“I leave you here; Oh, that it had pleased the Lord, that I might have brought you up; I should so gladly have done my best with respect to it; but it seems that it is not the Lord’s will. ”
– Janneken Munstdorp to her daughter, Martyrs Mirror, p. 985
The farther from God that you realize yourself to be, the closer you really become. Redemption is not a strain for him, as if you were helping him out by giving him fewer things to redeem. Being one of God’s people is not a matter of finding natural virtues in yourself and displaying them instead of your natural weaknesses. Continue reading “Defending yourself against God”
“…He declared that he did not feel free in his conscience, thus to row [into battle], seeing he had no enemies; they might deal with him according to their pleasure.”
– said about Jan Smit, Martyrs Mirror, p. 962
Consider this: if your fiancee loved you as much as you love God, would you break off the engagement? Soon God’s people will become his bride, though you don’t have to take part in that. Once the marriage takes place, if not before, his people will do nothing but worship him and praise him. Does that thought disturb you, of never ceasing to praise God? Do you have a hard time doing it now? Does the thought make heaven seem enslaving or boring? You don’t have to take part in that either. However, you may not like the alternative. There will be no alternative in heaven.
“…For him that commits himself to the Lord, and is possessed of love, nothing is difficult; had I not experienced this myself, it would be impossible for me to know that it is so easy… Only now do I feel within me the inexpressible grace and mercy of God, and His love, and how we therefore ought to love Him in return.”
– Claesken, Martyrs Mirror, p. 615
Why worry about the state of your soul? Why seek more from God? Well, why seek more from your marriage? The Bible compares God’s loving relationship to his people to a husband’s relationship to his wife. However, since love for God and love for spouse have both grown cold, it becomes ever harder for us to understand what God meant, or to even care. For some couples, it’s hard to imagine wanting to die for each other. For some Christians, it’s hard to believe (as opposed to mentally assent) that Jesus wanted to die for them. But when you were first falling in love, was a visit to your loved one an obligation, or was it joy? Did Romeo spend regular time beneath Juliet’s window to keep her from getting mad at him, or because nothing could have kept him away? Continue reading “I’m no Romeo.”
“Oh, how easy it is to be a Christian, so long as the flesh is not put to the trial, or nothing has to be relinquished; then it is an easy thing to be a Christian.”
– Maeyken Wens, Martyrs Mirror, p. 979-983
Did you know that your toothbrush is also an excellent tool for cleaning around the toilet? Except that once you use it that way, you’ll find it less effective and less pleasant in your mouth. That’s all that holiness really means. God wants to set you apart, sanctify you, make you holy (all mean the same thing) for his purposes. Yes, the mind, body and will that God made for his own purposes will also serve well for other purposes. God made them well. But, like a fine woodworker’s tools, the more you use them for something for which they weren’t intended, the more trouble you’ll have when you try to use them for the right purpose. A person who wants to be holy isn’t nitpicking or negative or arrogant or legalistic, any more than a person who wants to defend his toothbrush from me.
“Behold, my children, this way has no retreats; there are also no byways, that lie on the right hand of the left… If you do what I write, you will see me again in great glory…”
– Maeyken van Deventer, Martyrs Mirror, p. 977-979
You can look through your glasses, but you can’t look at your glasses at the same time. Your perspective is the same way. Only God and your brothers and sisters can give you any different perspective. That’s why you don’t see your needs. We need community, a closer community than most have ever experienced, in order to break free and be healed. In most of our religious organizations, we don’t get close enough to really see each other’s needs, let alone really help them. It’s as if your cancer surgeon greeted you warmly, pointed to the tumor bulging through your skin, waved his scalpel with a smile, but never began operating. The scalpel has to get close enough to cut before it does any good.