WHEN THE TIDE SEEMINGLY GOES OUT . . .

William Booth’s best known piece of writing may be the seven verses of his song, O Boundless Salvation . . . deep ocean of love.  Recently it was the theme song of The Salvation Army’s 150^th anniversary celebration in the city of its birth in 1865, London, England.  The song is a powerful metaphor for the saving grace of God, his immeasurable and unfathomable love for the world.

Samuel Logan Brengle also makes reference to the love of God as an ocean of love when he states that when the Holy Spirit fills our hearts and lives and abides in us, “the low water mark of our experience will be ‘perfect peace’.”  He writes that he doesn’t dare say what the high water mark will be.  Brengle raises a helpful word of assurance for those who worry that the tide has gone out.   To those concerned when all the high, spirited emotion of spiritual experience seems to disappear, and when it seems like the Holy Spirit has left us high and dry.  He writes –

“Don’t think that when the tide flows out to the low water mark that the Comforter (the Holy Spirit) has left you. . . Don’t think he has left you because you are not overflowing with emotion.  Hold fast to your faith. . . The Holy Spirit is not capricious and fickle. . . Be true, be full of faith, and you will be able to say with Paul: ‘I am persuaded that that neither death, not life, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ (Rom. 8:37-39.”

In our daily experience of God’s deep ocean of love, the emotions of the experience will ebb and flow.  There will be higher and higher water marks as we mature and grow, and as God’s infilling of his holy love increases.  But there will be low water marks as well.  That’s a good thing.  It means that as we grow in God’s grace our capacity to receive his love increases.  What was a high water mark becomes merely a lower water mark in the process of our growing in capacity more and more.  What at first was a thimble like capacity to love becomes the capacity of a coffee mug, then a bath tub, swimming pool, and Lake Michigan.  The purpose of our growth in grace and in his likeness is to be filled each day to the brim.  Each day we grow.  He sets the brim a little higher and fills us again with his very self.  

When you think the tide has seemingly gone out, rejoice!  God is steadfast and faithful.  He is at work growing your capacity to be filled. He then fills to the brim and we do unimaginable things for the Kingdom. Glory to God!

Fill my cup, Lord.  I lift it up, Lord.

Thy Kingdom come!

PARTICIPANTS IN MOMENTS OF GLORY

I’ve been wondering, what are great moments of glory in human history?  There are so many.  The Bible is full of amazing moments.  So is millenia of history. So, I wrote a few down. My short list is not absolute nor is it definitive, and beyond question.  It's just what quickly comes to mind.


Here they are, moments of glory when I would love to have been present (and active) as a participant-observer:

• With Moses on the other shore - (helping the last Israelite across the Red Sea).
• With the shepherds and the angelic choir (singing with them "Glory in the Highest") on  the first Christmas night.
• With Mary and Jesus at the empty tomb that first Easter morning.
• With Abraham Lincoln (holding his hat) during his Gettysburg address.
•  With US Marines (planting the flag with them) on Iwo Jima.
• With William Booth - when he first wrote the words “The Salvation Army.”
• With Martin Luther King at the Lincoln Memorial on the Washington Mall (whispering, “Tell them about your dream”).

Those were all wonderful moments of glory in human history.  They were also great moments that legitimately we can say, “Glory to God.”  They are moments when the essence of God’s wisdom, strength, and love for the world were made manifest. Looking back at such moments occasions inspiration and hope in the future.  Each of those glorious moments arose out of times of difficulty, struggle, and seemingly insurmountable challenges.  That’s how God’s glory works.  In moments when doubt and discouragement may prevail, God reaches down to lift us up and give us strength and wisdom we did not know was possible. In these moments we participate in his providence and grace.

The hope we have going forward is that those moments are not reserved for history.  With God there’s always more.  There will be more moments of inevitable struggle and frightful challenge, but glory to God, his promises are sure.  He is steadfast and faithful.  He draws us into those moments as he did Moses, Lincoln, Booth, and MLK. In those moments of God’s faithful intervention, we have the assurance in our spirit that we are more than observing his glorious grace.  We sense that God is letting us participate in his divine nature.

Through these he has given us his very great and precious

promises, so that through them you may

participate in the divine nature.

2 Peter 1:4

WHAT TO DO ABOUT SIN

Bramwell & William Booth

There is a story about The Salvation Army’s founder, General William Booth.  His son, Bramwell, was passing by his father’s home very late one night and saw the light still on in the General’s bedroom with the General pacing back and forth.  He was advanced in age and somewhat frail. Bramwell inquired, “Father, what are you doing up so late?  Shouldn’t you be asleep by now.”  Booth’s response was something to the effect, “I can’t stop thinking about the peoples' sin.  What are they to do about their sin.”

General Booth was a realist.  Sin was a major issue for all people then as it is now.  In reality, the General and his Army would be steadfast in their teaching and preaching about sin and the need for a full salvation for all humanity.  Their mission did not just stop with getting people saved from the uttermost of sin, but helping them to go on to being saved to the uttermost of Christlikeness, holiness.

