

 

The last time we saw Amy

She was headed for the shore

Fighting off the volatile gray skies

 

She said now begins forever

And that no one knows their time

We bid farewell not knowing

That might be our last good-bye

 

Amy was a fighter

She cut like Casius Clay

She burned like a fire

Despite these rains

 

Where time was a question

She only knew one song

She's singing, "how far, how fast, how long?"

 

Salvation is a fire

In the midnight of the soul

It lights up like a can of gasoline

 

Yeah, she's a freedom fighter

She's a stand up kind of girl

She's out to start a fire

In a bar code plastic world

 

Amy was a fighter

She cut like Casius Clay

She burned like a fire

Despite these rains

 

Where time was a question

She only knew one song

She's singing, "how far, how fast, how long?"

 

When everything stops moving

And I stop to catch my breath

And ride my train of thought

All the way around

 

My thoughts return to Amy

And the fire she's begun

She came when we were freezing

And left us burning up

 

Amy was a fighter

She cut like Casius Clay

She burned like a fire

Despite these rains

 

Where time was a question

She only knew one song

She's singing, "how far, how fast, how long?"

How long, how long, how long?

 

The last time we saw Amy

The last time we saw Amy

Yeah, the last time we saw Amy

The last time we saw Amy

Yeah, the last time we saw Amy

 

I want to start that kind of fire! The kind that leaves others burning with passion for Christ long after I'm gone, so that each person God uses me to influence would be used of God to influence myriads more souls. I know I've got a long way to go, but I'm not giving up!

So I guess thinking about death ultimately leads me to think of two things:

1. How I live my life will determine how I die, and the kind of impact and legacy my life and death will leave.
   
2. How GLORIOUS it will be to finally gaze upon the face of my Lord, Savior, and TREASURE, Jesus Christ!!!

Treasure

The Kingdom of the Heavens is buried Treasure; would you sell yourself to buy the One you've found?

Matthew 13:44—"The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field."

I love this verse, and talking about it in college group tonight brought it to the forefront of my mind again. It's a beautiful verse, but (because?) it's also incredibly convicting…

Do I treasure Christ as I should? As long as I'm immersing myself in the world, the answer is no. As long as my thoughts, actions, and desires are based on temporal things, the answer is no (1 John 2:15-17). As long as I'm running to a broken cistern instead of to fountains of Living Water, the answer is no (Jeremiah 2:12-13).

God, I want to treasure YOU above everything else, and IN everything else! I want to keep seeking eternal things, the things that are above, where Christ is seated… I want to continually dwell on—and have my heart breaking and rejoicing all at the same time—the sacrificial act of love that you did by sending Your perfect Son to die on the cross for my sins, to bear the punishment and wrath that should have been mine! Jesus, please grasp my heart and make YOU my TREASURE. I want to be the one who gives up everything, out of pure JOY, just to have You.

Thanks for listening as I preach to myself and struggle to put to death the sinful desires in my heart.

Some cool verses that also came up in conversation and such tonight—

• 2 Corinthians 6:10
  
• Colossians 3:1-3
  
• Habakkuk 3:17-19
  
• Genesis 4:6-7
  

Real Christianity

Check out this picture John Piper posted on his blog... It certainly is a stunning example of what real Christianity is, especially compared to the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel.

When My Heart Turns Away from God

"Why"
Why would I ever choose a broken cistern over Living Water? (Jeremiah 2:12-13)

Where did you go?
For so long you've seemed so lost, so distant—
Though you try to hide your face
Your eyes betray the emptiness of your soul.

Won't you please come back?
Turn around, before it's too late, time is running…
Approaching dusk is never scary
Until the darkness swallows up all the light.

Don't you see what you'll become?
That twisting, winding, deceivingly wide road
You've never taken. But you know the destruction
That lies on that horrid path.

Remember what it was like before?
You loved the light, you frolicked in it—
The warmth of the sun brightened your eyes, colored your cheeks.
Come again to feel the warmth, what you once loved.

Do you miss the sweetness of satisfaction?
Get out of the mudpit and taste of the cool fountain;
I know you never thirsted when you drank of Living Water.
Quench your restless desires with eternity.

Why did you ever want to leave?
How could you forget the Lover of your soul?

