Thankful Thursday

I’m thankful that God is all-knowing. I may be able to fool those around me, but God knows everything about me. I can’t hide my shortcomings and offences from him, so pretense is useless. There’s true freedom in that, especially since my all-knowing God is also a God who forgives, something else for which I’m also thankful. 

I’m thankful that because God knows everything, he can lead me and protect me and sanctify me. God knows what I need before I do, so he can answer my prayer before I ask it. He knows when I am in trouble and he has the power to deliver me. He knows where I am growing in sanctification and where I need more of his sanctifying work. God’s complete and infinite knowledge is a glorious thing! 

I’m thankful for seeds sprouted in the garden and a nesting flycatcher in the hanging flower basket on the front porch. I’m thankful for the promise of four little eggs—so far. I’m thankful that God sends the rain for the garden and provides for the birds of the air.  

I’m thankful for Thankful Thursdays, when I can post a few things I’m thankful for and read what others are thankful for, too.

The Hidden Life of Prayer, Chapter 3

After reading the third chapter of The Hidden Life of Prayer by David McIntyre,  I still don’t understand why so many are enthusiastic about it. It’s the book to read for the latest round for Reading the Classics Together at Challies.com, and I’m reading along, but finding it a little bit tedious and uninspiring. I’ll give it another week or two. Who knows; my perspective might change as I read more.

This week’s reading was about the attitude we should have when we approach God in prayer. The first point is that we should “realize the presence of God.” By this, McIntyre seems to mean more than that we should simply know and trust that God is there, but that we should feel his presence. In my own experience in prayer, that feeling is a rare thing, and not something that can be “practiced” or even sought, so much as something received as a gift when God chooses to bless in this way. I’m not sure whether that puts me at odds with McIntyre or not. I suspect it might.

The second point is that we need to be honest in prayer. We should “be perfectly frank before Him.” Two examples are given: We should be open with God about our complaints against him and open about our sin. That’s more difficult than is sounds. We know God knows everything about us even better than we do, and yet, sometimes it’s hard  to admit things we know to be true about ourselves. 

Third, when we pray, we must come to God in faith. Our faith might be feeble, but God still sees it and acknowledges it. 

Like the miner, whose trained eye detects the glitter of the precious metal sown in sparse flakes through the coarse grain of the rock, He observes the rare but costly faith which lies imbedded in our unbelief.

That’s a comfort, isn’t it? So is this:

The prayer of faith is a middle term between the intercession of the Holy Spirit and the intercession of Christ. It is divinely appointed means by which the unutterable groanings of the Spirit, who dwells within His people as in a temple, are conveyed and committed to the exalted Mediator, who “ever liveth to make intercession” for us.

In this way, we are, in a sense, doing the work of God when we pray to him in faith.

Next up, chapter four, The Engagement: Worship. 

Theological Term of the Week

intermediate state
The condition or mode of being in which the soul exists between the time of death and the time of the resurrection of the body.

• From scripture:

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.  (Philippians 1:21-23 ESV)

So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord,  for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. (2 Corinthians 5:6-9 ESV)

• From The Westminster Larger Catechism:

Question 86: What is the communion in glory with Christ, which the members of the invisible church enjoy immediately after death ?

Answer: The communion in glory with Christ, which the members of the invisible church enjoy immediately after death, is, in that their souls are then made perfect in holiness, and received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies, which even in death continue united to Christ, and rest in their graves as in their beds, till at the last day they be again united to their souls. Whereas the souls of the wicked are at their death cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness, and their bodies kept in their graves, as in their prisons, till the resurrection and judgment of the great day.

• From The Christian Faith by Michael Horton:

In the intermediate state, believers are not simply in contemplative repose. Nor are they lost souls wandering throughout the realm of shadows or crossing back and forth over the river Styx ferried by Charon. Rather, they are made part of the company assembled at the true Zion, with “innumerable angels in festal gathering” and “the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God,, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus , the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Able” (Heb 12:22—24).

Learn more:

1. Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary: Intermediate State
2. Blue Letter Bible: What Happens to a Believer after Death?; Do Believers Experience All God’s Promises in the Intermediate State?
3. Matt Perman: What do you believe about the intermediate state?
4. Loraine Boettner: Death, Immortality and the Intermediate State
5. Wayne Grudem: Death and the Intermediate State (mp3)
6. Joseph A. Pipa: Death and the Intermediate State (audio)

Related terms:

• glorification
• heaven
• hell

Filed under Salvation

Do you have a term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.