After the resurrection, Jesus ate.

Not because He needed to, but because he wanted to. He had passed through death and come out into a mode of bodily existence the curse had no hold on. When He ate broiled fish in the upper room, and when He made a charcoal fire on the beach at dawn and laid fish and bread upon it and called His disciples to come and dine, He did so because He chose to. Because it pleased Him. Because He could.

A man who eats because he must, is under necessity. The risen Christ at the breakfast fire is the Lord of life demonstrating, in the most ordinary way imaginable, that His body is real, the resurrection is physical (material), and that He is still, gloriously and freely, Himself.

He cooked for them.

With all authority in heaven and earth now His, with death conquered and the powers of the age to come fully resident in His person, the risen Son of God bent down in the early morning and made a fire, and put fish on it, and waited for His tired disciples to bring in the boat. He made them breakfast. “Come and dine,” He said.

The disciples had been fishing all night and caught nothing. They were cold and tired and had not yet found their footing in the new world Christ’s resurrection had made. Their Lord, who needed nothing from that fire, chose to meet them at the level of a warm meal on a cold morning.

That choice is grace distilled.

He stooped to the breakfast fire the way He stooped in the Jordan, the way He stooped to wash twelve pairs of dirty feet the night before He died. Everything in His character is inclined toward His people. The resurrection freed that desire in a new way.

The same Lord who fed five thousand, who turned water into wine because a family was embarrassed, who stopped a funeral procession because a widow was weeping, that Lord came out of the grave. And His first recorded act on that shore was to make sure cold and discouraged men had a warm, home cooked breakfast, before He said another word to them.

The fire was already burning when they arrived.

He had prepared it before they landed.

Every mercy that reaches us before we knew we needed it, every grace already waiting when you arrived at the hard place, every kindness burning on the shore before your boat came in, is the same risen Lord doing the same kind of work.

Come and dine, He says still.

Because it pleases Him to.

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Dear congregation,

When Thomas put his finger into the print of the nails in John 20, the Greek word describes the hole itself. The wound had been glorified, not filled in. There is a difference between a wound that closes and a wound that is taken up into glory still open, still touchable, still preaching.

The body of Jesus Christ, seated at the right hand of the Father, bears the marks of the cross as an eternal living reality. Revelation 5:6 shows John the Lamb in the midst of the throne; it describes Him: “And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain.“ Present tense is what John saw. Permanency written into the flesh of the Son of God.

This adds such beauty to what the intercession of Christ means. It is a wounded Redeemer standing before the Father on behalf of His bride. The pleading of Christ for your soul is inseparable from the body in which He suffered for it. Think of it! He carries the price of the cross in His glorified flesh. He is the Priest and the sacrifice in one Person.

Dear soul, the wounds are still open. They have not closed against you. They were glorified before they could close, because God intended them to speak forever. They spoke peace to Thomas’s doubt. They speak peace to yours.

They have been glorified, but not healed shut. They never will.

Your friend and pastor,

J. Lewis

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Job says this from the ash heap.

The ash heap.

His children are all dead. His body is covered in sores. His wife has told him to curse God and die. And his friends, who came, we believe, to comfort him, have spent their time building the case that Job is secretly wicked, and that God is paying him what he’s owed.

Everything that gave him standing in this world is gone.

His reputation. His vast estate. His health. His dear children. His understanding of how God works.

All either stripped or shaken.

And from an ash heap that say as much about his destroyed life as it does his destroyed stuff, he says:

“I know that my redeemer liveth.”

My Redeemer Liveth

The word is goel. Kinsman-redeemer. That is the same word family used throughout Ruth.

A relative by blood and covenant who redeems a ruined relative by taking up their hopeless cause before their accuser. So, it’s a legal word as much as a family word.

This helps us, because Job is crying out for vindication before the accusations of his friends in Chapter 19. His reputation has been blackened, and he doesn’t know why. His friends have judged him a secret sinner, and his suffering has been God’s proof. And he wants someone to stand up and say, Job was right and you were wrong!

That is the goel’s work.

And Job says his goel, lives.

Everything around him is death. Death is the one argument Satan has been pressing from chapter one. Job smells death. And he drives a stake into death’s ground and says:

There is a living God above all this dying. A living God who is bound to me and will act.

My Redeemer lives.

He prepends the confession with, “I know.”

In Hebrew “I know” is bedrock. It’s the one solid thing left when everything else has sunk. When flesh fails and friends accuse, and the heavens are brass, this is what Job says:

“I know that my redeemer liveth.”

That must be faith in its most stripped-down form in all of scripture

Faith without feelings. Faith without answered prayer. Faith without a single ray of sunlight. A faith that confesses what it knows, rather than what it sees.

And what it knows is this one thing:

My Redeemer lives.

There are souls reading this who have lived in Job’s country. Your dark providences have been very long. Your prayers seemed to pop on the ceiling. No helpful explanations have come in your circumstances. Your well-meaning friends, though sincere, have not known how to help.

What does saving faith say in that condition?

It says what Job does.

“I know that my redeemer liveth.”

He Shall Stand

Then Job presses further, and farther, in the next words.

“He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.”

Now, we must be careful here. Job is describing a Second Advent hope here, not a firsts.

The latter day in prophetic use, carries the weight of the end of the age, the day of last accounting, when all that has been hidden will come to light. And the word “stand” pictures one rising to take a legal position, to appear as vindicator.

The Redeemer will rise and stand upon this earth on that last day!

Job has spent enough time listening to man’s paltry words. By the time we get to this chapter, Job has made peace with the fact that God may not ever clear the whole matter up for him. What he is waiting for is the final day when the Judge of all the earth will appear openly, when God’s hidden counsels will be revealed, every false verdict is overturned, and when Job’s own personal cause is settled forever.

That is what is keeping him alive, so to speak.

The Last Advent hope.

We know so much more than Job knew. We know the name of this Redeemer.

It is the Lord Jesus Christ, who came in the flesh as our Kinsman-Redeemer, and shall appear the second time in power and great glory (Heb. 9:28; Mat. 24:30).

When Job says his Redeemer shall stand upon the earth at the latter day, he spoke more than he grasped, but he spoke truly. And the Redeemer who will stand on that day is the same One who will say,

“I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen…” (Revelation 1:18).

In My Flesh Shall I See God

Then Job turns inward, and his words become almost unbearably beautiful.

“And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.”

