"Great Things He Hath Done".......Boasting in the Lord!

"And when he was come into the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with him.
Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.
And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel." (Mark 5:18-20)

In this account of the demoniac of Gadara who was delivered and set free by Jesus, I am confronted with the mandate for the recipients of God's amazing grace.

It is certainly understandable that this man who had previously lived such a nightmare existence would want to cleave to Jesus, his rescuer and deliverer, but this was not to be his calling at this time.

No, Jesus would have this one whom He had shown such mercy to testify to the mighty act of a gracious God on his behalf.

His instructions were simple.....Go and tell how great things the Lord hath done for thee.

What of us? Do we not have the same charge? Has God not done inummerable great things for us and has He not not shown unspeakable compassion to us?

We tend to make our calling as followers of Christ a complicated matter instead of simply boasting in the person and work of Jesus in our stead.

As believers we have so much in Christ to glory in and brag on! It is my desire and prayer that my mouth might be full of the testimony of the great things He hath done for me and His daily compassions toward me, and in so doing, see men marvel!

"Awe and Admiration"

We have so much to meditate on and glory in with regards to the majesty of Christ!

In my current readings I came across these contrasts that reveal the beauty of the person of our Savior. We are able to behold some of the many facets of God manifested in the flesh.


*"we admire him for his glory, but even more because his glory is mingled with humility;
*we admire him for his transcendence, but even more because his transcendence is accompanied by condescension;
*we admire him for his uncompromising justice, but even more because it is tempered with mercy;
*we admire him for his majesty, but even more because it is a majesty in meekness;
*we admire him because of his equality with God, but even more because as God's equal he nevertheless has a deep reverance for God;
*we admire him because of how worthy he was of all good, but even more because this was accompanied by an amazing patience to suffer evil;
*we admire him because of his sovereign dominion over the world, but even more because this dominion was clothed with a spirit of obedience and submission;
*we love the way he stumped the proud scribes with his wisdom, and we love it even more because he could be simple enough to like children and spend time with them;
*and we admire him because he could still the storm, but even more because he refused to use that power to strike the Samaritans with lightning(Luke 9:54-55) and he refused to use it to get himself down from the cross."

"The list could go on and on. But this is enough to illustrate that beauty and excellency in Christ is not a simple thing. It is complex. It is a coming together in one person of the perfect balance and proportion of extremely diverse qualities. And that's what makes Jesus Christ uniquely glorious, excellent, and admirable. The human heart was made to stand in awe of such ultimate excellence. We were made to admire Jesus Christ, the Son of God."
(excerpt from "God is the Gospel" by John Piper)

Our Great Salvation

I never grow weary of being reminded of the great salvation that we have in Christ as he condescended to our low estate!


"The brazen serpent was not lifted up because of gnats, but because of the stinging of fiery serpents. And Christ came to save not only the least of sinners, but the chief of sinners. Christ brought no petty cures, but such as physicians could not do, as we see in the case of the woman with the issue of blood and the man's son whom the disciples could not cure (Matthew 9 and 17). Where sin abounds, Christ's righteousness is ordained to superabound. The way is opened to Christ for all sinners who come weary and burdened to Him. He bids none of them stand back. "Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6:37). There is more danger of their missing this righteousness who have something of their own to trust in than of theirs who have nothing. Christ sends the rich away empty. Fewer scribes and Pharisees believed on Christ than publicans and sinners (Luke 1)"
(Obadiah Grew)

"In the Potters Hands"

"I do not believe that any suffering is ultimately absurd or pointless, although it is often difficult to go on convincing oneself of this. At first, we react with incredulity, anger and despair. Yet the value of suffering does not lie in the pain of it,...but in what the sufferer makes of it....It is in sorrow that we discover the things which really matter, in sorrow that we discover ourselves."
(Mary Craig)






How I love and prefer comfort! But, this is not the way of the cross. The way to glory is the way of suffering. The way to being conformed to the image of Christ is the way of pressure.

The love of the Father for His children is just as vividly displayed in His dark providences as it is in the bright light of His comforts.

He is dealing with us as with children! What an unspeakable blessing to consider in the midst of the victories and the struggles of our pilgrimage.

How rich we are to be in the potters hands and to be pruned by the master husbandman!

God is working and bringing to pass in His perfect way and in His perfect time a glorious work of new creation.

So, to all of my brothers and sisters, we have these great words of consolation from the scriptures, "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." (Rom.8:18)

Reconcilliation......Past Tense!

