Archives For Affections

The Gospel is The Garlic

Erik Raymond —  May 22, 2013 — Leave a comment

The town I grew up in had a lot of Italian people. I would often spend the night at a friend’s house so I could go to Mass with them in the morning and then enjoy a feast at their grandmother’s after church. I can remember one such occurrence when, walking up to the sidewalk I was kicked in the nostrils by an overwhelming and powerful smell. To my untrained adolescent nose this was a strange smell. Upon further research I found out that it was, as you might expect, garlic. Garlic is the staple ingredient in Italian food. It is in everything. If you had a bowl of cereal there it would probably taste like garlic. If you visited with some other friends after dinner, they would know you had garlic. Garlic is a very outspoken, gregarious seasoning.

When I read the Letters of John, particularly the Third Letter, I find him similarly outspoken about “the truth”. This truth is the truth about all that Jesus is and has done for us. In short, the truth is the gospel. When John writes we find that the gospel is everywhere and in everything.

He is almost obsessively preoccupied with the truth. In verse 1 he loves them in truth. In verse 3 he is overjoyed because he has heard of a testimony in the truth. Again in verse 3 he hears they are walking in the truth which causes him to overflow with great joy. He says he has no greater joy than to hear these things (v.4). At the core of John’s soul is his love for the truth of God (gospel). Everything he sees, feels, pursues, loves, and prays for is shaped by the gospel. For the Apostle John, the garlic is the gospel. It is in everything. It is all over his breath. It can’t be contained. It is that outspoken, gregarious spiritual seasoning that gets into every sentence like garlic in every Italian dish.

It is a terrific reminder for us that this type of gospel scent comes by means of intentional exposure and effort. We spend time thinking about, marinating in, praying through, and speaking about the gospel. It is in the fabric of our souls before it becomes the fabric of our conversations. To push the garlic word picture perhaps to its maximum, you can’t sweat out the garlic without eating the garlic. It has got to be in you before it comes out of you.

Whatever else you say about John you have to conclude that this guy was a gospel-manaic. He left the scent behind in his writings.

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Don’t Just Pray About It.

Erik Raymond —  May 8, 2013 — Leave a comment

There is something beautiful about the simplicity of kids. I remember after planting our first garden our little girls woke up early in the morning to run outside and see if anything had grown. After all, we had just put seeds in the ground 20 hours prior!

Their eager expectation is instructive.

In the 5th Psalm we read of a believer exercising highly developed prayer reflexes. He is crying out to God. His heart is overcome with weightiness. It is the type of thing that is first on his mind as he awakens in the morning (Ps. 5.1-2). The concern, burden, anxiety, and desperation of the soul continue to bubble up within him.

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What Does Seeking the Glory of Christ Bring? And Where Do I See it?

Erik Raymond —  March 19, 2013

john-owen-irish-calvinist3We often talk about “seeking the glory of Christ” but why? What does this seeking bring?

The constant contemplation of the glory of Christ will give rest, satisfaction, and complacency unto the souls of them who are exercised therein. Our minds are apt to be filled with a multitude of perplexed thoughts; – fears, cares, dangers, distresses, passions, and lusts, do make various impressions on the minds of men, filling them with disorder, darkness, and confusion.

But where the soul is fixed in its thoughts and contemplations on this glorious object, it will be brought into and kept in a holy, serene, spiritual frame. For “to be spiritually-minded is life and peace.” And this it does by taking off our hearts from all undue regard unto all things below, in comparison of the great worth, beauty, and glory of what we are conversant withal. See Phil. 3.7-11. A defect herein makes many of us strangers unto a heavenly life, and to live beneath the spiritual refreshments and satisfactions that the Gospel does tender unto us. (John Owen, The Glory of Christ)

And where do you go to see it? Again Owen is helpful:

This is the sole foundation of all our meditations in this:

The glory that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the real actual possession of in heaven can be no otherwise seen or apprehended in this world, but in the light of faith fixing itself on divine revelation.