He looks at his rotting skin and says:

This will not be the final me.

He anticipates. He sees it clearly now. The grave is coming either today or soon after. This flesh will be dissolved. He grants the enemy at least that much.

And then he says:

“In my flesh shall I see God.”

In Job’s own flesh.

This same body, rotting while living, will stand up on that latter day and see his Redeemer face to face. The worms do not have the final say over the body of one whose Kinsman-Redeemer lives. The grave is only temporary.

Fascinating that we read such future bodily resurrection language, from the oldest book of the bible. The hope has always been a bodily hope. The early church received it, recognizing it in the Jesus’ empty tomb and glorified body.

And then Job says the most amazing thing of all.

“Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.”

Mine eyes, not other’s.

I shall see Him with these eyes, in this body, on that day.

There are many who have spent their whole lives hearing about the Redeemer others have seen with the eye of faith. They know the testimonies of others. But there is something missing that no second-hand testimony can satisfy.

They want to see for themselves. They want the thing itself, not the description of it.

That longing is holy, dear one.

And Job says it from his ash heap. Will you?

The Kinsman-Redeemer Lives

Dear friend, that final day is coming.

For every soul sitting on an ash heap of some, every believer whose body is giving out, every aged saint whose hands tremble and whose eyes have dimmed, every one who has carried a grief with no bottom and found no satisfying answer in this life, hear this ancient man speak from his ruin:

I know that my Redeemer liveth.

Job didn’t know the full story. We do.

The Redeemer came. He suffered. He rose. He ascended.

He is coming again.

And on that last great day He will stand upon this earth, every ash heap will give up its dead, and every ruined saint will rise and see Him and know that their goel kept His word.

The latter day is coming.

And the Kinsman-Redeemer lives.

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My dear friend,

That’s an honest question. Many thoughtful young adults are asking it. The world feels strange and uncertain.Technology changes faster than we can understand, let alone govern. Geopolitics are shifting like a giant puzzle. Wars, jobs, money, gas, family, education, and even the meaning of life all seem to be clogging our feet with anxiousness. Your question is the question of a generation that hopes to be here when I’m long gone.

Well,

the first thing to remember is this: the future does not belong to us.

It belongs to God.

No path will perfectly prepare you for the next crisis. You cannot outthink providence. Or build walls high enough or dig a moat wide enough to keep the future out. The settled Christian is the one who has learned to walk before the face of God with a clean conscience, a quiet heart, and faithfulness for the day he is in.

Jesus says, “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself” (Matthew 6:34). Another way of saying it would be, own your creatureliness. You are not God. You are not meant to carry the future on your shoulders.

So what should you do about the future?

Fear God. Delight in His law. Believe the gospel. Keep your conscience clean. Learn useful skills. Love your family. Be faithful in your church. Work with your hands and your mind. Avoid debt where you can. Don’t give your heart to this world. Read books too hard for you (your future self will thank you for it). Pray daily, or better yet, pray throughout the day. Choose friends who love truth. Prepare for suffering without becoming a prepper-doomer. Try to build a life that could survive both prosperity and adversity.

Above all, belong to Christ.

A man can have it all: a meaningful career, money, emergency plans, land, tools, and a heap of knowledge, and still have nothing for eternity. Today’s question is “Will the world be okay?” My question is, “Am I reconciled to God through the blood of His Son?” If I am, I have a good future, come what may. He made the future.

The believing man’s life is hidden with Christ in God. He may not know the road ahead, but he knows the end. Sometimes the path before us is lit up. Sometimes we are given only enough light for the next step. That is why His Word is “a lamp unto my feet”, and “a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105). Rarely are we given both. Find something you enjoy to do outside (biking, hiking, walking, fly fishing ;-). Study creation for wonderment, not education.

Think often about the fall, the Savior, the resurrection, judgment, the new heavens and new earth. Think especially about that Lamb upon the throne, who is the end of sin and death. And think about the kingdom that will have no end. Yes, read Augustine’s City of God. Let your mind grow large enough to see this dark age in the light of the Eternal City.

I’m sorry to say that this will seem rather general advice.

You may feel that this has not answered your question.

Or perhaps it has.

“Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass” (Psalm 37:5).

Do that today. Then do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and all your days.

“In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:6).

Warmly,

Pastor

The question is asked:.

Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all powders of the merchant?

Someone is ascending. But whom? The daughters see a figure, but can’t make him out. Smoke rising, fragrance moving ahead of the procession, there is a royal gait in his approach. Scripture does this at the great turning points of redemption. Psalm 24 throws open the question at the gates of glory. Isaiah 63 asks it of the warrior returning from Bozrah with his garments red. The question surfaces whenever the Mediator comes into view from an angle that arrests even the watching of heaven.

On Ascension Day the church asks it again. The answer is the whole of the gospel.

Paul says marriage carries a mystery it was always meant to carry: I speak concerning Christ and the church (Eph. 5:32). The first Adam received his bride from his wounded side. The last Adam purchased His from the wound in His. Hosea heard Jehovah betrothing His people in righteousness and lovingkindness. Psalm 45 sang the Bridegroom riding forth in majesty. The Song is not a detour from the redemptive story. It is one of its most concentrated chapters.

So when the Bridegroom comes up from the wilderness, we are reading the text exactly as it was given.

The wilderness in Scripture is always the place of stripping. This world, east of Eden, is exactly that. The ground bears the curse. Graves are dug in it. Shame lives in it. Death has administered it since the day Adam was expelled.

The Son of God went all the way down.

He knew the wilderness of temptation, of rejection, of having nowhere to lay His head. He knew the wilderness of the wrath of God suspended over Him on the tree, bearing what man had accumulated against himself since the fall. There was no corner of our desolation He skipped.

But the text says He cometh out.

The Ascension says the wilderness is behind Him. Every last corner of it. The wrath-bearing, the contradiction, the grave, all behind Him. He came out fully, finally, with nothing left to do. The cup drained. The grave empty. The battle won. He who descended into the lowest parts of the earth ascended far above all heavens, that He might fill all things.

The church in her wilderness lives on that fact. Her Head came in and out of it. The anchor is cast within the veil. The Bridegroom is home. Every dark ravine He passed through as Head of His body, and the body must follow the Head. It is simply not possible for Him to reign in glory and His people to perish in the waste.

He comes out perfumed.

