Cast Your Care

“Why are thou cast down, O my soul?

And why art thou disquieted in me?

Hope thou in God.”

- Psalm 42:5

After a refreshing week of fall break, the second subterm started on Monday. Having finished two classes the previous Monday, I began two new block classes this week – Corrections and Judicial Process – and resumed my sixteen week science class.

Even after four years of college, I’m afraid I still get “syllabus shock.” Why? Perhaps it’s my type-A personality, and the simple truth that I tend to stress out about nearly everything. It’s not that I’m not excited for the classes – I love learning. Rather, it is worries about time management, health, the workload, and compensating for the little surprises life brings – surprises that can’t be anticipated.

Yet, at the beginning of each term and in the midst of my anxiety, the Lord faithfully brings me back to Him. He allows something in my life, usually illness, to remind me that I am not sufficient of myself and without Him, I can do nothing (John 15:5). The virus I have been fighting for the past week worsened. Today my doctor diagnosed bronchitis and put me on antibiotics. So, once again, I have been humbled and reminded that I am to cast myself in dependency on Him, who "performeth all things for me" (Psalm 57:2). 

 

The Daily Light for today was so fitting. I needed to be reminded of the truth in the verses. I’m so thankful for the way the Lord directs, giving me just what I stand in need of.

                “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee: He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved – I will trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song: He is also become my salvation.

                “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? – Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus – In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.

                “The effect of righteousness shall be quietness and assurance forever – Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid – Peace, from Him which is, and which was, and which is to come.”

 

                (Psalm 55:22 – Isaiah 42:2; Matthew 8:26 – Philippians 4:6-7 – Isaiah 30:15; Isaiah 32:17 – John 14:27 – Revelation 1:4).

 

Is there anything troubling you today? Any "care" that seems overwhelming? Cast it upon the Lord. He waits, ready to comfort you and give you rest (Matthew 11:28).

His Robes For Mine

"Herein is love, not that we loved God

but that He loved us, and sent His Son

to be the propitiation for our sins."

- I John 4:10

 

 

His robes for mine: O wonderful exchange!

Clothed in my sin, Christ suffered 'neath God's rage.

Draped in His righteousness, I'm justified.

In Christ I live, for in my place He died.

 

Refrain:

I cling to Christ, and marvel at the cost:

Jesus forsaken, God estranged from God.

Bought by such love, my life is not my own.

My praise - my all - shall be for Christ alone.

 

His robes for mine: what cause have I for dread?

God's daunting law Christ mastered in my stead.

Faultless I stand with righteous works not mine,

Saved by my Lord's vicarious death and life.

 

His robes for mine: God's justice is appeased.

Jesus is crushed, and thus the Father's pleased.

Christ drank God's wrath on sin, then cried "'Tis done!"

Sin's wage is paid; propitiation won.

 

His robes for mine: such anguish none can know.

Christ, God's beloved, condemend as though His foe.

He, as though I, accursed and left alone;

I, as though He, embraced and welcomed home!
- Chris Anderson





Breathing

For most of us, breathing is one of the most natural parts of living. It is an involuntary function. We usually don’t pause to think about because it happens whether or not we are conscious of it. In fact, we often take it for granted.

Photo via Google

Yet it is perhaps the most important function in our body. Without oxygen, our organs will not function properly. Without oxygen, we cannot live.

I am an asthmatic, so my ability to breathe is compromised by certain triggers, which inflame and narrow my airways. Like most of you, though, I usually do not have to think about breathing. As long as I am careful, avoid the triggers, and take my medication, I am fine.

A couple of days ago, I was hit with a nasty upper respiratory virus that settled right in my chest. As a result, I have had to be conscious of every breath I take, struggling painfully to draw air in and fighting the fatigue that comes from lowered oxygen levels.  It struck me yesterday how often I take breathing for granted…how often I fail to be thankful when I can breathe unhindered. And then I thought of a spiritual parallel.

