I—(Incline!) The first thing my soul needs is an inclination toward God and his Word. Without that, nothing else will happen of any value in my life. I must want to know God and read his Word and draw near to him. Where does that “want to” come from? It comes from God. So Psalm 119:36 teaches us to pray, “Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain!” Very simply we ask God to take our hearts, which are more inclined to breakfast and the newspaper, and change that inclination. We are asking that God create desires that are not there.

O—(Open!) Next I need to have the eyes of my heart opened so that when my inclination leads me to the Word, I see what is really there, and not just my own ideas. Who opens the eyes of the heart? God does. So Psalm 119:18 teaches us to pray, “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” So many times we read the Bible and see nothing wonderful. Its reading does not produce joy. So what can we do? We can cry to God: “Open the eyes of my heart, O Lord, to see what it says about you as wonderful.”

U—(Unite!) Then I am concerned that my heart is badly fragmented. Parts of it are inclined, and parts of it are not. Parts see wonder, and parts say, “That’s not so wonderful.” What I long for is a united heart where all the parts say a joyful Yes! to what God reveals in his Word. Where does that wholeness and unity come from? It comes from God. So Psalm 86:11 teaches us to pray, “Unite my heart to fear your name.” Don’t stumble over the word fear when you thought we were seeking joy. The fear of the Lord is a joyful experience when you renounce all sin. A thunderstorm can be a trembling joy when you know you can’t be destroyed by lightning. “O Lord, let your ear be attentive to . . . the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name” (Neh. 1:11). “His delight shall be in the fear of the LORD” (Isa. 11:3). Therefore pray that God would unite your heart to joyfully fear the Lord.

S—(Satisfy!) What I really want from all this engagement with the Word of God and the work of his Spirit in answer to my prayers is for my heart to be satisfied with God and not with the world. Where does that satisfaction come from? It comes from God. So Psalm 90:14 teaches us to pray, “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”

-Ben

So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. – John 2:18-22

The disciples were good Jews.  Surely they thought they knew and believed the Scripture (OT writings).  But we see here that it wasn’t until after “he was raised from the dead” that they “believed the Scripture.”  What was the problem here?  They didn’t understand the Scripture, and they didn’t understand what Jesus was saying about himself.  You can’t have believe without understanding.

To believe what Jesus says, you need to understand what Jesus says.

To believe what Jesus did, you need to understand what Jesus did.

Not a comprehensive understanding, but a correct understanding.

How?

For God… has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. – 2 Corinthians 4:6

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” – James 1:5

So we pray and ask God to give us understanding as we read the Scripture… and then we READ THE SCRIPTURE.  Two parts.  Gotta have both.

-Ben

 In listening to an old lecture recently by J. I. Packer, he made the comment that it was not until after the 17th century (as far as he could tell) that people started doing silent prayers and reading as opposed to praying and reading out loud.

For most evangelicals, silence represents the vast majority of our reading and praying. But I wonder if that’s to our detriment. One of the great enemies to Bible reading and praying is a wandering mind–and one of the great ways to make your mind wander is to do everything in your mind without involving your voice and ears!

(his original post is longer)

I think he’s spot-on.  My mind wanders way too much.  I bet yours does too.

-Ben

1.  “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” – Philippians 1:21

As I’m writing this, I happen to be listening to the song “Center” by Charlie Hall.  Here’s the chorus:

Oh, Christ be the center of our lives
Be the place we fix our eyes
Be the center of our lives

A Christians, we need to be Christ-centered, Cross-centered, and Gospel-centered in our thinking, in our feeling, and in our acting.  When Christ is the center of our lives, everything revolves around Him.  Everything is done in light of Him.   As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” 

So often we like to think that we are our own – we are accountable only to ourselves and we can do anything we want.  That there is no reality outside ourselves.  Even more often, we intellectually acknowledge that “we are not our own”, but we still don’t “glorify God in our bodies.”