Myrrh and frankincense, with all powders of the merchant. Altar smoke in Scripture rises from accepted sacrifice. The Ascension cannot be pulled loose from the cross. He entered heaven in the virtue of His finished oblation, carrying the fragrance of a perfect obedience and a spotless life into the holy place made without hands. Every act of His humiliation was without defect. Every drop of His blood was precious. God received it with everlasting pleasure.

Dear one, our acceptance with the Father rises from that fragrance, and from nothing in us. Christ stands in the presence of God perfumed with myrrh and frankincense. The Heidelberg Catechism says in Lord’s Day 18: He is our Advocate there, and we have our flesh in heaven as a sure pledge that He, as our Head, will take us, His members, to Himself.

All the powders of the merchant. Every rare excellence carried with Him into the holy place. The full inventory of His merit is with Him. There is no need in His church that reaches beyond His sufficiency, no sin too deep, no conscience too battered, no prayer is too wordless.

He did not go silent at the throne.

I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. The cloud received Him out of their sight, and the first sound from the throne was Pentecost. He poured out the promise of the Father. From His victory He sent the Spirit with grace in His train, to make the absent Christ present to faith, to breathe life into dry bones, to turn a room full of frightened men into the mouth of God to the nations.

Ascension and Pentecost are a single movement. The Bridegroom enthroned sends Himself to His bride by the Spirit, until the day He comes for her in person.

So the church waits. She lifts her eyes unto the hills. She prays as one betrothed, knowing the One who went into heaven went there for her.

Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness?

Jesus. And He is coming again.

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Dear congregation,

A baby comes to baptism, but won’t remember it. She won’t recall the water, the vows, the triune Name, the prayers around her, the parents that hope, nor the congregation that witnesses. God remembers. His mercy reaches us, before our first thought.

This shows us that our deepest need sits beneath all we can do. Before a child speaks or even breathes, she needs a new heart. Before she will ever walk, or walk in faith, she needs inward circumcision. The sign touches the body. Only the Spirit touches the soul.

Circumcision of the heart means God will cut away what is dead in our heart and in the hearts of our children. Every covenant child needs more than water. She needs to become holy by grace. More than hearing of Christ, she needs to be joined to Him by faith and a life of repentance. She needs the life of Christ’s gracious covenant.

The verse also brings hope. God teaches parents to pray for real love alongside decent behavior and family ways. That love can’t be made in the nursery or the pew. The Holy Spirit pours it out.

So we carry our children to the font with confession and hope. We confess that a splash of water will not wake the dead. Yet, we hope because the God who gives the sign, will also give grace in time. We confess they are born in Adam. We hope because Christ welcomes sinners and gathers His lambs.

Before memory, mercy. Before speech, promise. Before understanding, the name of the triune God. And after all our sprinkling, preaching, praying, and teaching, one plea remains: Lord, circumcise the heart of our seed, that they may love Thee and live.

Your friend and pastor,

J Lewis

The resurrected body will be the real you if you are a true believer. It’s the same body God made, raised by His almighty power, transformed completely. Nothing is lost to the grave, fire, sea, decay, animals, or dust. Mortality will be swallowed up by immortality (2 Cor. 5:4; 1 Cor. 15:53-54). Corruption by incorruption (15:42, 53). Weakness by power (15:43). Dishonor by glory (15:43). You will rise in the prime of perfect maturity, probably around 30. There will be no babies or children in heaven. No senior center either. Each person will be full of strength, perfect in proportion, and true in beauty. Every defect will be gone: pimples, moles, hair loss, disease, pain, belly fat, deformity, missing parts, extra parts, crookedness, disproportion, the need for food, or rest from exhaustion. The whole person stands complete. The body becomes spiritual. It is perfectly subject to the spirit, and the spirit perfectly subject to God (1 Cor. 15:44). You will rise absolutely recognizable as yourself, yet perfectly conformed to the glorious body of the risen Christ (Phil. 3:21). [Read The City of God by Augustine, Book XXII for deeper insight]

Therefore, your glorified body will not have tattoos. Tattoos are ink we painfully drive into our skin for apparent cosmetic purposes. Even if the message is just “MOM” with a heart and arrow through it. It’s not part of the body’s original substance. God restores and transforms your true body and removes whatever is not fit for glory. The resurrection keeps your personal identity, but not your earthly alterations.

Believers should not get tattoos because the body is a gift. It was made by God, redeemed by Christ, and is currently indwelt by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19). God will raise that same true body, and no body modifications will remain. If God will remove what does not belong, then the Christian has no business putting it there in the first place. The rule is simple: do not purposely mark the body in ways that glory will remove. They are of the flesh, therefore, fleshly. Your body has a higher calling. “You were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies” (1 Cor. 6:20).

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Here is a word we did not expect. God allures. Instead of punishing, He draws with cords of love.

And the place He draws to is the wilderness. The dry place. The stripped land. You did not expect it, yet here you are. Many a believer has walked this path and wondered if the Lord had abandoned them. But the wilderness is where He speaks most clearly.

He speaks comfortably, that is, with a voice that finds the hidden place of the heart. “Thou art still mine.” “I have not forgotten.” “My love has not changed.” Without competing voices these words finally reach what sin’s din had covered.

From that same wilderness He makes vineyards. What was lost returns. Joy rises again. Fruit begins to bud. Because He gives it, the desert becomes the garden of new life.

And the Valley of Achor, that old name for trouble, failure and shame, He turns into a door of hope. Your present sin, the thing you thought had blocked every way back, becomes the door. Through trouble He opens a path. What once spelled your ruined now marks you as reclaimed. Mercy is always one-sided.

There she answers as in the days of her youth. Strength, love, and song come back. New affection stirs. The heart that grew heavy finds lightness again. Like a wife who sees her husband after a long absence.

Dear child of God, are you in such a wilderness? Has the Lord taken you to a barren place? Understand its purpose. This is His tender pursuit. He is removing what can only harm you, so that you might lay hold on Him. He is preparing vineyards you have not yet seen.

Listen for that voice in your sorrow. Be still. Let it reach you where you are and rest. The God who allures is the One who keeps His Word. And see if the wilderness does not become a deeper knowing, a fresher love, a hope that no trouble can shut. He has not left you. He has allured you. And in time, you will sing again.

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Knees that double, bones that shake

Every breath a brittle thread

Every prayer half-said

To Thee my cries, to Thee my groans

To Thee my sighs, these broken tones

They climb a sky that will not bend

Is there an end?

