Verse of the Week...

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD… 
--Jeremiah 29: 11a

Not only is God sovereign over the plan for your life and mine, He also governs the purpose for which He institutes these individual, yet interconnected, plans. In other words, God has a distinct motive behind all He ordains—namely, our holiness and His praise. Further, and perhaps more importantly for us, the imprint of His orchestration in our lives need not be grand, at least as we define it—for many it isn’t, for most it will never be. But no matter how great or small the outcomes of His divine direction, we can find fulfillment and satisfaction merely in His attention to our details. After all, the same God who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the Earth has considered each of us—who we are and who we’re to become.

Now when most Christians search for the mark of the hand of God on their life, they often only look for the great and marvelous. Almost like if the evidence isn’t epic or the outward expression explicit, meaning drawing the attention of a crowd, then God wasn’t behind it. But nothing could be further from the truth. Sure there have been and will be times when God ushers certain individuals straight into the limelight to be His instruments of monumental change or movement, but His work in the much more ordinary and less heralded lives is still His work. No less purposeful. No less for His praise.

Maybe we need a better grip on this. Because if we’re blinded to His sovereignty by the light of His amazing works in and through the select few, we’re flat out missing out. We’re missing His unique, and equally significant, handiwork in our lives, certainly, but more importantly, we’re missing a major opportunity to praise the Great Conductor, robbing Him of due glory. This is simply not right. But how do we change? How do we cease to be thieves and, in view of the seemingly common, get down on our knees? There’s a two-part answer.

First, to embrace our holiness and declare His magnificence, we must simply acknowledge His often outwardly hidden orchestration. We’ve got to accept that we may not notice His perfect ordination much at all. And we’ve got to be okay with the possibility of never fully understanding why this or that did or didn’t occur in our life. Even more though, we must grasp that God’s purposes behind the trials of some are ultra recognizable in the eyes of the world (see the lives of Joseph or Moses or Paul), but some just aren’t…and they’re no less His purposes. Consequently, then, when God prescribes our hardship without the apparent trappings of ‘significance,’ He’s no less worthy of our worship, not by a long shot.

Secondly, we’ve got to pray that if God wouldn’t give us eyes to see His sovereignty, then He’d certainly give us hearts to understand it. So it boils down to the gracious gift of faith—helpings of which He’s steadfast to continually heap upon us should we ask. And not just faith to know He’s behind everything that happens, good or bad. But faith that He has a purpose for ordaining the job loss or disease affliction or premature death of someone close, though it may not be grand or glorious in our sight, if traceable at all. When we have this measure of faith we’re prepared to respond obediently to any hand God deals us. And when we do, we simultaneously evidence our holiness and lift His praise.

One quick aside before concluding. I made the point that, to us, God’s divine purposes for our suffering may seem insignificant, especially when compared to the grand stage to which similar hardships elevate others. But they are no less noteworthy to our God. When He examines His appointments for His children, great or small, all He sees are His appointments. All equally consequential. All equally glorious. All equally ordained for the praise of His Name.

Grace to you, to embrace His sovereignty in the seemingly great and small,

Voice of another

Verse of the Week...

This isn’t my first exposition of love. Far from it. It’s too rich, too complex to hit it out of the park with one swing. Plus, if the Bible is any indicator of its proper place in the lives of believers, we should be touching on it just about every other week (according to Biblegateway.com, it’s directly mentioned 697 times). No doubt Jesus did.

I’d like to begin, then, with a simple question. Why is love so important? Why is there so much emphasis on it as the summation of all God commands His people? Understanding the answer will, God-willing, compel us to further open our hearts to Jesus, first, and to those with whom we live this life: our family, our friends, our coworkers, our acquaintances, our enemies—all of which collectively make up the biblical category of ‘neighbor,’ as in 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'

Okay, so let’s talk about love. A human life of love, or one characterized by it, is of paramount signficance to God because He is love (I referenced this a few weeks ago; see 1 John 4:8). In other words, when we showcase true love we mirror our Maker, evidencing our creation in His image. Yes, we have eternity written on our hearts, but along with that we have love inscribed on it too—or at least the God-given capacity to give it, share it, feel it, receive it. So it matters to God whether we live a love-filled life because only in doing so does the created align with its Creator. Jesus even goes so far as to say that love is the mark of His true followers.