"The work of reconcilliation, in the sense of the New Testament, is a work which is finished, and which we must conceive to be finished, before the gospel is preached....Reconcilliation...is not something which is being done; it is something which is done. No doubt there is a work of Christ which is in process, but it has as its basis a finished work of Christ. It is in virtue of something already consummated on his cross that Christ is able to make the appeal to us which he does, and to win the response in which we receive the reconcilliation."
(James Denney)

"God was in Christ reconcilling," actually reconcilling, finishing the work. It was not a tentative, preliminary affair....Reconcilliation was finished in Christ's death. Paul did not preach a gradual reconcilliation. He preached what the old divines used to call the finished work....He preached something done once for all-a reconcilliation which is the base of every soul's reconcilement, not an invitation only."
(P.T. Forsyth)

How glorious to consider that we have been reconcilled to God! His just wrath toward sinners has been fully satisfied in Christ! Peace has been declared and we are told to lay hold of this glorious peace and Christ-wrought, completed, reconcilliation by faith. Truly, it is finished, the battle is over! Let us rejoice in our great salvation and reconcilliation.

The Purpose of Affliction

Let me just open this post by acknowledging that I am, by nature, a person that is very prone to nervousness and "taking things to heart". This has caused me much angst over the years and has recently manifested itself in terrible anxiety attacks and, because of their severity, an overall since of dispair. But! thanks be to God, that He purposes even these times of severe turmoil for our growth in grace! In this vein I wanted to share a portion from Milton Vincent's "A Gospel Primer", in which he deals with God's ongoing work of conforming us to the gospel.


"Perspective in Trials"

"More than anything else I could ever do, the gospel enables me to embrace my tribulations and thereby position myself to gain full benefit from them. For the gospel is the one great permanent circumstance in which I live and move; and every hardship in my life is allowed by God only because it serves His gospel purposes in me. When I view my circumstances in this light, I realize that the gospel is not just one piece of good news that fits into my life somewhere among all the bad. I realize instead that the gospel makes genuinely good news out of every other aspect of my life, including my severest trials. The good news about my trials is that God is forcing them to bow to His gospel purposes and do good unto me by improving my character and making me more conformed to the image of Christ.
Preaching the gospel to myself each day provides a lens through which I can view my trials in this way and see the true cause for rejoicing that exists in them. I can then embrace trials as friends and allow them to do God's good work in me."

Anxiety and Rest

I recently found this article by Paul Tripp to be very helpful in regards to the believer and the battle with worry and anxiety. Below is an excerpt from the article.


"I am deeply persuaded that real, lasting personal rest of heart is never to be found in ease of circumstances. Even in the best of situations in this fallen world your heart will be able to find reasons for worry.
Inner rest of soul and lasting peace of heart are only ever found when Jesus and His kingdom are your highest and deepest treasures. When you place your identity in His never-changing hands, when you find your meaning and purpose in the unstoppable work of His kingdom, and when you place your inner sense of well-being on the sure foundation of His promise to meet your every need, you will be able to rest even when the situations and relationships around you are broken.

Defeating worry is not about hoping that tomorrow will be better. No, defeating worry is about being a good soldier in this deeper war for the heart. It is about fighting the temptation to attach the peace of your heart to things that, by their very nature are temporary and, therefore, are not organically designed to give you lasting peace (see Mat.6:19). It is about daily feeding your soul on the promises and provisions of your heavenly Father.
It is about taking special care before you name something a need. And it is about living for something bigger than you. It is about giving the love and concern of your heart to the King and His kingdom and fighting the instinct to construct a Lilliputian kingdom of your own. The kingdom of self will never give you rest because it does not have the capacity to satisfy the cravings of your heart.

In the cave, David had it right when he said, "For you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety" (Psa.4:8). It's as if David is saying, "My peace isn't found in locations, relationships, or circumstances; it is found in the Lord.
Because it is, I am as free of worry here in this cave as I was in the palace!"
Yes, David was grieved as any father would be, and no, he did not know how things were going to turn out; but in the middle of his questions and in the throes of his grief he was a man with a heart at rest, so much so that he was able to sleep.
Worry and rest always reveal the true treasures of our hearts, and in this battle we are not alone because the King we are called to serve is also Emmanuel. He is ever with us and battles for us by His grace."

(Taken from the article, "Thinking Biblically about Worry" by Paul David Tripp)