My throat, my soul are hoarse from calling

Dry as dust in desert air

My heart a field long left in famine

Left to crack beneath this care

Yet I call

Yet I call

From the hollow and the hunger

From the fear of going lost

Yet I call

Yet I call

If my only prayer is falling

Let my falling find the Cross

My heart is withered, scorched and thin

Like trampled soil that bears no green

As if Thy hand had turned away

Refused the rain

My thoughts turn ‘round and ‘round again

Circles carved in restless sand

I’m spinning in this silent room

LORD, are You moved?

My tongue is tied in twisted questions

Faith and doubt in tangled lines

Still Thy name keeps breaking

through them

Like a dawn I cannot find

Yet I call

Yet I call

From the hollow and the hunger

From the fear of being lost

Yet I call

Yet I call

If my only prayer is falling

Let my falling find the Cross

LORD, I fall

I fall, I fall

Like a stone through deep unknowing

Like the rain through wounded ground

LORD, I fall

Still I call

I fall, I fall

Like a stone through deep unknowing

Like the rain through wounded ground

Lord, I fall

Still I call

If I never see the reason

Be my reason here and now

Yet I call

Yet I call

From the hollow and the hunger

From the fear of being lost

Yet I call

Yet I call

If my only prayer is falling

Let my falling find the Cross

Words by J. Lewis

(music by OpenMusic)

Resurrection morning is the diadem of a Triune covenant, formed in eternity past, for a lost and sinful people.

First, the Father is set before us as the One who raised the Son. Peter says plainly: “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus” (Acts 5:30). That gives resurrection morning a deep and strong beauty, does it not? The Father who sent the Son, sustained the Son, and laid upon Him the guilt of His people, now openly vindicates Him. The resurrection is the Father’s personal declaration that the Son’s sacrifice has been received, the debt fully answered, the obedience of the Surety accepted, and death itself overcome. The Father speaks in the empty tomb.

Yet the Son also has power over His own resurrection. He declares in John 10:17–18, “I lay down my life, that I might take it again... I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” Christ entered death willingly, as the obedient Mediator and faithful Substitute. He rose in the power of His own divine person. The Prince of life entered death, conquered it, and left its garments behind Him. The Son speaks in the empty tomb.

And the Holy Spirit is joined to that power as well: “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Romans 8:11). The Spirit, who moved upon the face of the waters at creation, is performing His mightier act at the dawn of the new creation. The risen body of Christ is the firstfruits of that coming world. The Spirit speaks in and through the empty tomb.

So, resurrection morning is a Triune morning. Each Person, equal in substance, glory, will, and power, is joined in this singular mighty act. The Father raised Him. The Son took up His life again. The Holy Spirit quickened His holy humanity. Two thousand years ago, the Father declared, the Son triumphed, and the Spirit gave life.

What firmer ground could be given to our feeble faith? The whole Godhead stands beside the risen Christ, so that our souls may rest here with full assurance. Jesus lives by the glory of the Triune God, and because He lives, His people shall live also.

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The seven words of Christ from the cross are amazing. Seven speaks of fullness. Yet the greater wonder is what flows from Him in the height of His suffering. The cross presses Him, and what comes forth reveals so much.

He is crucified, and He prays. “Father, forgive them.” The first sound from the cross is intercession. Even while men are driving the nails, the great High Priest is already pleading.

He is in agony, yet He saves. “To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” With one word, He opens heaven to a dying thief. The Man nailed in weakness still has the keys of paradise. A cross will not dethrone Him.

He’s bearing the sins of the bride, yet He does not forget His mother. “Woman, behold thy son.” In the midst of redemptive suffering, He honors the fifth commandment and provides for His mother.

He enters the deepest darkness and cries, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” This is the abyss. Here, He stands where guilty sinners should stand. He does not cease to call Him “my God,” even when He is forsaken. Faith holds while comfort is withdrawn.

He fulfills Scripture in the smallest detail (Ps. 69). “I thirst.” It is a simple word, but it shows the reality of His humanity and the precision of God’s counsel. The Redeemer does not seem to suffer. He truly suffers.

He declares victory before He dies. “It is finished.” The work given Him by the Father is complete. The sacrifice is accomplished. The debt is paid. The types are fulfilled. Hell has not conquered Him. He has finished the work.

Then He dies as Victor. “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” He yields up His life consciously, willingly, trustingly. Death does not seize Him as prey. He lays down His life.

So what is so amazing about the seven sayings?

Amazingly, every word is full of majesty and meekness together. He is priest, king, son, substitute, shepherd, and conqueror together. He is bleeding and blessing. Dying, yet saving. Forsaken, yet trusting. Parched, yet finishing, surrendering His spirit, yet ruling the moment of His own death.

Then the sayings move in holy steps. He speaks to men, to the thief, to His mother, to God, to His own bodily need, to the accomplishment of redemption, and finally back to His Father. The whole cross becomes a window into His heart. Nothing disordered appears. No condeming word escapes Him. No murmur rises. No panic rules Him. The Lamb is spotless even on the altar.

And perhaps most amazing of all, these sayings show that the cross outstretches something done to Jesus, to something Jesus is doing. He’s actively obeying, fulfilling, bearing, loving, finishing, and entrusting Himself to the Father. Even on a cursed tree, He is the obedient second Adam.

That is why the seven sayings are amazing. They are the last jewels from the lips of the dying Redeemer. In them, you hear the heart of the gospel itself, mercy for sinners,

pradise opened,

family loved,

wrath endured,

scripture fulfilled,

Redemption accomplished,

And the Son returning to His Father, and our Father.

You thought I was about to give you some thoughts on passive income and the Christian. Or perhaps on the believer and the side hustle. That wouldn’t be a bad idea, actually. Income in the future will probably look a lot different than the past.

But no. You have been tricked.

With no further ado, let me introduce you to something far more disruptive.

                                   Creating Passive Income in Heaven, or
                                    Invest in your forever life (here on earth).

Let’s look at the text, and see if my title has merit.

“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:19–21).

Why did Jesus say this? Why did He say these exact words?

Because He was preaching to men. Men who worried about food every day, clothing, station, some kind of security. Men who knew exactly how prevalent it was for thieves to take your things.

He chooses moth.
He chooses rust.
He chooses thieves.

All three are corrupters, destroyers.

