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Zephaniah 3:17
Sam Storms:
I’ve been a Christian for 51 years. I’ve been a pastor for 38 years. I guess that makes me “old” and somewhat experienced. In any case, I’ve seen more than I care to remember of human pain and predicaments. I’ve counseled rebellious teens and lonely senior citizens. I’ve spent hours with bitter wives and their passive husbands. I’ve cried with victims of sexual abuse and rejoiced with those set free from bondage. Their problems may be different. Some are men, others are women. Some are old, others young. But the one thing they share in common is the deeply felt need of the human soul to know and feel that God loves and enjoys them.
. . . Pain becomes bearable and tomorrow no longer terrifies when your soul is touched with the reality of God’s delight in you.
'I Have Given Myself Clear Away'
Rolled out of bed in internal haste today. Rereading this brought me back to liberated, soul-sighing sanity. My life is not my own. Nothing to prove, nothing to achieve. No life circumstance requires savvy manipulation. He is sorting it all out.
Jonathan Edwards' diary, 1723:
Jonathan Edwards' diary, 1723:
Saturday, January 12. In the morning I have been before God; and have given myself, all that I am and have, to God, so that I am not in any respect my own: I can challenge no right in myself, I can challenge no right in this understanding, this will, these affections that are in me; neither have I any right to this body, or any of its members: no right to this tongue, these hands, nor feet; no right to these senses, these eyes, these ears, this smell or taste.--Letters and Personal Writings, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 16, pp. 760-63
I have given myself clear away, and have not retained anything as my own. I have been to God this morning, and told him that I gave myself wholly to him. I have given every power to him; so that for the future I will challenge no right in myself, in any respect. I have expressly promised him, and do now promise almighty God, that by his grace I will not.
I have this morning told him, that I did take him for my whole portion and felicity, looking on nothing else as any part of my happiness, nor acting as if it were. . . .
This I have done.
And I pray God, for the sake of Christ, to look upon it as a self-dedication; and to receive me now as entirely his own, and deal with me in all respects as such; whether he afflicts me or prospers me, or whatever he pleases to do with me, who am his.
For God Alone, O My Soul, Wait in Silence (Ps 62:5)
Where sin runs deep
Your grace is more
Prophet, Priest, King
Bavinck on the work of Christ:
Christ had to bear all three offices. He had to be a prophet to know and to disclose the truth of God; a priest, to devote himself to God and, in our place, to offer himself up to God; a king, to govern and protect us according to God's will. To teach, to reconcile, and to lead; to instruct, to acquire, and to apply salvation; wisdom, righteousness, and redemption; truth, love, and power--all three are essential to the completeness of our salvation. . . .--Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:368
Rationalism acknowledges only his prophetic office; mysticism only his priestly office; millennialism only his kingly office. But Scripture, consistently and simultaneously attributing all three offices to him, describes him as our chief prophet, our only priest, and our eternal king.
Though a king, he rules not by the sword but by his Word and spirit. He is a prophet, but his word is power and really happens. He is a priest but lives by dying, conquers by suffering, and is all-powerful by his love. He is always all these things in conjunction, never the one without the other.