Meditations

“But does not the Apostle [Paul] direct us to ‘follow after charity’ And does he not term it ‘a more excellent way.’ He does direct us to ‘follow after charity;’ but not after that alone. His words are, ‘follow after charity;’ and ‘desire spiritual gifts.’ (1 Corinthians 14:1) Yea, ‘follow after charity;’ and desire to spend and to be spent for your brethren. ‘Follow after charity;’ and as you have opportunity do good to all men.”

John Wesley (1703-1791) Anglican minister in “Upon Our Lord’s Sermon On The Mount: Discourse Four” Sermon 24.3.3, delivered in October 1740.

Wesley rightly argues the social aspect of Christianity in this sermon: that we have been made alive in Christ to spend ourselves and to be spent for others. People can’t see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven if our faith secludes us from society (cf. Matthew 5:16).

As Wesley suggests elsewhere in this sermon, let us retreat each evening and morning to sit with Lord and experience renewal and refreshment and then, empowered by the Holy Spirit, let us desire to spend and to be spent for others by doing good as we have opportunity.

“The greatest deeds without heart do not convince the Savior that a person belongs to Him. To move mountains, to drive out devils, to heal the sick, does not mean that He acknowledges us as His own, for when people will say on that day,

On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’ Matthew 7:22-23

On the other hand the most completely powerless, the absolutely lowest, sin-laden person who comes to grace, who has not one moment of time left to work and act for [the Savior], is in for just as friendly, loving, sweet Lord and Master, as the one who has done works in God in huge number.”

Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700-1760) in Christian Life and Witness: Count Zinzendorf’s 1738 Berlin Speeches, excerpt from “The Sixth Speech” edited by Gary S. Kinkel (PTMS 140; Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010) 50.

My family has a copy of this great old board game we love to play called “the Generosity Game” that is a parody on “the Game of Life.” Of course the winner of the latter is all about accumulation, while the winner of the former is the one who stores up the most treasures in heaven.

What I love most about the game is that before every opportunity to give you have to draw a card to see if your heart is right or not. If your heart is right you store up treasures in heaven and if it’s not you don’t. Before each time that each of us has an opportunity to give in real life, let us resolve to make sure our hearts are right, otherwise our acts are worthless.

Father in Heaven, please by your Holy Spirit, align our hearts with yours, so that our generosity reflects your love and grace to the world, in the name of Jesus I pray. Amen.

“Man should not glory in himself, but alone in God; that no flesh should glory in His presence.

That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. 1 Corinthians 1:31

How this end is attained in the work of redemption is by that absolute and immediate dependence which men have upon God in that work, for all their good. Inasmuch as, first, all the good that they have is in and through Christ; He is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption…

It is by Christ that we have sanctification: we have in Him true excellency of heart as well as of understanding; and He is made unto us inherent as well as imputed righteousness. It is by Christ that we have redemption, or the actual deliverance from all misery, and the bestowment of all happiness and glory. Thus we have all our good by Christ, who is God.

Secondly, another instance wherein our dependence on God for all our good appears, is this, that it is God that has given us Christ, that we might have these benefits through Him; He of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, etc.

Thirdly, It is of Him that we are in Christ Jesus, and come to have an interest in Him, and so do receive those blessings which He is made unto us. It is God that gives us faith whereby we close with Christ.

So that in this verse is shown our dependence on each person in the Trinity for all our good. We are dependent on Christ the Son of God, as He is our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. We are dependent on the Father, who has given us Christ, and made Him to be these things to us. We are dependent on the Holy Ghost, for it is of Him that we are in Christ Jesus; it is the Spirit of God that gives faith in Him, whereby we receive Him, and close with Him.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) excerpt from the opening of his “God Glorified In Man’s Dependence” sermon.

I am Dallas today at meetings with professors who have developed projects on teaching biblical stewardship in seminary settings. We will share resources with each other. Any that come from me share this perspective of Edwards: that our generosity is dependent on the Trinity, our only boast and glory!