In no way is Jesus saying that earthly treasure is immoral. Look closely. He argues that it is extremely vulnerable. He exposes its slow decay and vanishment (moth). He points out the corrosion of all things earthly (rust). He exposes the theft of time and talent, people robbing your treasure, or robbing you of the best years of your life. Everything you store up here has an expiration date; threescore and ten, maybe twenty.

But, “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.”

I remember a woman in my second congregation who said that this verse upset her. She said, “We should never be so selfish as to do good for a future reward. We should just do it.” I do not think she is far off in sensing the danger of mercenary motives. Yet still, Jesus did say it.

I do not believe this is metaphor. It is imperative language in the Greek, so it presumes a real connection between this life and the next. What the believer does here in faith, enabled by the indwelling Spirit, accrues treasures in heaven (not as wages by our merit), but as gracious fruits accepted in the Beloved. God is pleased, out of His mere grace, to reward these works (Westminster Larger Catechism 193), crowning what He Himself has wrought in us through union with Christ.

The implication is staggering.

Your earthly life is short. Some call it a waiting room for glory. I rather think it is an time of enterprise for our forever home. There will come a time when this “inch” we call earthly life (Rutherford) will be but the faintest of our faint memories.

Our Lord is telling us this life is gospel-fruit accumulation that, somehow, gives the child of God treasure in heaven. This life is the believer’s greatest investment opportunity.

I am not speaking about the health-and-wealth prosperity heresy. It is more like upper-east-side living in the New Jerusalem. Because you will have to die to spend it. “As one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:41–42).

He then gives the governing principle:

“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

Your heart follows your investment. I know this by experience.

If my capital is buried in reputation, my heart will quake at criticism.
If my capital is buried in retirement, my heart will tremble with the market.
If my capital is buried in comfort, my heart will panic at inconvenience.

But if my treasure is in heaven, my heart begins to detach from the volatility of this market. We hold onto it with a loose grip, because we are holding fast to Christ’s promise, “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:2–3).

Do we ever look at good works as future treasure? Do we ever consider that manifesting the Spirit-wrought fruit of the Spirit will actually be tasted in heaven?

Mostly, we look at good works as merit for acceptance. But that is not right. We are not saved by works, for then faith is no longer faith.

If Perkins has taught me anything, the unconverted man can do good things, but they always proceed from a polluted fountain. But the believer, doing the same things, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, offers what pleases God. These acts, done in faith and supremely for love of Christ, become deposits that God graciously rewards in the next life. Not to earn acceptance (which is ours solely in Christ), but to enlarge our capacity for eternal delight in Him. The reward is deeper communion, greater measures of glory commensurate with faithfulness, all without envy in the presence of the Lamb.

What does this mean for the Christian in the modern world?

It means you measure success differently.

Today, the world runs on visibility. Followers. Scale. Output. Personal brand. Optimization. Efficiency.

The hidden life does not trend.

But heaven’s economy runs on treasure acquired on earth.

Take the fruit of the Spirit for instance.

Love that actually costs you something.
Joy that persists in affliction.
Peace that steadies a home with the gospel.
Longsuffering in a marriage that stretches you.
Gentleness in a conversation where you could easily dominate.
Goodness when no one is watching.
Faith in an unseen Christ.
Meekness under provocation.
Temperance when no one is around.

Each act of Spirit-wrought obedience is a deposit in heaven’s treasury.

You forgive when you could retaliate.
You give when you could hoard.
You pray when you could scroll.
You remain faithful in obscurity.

These all compound eternally, not through any mechanical interest of our own, but through the multiplying grace of God who rewards grace for grace.

This is passive income in heaven.

The upfront investment is costly, though the account is totally free. I fear my account too empty, too sparse. Because the investment, I have found, costs the flesh dearly. But there is much mortification to gain, and no time to lose. Jesus says the yield manifests long after the moment has passed.

You will probably never see any returns here. This life is a vale of tears. That’s precisely Jesus’ point. The return is stored away in glory, where nothing can touch it. Safe in the Person and work of Christ.

You cannot generate this passive income on your own, you must collaborate.

Christ Himself is the treasury. He is the inheritance. All heavenly investment flows from union with Him. Without Him, we are all spiritually bankrupt. In Him, even little things done in faith become a deposit.

A word of advice: do not tell people about it! Do not Instagram, or Facebook, or X your good works for all to see. Jesus spoke of those that did: “Verily I say unto you, They have their reward” (Matthew 6:2).

Post it on X, poof, it is gone.
Tell it to your friends, ever so humbly, poof, gone.

Do not broadcast your mercy.
Do not curate your generosity.
Do not leak your obedience by carefully measured humility.
Poof, poof, poof.
Do so, and heaven marks it paid.

But if you do good where no one can repay you,
if you love where there is no return,
if you give where no applause follows, flowing from your love to Christ,
then the treasure grows.

And Christ says the recompense waits “at the resurrection of the just” (Luke 14:14).

There are only two moments you can be paid.

Now.
Or then.

Believer, choose carefully.

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We are invited here into a walled, hidden, secret, wonderfully fragrant garden. Unknown until this moment. A place protected from the outside, tended in silence, kept from the stranger’s foot. This garden is the believing church through all time, and the hidden life of the soul of the bride. Planted in secret, it is watered by faith and grace, growing with soul-spices rare and costly: myrrh of surrender, frankincense of worship, cinnamon of love, calamus of uprightness, saffron of joy in suffering, aloes of patient longing.

These are deep-rooted, slow-ripening treasures. Their perfume does not release easily. It is drawn out only when the air moves with power. When pressure passes over and wind touches leaf, blossom, fruit, bark, and soil.

Earlier in the chapter, the Bridegroom Himself says:

“A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse.”
(Song of Solomon 4:12)

A garden is enclosed.
Owned.
Planted by Another.

This prayer flows from belonging and longing. It is spoken by the bride, the Lamb’s wife. (Rev. 21:9).

It is her prayer, awakened by love, inviting the full work of God the Spirit within.

She does not ask for one wind. She asks for two.

“Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south.”

No garden chooses its winds. It only receives them.

In Scripture, the north wind is sharp and biting. It carries cold across the life. It stiffens the body. It tightens providence. It makes the leaves of the soul tremble and the branches bow. It clears what is of no value, revealing what is shallow in root. It cuts through comfort and leaves no sinful thing standing. It is bracing, severe, cleansing.