We don’t hear teaching and preaching about sin much anymore.  It’s rare, and holiness seems to be off the table as a topic as well.  There is no doubt that sin abounds.  We read it in the paper, see it portrayed in the media, and celebrate it with time spent watching it on Netficks and on the internet.  So many Christians remain burdened down by sin.  We find laudable a supposedly elite group of saints who remind us that there is something to the idea of holiness, but ignore God's offer of a full salvation, a complete work of grace.  Sadly it's true now. Neither sin nor holiness are topics to be raised in polite company. We don’t teach it nor preach it much.  How far we’ve drifted (fallen) away from what’s on God’s heart and mind, his desire for every believer.

John Wesley had something to say about sin.  In his 1763 sermon, On Sin In Believers, he says the following:

          There are in every person, even after he is justified, two contrary Principles, nature and grace, termed by St. Paul the flesh and the spirit.  Hence, although even babes in Christ are sanctified, yet it is only in part.  In a degree, according to the measure of their faith, they are spiritual; yet in degree they are carnal . . . they feel a will not wholly resigned to the will of God. They know they are in him; and yet find a heart ready to depart from

him, a proneness to evil in many instances, and a backwardness to that which

is good. . . and . . . Although we are renewed, cleansed, purified, sanctified the moment we truly believe in Christ, yet we are not then renewed, cleansed, purified altogether, but the flesh, the evil nature still remains (though subdued) and wars against the Spirit.

This word from Wesley likely disturbed his listeners.  It was not that they were a band of robbers or murders, but their small lies, deceits, gossip, dishonesty, fained concerns for others, their outward appearance of holiness and yet inward sin was being called for what it was, a remaining carnality, a residue of sinful habits of the heart.  This is a word we don’t like to hear today, but where is there not “a proneness to evil” and "a backwardness to that which is good,” if not in sins of commission, then in sins of omission?

Nevertheless, God does not will us to continue a life that leans readily into sin.  Where sin abounded, grace more abounded (Romans 5:20), and still does.  Our salvation can be a full one:  from the guilt and penalty of sin in the past to power over sin and to sanctification, purity of heart, holiness in the likeness of Our Lord.  Thanks be to God.

            May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through.

            May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming

            of our Lord Jesus Christ.  The one who calls you is faithful.  He will do it.

1 Thessalonians 5:23-34

THE PURE IN HEART

Jesus declared in his sermon on the mount, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8)  As a child growing-up in the faith context of The Salvation Army, I learned a chorus that I still remember the tune.  At times, throughout the day, it comes to me as an enduring gift from God.  It goes like this:

Give me a heart like thine.  

Give me heart a like thine.

  By thy wonderful power, 

  By thy grace every hour,

   Give me a heart like thine.

Samuel Logan Brengle, in his classic work Helps to Holiness, his chapter entitled "The heart of Jesus" unpacks what the song writer likely meant when he penned the chorus above.  Jesus has a pure heart, a heart of pure, holy love.  Purity of heart is God’s essence, his nature, his character.  When the Bible says “God is love” it means not any kind of love, but holy love that characterizes the purity of his heart.  Brengle underscores Jesus having a loving heart, a humble heart, and a gentle heart.  He goes on to say, “It is just this kind of heart he wants us to have.”  But it is not just a heart that only teaches love, but lives out the purity of heart as love in action.

Martin Luther King grasped an understanding of purity of heart in action when he powerfully wrote, Strength to Love (1964) especially chapter four about the love of Jesus in action.  Citing Christs’s words on the cross, “Father forgive them . . . (Luke 23:34), King highlights the “marvelous expression of Jesus’ ability to match words with action.”  The words of our Lord’s teaching came from the purity of his heart, but he was not merely a good teacher or philosopher with a pure heart.  He was and is Savior and Lord who out of the purity of his heart bled and died on our behalf on the cross.  He acted on our behalf , and still does in the sending of the Holy Spirit.  He acted on our behalf and still does in his advocacy with God the Father for our forgiveness and salvation.  Today he acts on our behalf even now to restore us to his likeness in purity of heart.

Dr. Steve Seamand's, professor of Christian doctrine at Asbury Seminary, in his book entitled Holiness of Heart and Life (1990), writes “God’s holiness is manifest in his absolute purity.  God calls us to be pure.  Through his Spirit he can make us pure.  If we are willing, God can cleanse us from all our impurities and will cause us to follow him wholeheartedly (Ezekial 36:25-27).  Then he asks, “Will we hear his call to purity?  Will we receive his grace which can make us and keep us pure?  Will we be holy as God is holy?”

There is the useful life and the holy example that flow

from a pure heart, which will not only speak in favour

of God and holiness while you live, but shall go on influencing

the world long after you have passed on to your reward.

                 - William Booth, Purity of Heart (1902) -