Psalm 119:9-16

What is your response when you read that David was a man after God’s heart (Acts 13:2)? Many of us look up to him as a spiritual giant and think to ourselves, I could never be like that. But the Lord hasn’t reserved this title for just one man. He wants all of us to seek Him as David did. One of our problems is our tendency to focus on just part of his story. We tend to forget that the scriptural account gives a record of King David’s entire lifetime. He had to begin pursuing the Lord the same way we do–one step at a time.

A hunger for God doesn’t usually just pop up in our hearts. Most of the time, it’s something that must be cultivated. The place to begin is the Bible. That’s where we listen to the Lord as He speaks to us in His Word.

Another essential element is prayer. As you read His words, start talking to Him. If it all seems dry and meaningless, ask Him to work in your life to make Scripture come alive. He loves to answer prayers like that.

The next step is meditation. Don’t just “put in your time” so you can say you’ve read your Bible. Slow down and deliberately think about what you’ve read. What did you discover about God?

The last step is to keep at it. A hunger for God may not develop right away, but remember, you’re working for a changed heart that will last a lifetime, not a quick emotional experience. Just keep filling up with the fuel that brings transformation–the Word, prayer, and meditation

Researchers believe they have come up with a questionnaire that can measure a person’s chances of dying within the next four years. According to one of the test’s designers, it is reported to be roughly 81 percent accurate among those who are 50 years or older. Their report, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, claims the assessment will be useful to doctors in offering prognostic information and to patients who want a more determined look at the future. Regardless of the questionnaire’s effectiveness, however, the headline still strikes me as ironic: “Test Helps You Predict Chances of Dying.”(1) It brings to mind the lines of Emily Dickinson, “Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me.”  We don’t need a test to tell us our chances of dying.

British statesman and avowed atheist Roy Hattersley writes in the Guardian of a recent experience at a funeral. It was a funeral, he said, which almost converted him to the belief that funeral services–of which he has disapproved for years–ought to be encouraged. His conclusion was forged as he sang the hymns and studied the proclamations of a crowd that seemed sincere: “[T]he church is so much better at staging last farewells than non-believers could ever be.”(2) He continues, “‘Death where is thy sting, grave where is thy victory?’ are stupid questions. But even those of us who do not expect salvation find a note of triumph in the burial service. There could be a godless thanksgiving for and celebration of the life of [whomever]. The music might be much the same. But it would not have the uplifting effect without the magnificent, meaningless, words.”

I had never been to a funeral until I was the seminary intern for a small rural church in Oklahoma. I had attended a visitation once and a few memorial services years earlier, but I had never watched a family move from planning to wake to service to burial, until I assisted more families through the entire funeral process than seemed possible for the tiny congregation. We had more than seven times the number of deaths as we had births in the church that year.

Something happens when you are given the opportunity to be an observer at that many funerals. The reality of the sting of death became like a running commentary on the futility of life and fleeting nature of humanity. “For who knows what is good for a man in life during the few and meaningless days he passes through like a shadow?” asks Solomon. “Surely the people are grass,” writes Isaiah. I had never been more aware of my own transience.

But there was an incredible paradox in this looming experience of death’s repetitive sting. With each new grave came the unnaturalness of the process all over again—a body at the front of the altar, a hole dug deeply, a coffin lowered. Yet as death continued to rear its ugly head in our small community and life stood futile to stop it, the words spoken over the body again and again did not become futile themselves. On the contrary, they grew all the more resounding. I came to realize that our words were not spoken to soften the blow, but rather, to affirm the offense, to acknowledge the sting of death in all of its aberrancy–and to name the one who came to reverse it, having gone through it himself.

We are the only creatures in this world who ceremoniously bury their dead, who speak words over bodies, and take them all the way to the grave. Why does death never cease to seem unnatural even despite the worldview we bring to the funeral?  What is it about this spirit that will not stop, that refuses to be reconciled to loss and give death the last word?  What is it that makes us cry out to someone or someplace beyond the self?  “If only for this life we have hope in Christ,” writes Paul, “we are to be pitied more than all men” (1 Corinthians 15:19).

Hattersley concludes his observations with a comment of which he himself has perhaps not plumbed the depths: “Dull would he be of soul (or the humanist equivalent) who is not moved to tears by the exhortation, ‘He died to make us holy, let us live to make men free.'”(3) Such were the final lines the statesman uttered without meaning at the funeral that moved him.

What if the inherent logic that brings us to the graveside with words and longing hints of a transcendent memory that life was never intended to be cut short and that death can somehow be overcome? What if the last farewell is not the final word? Indeed, what if the words we speak over our dead were never intended to be our own: I am the resurrection and the life. He who comes to me will live, even though he dies.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) “Test Helps You Predict Chances of Dying,” Forbes News Online, February 14, 2006, accessed March 10, 2012, http://forbes.com/work/feeds/ap/2006/02/14/ap2526211.html.
(2) Roy Hattersley, “A Decent Send-off,” The Guardian, January 16, 2006, accessed March 10, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/jan/16/religion.uk2.
(3) Ibid.