Job knew this wind and confessed it:

“Out of the north cometh cold: and God is great, and we know him not.”
(Job 37:22)

This is a dangerous prayer to pray lightly: “Awake, O north wind.” For the north wind strips. It blasts away coverings we have grown accustomed to wearing. It dries dead surface pools. It bites at what is carnal. It shakes the branches of the soul until what has no good root loosens and falls from the vine.

Our Lord Himself prepares us for this wind:

“These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”
(John 16:33)

This tribulation is outward. But it also enters the inner life. It presses upon the conscience. It exposes divided affections. It makes us feel the great conflict of conversion:

“For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other.”
(Galatians 5:17)

All inward warfare, as well as outward, all testing and temptations, losses and trials, is north wind.

Yet the bride also prays, “Come, thou south.”

The south wind comes from the opposite direction with an opposite work. It is heavy with warmth. It opens the clenched heart. It moves gently through the understanding, the conscience, the will, and the affections. It carries dew to thirsty ground. It loosens fragrance from both petal and bark with rays of love. It restores, warms, softens, and heals what has been made tender by pruning, digging, and dunging. It binds up the brokenhearted and settles what has been shaken. All to ripen for eternity.

Notice, the bride calls for both. She has learned by experience that love for Christ must not be selective. As grace matures in its first work, the soul no longer bargains about how holiness will be formed, because both winds come from the same Breather. The Spirit does not wound apart from love, nor does He comfort apart from justice. He strips to heal. He chills to mortify. He warms in order to ripen.

She asks them both to blow in their turn.

Why?

“That the spices thereof may flow out.”

Spices do not release fragrance in stillness. To be known requires motion, contact, air moving across them. Many of the sweetest graces in the Christian life would never ripen without frost, nor sweeten without the sun. Perfumes of humility, patience, repentance, tenderness toward others, would never be released without wind.

Now listen to the heart of the prayer:

“Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.”

This marks a distinct change in her posture. Earlier in the Song, the bride cried:

“The king hath brought me into his chambers.”
(Song of Solomon 1:4)

Here she invites Him. Her love has matured. Her experience has deepened.

She calls the garden, the fruits, whatever grace has grown, His. She invites Him to come, to enjoy and take delight. This is the inward miracle of the Spirit’s work, when the soul invites Christ to sample His own work.

What a gently searching passage.

Do we only pray for the south winds?

This verse teaches us how to pray. Not, “Lord, keep me in warm, temperate climes,” but, “Blow. Do what is necessary for me, in me. Stir my sleeping. Uncover what is hidden. And above all, come Thyself.” Communion with Christ is the goal of every providence that blows through the believer’s life.

A fitting prayer for us tonight is this:

Lord, we are Thy garden. Send whatever winds Thou wilt. Only do not pass us by. Come into Thy garden, this congregation, and into the believing heart, and take delight in the works of Thine own never-forsaking hands. Amen.

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That’s a deep question many believers have asked.

The short answer is this. Scripture doesn’t call us to spend much time tracing the source of a sinful thought so much as judging its nature, and responding accordingly. The Word of God gives us some light to speak carefully about the difference. So here it is in shorthand.

First, Scripture teaches that sinful thoughts arise from our fallen human nature. James says, “Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed” (James 1:14). The heart, even in the regenerate, still contains remaining corruption (Romans 7). Old sinful habits, memories, desires, and reflexes of the flesh surface without warning. The suddenness of a thought does not prove it is satanic, though it may be. The heart is a deep, dark labyrinth. Indwelling sin lurks in the shadows of the light, waiting for the right moment to attempt control.

Scripture also teaches that Satan actually does tempt, suggest, and provoke (Matthew 4:1–3; Luke 22:31; John 13:2). But he is not omniscient. He is not omnipresent. We need to understand that. He is called the tempter, yet he can’t possibly tempt every tempted person. Most are largely left alone because they are already his (John 8:44). Unless, of course, he is enlisting them in his war. Redeemed sinners on the other hand, will at times, face personal attacks from Satan’s daemons. His tactics are well known.

He casts fiery darts (Eph.6:16). He draws the heart away (James 1:14; 2 Cor. 11:3). He sifts as wheat (Luke 22:31). He accuses the brethren (Rev. 12:10; Zech.3:1). He disguises himself as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14) He seeks advantage through ignorance (2 Cor. 2:11). He snatches away the Word (Matt. 13:19). As the second greatest anthropologist in history, he has done his homework. He knows our weaknesses. So yes, the devil/s often works by way of thoughts that are foreign to new life, intrusive, blasphemous, even violent in their suggestion, especially when they happen during prayer or moments of spiritual seriousness. Yet the devil can’t sin for you. Your flesh is the dry tinder. Your lust is the gas. The devil presents the spark. There would be no fire if there were nothing to burn. He doesn’t create new material. He works with existing flesh.

So how do I know if sinful thoughts are from me, or from the devil?

The most important thing isn’t where the thought came from, but how you respond to it. When a thought enters, there is an incredibly brief moment where we either consent or resist. Is it welcomed, invited in, entertained? Is it embraced like an old lost friend? Then why does origin matter? It doesn’t. To be honest, if hell’s minions never visited me again, I would have all the tinder and gas I need to destroy myself. But on the other hand, a wicked thought that is resisted, fought against and wrestled into the light of the Son, is resisting sin. Regardless where it came from. Luther’s old line is so memorable, You cannot stop birds from flying over your head, but you can stop them from building a nest in your hair.

I would also add that your conscience gives an important clue. When a sinful thought arises, does your soul recoil? That response itself is telling. The unregenerate may grieve the effects and consequences of sin, but only the child of God grieve sin as sin. Especially in the face of so loving a Savior. Even then the believer may be horrified by thoughts he never chose and never wanted. That horror is the proof of grace (Romans 7:22,23).

Beware of over-scrupulosity. What I mean is don’t become trapped in constant inward looking, asking unbearably deep questions to yourself. This usually leads to paralysis of soul and unrelenting despair. Think of the man in the iron cage in Pilgrim’s Progress. Scripture does not teach an inward spiral. It calls us to watch, pray (as we heard last Lord’s Day), resist, flee, and fix our eyes on Christ. Whether the thought came from outside or inside makes no lasting difference. The remedy is the same. Humbled by sin, we are called to “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). How do we resist? Through confessed need. Through faith. Through fresh dependence on the Spirit of Christ.