“I have thought again, my brethren, since it is required of us that we give thanks to God for all these men, it follows that we do with quietness submit ourselves under what God shall do to us by them. For it seems a paradox to me to give thanks to God for them, that yet I am not willing should abide in that place that God has set them in for me. I will then love them, bless them, pray for them, and do them good.

I speak now of the men that hurt me, as I have hinted before. And I will do thus, because it is good so to do; because they do me good by hurting of me, because I am called to inherit a blessing, and because I would be like my heavenly Father. “Therefore if mine enemy hunger, let me feed him; if he thirst, let me give him drink.” (Matthew 5:43-48; 1 Peter 3:9; Romans 12:17—20.)

We must see good in that in which other men can see none. We must pass by those injuries that other men would revenge. We must show we have grace, and that we are made to bear what other men are not acquainted with. Many of our graces are kept alive by those very things that are the death of other men’s souls.”

John Bunyan (1628-1688)) author of Pilgrim’s Progress, excerpt from “Seasonal Counsel or Advice to Sufferers” in The Entire Works of John Bunyan (London: James S. Virtue, City Road, and Ivy Lane, 1860) 285.

When I located this collection by Bunyan early this morning my attention turned to his “advice for sufferers” because thanks to some malware that has adversely impacted my website and email system, my meditations are not going to all the recipients that have subscribed for years. Honestly, I am not sure what to do about it, and while I have not gotten angry, I have gotten frustrated!

Bunyan reminds us that “we must show that we have grace” to our enemies when in our flesh we’d like to wring their necks! This includes perpetrators whose “malicious software” messes up our ability to communicate. Jesus, Peter, and Paul (cf. in the Scriptures noted by Bunyan) all exhort us to do good to our enemies. God help us generously extend them grace and love each and every day.

“Receive the Lord Jesus in His comeliness and eminency. Let believers exercise their hearts abundantly unto this thing. This is choice communion with the Son, Jesus Christ. Let us receive Him in all His excellencies, as he bestows Himself upon us; be frequent in thoughts of faith, comparing Him with other beloveds, sin, world, legal righteousness; and preferring Him before them, counting them all loss and dung in comparison of Him. And let our souls be persuaded of His sincerity and willingness in giving Himself, in all that He is, as Mediator unto us, to be ours; and let our hearts give up themselves unto Him.”

John Owen (1616-1683) English theologian and administrator at Oxford, in Of Communion with God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, excerpt from chapter 3.

For Owen, any giving on our part represents our response to the realization that what we have in Christ Jesus is beyond all comparison.

I wonder if the lack of generosity in our day is rooted in the misguided notion that we have tried to make generosity a response to our efforts (preaching, letters, etc.) rather than a response to communion with Christ. Owen would likely say: exhort people to communion with Christ (alongside whom is no comparison), and they will give up themselves and the resources they possess.

The Apostle Paul said something along these lines…

Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. Philippians 3:7-9

“For herein peculiarly differ the sons of God from the reprobate, that the sons of God know both prosperity and adversity to be the gifts of God only, as Job witnesseth; and therefore in prosperity commonly they are not insolent nor proud, but even in the day of joy and rest they look for trouble and sorrow: neither yet, in the time of adversity, are they altogether left without comfort; but by one mean or other, God showeth to them that trouble shall have end. While contrariwise the reprobate, either taking all things of chance, or else, making an idol of their own wisdom, in prosperity are so puffed up that they forget God, without any care that trouble should follow; and in adversity they are so dejected, that they look for nothing but hell.”

John Knox (c. 1514-1572) in The Select Practical Writings of John Knox, excerpt from “A Fort for the Afflicted: An Exposition of the Sixth Psalm of David.”

Whether we read Luther in Germany, Calvin in Switzerland, or Knox in Scotland, the voices of the Reformation call people to adopt a biblical perspective on all aspects of life.

Here, one of the founders of the Presbyterian church calls “the sons of God” to realize that prosperity and adversity are both gifts from God. Why does this matter to us today?

We can never exhibit generosity until we have learned to relate rightly to that which comes to us. We must avoid idolatry and pride while treating everything that comes to us as a gift.

