Hebrews 5:11-14

In today’s world, impatience is all too common a trait. We want food, help, and information fast. Just waiting for the computer to boot up or the “next avail-able agent” to answer our call can cause frustration. But the Lord specializes in slow, steady work. He’s more interested in a quality outcome than a speedy process.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the realm of spiritual discernment. When we become Christians, we aren’t instantly wise and knowledgeable. It takes a lifetime to grow to maturity. Some believers, however, don’t seem to grow up at all. They get older, but their understanding of God’s Word never goes very deep.

This lack of godly wisdom is caused by ignorance of the Scriptures, apathy and complacency about spiritual things, and a failure to apply biblical truths. Discernment requires time and effort. You can’t simply move through life, thoughtlessly reacting to situations yet never learning from them. Take time to reflect on your responses and observe the consequences of your actions and choices. If you feel convicted by what you notice, let that motivate you to begin a lifelong pursuit of the Lord and His ways. Start reading the Bible regularly. And as you do, ask the Lord to open your heart and mind to understand what He’s saying.

But just reading God’s Word isn’t enough. Without applying what you’ve read, all you’ll have is head knowledge. Obedience trains us to discern good and evil. Through practice, we learn wisdom and develop spiritual maturity. If you’ll begin today and patiently persevere, in time discernment will come

Ralph Wood, professor of theology and literature at Baylor University, once asked a group of seminary students to compare two individuals: the modern, astute collegian who insists that sin and the fall of humanity are fallacies invented by the superstitious, and a primitive young man in a remote village whom you find in the woods sacrificing a chicken on a makeshift altar. “Which man is farther from the truth?” he asked. The students hemmed and hawed but hesitantly agreed that the pagan boy, however crudely, understood something the other did not. There is a need in our lives for atonement. There is a need for blood.

We have within us a basic sense of our desperate condition.  As Malcolm Muggeridge regularly insisted, the depravity of humankind is at once the most unpopular of the Christian doctrines and yet the most empirically verifiable. We are aware—or reminded often—that we are not quite what we could be, what we might be, what we were intended to be.  Something is wrong, something we yearn to see made right, but somehow find ourselves incapable of the kind of restoration we seek.

For generations, the Israelites labored to follow laws that were meant to atone for their sin and restore them to the presence of God: “And you shall provide a lamb a year old without blemish for a burnt offering to the LORD daily; morning by morning you shall provide it.”(1) The language of sacrifice and offering was found throughout Near Eastern culture. But Israel’s sacrifices were not the same as blood shed by those attempting to appease the many gods they feared and followed. The prophets sent throughout Israel’s history were forever insisting that what God was commanding was something far more than the empty performance of sacrifice. God wanted sacrifices offered with hearts of worship, lives yearning to be in the presence of their creator, though recognizing the fear of such an act. The God of Israel wanted to be near his chosen people, and God made them a way, through the blood of a lamb.

When Christians speak of Christ as the Lamb of God, it might sound like a strange allegory, a symbolic code. The lamb is Christ. The lion is Christ. As with any metaphor, the risk is minimization, instantaneous recognition of the symbol and discontinuation of all that symbol might lead us to discover. But Christ as the lamb is not simply a metaphor. Oxford scholar John Lennox reminds us that these passages tell us not only who it is, but what it is. It is Christ as the lamb, the spotless lamb whose blood my life requires. The description moves well beyond symbolism. Christ is the Lamb whose blood atones my depravity, the Lamb who moves me forever into the presence of God.

When the apostle John describes his vision of heaven in the book of Revelation, the Lamb is found in the center of a singing multitude: “Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders.”(2) Thoughtfully Lennox asks: “But how can a slain lamb stand?” It is an image that poses so much beyond a static metaphor. The Lamb who bore my sins, forever bears the scars of my atonement, even as he stands.

As the Lamb, Christ has reached a need we cannot. He has become the sacrifice we cannot give. He is the Lamb who was slain and yet stands so that we can stand in the presence of God. In these days of Easter, indeed, as the apostle instructs, behold the Lamb of God. The Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Cornerstone, the Shepherd, the Advocate who overcomes.  The Slain Lamb stands!

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

 (1) Ezekiel 46:13.
(2) Revelation 5:6.

Morning    “And because of all this we make a sure covenant.”    Nehemiah 9:38

There are many occasions in our experience when we may very rightly, and with

benefit, renew our covenant with God. After recovery from sickness when, like

Hezekiah, we have had a new term of years added to our life, we may fitly do it.