2 Corinthians 10:4, 5 
“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”

Finally, I hope you will remember this. Christ “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). Temptation itself is not sin. Understand that clearly. When sin presents itself, it is not the first thought that matters most, it’s the second. Many of the most distressing thoughts believers experience are exactly the ones they hate and love the most according to Paul (Romans 7:15-24). “On second thought” should be our reply to temptation.

And one last thing, if the devil can’t win you to sin by temptation, he will accuse you for being tempted in the first place, turning warfare itself into false guilt. It is a merciless tactic.

So ask fewer questions about origin, and more questions about response.

Did I consent to this thought?

Did I welcome it?

Did I fight it?

Did I bring it to Christ?

And when the cry is as short and sweet as, “Help, Lord!” you may rest assured that grace was already working.

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If I had to name one, and only one, it would be a deep, personal sense that God is real, holy, and near, and that we all live life before His face.

The rising generation doesn’t suffer from a lack of information. They are over-saturated with words, images, arguments, and explanations. What they lack is depth, gravity. Very little in their world presses on the soul with permanence. Everything is selectable, editable, scrollable, reversible. Identity itself is treated as something you can try on or take off. In that atmosphere, God becomes easily sidelined, abstracted, recognized, but not reckoned with in the soul.

They need to know, in the marrow, that the living God addresses them in the Covenant of Grace. That He sees. That He speaks. That He commands. That He invites. That He forgives. That He will judge the world in righteousness. Without that, the bible becomes trivia, doctrine becomes a burden, worship becomes atmosphere, and morality becomes pliable.

This is why biblical, reverent worship matters so much. Why preaching must carry scriptural authority, without pretended-performance. It’s why fathers and mothers walking humbly with God in the home, preaches more loudly than a thousand youth programs. Why the ordinary means of grace, regularly administered and attended, are more precious than religious baubles and bubbles, (to quote Thomas Brooks). Most importantly, the rising generation learns what is real, by what their parents today, treat as real. And they are watching us.

When a child grows up in a church where sin is called sin, where grace is offered without cheapness, and where the Word of God is spoken with fear and tenderness, something is pressed into his deepest and most pliable parts. He may wander. He may resist for a season. Yet he does not easily escape the sense that there is a God with whom he has to do. I find this most true, about the time they get married and have children.

In short, the rising generation does not most need relevance, or invention, or protection from the hard edges of the faith. What they need is the fear of the Lord, and believe the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ in an awakened, personal way. Everything else that will last through to the rising generation, will grow from that soil.

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If you have a question, you can email me. If I think the question is practical and helpful, I will post it here.

There are places in Scripture where the Lord teaches by contrast. By stripping away what we assume must be present for Him to speak.

Elijah at Horeb is one of those moments.

Elijah has just come victoriously from Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:19-40). An all consuming fire has fallen from heaven (18:38). The prophets of Baal have been exposed and destroyed (18:40). The power of the Lord has been both public and profound (18:36-39).

If ever there were a moment when a servant of God might expect clarity, assurance, and above all, peace, it would be now.

Instead, Elijah collapses inwardly (v.3).

He is exhausted.
He hides because he’s scared.

He tells the Lord that he is finished (19:4) because he is alone (19:10).

He had spoken for LORD of Hosts, but now he desires to be spoken to.

And we know that the voice of God comes to Elijah, after the height of his courage.

At the end of it, in fact.

The voice came when Elijah felt threadbare, sitting alone in a cave (19:9).

The Lord brought Elijah to Horeb, the mount of God, of all places. It’s also known as Sinai. This is the mountain of God’s greatest revelation to date, His Law. And guess what accompanied that revelation? Thunder, fire, and earthquake announced the nearness of God (Ex. 19:16–18).

Elijah knows it.
He knows what this place is, and what happened there of old.

And then “the LORD”, it says, “passes by” (v.11).

In that passing by, there is a great and strong wind (v.11), so powerful that it breaks rocks in pieces. But the LORD is not in the wind. There is an earthquake (v.11), but the LORD is not in the earthquake. There is fire, but the LORD is not in the fire (v.12).

God has used all of these elements before to His glory.

But here, deliberately, He withholds Himself from each one of them.

And then comes what the text calls “a still small voice,” literally a gentle whisper, a quiet breath.

Before we get to that blessed section, what’s striking is the flurry of where the LORD was not.

The LORD is teaching his servant. He is instructing his heart that nearness is not bound to the phenomenal.

The Sinai-shaking God also speaks softly.
The God of fire from heaven is also the God of gentle breathings.

That is helpful for us, is it not?

Many of us live with a quiet belief that messages from God come wrapped in power. That assurance comes from the magnitude of the visit. That if God is truly at work, He must reveal Himself unmistakably, overwhelmingly, and undeniably so.

This passage teaches otherwise.

More often than not, dear ones, the deepest words of God speaks are simple, soft, quiet, faithful.

Let’s be careful here.

The still small voice of the Spirit is not some inner prompting floating freely. We are not gnostics in this church. But it is God dealing personally, deeply, scripturally, and unimpressively with a weary servant.

What is Elijah given? He is given new direction, a little correction, and much reassurance in his present distress.

And that is where the passage becomes especially applicable for us.

Because the temptation will be to think that this is a secret invitation to mysticism, or as permission to chase after feelings and private revelations. No. That has gotten people into much trouble. Many cults and cultic tendencies have come by way of “God spoke to me”.

Instead, it teaches us how God ordinarily applies His truth to the soul.

Quietly.
Patiently.
Personally.

In ways He Himself appoints.

In Elijah’s case, the Lord speaks directly, because Elijah is a prophet in a revelatory office. That office is no longer extant today.

Today, the Lord speaks (no less truly) through the ways He has appointed in His Word, the means of grace.

Through the Word read and preached (Rom. 10:17).
Through the sacraments administered (Matt. 28:19; 1 Cor. 11:23–26).
Through prayer offered in faith, both privately and corporately (Acts 2:42).
Through the communion of the saints (Heb. 10:24–25).

This is where the passage becomes especially important to the believing heart.

Many of us know what it is to live in the wind and the earthquake. The tumult of family concerns. The pressure of work. The sorrow of illness. The confusion of unanswered questions. The sense of spiritual dryness.

He sends them all.

We expect that if He sends them, He will speak in them.

Dear one, sometimes the LORD does speak in the storm.
Sometimes He speaks after it.

What does that look like, when He speaks after?