To behold this glory of Christ is not an act of fancy or imagination. It does not consist in framing to ourselves the shape of a glorious person in heaven. But the steady exercise of faith on the revelation and description made of this glory of Christ in the Scripture, is the ground, rule, and measure, of all divine meditations upon that. —John Owen, The Glory of Christ, p. 129

I post these quotes because I know I need this reminder and trust that you do as well.

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There is a Point Here. And It’s Not Pity.

Erik Raymond —  March 15, 2013

And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.’ (Mt. 8.20)

I would confidently guess that if you are reading this then you awoke this morning on a pillow in your home. There is of course nothing unusual about this. The majority of people have homes. They are settled and reasonable comfortable. But this is the point: When Jesus walked among people in this word, he had no such comforts. His entire life was uncomfortably committed to his mission of saving comfortable people.

Consider the staggering condescension of Jesus. He goes from the eternal residence of the Trinity to wandering about the villages of Israel without a home. He goes from heaven to homeless! And why? Because he wanted to bring lost people home to God. His homelessness was motivated by love.

The one who made the birds and foxes, giving them the instincts to even find and build a home, was now homeless. His whole life was a continual episode of humility and abandonment.

It is the sharp passages like this from within the satin of the narratives that get me. I can rightly impugn bogus books like Your Best Life Now, but regrettably recline into coziness of thinking my life is about comfort. It is not. Just as Jesus life was calibrated by his work in the gospel so must I be. Jesus was about his mission. I am to be about his mission. As a Christian I have been called, commissioned, and empowered to represent the King. As he went making and training disciples, so must I (Mt. 28.19-21).

See, there is a point here. And it’s not pity. This is something to remember when lifting our heads up from our pillows each morning.

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Strange Birds.

Erik Raymond —  March 13, 2013

This morning as I looked out the window I encountered something very unique. In fact, I cannot recall ever noticing this before. I looked out upon my snow covered front yard I heard the persistent chirping of birds. This is strange because that ever present soundtrack of Spring and Summer is muted during the Winter months. (as the birds repudiate the insult “bird-brain” by leaving the freezing temperatures in favor of those warmer areas south of us) But now as I look upon my snow covered street I hear the birds defiantly resisting the bonds of Winter by singing the celebratory ballards of warmer days.

As I thought of their certainty in song proclaiming a season of change forthcoming, I was reminded of how odd the Christian must appear in the world. We sing amid the cold blanket of sin, brokenness, corruption, and tears. We sing of love, forgiveness, righteousness, and a conquering King bringing a perfect kingdom. We are strange birds indeed.

As I listen even now to their confident song amid the frigid temperatures, I am reminded of my own certainty amid this blistering air of sin. God will indeed cause his sun to rise upon his people in the kingdom of his beloved Jesus!

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Proverbs Can Hit the Gospel Notes

Erik Raymond —  March 5, 2013

In the past I have been guilty of treating the Book of Proverbs a little bit like a commute to work. I sped through familiar passages and topics while aiming to get where I needed to go. Often times this destination has been a rebuke that I needed to hear concerning my tongue or some help toward counseling people more effectively. In short, I did not enjoy the commute through Proverbs like I should.

However, I recently begun reading this book on my days off, leisurely making my way through and highlighting along the way. You’ll never guess what happened. I began to see and smell the gospel flowers in full bloom. I heard the chirping birds with their songs of deliverance. The gospel notes are hit surprisingly well in this wisdom book. Some days I feel like Jacob grabbing ahold of that text, “I will not let you go until you bless me.” (Gen. 32.26) God has been good; I’ve been greatly blessed to say the least.

In effort to share and shamelessly disrupt others’ “commute” through this book, I have compiled a short list of verses along with some personal reflections on them. (Note: I quote the verse first and then a gospel meditation in italics after)

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A Good Word Makes Them Glad

Erik Raymond —  March 4, 2013

The burdens of people’s hearts are largely concealed from general view. Nevertheless they bulge from their souls like receipts from an overstuffed wallet. Much like receipts, credit cards, and punch-tickets, burdens are accumulated as we walk through the ordinary patterns of life. These are matters of personal, physical, emotional, and spiritual pain. Life hurts. This painful enduring mustn’t be minimized but instead optimized. There is a great Christian opportunity here.

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