A person who cannot breathe normally or is not breathing at all is obviously unhealthy. His or her body is not functioning as it was designed to. It is the same way in our spiritual lives. Unless we are in fellowship with Christ, reading and meditating on His Word, and praying, we are spiritually unhealthy. These things are the “oxygen” of our spiritual lives.

Furthermore, when we stop and consider it, it is only because of God’s mercy and grace that we can function physically as well. “For in Him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Christ is our all. He sustains us, allowing us to live for the next minute, the next hour, the next day. “And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:17).

If you are a Christian, then God has left you on this planet to do one thing: His will. Christ is our reason for breathing air – for living. We are left here to do His bidding, to carry the cross, to share in His sufferings, and to honour and glorify His name.

And the most wonderful thing of all is that He gives us the power to do His will. “For without Me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5). Without Christ, we are nothing and can do nothing. He created us to live in harmony with Him, but it’s our choice. My choice. Your choice. He doesn’t force us to love Him. We have to choose to love Him, to obey Him, and to yield ourselves to Him. We must rid ourselves of the last strands of the husk of our independence, casting ourselves in dependency upon Him. “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God” (II Corinthians 3:5). And all the while, He waits patiently for us, ready to give His everlasting strength (Isaiah 26:4) and His all sufficient grace (II Corinthians 12:9).

I can choose not to take my medication and sit there, struggling all the more, but I won’t be healthy. I won’t have peace. I’ll be exhausted. Anxious. Restless.

But if I decide to take the medicine, my lungs will open and the oxygen will flow in. I’ll have more energy. Be more alert. And my body will function more like it is supposed to.

The same goes for my spiritual life. If I dig my heels in and try to do things on my own strength, I’ll end up worn out, frustrated, and ineffective. I have to choose to cast my cares upon the Lord, letting Him work in me and through me to do His will. That’s the only path to lasting joy and peace.

“Am I not enough, Mine own?

Enough, Mine own, for thee?

All shalt thou find at last,

Only in Me.

Am I not enough, Mine own?

I, for ever and alone, I, needing thee?”

 – Ter Steegen

The Husk of Independence

Surrendering to Christ and sacrificing out of love for our fellow man are foundational elements of daily Christian living (see the lessons of the buttercup and the dandelion). Until we yield ourselves unconditionally to Christ, we will not discover God’s perfect will for our lives. We will not discover the richness of walking in fellowship with Christ unless we have first presented our bodies as a living sacrifice to Him (Romans 12:1).

“People want to know how I discovered the will of God. The first thing was to settle once and for all the supremacy of Christ in my life, I tell them. I put myself utterly and forever at His disposal which means turning over all the rights: to myself, my body, my self-image, my notions of how I am to serve my Master. Oswald Chambers calls it ‘breaking the husk of my individual independence of God.’ Until that break comes, all the rest is ‘pious fraud.’ But there will be deaths to die. That is the price of following the way of the cross.” – Elisabeth Elliot.

"Death is the gate of life" by Lilias Trotter

But death sounds…drastic. Harsh. Difficult. It is. The way of the cross is not easy. It is a concept that is antithetical to our selfish, proud natures.

“The cross is offered to us every day in some form, at times comparatively trivial, at other times real suffering, but it is always something which slashes straight across our human nature, for the cross was an instrument of torture.” – Elisabeth Elliot.

When we take up the cross, however, we discover the abundant life – the blessed life. It is in dying to self we find our freedom in Christ. When the husk of our independence has been loosed and broken, we are free to serve in whatever way the Lord desires.

"Irises" by Lilias Trotter

“See in these wild iris-pods how the last tiny threads must be broken, and with that loosing, all that they have is free for God’s use in His world around. All reluctance, all calculating, all holding in is gone; the husks are opened wide, the seeds can shed themselves unhindered. Again and again has a breaking come:  – the seed broke to let go the shoot – the leaf-bud broke to let go the leaf, and the flower-bud to let go the flower – but all to no practical avail, if there is a holding back now. ‘Love is the fulfilling of the law,’ and sacrifice is the very life-breath of love. May God show us every withholding thread of self that needs breaking still, and may His own touch shrivel it to death.

