Dead Orthodoxy

The following is a quote I read this morning by Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Dead Orthodoxy. Just a thought to provoke us.

There is nothing vital in the religion and in the worship of such people. They expect nothing, and they get nothing, and nothing happens to them. They go to God's house, not with the idea of meeting with God, not with the idea of waiting upon him; it never crosses their minds or enters into their hearts that something may happen in a service. No we always do this on Sunday morning. It is our custom. It is our habit. It is a right thing to do. But the idea that God may suddenly visit his people and descend upon them, the whole thrill of being in the presence of God, and sensing his nearness, and his power, never ever enters their imaginations...

Do we go to God's house expecting something to happen? Or do we go just to listen to a sermon, and to sing our hymns, and t meet with one another? How often does this vital idea enter into our minds that we are in the presence of the living God, that the Holy Spirit is in the church, that we may feel the touch of his power? How much do we think in terms of coming together to meet with God, and to worship him, and to stand before him, and to listen to him? Is there not this appalling danger that we are just content because we have correct beliefs? And we have lost the life, the vital thing, the power the thing that really makes worship worship, which is in Spirit and truth.

(quoted in Raised With Christ. Adrian Warnock. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Books. c2010. p202-203)

Let Me Learn By Paradox

Jesus said in John 12:25, "He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life." The Christian life seems a paradox in this upside down world. But when one understands the Resurrection, the mountains are brought low and the valleys are raised and perspective goes beyond the horizon. Here is a great little prayer from a devotional called the Valley of Vision.


A Puritan prayer from The Valley of Vision:

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly,
Thou has brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold
thy glory.

Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,
deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells the brighter
thy stars shine;

Let me find thy light in my darkness,
Thy life in my death,
that every good work or thought found in me
thy joy in my sorrow,
thy grace in my sin,
thy riches in my poverty
thy glory in my valley.