{"id":13547,"date":"2017-05-16T01:00:40","date_gmt":"2017-05-16T08:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/?p=13547"},"modified":"2017-05-16T00:57:46","modified_gmt":"2017-05-16T07:57:46","slug":"renewing-our-minds-for-rejoicing-pt-3-think-reverently","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/2017\/05\/16\/renewing-our-minds-for-rejoicing-pt-3-think-reverently\/","title":{"rendered":"Renewing Our Minds for Rejoicing, Pt. 3 \u2013 \u201cThink Reverently\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Pastor James Lee<\/em><\/p>\n

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Philippians 4:4-8)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Paul says in v. 5, \u201cThe Lord is near<\/em>\u201d or \u201cThe Lord is at hand.<\/em>\u201d If my lack of joy, my lack of contentment, my lack of patience, says anything about me, it says that I don\u2019t functionally believe He \u201cis near.\u201d Those sins always occur in the context of God\u2019s omnipresence and omniscience. So that the Lord is right next to us, in the same room, and we\u2019re behaving like He\u2019s not enough, like He\u2019s not holy, like He doesn\u2019t actually care about us, like He\u2019s not powerful or loving enough to be the answer to our struggles and problems. It\u2019s one thing to believe the attributes of God, it\u2019s quite another to see it and live it every moment. It\u2019s both convicting and comforting, isn\u2019t it? It is for me, big time\u2026 the \u201cLord is near\u201d both in terms of our time and space. It\u2019s both His presence and His imminence. He\u2019s right here with us now, yet He\u2019s coming back soon.<\/p>\n

Depending on the state of our minds at a given time, we can view that positively, so that we\u2019re running to God, rather than running from Him. His nearness in a sense equals His grace. Or we can view that just as accurately yet negatively, realizing we\u2019re not getting away with anything. But, the good news is that the gospel addresses both in glorious mercy. So on one end, we should be deeply comforted, that Christ our Friend and Savior is with us all the time, and will never forsake us. He\u2019s keeping us, our bottom line, our rock, our anchor, and if we ask, He\u2019ll guide us, enable us, help us, transform us. On the other hand, there also ought to be a reverential fear, expressed by a poem titled, \u201cIf Jesus came to your house.<\/em>\u201d It challenges us about the things done, said, thought, and watched in the home, and asks what changes would there be if Jesus turned up as a guest for a day? But the point of the poem, of course, is that He is there every day. How true are the things we say? How different would our lives look if we each took holiness more seriously? How does our noble Savior judge our attitudes, the way we might deal with company expense forms, our critical spirit, our greed, or when we gossip about others? What would we do less of, or not at all? What would we do more of? What greater joy also might we experience? Greater usefulness and witness in the name of the Lord? How deep is our pride when we refuse to forgive brethren? Gerard Chrispin asks, \u201cHe will treat all His children with the same grace and favour. How can I face Him, and give an account of my life as a Christian, if I fail to treat some Christian brothers and sisters sensitively and gently, possibly just because our personal chemistry differs?<\/em>\u201d Therein, I believe, is the rub. Think reverently of God with me now. Do you know that every sin is a direct violation of the Great Commandment, which Jesus says is the sum of the law? Every sin is a failure to love God and love people, whether by commission or omission, correct?<\/p>\n

That should cause us to pause and make us realize both how much grace we\u2019ve received and how much grace we need. We\u2019re washing others’ feet with joy and seeking to understand others and not just be understood. Everything has a horizontal and vertical component. Romans 12 is an example of that. To be a living sacrifice of worship to God, will mean humbly loving our fellow brethren. Philip Ryken comments, “We need to be honest about the fact that all of our dissatisfaction is discontent with God. Usually we take out our frustrations on someone else. But God knows that when we grumble, we are finding fault with Him. A complaining spirit indicates a problem in our relationship with God.<\/em>\u201d Right relationship leads to joy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Pastor James Lee “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":469,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pastors-corner"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/469"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13547"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13554,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13547\/revisions\/13554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}