 

“Are we following His steps; are we? How the dark places of the earth are crying out for all the powers of giving and living and loving that are locked up in hearts at home!

 

“Shall we not free it all gladly? It is not grudgingly or of necessity that the little caskets break up and scatter the seed, but with the cheerful giving that God loves.

 

“It is when the sun goes out from our horizon to light up the dayspring in far-away lands, that the glory of the day comes on: it is in the autumn, when the harvest is gathered and the fruit is stored for the use of man, that the glow of red and gold touches and transfigures bush and tree with a beauty that the summer days never knew.

“So with us – The clear pure dawn of cleansing through the Blood – the sunrise gladness of resurrection life; the mid-day light and warmth of growth and service, all are good in their own order: but he who stops short there misses the crown of glory, before which the brightness of former days grows poor and cold. It is when the glow and radiance of a life delivered up to death begins to gather: a life poured forth to Jesus and for His to others – it is then that even the commonest things put on a new beauty, as in the sunset, for His life becomes ‘manifest in our mortal flesh;’ a bloom comes on the soul like the bloom on the fruit as its hour of sacrifice arrives.

 

“Oh, that we may learn to die to all that is of self with this royal joyfulness that swallows up death in victory in God’s world around! He can make every step of the path full of the triumph of gladness that glows in the gold leaves. Glory be to His name!

 

“And the outcome, like the outcome of the autumn, is this: there is, a new power set free; a power of multiplying life around. The promise to Christ was that because He poured forth His soul unto death, He should see His seed: and He leads His children in their little measure by the same road. Over and over the promise of seed is linked with sacrifice, as with Abraham and Rebecca and Ruth; those who at His bidding have forsaken all receive an hundred-fold more now in this time, for sacrifice is God’s factor in His work of multiplying. ‘Except a corn of wheat fall to into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.’

 

“It is the poured-out life that God blesses – the life that heeds not itself, if only other souls may be won. The reason is this: – that into the being that is ready to let the self-life go, God the Holy Ghost can come and dwell and work unfettered; and by that indwelling He will manifest within us His wonderful Divine power of communicating vitality – of reproducing the image of Jesus in souls around.” – Lilias Trotter, Parables of the Cross

 

Lilias Trotter

And that is ultimately what it is all about – Christ working in us to reproduce His image in the souls around us, all for His honour and glory. It is not about us, it is about Him. Sanctification is Christ molding us, conforming us to His image (II Corinthians 3:18). But, praise the Lord, He supplies the power. All we have to do is trust Him. Just as we trusted Him for salvation and justification, so we also trust Him for sanctification.

“Perfect sanctification is as fully included in the word ‘salvation’ as is ‘wisdom, righteousness, or redemption.’ [Man] did not get Christ by effort, but by faith: and when he laid hold on Christ he received all that is in Christ. Hence, therefore, he has only to look to Jesus by faith, for the subjugation of his lusts, passions, tempers, habits, circumstances, and influences. He must look to Jesus for all. He can no more subdue a single lust than he could cancel the entire catalogue of his sins, work out a perfect righteousness, or raise the dead. ‘Christ is all and in all.’ Salvation is a golden chain which stretches from everlasting to everlasting, and every link of that chain is Christ. It is all Christ from first to last.” – C.H. Mackintosh

I Love to Tell the Story

The words of this wonderful old hymn have been on my heart lately,
encouraging and convicting me, so I thought I would share them.

"Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs, singing and making melody
in your heart to the Lord."
- Ephesians 5:19

 

I love to tell the story

Of unseen things above,

Of Jesus and His glory,

Of Jesus and His love.

I love to tell the story,

Because I know 'tis true;

It satisfies my longings

As nothing else can do.

