Remembering His Faithfulness - by Todd

These past few weeks, I’ve been tempted to recount some decisions I’ve made, wondering if I had really heard from God or if I was just acting on my own accord. “Was that God I was hearing, or was it my own wishes and desires? Was I acting on the prompting of the Holy Spirit, or on the well-intentioned advice of man?” I don’t think this is something that I alone am prone to do.
As I was belly-aching to Him last night, He reminded me of the importance of not looking back on our past decisions. There is nothing I can do in the present day over past choices I’ve made. I’m in the here and now and can only act in the present.

When it comes to remembering our past, scripture is clear, we are to remember the things He has done. After crossing the Jordan, God instructed Joshua and crew to build a mound of 12 large rocks to be a memorial to the generations that would come later (Josh 4:5-7). Samuel was instructed to put up an “Ebenezer” which declared “This far has the Lord helped us” (I Sam 7:12). God knows we are prone to forget His faithfulness and remember our own mistakes. He knows we need to recount His faithfulness, not our blunders.

Paul echoes this in Philippians 3, “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus”(v. 13-14). I’m sure if anyone was prone to recall past mistakes, it was the Apostle Paul.

Instead of putting confidence in our past successes or failures, we are to press on in hope. Not the hope that comes through our wisdom and great decision-making abilities, but the hope that He is able to redeem all things and prompts us not with a heavy hand of conformation, but with a Father-like nudge in the right direction. I only need be quieter and less restless, more hope-filled, less driven by fear. I’m so thankful for a loving Father who continues to go before us.

Pleasures Evermore - by Todd

Last night, I began reading Sam Storms' book "Pleasures Evermore", which is very similar to Piper's "Desiring God" (one of few books that significantly changed my life). Like Piper, Storms' premise is that if we are really looking for ultimate pleasure, we will find it in God alone. Motivating ourselves toward righteousness through guilt or self-control is not needed, and never very effective. This is the essense of Christian Hedonism - the believer's search for the most satisfying pleasures in every area of life. Psalm 16:11 says "You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore."

CS Lewis says it this way "If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not to strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered [to] us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased." (The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses)

Have we lost our hunger for truly satisfying joy and pleasure in life? Have we tried to satisfy ourselves on a diet of religion when we were given a hunger for relationship with Him? I couldn't help but ask myself how many times I've self-medicated myself on the stuff of life that truly does not bring the joy and satisfaction only He can offer (and I was created for). He alone gives us the satisfaction we are looking for, but He does not force it upon us. We need to hunger for it in the first place. Even the best of foods lacks taste to the one who is stuffed with empty calories.