Page CXVI

I recently found a site through another blog that is giving away a bunch of songs for free! The site is called Page CXVI.

These aren't just any songs, though… they are hymns. I know hymns don't SOUND very exciting at first. They carry a connotation of being old and stuffy and maybe even legalistic or overly religious. But the truth is that hymns are just overflowing with wonderful, life-giving, heart-healing TRUTH from the Bible! I know that for my own heart, meditating on Truths from Scripture keeps my mind centered on who I am in Christ, what Christ has done for me on the cross, and helps foster in me a spirit of thankfulness to God for all that He has done in my life. I urge you to take hymns seriously and not dismiss them off as an "old person's" form of worship.

In his book Desiring God, John Piper speaks of the passage in which Jesus says to the Samaritan woman at the well, "The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." (John 4:23-24) In speaking of the truth aspect, Piper says, "The only affections that honor God are those rooted in the rock of biblical truth," and quotes Romans 10:2, John 17:17, and John 8:32 as biblical proof & support.

John MacArthur, in one of his sermons during the Shepherds Conference, stated, "An invitation to salvation is an invitation to worship Christ. It's all about worship. The Father is seeking true worshipers. When we all get to Heaven we are going to worship… it's all about ascribing glory to Christ… Transcendent worship comes from a depth of understanding."

Worshiping God with true affection, real love, requires that we worship God in truth. Worshiping in spirit AND truth is essential, true worship does not and cannot exclude one or the other… Which is why hymns are so encouraging! They contain all the passion of troubled souls, triumphant souls, and souls simply amazed at the grace and beauty of God, and they are just dripping with truth.

PS—If any of you are curious as to why the project is called "Page CXVI," read on. It's really quite beautiful and inspiring!

For all of you who were wondering where our name "Page CXVI" came from, we'd love to share with you a little bit about it. Page CXVI is a reference to page 116 of our personal copy of The Magicians nephew by C.S. Lewis. It is a poignant passage where Aslan begins to sing Narnia into creation out of a black void. One of the characters, Digory, describes it as, "...it was the most beautiful noise he had ever heard. It was so beautiful he could hardly bear it."

As the hymns project began to form, our hope was to wrap the strong lyrical content of the hymns, with music that portrayed our personal reactions to the life that God has brought to our "black void." The most personal song on the album is by far "Joy" with the counterpart, "It is Well" was written by Horatio Spafford after losing his son to scarlet fever, all of his real estate investments to the Great Chicago Fire, and his 4 remaining children to the sinking of a boat. The contemplative turn from "Joy" into the lines from "It is Well" comes out of our own personal tragedy this past year and combines a Psalm like lamentation with hope. Our intention with all of these songs is to be a source of comfort and encouragement to all who hear them.

Thank you again for listening and sharing.

Page CXVI

I Am Too Easily Satisfied…

CS Lewis once wrote,

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and immorality and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

Why is this quote so real, so poignant? Because it's true. Jeremiah 2:10-13 says the same thing… look especially hard at verse 13—

"For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the Fountain of Living Waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water."

So often I turn to the bland pleasures of the world to satisfy my weak desires, rather than going to the one true source of all joy, God Himself. So often I drink dirty, filthy mud water, when all I have to do is turn my back on my own work and drink from the purest, coolest, most delicious source of water there is—the Fountain of LIVING Waters (see also John 4:13-14, and notice how Jesus uses this as a claim of His equality with God).

When I read this quote from Spectacular Sins, it just reaffirmed what my college pastor has been saying over and over again… I'm not QUITE sure, but I think God is trying to tell me something here! (sarcasm…)

This [Colossians 1:14-20] is worth memorizing. If your heart ever wavers and grows cold, come here. Memorize this litany of glories, and ask God to give you affections that correspond to the measure of this greatness—infinite in beauty, immeasurable. If any person or any power or any wisdom or any love awakens any admiration or any amazement or any joy, let it be the greatest person and the greatest power and the greatest wisdom and the greatest love that exists—Jesus Christ.

Why would I turn to ANYTHING except Jesus Christ for joy or satisfaction, when HE is the ultimate beauty to behold, when walking in His will is the ultimate adventure, and knowing Him intimately is the ultimate experience?