Morning    “All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the  head.”    Psalm 22:7

Mockery was a great ingredient in our Lord’s woe. Judas mocked him in the

garden; the chief priests and scribes laughed him to scorn; Herod set him at

nought; the servants and the soldiers jeered at him, and brutally insulted him;

Pilate and his guards ridiculed his royalty; and on the tree all sorts of horrid

jests and hideous taunts were hurled at him. Ridicule is always hard to bear,

but when we are in intense pain it is so heartless, so cruel, that it cuts us to

the quick. Imagine the Saviour crucified, racked with anguish far beyond all

mortal guess, and then picture that motley multitude, all wagging their heads or

thrusting out the lip in bitterest contempt of one poor suffering

victim! Surely there must have been something more in the crucified One than

they could see, or else such a great and mingled crowd would not unanimously

have honoured him with such contempt. Was it not evil confessing, in the very

moment of its greatest apparent triumph, that after all it could do no more than

mock at that victorious goodness which was then reigning on the cross? O Jesus,

“despised and rejected of men,” how couldst thou die for men who treated thee so

ill? Herein is love amazing, love divine, yea, love beyond degree. We, too, have

despised thee in the days of our unregeneracy, and even since our new birth we

have set the world on high in our hearts, and yet thou bleedest

to heal our wounds, and diest to give us life. O that we could set thee on a

glorious high throne in all men’s hearts! We would ring out thy praises over

land and sea till men should as universally adore as once they did unanimously

reject.

“Thy creatures wrong thee, O thou sovereign Good!

Thou art not loved, because not understood:

This grieves me most, that vain pursuits beguile

Ungrateful men, regardless of thy smile.”

 

Evening    “Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him.”   Isaiah 3:10

It is well with the righteous always. If it had said, “Say ye to the righteous,

that it is well with him in his prosperity,” we must have been thankful for so

great a boon, for prosperity is an hour of peril, and it is a gift from heaven

to be secured from its snares: or if it had been written, “It is well with him

when under persecution,” we must have been thankful for so sustaining an

assurance, for persecution is hard to bear; but when no time is mentioned, all

time is included. God’s “shalls” must be understood always in their largest

sense. From the beginning of the year to the end of the year, from the first

gathering of evening shadows until the day-star shines, in all conditions and

under all circumstances, it shall be well with the righteous. It is so well

with him that we could not imagine it to be better, for he is well fed, he feeds

upon the flesh and blood of Jesus; he is well clothed, he wears the imputed

righteousness of Christ; he is well housed, he dwells in God; he is well

married, his soul is knit in bonds of marriage union to Christ; he is well

provided for, for the Lord is his Shepherd; he is well endowed, for heaven is

his inheritance. It is well with the righteous–well upon divine authority; the

mouth of God speaks the comforting assurance. O beloved, if God declares that

all is well, ten thousand devils may declare it to be ill, but we laugh them all

to scorn. Blessed be God for a faith which enables us to believe God when the

creatures contradict him. It is, says the Word, at all times well with thee,

thou righteous one; then, beloved, if thou canst not see it, let God’s word

stand thee in stead of sight; yea, believe it on divine authority more

confidently than if thine eyes and thy feelings told it to thee. Whom God

blesses is blest indeed, and what his lip declares is truth most sure and

steadfast.

He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.

Leviticus 1:4

Our Lord’s being “made . . . sin”2 for us is pictured here by the very significant transfer of sin to the bullock, which was done by the elders of the people. The laying of the hand was not a mere touch of contact, for in some other places of Scripture the original word has the meaning of leaning heavily, as in the expression, “Your wrath lies heavy upon me” (Psalm 88:7).

Surely this is the very essence and nature of faith, which not only brings us into contact with the great Substitute, but also teaches us to lean upon Him with all the burden of our guilt. Jehovah made all the offenses of His covenant people rest upon the Substitute, and each one of the chosen is brought personally to confirm this solemn covenant act, when by grace he is enabled by faith to lay his hand upon the head of the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world.

Believer, do you remember that wonderful day when you first realized pardon through Jesus the sin-bearer? Can you make a glad confession and join with the writer in saying, “My soul recalls the day of deliverance with delight. Burdened with guilt and full of fears, I saw my Savior as my Substitute, and I laid my hand upon Him—timidly at first, but courage grew and confidence was confirmed until I leaned my soul entirely upon Him. And now it is my unceasing joy to know that my sins are no longer imputed to me but are laid on Him. Like the debts of the wounded traveler, Jesus, like the good Samaritan, has said of all my future sinfulness, ‘Set that to My account.'”

Blessed discovery! Eternal solace of a grateful heart!

My numerous sins transferr’d to Him,

Shall never more be found,

Lost in His blood’s atoning stream,

Where every crime is drown’d!

22 Corinthians 5:21

The family reading plan for April 13, 2012

Proverbs 31 | 1 Timothy 2