 

Refrain:

I love to tell the story,

'Twill be my theme in glory,

To tell the old, old story

Of Jesus and His love.

 

 

I love to tell the story;

More wonderful it seems

Than all the golden fancies

Of all our golden dreams.

I love to tell the story,

It did so much for me;

And that is just the reason

I tell it now to thee.

 

 

I love to tell the story;

'Tis pleasant to repeat

What seems, each time I tell it,

More wonderfully sweet.

I love to tell the story,

For some have never heard

The message of salvation

From God's own holy Word.

 

 

I love to tell the story,

For those who know it best

Seem hungering and thirsting

To hear it like the rest.

And when, in scenes of glory,

I sing the new, new song,

'Twill be the old, old story

That I have loved so long.

- Katherine Hankey

 

"Oh that men would praise the Lord

for His goodness, and for His wonderful

works to the children of men!"

- Psalm 107:8, 15, 21, 31

 

The Lesson of the Dandelion

Photo via Google



Unlike the buttercup which is admired for its delicate yellow beauty, dandelions are usually looked upon as a detested weed that spreads and spreads and spreads...and then spreads some more until one's yard has been overtaken by this vicious yellow lion. I, for one, must admit to having a particular abhorrence for the dandelion.

This picture of three-year-old me is one of the last times I ever touched a dandelion. My parents first discovered I was an asthmatic and had severe ragweed allergies when I did what every little girl does and blew on a dandelion that had gone to seed. Needless to say, I now stay as far away from dandelions and any of their ragweed relatives that I can.

During my devotions this morning, however, I was given a much different picture of the dandelion. In her Parables of the Cross, Lilias Trotter uses the lowly weed to illustrate an important spiritual principle: the Christian's surrender to Christ.


"Dandelion" by Lilias Trotter

She writes, "This dandelion has long ago surrendered its golden petals, and has reached its crowning stage of dying -- the delicate seed-globe must break up now -- it gives and gives till it has nothing left.

"The hour of this new dying is clearly defined to the dandelion globe: it is marked by detachment. There is no sense of wrenching: it stands ready, holding up its little life, not knowing when or where or how the wind that bloweth where it listeth may carry it away. It holds itself no longer for its own keeping, only as something to be given: a breath does the rest, turning the 'readiness to will' into the 'performance.' (2 Cor. 8.11.) And to a soul that through 'deaths oft' has been brought to this point, even acts that look as if they must involve an effort, become something natural, spontaneous, full of a 'heavenly involuntariness,' so simply are they the outcome of the indwelling love of Christ.

"Shall we not ask God to convict us, as to where lies the hindrance to this self-emptying? It is not alone mere selfishness, in its ordinary sense, that prevents it; long after this has been cleansed away by the Precious Blood there may remain, unrecognized, the self-life in more subtle forms. It may co-exist with much that looks like sacrifice; there may be much of usefulness and of outward self-denial, and yet below the surface may remain a clinging to our own judgment, a confidence in our own resources, an unconscious taking of our own way, even in God's service. And these things hold down, hold in our souls, and frustrate the Spirit in His working. The latent self-life needs to be brought down into the place of death before His breath can carry us hither and thither as the wind wafts the seeds. Are we ready for this last surrender?" -- Lilias Trotter

Am I ready for this surrender? What a powerful lesson from the dandelion. Surrender should be our response to Christ and what He has given us through salvation and justification. It should be the consequence of the love that has been "shed abroad in our hearts" (Romans 5:8). It is the least we can do for our Saviour -- the One who came down to earth and died on the cross for us, the sinful, selfish beings we are. Have we taken our hands off our lives and surrendered unconditionally to Him, willing to let Him use us in whatever way He sees fit? We have not been left here on earth to do our own thing. No, we have been left here to do the Lord's will, and until we surrender ourselves to Him, we will not know what He wants us to do, just as the dandelion must "die" to itself before the wind breaks up the seed globe and blows the seeds where it wishes.