“Whatever be the kind of tribulation with which we are afflicted, we should always consider the end of it to be, that we may be trained to despise the present, and thereby stimulated to aspire to the future life. For since God well knows how strongly we are inclined by nature to a slavish love of this world, in order to prevent us from clinging too strongly to it, he employs the fittest reason for calling us back, and shaking off our lethargy.

Every one of us, indeed, would be thought to aspire and aim at heavenly immortality during the whole course of his life. For we would be ashamed in no respect to excel the lower animals; whose condition would not be at all inferior to ours, had we not a hope of immortality beyond the grave. But when you attend to the plans, wishes, and actions of each, you see nothing in them but the earth. Hence our stupidity; our minds being dazzled with the glare of wealth, power, and honours, that they can see no farther.

The heart also, engrossed with avarice, ambition, and lust, is weighed down and cannot rise above them. In short, the whole soul, ensnared by the allurements of the flesh, seeks its happiness on the earth. To meet this disease, the Lord makes his people sensible of the vanity of the present life, by a constant proof of its miseries…

That they may not long with too much eagerness after fleeting and fading riches, or rest in those which they already possess, he reduces them to want, or, at least, restricts them to a moderate allowance, at one time by exile, at another by sterility, at another by fire, or by other means. That they may not indulge too complacently in the advantages of married life, he either vexes them by the misconduct of their partners, or humbles them by the wickedness of their children, or afflicts them by bereavement…

We duly profit by the discipline of the cross, when we learn that this life, estimated in itself, is restless, troubled, in numberless ways wretched, and plainly in no respect happy; that what are estimated its blessings are uncertain, fleeting, vain, and vitiated by a great admixture of evil. From this we conclude, that all we have to seek or hope for here is contest; that when we think of the crown we must raise our eyes to heaven. For we must hold, that our mind never rises seriously to desire and aspire after the future, until it has learned to despise the present life.”

John Calvin (1509-1564) in Institutes of the Christian Religion, “On Meditating on the Future Life” 9.1.

The hard part about “the allurements of the flesh” is that God made them for our enjoyment and sharing. When they become the object of our desire, the focus of our striving, the love of our lives, they become idols to us. Don’t be fooled.

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. 1 John 2:15

The discipline of the cross will help you keep your eyes on the prize. Pray for your spouse to avoid misconduct and your children to steer clear of wickedness. Learn to focus on that which is eternal so that you (and your family members) may see clearly in the earthly here and now.

“We ought first to know that there are no good works except those which God has commanded, even as there is no sin except that which God has forbidden. Therefore whoever wishes to know and to do good works needs nothing else than to know God’s commandments. Thus Christ says, Matthew xix, “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.” And when the young man asks Him, Matthew xix, “what he shall do that he may inherit eternal life,” Christ sets before him naught else but the Ten Commandments.

Accordingly, we must learn how to distinguish among good works from the Commandments of God, and not from the appearance, the magnitude, or the number of the works themselves, nor from the judgment of men or of human law or custom, as we see has been done and still is done, because we are blind and despise the divine Commandments. The first and highest, the most precious of all good works is faith in Christ, as He says, John vi. When the Jews asked Him: “What shall we do that we may work the works of God?” He answered: “This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him Whom He hath sent.”

Martin Luther (1483-1546) in “A Treatise on Good Works” in The Works of Martin Luther, trans. and ed., Spaeth, Reed, Jacobs, et al. (Philadelphia: A. J. Holman Company, 1915) 1: 173-285.

Lest we think our good works flow from ourselves, Luther rightly reminded people during the Reformation (and reminds us today) that “whoever wishes to know and to do good works needs nothing else than to know God’s commandments,” and “the first and highest, the most precious of all good works is faith in Christ!”

There is no such thing as generosity apart from the Christian faith. Man without Christ according to Luther (and Augustine before him) suffers from incurvatus in se, that is, humankind is curved inwardly toward self (cf. Romans 7:8-19). So anything that looks like generosity apart from Christ cannot help but be motivated by selfish reasons.

What does that mean for us today? Two things come to mind.

