Your COMPASS for the Journey on the PATH of Discipleship: July 17-23, 2011
Posted by Isaac Butterworth | Filed under Compass, Discipleship, Puritans, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Formation
Your COMPASS for the Journey on the PATH of Discipleship is a daily resource designed to help you find direction in your walk with Christ. This week we continue our study of John Flavel’s teaching on our union with Christ. The book, The Inner Sanctum of Puritan Piety, by J. Stephen Yuille is our primary resource. The theme this week is the joy of union with Christ.
Sunday, July 17, 2011 THE FRIEND AT THE DOOR
Compass:
Revelation 3:20 (KJV) ‘…I stand at the door….’
Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come into him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
Map:
This week, we arrive at the heart of John Flavel’s teaching on the believer’s mystical union with Christ. Flavel sees two realities in Revelation 3:20: (1) He sees union between Christ and the believer (‘I will come into him, and will sup with him’); (2) He sees communion between the believer and Christ (‘and he with me’). This is the source of our great joy.
Journey:
In what do you seek joy? Of course, there is a measure of joy in good food, in satisfying work, and in meaningful relationships. But without joy in Christ, all other joy is fleeting. Communion with him is the source of true joy.
Monday, July 18, 2011 COMMUNION WITH CHRIST
Compass:
Psalm 139:1-3 (KJV) ‘…Thou hast searched me, and known me’
1 O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. 2 Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. 3 Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.
Map:
How does God communicate himself to us? Flavel identifies three instances in which such communion takes place. We will look at each of these instances in turn over the next three days.
First, Flavel says, there is communion with God ‘in the contemplation of the Divine attributes, and the impression God makes by them upon our souls, whilst we meditate on them.’ Flavel gives six examples. God impresses…
• his ‘immense greatness’ upon us, thereby humbling us
• his ‘purity and holiness’ upon us, thereby making us aware of our own sinfulness
• his ‘goodness and mercy’ upon us, thereby melting our hearts
• his ‘veracity and faithfulness’ upon us, thereby producing trust in us
• his ‘anger and displeasure’ upon us, thereby resulting in repentance
• his ‘omniscience’ upon us, thereby producing sincerity
Meditating on the attributes of God, we experience communion with him.
Journey:
Give some time today to personal reflection on what the Scriptures reveal about God. Allow his greatness to produce in you humility, his purity a sensitivity to sin, his mercy an open heart, his faithfulness a new sense of confidence, his anger the grace of repentance, his omniscience a deterrent to sin.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 EXERCISING GRACE
Compass:
Matthew 26:41 (KJV) ‘Watch and pray….’
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Map:
Flavel identifies three instances in which God communicates himself to us. Yesterday, we looked at the first instance: meditation on his attributes. Today, we turn to the second instance: the exercise of the ‘graces’ God has planted in the souls of those who are his. Stephen Yuille, in summarizing Flavel’s teaching, mentions four such graces:
• The grace of repentance
• The grace of faith
• The grace of love
• The grace of obedience
Journey:
There are several ‘duties’ that call forth these graces, and we should engage ourselves in these duties for the purpose of exercising the four graces mentioned above. Such duties are prayer, hearing the Word and its exposition, and participating in the Sacraments. As you have occasion to perform these duties, do so with a view to exercising repentance, faith, love, and obedience toward God.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011 TRUSTING GOD’S PROVIDENCE
Compass:
2 Corinthians 12:9 (KJV) ‘My grace is sufficient for thee….’
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Map:
God communicates himself to us as we contemplate his divine attributes; we saw that on Monday. He communicates himself to us as we perform such duties as hearing the Word and prayer and participation in the Sacraments in order to exercise graces like repentance, faith, love, and obedience. A third way God moves toward in communion is through his providences. Flavel writes: ‘The Lord chastens his children…in answer whereunto gracious souls return meek and child-like submission…. When this produces trust in God, and resignation to the pleasure of his will, here is communion with God in times of distress and difficulty.’
Journey:
Sometimes life brings abundance; sometimes it brings adversity. In either case, we are to look to the providence of God and respond in faith. Where there are blessings, we give thanks; where there are burdens, we trust. By this means, we experience communion with God.
Thursday, July 21, 2011 THE FEAR OF THE LORD
Compass:
Proverbs 1:7 (KJV) ‘The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge…’
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Map:
God communicates himself to us as we meditate upon his attributes, as we exercise the graces he has given us, and as we trust his providence. In each case, God does this so that we will make ‘returns’ to him. These returns include the stirring of the affections: love, desire, delight, fear, sorrow, trust, and hope. This response is, for John Flavel, at the heart of what it means to fear the Lord. He writes: ‘This fear is a gracious habit…planted by God in the soul, whereby the soul is kept under an holy awe of the eye of God, and from thence is inclined to perform and do what pleaseth him, and to shun and avoid whatsoever he forbids….’
Journey:
The fear of the Lord, then, is the fear of disappointing God, of displeasing him, of denying him. It is also the desire to please him. What can you do to nurture such fear in your own heart?
Friday, July 22, 2011 DESIRE FOR CHRIST
Compass:
Song of Solomon 3:3 (KJV) ‘Saw ye him…?’
The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?
Map:
The principle affections of the heart of the believer toward God are desire and delight. ‘Desire,’ according to Edward Reynolds, is ‘the wing of the soul whereby it moveth, and is carried to the thing which it loveth…to be satisfied with it.’ When John Flavel writes of the desire of the heart for Christ, he turns to the Song of Solomon. In chapter 3 of that book, the lover has departed, but, as Stephen Yuille writes, ‘the bride is not content to let him go.’ Therefore, she searches for him.
Journey:
Flavel says, ‘The soul finding…[that] Christ is not nigh when inquired after, it presently inquires into the cause of all this, calls itself to an account of what it hath done, how it hath behaved itself….’ We are called to nurture a longing for Christ, our soul’s Lover, and to stir our desire for intimacy with him.
Saturday, July 23, 2011 DELIGHT IN CHRIST
Compass:
Song of Solomon 5:16 (KJV) ‘…He is altogether lovely.’
His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.
Map:
According to Stephen Yuille, Flavel turns to Song of Solomon, chapter 5, for a description of the church’s delight in Christ. The bride’s friends inquire as to what is so special about her beloved. She answers, ‘He is altogether lovely.’
Journey:
Flavel gives us four qualities of delight in the loveliness of Christ: (1) The nature of delight is the ‘rest and satisfaction of the mind in God and spiritual things. (2) The object of delight is ‘God himself and the things which relate to him.’ (3) The subject of delight is ‘a renewed heart.’ (4) The principle of delight is ‘the agreeableness of spiritual things to the temper and frame of a renewed mind.’ As Stephen Yuille summarizes it, ‘All told, the soul’s “spiritual senses” are satisfied in God.’ Use this list of qualities to foster in your own life a deep desire for Christ.
Photo Credit: Great Comp Garden in the Round by Tony Hammond