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, acceptable, and perfect will of God."

- Romans 12:1-2

Complete in Thee

Complete in Thee, no work of mine

Could take, dear Lord, the place of Thine.

Thy blood hath pardon bought for me,

And I shall stand complete in Thee!

 

 

Complete in Thee, each want supplied,

And no good thing to me denied,

Since Thou my portion, Lord, will be,

I ask no more, complete in Thee!

 

Complete in Thee, no more shall sin

Thy grace has conquered reign within;

Thy blood shall bid the tempter flee,

And I shall stand, complete in Thee!

 

 

Dear Savior, when, before Thy bar,

All tribes and tongues assembled are,

Among the chosen I shall be,

At Thy right hand, complete in Thee!

 

Refrain:

Yea, justified, oh blessed thought!

And sanctified, salvation wrought!

Thy blood hath pardon bought for me,

And glorified I, too, shall be.

 

- Aaron R. Wolfe, James M. Gray



 

This morning in church, we sang one of my favorite hymns "Complete in Thee." The words are such a vivid reminder of our position in Christ. In Him, I am complete -- I lack nothing, I need nothing. That is how I stand before my Saviour, but it is easy for me to get so focused on myself and my supposed needs that I begin striving to fulfillment elsewhere instead of resting in my established position before Christ.

Then the Lord gently brings me back to His word and I am reminded that I will not find completeness in a degree, a career, a mate, or whatever else may seem to provide ultimate satisfaction. Christ is my all. In Philippians, the Apostle Paul wrote, "For I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need" (vs. 11-12).  Paul could have this outlook on life because he knew he was complete in Christ and he trusted Him to provide for whatever else he needed. As I enter into a new week -- a week with a full schedule that I was beginning to stress out over-- I can rest in the blessed truth that I am complete in Christ. He is my Rock, He is my portion -- He is enough for me.

"And ye are complete in Him."

- Colossians 2:10

The Lesson of the Buttercup

"Yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead,
and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God."
- Romans 6:13b

"Buttercups" by Lilias Trotter

"Look at this buttercup as it begins to learn its new lesson. The little hands of the calyx clasp tightly in the bud, round the beautiful petals; in the young flower their grasp grows more elastic -- loosening somewhat in the daytime, but keeping the power of contracting, able to close in again during a rainstorm, or when night comes on. But see the central flower, which has reached its maturity. The calyx hands have unclasped utterly now -- they have folded themselves back, past all power of closing again upon the petals, leaving the golden crown free to float away when God's time comes.

 

"Have we learned the buttercup's lesson yet? Are our hands off the very blossom of our life? Are all things -- even the treasures that He has sanctified -- held loosely, ready to be parted with, without a struggle, when He asks for them?

 

"It is not in the partial relaxing of grasp, with power to take back again, that this fresh victory of death is won: it is won when that very power of taking back is yielded; when our hands, like the little calyx hands of God's buttercups, are not only taken off, but folded behind our back in utter abandonment. Death means a loosened grasp -- loosened beyond all power of grasping again.

 

"Yes, practical death with Him to lawful things is just letting go, even as He on the Cross let go all but God. It is not to be reached by struggling for it, but simply by yielding as the body yields at last to the physical death that lays hold on it -- as the dying calyx yields its flower. Only to no iron law with its merciless grasp do we let ourselves go, but into the hands of the Father: it is there that our spirit falls, as we are made conformable unto the death of Jesus."

 

- Lilias Trotter, Parables of the Cross

What if...

"'What' and 'if' are two words as non-threatening as words can be,

but put them together side by side and they have the power

to haunt you for the rest of your life."

- Letters to Juliet

 

"What if you woke up this morning and found the only

things you had left were the things you thanked

God for yesterday?"

- Terry Shock

 

"Giving thanks always for all things unto God

and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."

- Ephesians 5:20

 

Have you thanked God for anything today?