First, don’t ever use the terms “generosity” or “good works” apart from that which flows from the work of Christ. Even if an unbelieving person gives an enormous sum of money to a humanitarian effort, it is not generosity! No one can do “good works” in the flesh, so don’t call them as such!

Second, if you want to see “generosity” or “good works” in your life or among those you serve: obey Christ’s commands in community and the world will see what generosity looks like through your transformed lives. The fruit of the Spirit’s work in our lives is generosity.

Explore all this further in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Galatians:

Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another. Galatians 5:16-26

“O Florence, recall what I have told you so many times: to renew yourself first. The first principle stands unchanged: that you fear God and observe His law so that you may gain from Him the light of grace, and blessed would you be should you do it, for then everything would go well. But avarice and the love of honors and high rank, which you hunt after, do not allow you to have this light, nor does it permit you to accord with the angels who inspire you and summon you to the good; but once you have this light that I am talking about, you will not care any longer about honors or possessions…

And next, I have exhorted you to love the common good, and not your own, and to be united in charity; and toward this goal…O Florence, God will provide for you if you want to do good…However, you would have to make provision, in the first place, that within your city religious practice is holy and good, and that superfluities and polyphonic songs which are full of lasciviousness are removed, and that everything is done with simplicity and devotion, and [that you] have saintly preachers and saintly religious and abandon those who do not follow in the ways of God…Let us pray to God that His will may be done in His Church.”

Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498) excerpt from Aggeus, Sermon XXIII (Florence, God’s Chosen City) on 28 December 1494.

Savonarola was a Dominican friar (a.k.a. traveling preacher) who called God’s people (in Florence, Italy in this instance) to “renew” themselves first in the dark days of the Italian Renaissance. Sound familiar? Here was his message, which appears as relevant today as it was just before the Reformation: renewal starts with each of us, is empowered by God’s grace, and requires us to abandon avarice and honors. We are to love the common good, and live generous lives focused on charity toward others rooted in the belief that God is our Provider while resolving corporately in our churches to live with simplicity and devotion.

Father in Heaven, through us and by Your grace, renew Your Church today in our cities through our charity, simplicity, and devotion. Do this, I pray, along with numerous brothers and sisters, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Today’s meditation comes from The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis, a classic work that represents one of the most widely read books on Christian devotion in church history. Read this post if you desire to shine light in the corners of your heart and see the kinds of sins that hinder our lives from reflecting God’s goodness (generosity). Perhaps read it a couple times and sit with the Lord and ask the Holy Spirit to show you what sins beset you and resolve to lay them aside so that you may “advance in goodness” (cf. Hebrews 12:1-2).

“Lament and grieve because you are still so worldly, so carnal, so passionate and unmortified, so full of roving lust, so careless in guarding the external senses, so often occupied in many vain fancies, so inclined to exterior things and so heedless of what lies within, so prone to laughter and dissipation and so indisposed to sorrow and tears, so inclined to ease and the pleasures of the flesh and so cool to austerity and zeal, so curious to hear what is new and to see the beautiful and so slow to embrace humiliation and dejection, so covetous of abundance, so niggardly in giving and so tenacious in keeping, so inconsiderate in speech, so reluctant in silence, so undisciplined in character, so disordered in action, so greedy at meals, so deaf to the Word of God, so prompt to rest and so slow to labor, so awake to empty conversation, so sleepy in keeping sacred vigils and so eager to end them, so wandering in your attention, so careless in saying the office, so lukewarm in celebrating, so heartless in receiving, so quickly distracted, so seldom fully recollected, so quickly moved to anger, so apt to take offense at others, so prone to judge, so severe in condemning, so happy in prosperity and so weak in adversity, so often making good resolutions and carrying so few of them into action.

When you have confessed and deplored these and other faults with sorrow and great displeasure because of your weakness, be firmly determined to amend your life day by day and to advance in goodness. Then, with complete resignation and with your entire will offer yourself upon the altar of your heart as an everlasting sacrifice…”

Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471) in The Imitation of Christ, excerpt from chapter seven, “The Examination of Conscience and the Resolution to Amend.”