Why?  Peter diagnoses it perfectly in 1 Peter 2:9 – “For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.”  We’ve forgotten the Gospel.  We don’t live in light of what Christ has done.

Christ, and the Gospel, are no longer at the center.

And so we can no longer honestly declare, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”  Because to live isn’t Christ, and dying sucks because all the things we think life is can’t come with us when we die.

But as “to live is Christ” becomes more of a reality, we can think and make decisions in light of the fact that dying is gain.  How radically transformative is that?   We decide to do things – get a job, get married, get a new house, etc. – knowing that they are only temporary, they aren’t the biggest deal, and that Jesus and life with Jesus forever is so much greater.

2.  “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” – Ecclesiastes 3:1

An observation: we need to be discerning of seasons.  That is, sometimes it is the right time to do something and we don’t realize it and so we don’t do it.  And equally often, it is the wrong time to do something, and we don’t realize it, and we do it anyway.

Just because something is good in general doesn’t mean it is right for you RIGHT NOW.

An obvious example: college is good.  If you’re 5 years old, though, you probably shouldn’t be in college.

Marriage is good (for most – some are called to singleness, but most aren’t).  But right now might not be the right time.  Moving to an unreached people group to tell them about Jesus is good.  But right now might not be the right time.

3.  “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” – Romans 12:2

What this verse is saying:

1. The “will of God” is “what is good and acceptable and perfect.”  We should want to know these things.
2. It is possible to discern the will of God.
3. Discerning is done by us
4. We are evil and need to be changed before we can properly discern what God’s will is
5. WE (our whole selves) are transformed as our minds are transformed
6. Our minds are transformed through scripture (2 Tim 3:16 – scripture is useful for training in righteousness)

Bottom line – there is a will of God, it is revealed to us through scripture, and we should try to know it and follow it.

4.  “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” – Psalm 37:4

This verse is important as you look at this question from a Christian Hedonistic perspective.  As you delight in God – as He becomes your joy and your treasure – then He will give you new desires, in line with what will increase your joy in Him.  As Christ becomes your treasure, you will long for more and more of Him.

Similarly, if you are not delighting in God, you should be skeptical of your desires.  Your mind may deceive you as you know what categories of things are “good”, but you don’t know which one is “right”, and so human desires – for comfort, security, status, approval, etc. – take over and your heart desires for you to be made much of instead of Jesus.

5.  “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” – 1 Corinthians 10:31

All of life is worship.  That is, we are always worshiping (making much of) something.  It may be God, it may be something else.  Our job as Christians is to repent of sin (worshiping things other than God) and worship God.  Everything we do should be done to make God – not that which we are doing – look great.

This is one of the most important questions we need to ask as Christians, and I fear we think about it far too little – “How do I do ______ to the glory of God.”  How do I walk to class to the glory of God?  How do I do homework to the glory of God?  How do I go shopping for food to the glory of God?

As Christians we know we’re supposed to avoid “sin”.  Too often we try to do that by asking questions like, “How far is too far?” or “This isn’t bad, is it?”.  Those questions betray us, as they reveal a self-centered heart that wants to assuage its guilt, not glorify God.  Glorifying God should be the primary question, motive, and desire of our hearts and lives.

“For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” – Romans 11:36

-Ben

Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” – Luke 21:1-4

I think that too often I (all of us, probably) read this passage and think, “well, I’m not in poverty, so I don’t need to “put in” all I have. As long as I’m not as stingy as the “rich”, I’m alright.”

But then I read down a little farther and am further warned:

“But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life” – Luke 21:34

The woman who put in all she had to live on was not weighed down with the cares of this life. The rich were.

I am.

But that, too, is a sin for which Jesus died.

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. – 2 Corinthians 8:9

By Jesus’ poverty – not by my own wealth accumulation – I become rich. Rich in what? I get to enjoy Jesus, forever, in heaven – that’s true richness.

-Ben