The Hidden Life of Prayer, Chapters 5 and 6

I only have time for a quick quote from this week’s reading from The Hidden Life of Prayer by David McIntyre. (Chapter 5 was on confession in prayer, and chapter 6 on making petitions to God.)

When, in the course of the day’s engagements, our conscience witnesses against us that we have sinned, we should at once confess our guilt, claim by faith the cleansing of the blood of Christ, and so wash our hands in innocence. And afterwards, as soon as we have a convenient opportunity, we ought to review with deliberation the wrong that we have done. As we consider it with God we shall be impressed by its sinfulness, as we were not at the time of committal. And if the sin is one which we have committed before, one to which perhaps our nature lies open, we must cast ourselves in utter faith upon the strong mercy of God, pleading with Him in the name of Christ that we may never again so grieve Him.

As our hearts grow more tender in the presence of God, the remembrance of former sins which have already been acknowledged and forgiven will from time to time imprint a fresh stain upon our conscience. In such a case nature itself seems to teach us that we ought anew to implore the pardoning grace of God. For we bend, not before judgment seat of the Divine Lawgiver, but before our Father, to whom we have been reconciled through Christ. A more adequate conception of the offense which we have committed ought surely to be followed by a deeper penitence for the wrong done. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit we shall often be led to pray with the Psalmist, “Remember not the sins of my youth” (Psa 25:7), even though these have long since been dealt with and done away. Conviction of sin will naturally prompt to confession. When such promptings are disregarded, the Spirit who has wrought in us that conviction is grieved.

Thankful Thursday

It’s 9pm as I write this. The day has been a busy, as all my recent days have been. You would think that a widow with grown and (supposedly) gone  kids would have quiet days, but that’s not how it’s been for me. Each of my kids was here for a while today and my youngest granddaughter, her mother, and her pet dog were here all afternoon. The baby was fussy; the dogs caused a large potted plant disaster; I’m thankful for it all. I’m thankful that I can help a new mom cope with a difficult baby. I’m thankful that my house gets used. I’m thankful that I don’t have to think much about where my place is and where I’m needed….yet.

I’m thankful for the antibiotics that are treating my oldest granddaughter’s ear infections. I’m thankful that she’s recovering and will soon be her sunny self again.

I’m thankful for almost red tomatoes on the little potted tomato plant on the deck. I’m thankful that the garden is growing.

I’m thankful that God is omnipresent. I’m thankful that He is there beside me and in me and around me with His guiding hand. I’m thankful that nothing happens to me outside the presence of God himself, so nothing happens outside the knowledge and the power of my God who is forever working good things. I’m thankful that every circumstance of my life is a time and place where God is. I’m thankful that knowing God is omnipresent helps me trust him.

I’m thankful that none of my sins are hidden from my omnipresent God, and when I confess my sins, he is always and everywhere with me, ready to hear me. 

Why Do Believers Still Suffer and Die?

In Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution, the authors respond to a question a reader might have in regards to penal substitution:

The question might arise [as to] how believers seen by God as forensically innocent by virtue of Christ’s penal substitutionary death for them should nonetheless suffer in various ways. If ‘the wages of sin is death’ (Rom. 6:23), and Christ has borne for believers the whole of this penalty, why do we still die? … And what do we do with those Bible passages that speak of God disciplining his children when they sin (e.g. Heb. 12:5-11)? Does this mean that there is a punishment still outstanding, which we must pay ourselves? Of so, this would seem to present serious problems for penal substitution.

The answer in both cases is that the Bible does not conceive of painful experiences that come upon Christians as punishment of a retributive or judicial kind. Quite the opposite. As the old hymn puts it, death, though not a good thing in itself, has become for Christians ‘the gate of life immortal’. Its character is transformed. Though the experience may still be intensively painful, it serves a good end. Indeed, it may even be conceived as a blessing from God. The apostle Paul confessed that ‘to die is gain’, since it would be ‘to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far’ (Phil 1:21, 23), and the prophet Isaiah saw that in death ‘the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil’ (Isa. 57:1).

The case of discipline is similar. Although the experience, from our perspective, may be indistinguishable from retribution, and although the biblical vocabulary is the same (both are termed ‘punishment’), from the standpoint of God’s intention they are entirely different. God’s intention in retribution is to punish the guilty for the sake of his justice. It is, and will be on the Last Day, a manifestation of his wrath against those who stand rightly condemned (Rom. 1:18; 2:5). But ‘there is … no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’ (Rom. 8:1). Discipline is a sign not of God’s wrath but of his fatherly affection, for ‘the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son’ (Heb. 12:6). In fact, discipline is precisely the opposite of wrath in this sense: in Romans 1:18-32 God responds in anger to people’s sin by withdrawing his restraining hand and leaving them to it. By  contrast, when he sees his children sinning, he may mercifully apply his restraining hand to keep them from it.

For the believer, the whole character of suffering and death is transformed because God’s purpose for them in these things is different because of their union with Christ in his penal substitutionary death. Not wrath, just loving discipline; not wrath, but “the gate of life immortal.”