After any deliverance from trouble, when our joys bud forth anew, let us again

visit the foot of the cross, and renew our consecration. Especially, let us do

this after any sin which has grieved the Holy Spirit, or brought dishonour upon

the cause of God; let us then look to that blood which can make us whiter than

snow, and again offer ourselves unto the Lord. We should not only let our

troubles confirm our dedication to God, but our prosperity should do

the same. If we ever meet with occasions which deserve to be called “crowning

mercies” then, surely, if he hath crowned us, we ought also to crown our God;

let us bring forth anew all the jewels of the divine regalia which have been

stored in the jewel-closet of our heart, and let our God sit upon the throne of

our love, arrayed in royal apparel. If we would learn to profit by our

prosperity, we should not need so much adversity. If we would gather from a kiss

all the good it might confer upon us, we should not so often smart under the

rod. Have we lately received some blessing which we little expected? Has the

Lord put our feet in a large room? Can we sing of mercies multiplied? Then this

is the day to put our hand upon the horns of the altar, and say, “Bind me here,

my God; bind me here with cords, even forever.” Inasmuch as we need the

fulfilment of new promises from God, let us offer renewed prayers that our old

vows may not be dishonoured. Let us this morning make with him a sure covenant,

because of the pains of Jesus which for the last month we have been considering

with gratitude.

 

Evening   “The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and

the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.”   Song of Solomon 2:12

Sweet is the season of spring: the long and dreary winter helps us to appreciate

its genial warmth, and its promise of summer enhances its present delights.

After periods of depression of spirit, it is delightful to behold again the

light of the Sun of Righteousness; then our slumbering graces rise from their

lethargy, like the crocus and the daffodil from their beds of earth; then is our

heart made merry with delicious notes of gratitude, far more melodious than the

warbling of birds–and the comforting assurance of peace, infinitely more

delightful than the turtle’s note, is heard within the soul. Now is the time for

the soul to seek communion with her Beloved; now must she rise from her

native sordidness, and come away from her old associations. If we do not hoist

the sail when the breeze is favourable, we shall be blameworthy: times of

refreshing ought not to pass over us unimproved. When Jesus himself visits us in

tenderness, and entreats us to arise, can we be so base as to refuse his

request? He has himself risen that he may draw us after him: he now by his Holy

Spirit has revived us, that we may, in newness of life, ascend into the

heavenlies, and hold communion with himself. Let our wintry state suffice us for

coldness and indifference; when the Lord creates a spring within, let our sap

flow with vigour, and our branch blossom with high resolve. O Lord, if it be not

spring time in my chilly heart, I pray thee make it so, for I am heartily weary

of living at a distance from thee. Oh! the long and dreary winter, when wilt

thou bring it to an end? Come, Holy Spirit, and renew my soul! quicken thou me!

restore me, and have mercy on me! This very night I would earnestly implore the

Lord to take pity upon his servant, and send me a happy revival of spiritual

life!

 

And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a lamb standing, as though it had been slain.   Revelation 5:6

Why should our exalted Lord appear in glory with His wounds? The wounds of Jesus are His glories, His jewels, His sacred ornaments. To the eye of the believer, Jesus is altogether lovely. We see Him as the lily of matchless purity, and as the rose crimsoned with His own blood. We behold the beauty of Christ in all His earthly pilgrimage, but there never was such matchless beauty as when He hung upon the cross. There we saw all His beauties in perfection, all His attributes developed, all His love drawn out, all His character expressed.

Beloved, the wounds of Jesus are far fairer in our eyes than all the splendor and pomp of kings. The thorny crown is more than an imperial diadem. It is true that He no longer bears the scepter of reed, but there was even in that ignominy a glory that never flashed from a scepter of gold. Jesus wears the appearance of a slain Lamb as His royal dress in which He wooed our souls and redeemed them by His complete atonement. And these are not only the ornaments of Christ: They are the trophies of His love and of His victory. He has divided the spoil with the strong. He has redeemed for Himself a great multitude that no one can count, and these scars are the memorials of the fight. If Christ loves to retain the thought of His sufferings for His people, then how precious should his wounds be to us!

Behold how every wound of His

A precious balm distils,

Which heals the scars that sin had made,

And cures all mortal ills.

Those wounds are mouths that preach His grace,

The ensigns of His love;

The seals of our expected bliss

In paradise above.

The family reading plan for April 23, 2012

Ecclesiastes 10 | Titus 2