Slow but Sure

On page 316 of GPTG there is this statement,

"Closeness to God, growth in Christlikeness, and knowledge of the Bible generally come in small daily increments as well. And as with growth of the body, growth of the soul is not noticed every day, every week, or even for months. But over time the consistent private worship of God will become on the most powerful and transformational experiences of your life."

It's true that growth in Christ is gradual, something that happens over a lifetime. Sometimes you may grow a lot in a little amount of time and other times you may grow a little within a lot of time. In my life I always went to grow all at once. But I know that true growth in Christ takes time.

In your own personal relationships with Christ, what have you experienced in regards to growth rate, being patient in learning, persevering in the race, waiting for the Lord? What are things that have helped you be in it for the long haul and have helped you accomplish steady growth in Christ? What can I do so that I don't try to grow all at once?

Motivation

After reading what Burroughs has to say about coming to the Lord's Supper, I remain very confused concerning the believer's motivation when partaking of communion. If we are to gaze at the cross of Christ so vividly as he describes, how are we to avoid motivation by guilt? Is this something we can understand or is it part of the mystery he talked about?

The grip of prayer

I have found in my life that living a life of constant prayer is a nice, but seldom enjoyed experience. I would love for all of my thoughts to be directed back to conversation with God, but as the day goes on this happens with only a percentage of my thoughts.

I find two reasons for this. First, we fail to pray habitually because we have not learned anew what prayer is like. Prayer is such a mysterious blessing that it feels new more often than anything else I know. When I have re-taught myself how to pray in the morning, it returns to me much more easily.

The second reason I fail to pray in each though is directly related to the text of Give Praise to God on pages 306 and 307. As I stated before, prayer is a mysterious blessing. How are we to know when our prayers have become arrogant, or when we have asked more often then we should, and not praised enough? How are we to know when our prayers have become little different than talking to ourselves? It all comes back to what this class has seen as foundational time and again: sola scriptura. Only by the word of God do we find it possible to pray appropriately. Why else do those who had the very closest of relationships with Jesus Christ on earth ask him how it is that they can pray? Is it not terribly apparent that prayer is a discipline impossible without heavy reliance on revelation?

It is for this reason that I find the text so helpful. We must practice "prayerful reading". We must practice "praying that same section."

Only when we come to a point of emptiness in ourselves do we find prayer as God intended it. He never longed to be like another human friend, but rather, one who is seen with "reverence and awe" (Heb. 12:28). "Reverence and awe" are wonderful reasons to scour the scriptures for ways to worship God more appropriately. He is a loving God, but as the text states "the radiant glory of this consuming fire (Heb. 12:29) dazzles angels without ceasing. The infinite power of this never-ending fire illuminates heaven forever."

Would we find some way to love a God of such untouchable majesty? I pray that we will not be so arrogant as to try without trembling through scriptures that show how worship is to be done.

What's in our hearts

In GPTG (pg 310) it talks about how in worshiping in spirit if our hearts aren’t completely sincere that it’s something that God doesn’t even accept - “..While worship in spirit is more than worshipping sincerely, it is not less than worshipping sincerely. The Lord looks on more than the heart; that is, what we do in worship also matters, but he does look closely at our hearts”

Stephan Charnock says “Without the heart it is no worship; it is a stage play; an acting a part...”

 “Regardless of what we say with our lips or with our bodies in our private worship, God always turns away if our heart is far away.”

In Jeremiah 17:9 is says “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”

How can we even know if our hearts are in the right place if our hearts are beyond cure from being so deceitful? 

Permanent Questions with Progressive Answers

I was thinking today about questions. Some questions have simple answers, static answers. "Who is God?" is an important question with an answer that will never change, even though the words necessary to penetrate our skulls might need to be rearranged now and again.

But some questions don't have simple, static answers. Even though it sounds scary, we can't afford to back down from these inquiries. The question most frequently raised by this class in my mind is "What is the best way to worship God with music?". The answer to this is a progressive one, always changing as our situations change. It can be as simple as instrumentation. The best way might be with drums, but it might not: if a church lacks a competent drummer, then it's safe to say that's not the best way to worship God with music. But in five or ten years God may bring a drummer into that church, and the same question may have a different answer.

The important thing is that we continue to ask these questions continually in need of asking. Permanent questions with progressive answers offer a chance to grow or improve.

Experiences in Family Worship

Today in "Give Praise to God" we began the chapter on Family Worship. As we begin to delve into this subject, I am curious about our experiences of family worship as a class. For those who grew up in a Christian home, did your parents do "family devotions"? What did it look like? How did it match up with what we're reading about it "Give Praise to God"?

In Relation to the Lord's Table

My question from this week's reading of Burroughs arises from his discussion on the partakers of the Lord's Table (p. 215ff). Must unsaved people be removed from the congregation before the elements are passed; i.e. are they allowed to observe and not partake? Another related set of questions comes to mind: Are believers who have not been baptized allowed to partake in Communion? Also, are non-members of a church allowed to take part?
[My belief on these questions are that unsaved people can surely watch and observe the church take part in Communion and do not need to be removed from the building. I also think that non-members should be allowed to partake; there is common ground among all believers in this area. The most difficult of these questions probably is the one about whether one needs to be baptized first; in response to this I'd say that a believer can indeed take part but should truly evaluate why he or she has not yet been baptized.]