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. -John 13:34-35

So love is the God-described faith-meter of Christians—if our gauge reads 'Full,' we’re really one of His, if the needle sits on ‘E,’ Jesus would Himself declare us white-washed tombs. Most wouldn’t argue this, but to an extent, the question still remains: Why is it so important, as the Apostle Paul notes below, even more so than knowledge, wisdom, faith and good deeds alone? Love is supreme because it is the driving force behind all God-honoring action. It is powerful enough to break down societal and cultural barriers, strong enough to reconcile any conflict, and magnificent enough to portray, if not actually reflect, the gloriousness of God. After all, by God’s will, love is absolutely effectual; it never fails.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. –1 Corinthians 13:1-3

One last word to Christians (and I wholeheartedly include myself in this lot): as difficult as it is, as much as it goes against the grain of our flesh, we must, in the words of Lenny Kravitz of all people, let love rule. We must let it rule in our heart that we would let God reign over our life. And we must let it do so in the toughest of times, with the roughest of people. Especially then. Jesus makes an indicting point in the Gospel of Matthew:

If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? –Matthew 5:46

If we only love others who love us, if we only love others when they love us, nothing is different...and everything about that is problematic. God calls us to be separate, set apart, that He would be seen and savored. If we don’t love differently (or ‘truly’), if we don’t love radically (showing rich mercy, giving undeserved grace), we actually dim our reflection of the light of God’s glory—a deflating thought to lovers of His praise.

If you’re like me, you need help. But look no further than the verse below and pray the Spirit would let it rest heavy on your heart.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. –Romans 5:8

While we were enemies of God, at our ugliest and when we were never less deserving, God displayed His love for us in the brutal slaying of His only Son. If, by the work of the Spirit, we can get an increasingly better handle on this in our heart of hearts, we’ll mature into genuine, selfless lovers—the kind that stand out in a self-absorbed world. Only then will the world take notice. And then, the only God, the God of true love, will be lifted up for all to recognize and revere.

Grace, and love, to you,

Voice of another

Verse of the Week...

The Advocate 

Before the throne of God above


I have a strong and perfect plea.

A great High Priest whose name is Love

Who ever lives and pleads for me.

My name is graven on His hands,

My name is written on His heart.

I know that while in Heaven He stands

No tongue can bid me thence depart.


When Satan tempts me to despair

And tells me of the guilt within,


Upward I look and see Him there


Who made an end of all my sin.

Because the sinless Saviour died

My sinful soul is counted free.

For God the just is satisfied


To look on Him and pardon me.


Behold Him there the risen Lamb,


My perfect spotless righteousness,

The great unchangeable I AM,


The King of glory and of grace,


One in Himself I cannot die.

My soul is purchased by His blood,


My life is hid with Christ on high,

With Christ my Saviour and my God!

--Charitie Lees Smith (1863)


This is my new favorite hymn. It’s full of rich, beautiful, inspiring theological ideas about Jesus’ advocacy for those who call Him ‘Lord.’ And while each stanza captivates, the single line that stands out from the rest goes: ‘No tongue can bid me thence depart.’ In other words, nothing, no one, can separate me from my Savior. Call it perseverance of the saints, call it what you will. There’s just something about this truth that makes me feel full, something about it that ushers in peace and security, and in doing so, casts out anxiety and despair.

I don’t know about you, but in my life there have been plenty of shameful moments, occurrences when my behavior or spoken words or thoughts leave me awestruck at my destructive capabilities and, in light of them, questioning, sometimes even of the safety of my salvation. In the wake of those times it seems many tongues bid me thence depart, as guilt-heaping accusations fly my way—some, if not most, from my own lips. It’s rough, to put it mildly, and somewhat of a spiritual crisis ensues when resulting doubt begins to mount and dejection settles in. It’s so true: Satan tempts me to despair, telling me of the guilt within me, bidding me, with all his might, to leave forever the forgiving arms of my Jesus.

Have you been there? It’s an awful place to be. The world around turns to gray, to gloom, my outlook dims and my heart grows calloused. And by my own dismissal, God seems eerily absent.

In this place a truthful word is needed. Better yet, the Truth, the Word, is needed. The Apostle Paul obliges:

‘But where sin increased, grace increased all the more…’ –Romans 5:20

Though our ears may not hear it, though our minds cannot conceive it, and though our hearts fight to disbelieve it, the veracity of Romans 5:20 remains. In our worst moments, when the grotesqueness or our sin surprises even us, grace increases. When we wrong others, when we sin against our body, the temple of God, when we break, destroy, wreck and ravage, it is precisely at these moments grace abounds most. The blood-bought grace, the kind only supplied by the Savior, is wholly sufficient to completely cover our worst. That’s why it’s so amazing. That’s why it’s so ‘of God.’

Because nothing outruns grace, nothing exceeds its reach, from the book of Romans there derives another glorious truth:

‘For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ –Romans 8:38-39

Hear that? Nothing will be powerful enough to pry us from His gracious grasp. And despite the damning utterances of others and our own whispers within, no tongue can bid us thence depart.

Indeed, Hallelujah! Praise Jesus, the God who by His death and resurrection made it so.

His steadfast, unending grace to you,

Voice of another