It often comes, I have found, in a single truth coming to my heart with unusual clarity. A Psalm long known, made freshly known to my soul. A text that speaks in the hour of my need. A simple confession that Christ is enough, even here. Even now (2 Cor. 12:9).

And very often, I have come to see, that His still small voice is heard most clearly when we place ourselves deliberately under the regular means of grace.

There is a reason the Lord gathers His people together. There is a reason He calls us to sit under preaching, to pray together, to come to His table, to remember our baptism.

These are the appointed ways by which God corrects, comforts, heals, and restores the soul. They are the ordinary ways through which extraordinary grace flows.

Take the Lord’s Supper, for example.

There is nothing outwardly profound about it. Bread is broken. Wine is poured out. Words are spoken that we have heard many times.

Yet in that moment, as we partake by faith, Christ softly speaks peace to His people.

He assures me that His body was given for me, His blood shed for the complete remission of all my sins.

He steadies my heart in His Supper.
He strengthens trembling faith.
He wraps His comfort around the wounded conscience (1 Cor. 11:24–26).

The same is true of baptism.

The promise does not strike, but falls gentle.

Like rain upon the foreheads of our children, the still small voice of God says,

“I will be thy God” (Gen. 17:7).

A promise to be remembered, pleaded, and answered in due time. A still small voice that may carry across years, even decades, until the Lord applies it savingly to the heart.

And the same is true tonight.

When we gather for a Wednesday prayer meeting, we place ourselves where the Spirit of Christ has promised to be.

In the midst of us (Matt. 18:20).

We quiet ourselves under His Word.
We confess our sin, and need, and dependence.

We are acknowledging that we do not live by special revelations, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4).

For some, the still small voice tonight may simply be:

“Fear not, thou worm Jacob… I will help thee, saith the LORD, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.”

To another it might be:

“I have not forgotten thee” (Isa. 49:15).

For another:

“My grace is sufficient for thee” (2 Cor. 12:9).

For others still:

“This way, walk ye in it” (Isa. 30:21).

Elijah quietly wraps his face in his mantle when he hears the Spirit’s voice. He recognizes the holy surprise of the moment. The LORD is near to restore him.

That is the quiet work the Spirit delights to do.

May we never despise stillness, or smallness, or assume that He is absent because He is gentle.

The Lord who speaks in the still small voice is the same Lord who commands the wind, earthquake, and fire. And He knows exactly how to speak to each of His people, in exactly the way they need.

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The simple application of this verse is this:

Being anxious for nothing by praying through everything.

Paul knows the anxious heart. In the believer, anxiety is a soulish symptom. It tells me that the weight of my trust has shifted. from God’s almightiness to my fleshly strength. From holy grounding, to unholy spiraling. When anxiety rises in my life, something has shifted from God’s power to mine. My soul now carries what it was never built to.

Anxiety is the mind rehearsing a future without God. Prayer becomes my soul’s conscious returning to the future’s Keeper. My flesh imagines outcomes. My spirit entrusts them to God.

Notice Paul’s totality. In every thing. There is no category too small, or ordinary, no fear too repetitive. The anxious heart often disqualifies itself to both faith and prayer by worry. I worry before prayer. I think I hear God saying, This is too petty. This again?! And I tell myself, I should be over this by now. But the Spirit through the pen of Paul says something quite different: If it troubles you, it belongs to Me. If it presses on your mind, it is already in My hand.

“Prayer, supplication, thanksgiving.” These three:

Prayer is the act of turning my cares Christ-ward.

Supplication is giving my need a voice.

Thanksgiving is the anchor that keeps prayer from shipwrecking against the rocks of despair.

All three tell my soul that the God who hears has already acted, already provided, already been faithful. It steadies my soul by firmly rooting my need into the soil of the character and promises of Christ.

For me, anxiety tends to be circular. It goes over the same ground again and again, never arriving. Prayer interrupts the cycle. Taking my cares to Christ is a linear line of direction. It moves outward from my soul, then upward to the Throne of Grace, away from the closed loop of my own mind. It interrupts anxiety’s endless rehearsal with a real audience, a living God, a listening Father.

What if I didn’t bring God to my anxiety, and stay where I am, in the swirl, in the tightening chest, my mind is spinning, inserting a thought about God into it. Almost like sprinkling holy water on a storm, and instead brought my anxieties to Christ my Mediator and Intercessor. There is One who stands between God and me, who has already opened the way by blood.

Now, if only I could take my own advice.

Being “careful or anxious for nothing” is an open hand in prayer. “Let your requests be made known unto God” is confessing my dependence. To speak my needs to God is to admit my weakness, confessing my creatureliness. I must not excuse my anxiety doing so. True prayer exposes my unbelief mixed with fear, or my fear mixed with unbelief. Gentle unbelief, perhaps, but unbelief nonetheless. Think of the father in Mark 9. “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”

And then there is the beautiful promise that follows, “And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Instead of removing the question marks, peace turns them all into is the periods. It rests in loving Providences, both dark and light. Now peace stands watch over my concerns. Anxiety leaves the gates open. Prayer closes it, shutting my heart in with a merciful and sovereign God.

To be anxious for nothing is to fill my mouth with words to God. To pray through everything is to refuse to let a single fear seem too small, a single burden go unreleased. It is releasing what belongs to tomorrow, back into the Hands of Him who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

The anxious man in me tries to see the whole path before I step. The peaceful man is asking for light, only upon the next step. The old man in me lives bent over the future. The praying man looks up to the Creator of heaven and earth, my Savior. And in looking, peace comes like a river.

Help LORD.

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The Fading of All Lesser Lights

The first sound of creation were four words “Let there be light” (Gen. 1:3). Before the sun or moon, light itself was called out of nothing, blazing at God’s command. Only later did He make lamps to hang it, the sun to rule the day and the moon to rule the night (Gen. 1:16). Since the dawn of time, every sunrise was a countdown to sunset. We never think of it as setting forever. But it will.

For six thousand years our sun has run its race, tirelessly (Ps. 19). Scientists tell us it will one day burn out, give or take a billion years. Scripture already said it would: “the fashion of this world passeth away” (1 Corinthians 7:31). One day, that earthly light will go out. There will be no more sun (Isaiah 60:19, 20). The rays that ripened our fields, the light that burst through our kitchen windows, the moon that lit our sleepless nights, they will be gone forever.

When John describes what lies beyond this world he surprisingly says, “The city had no need of the sun … for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.” The sun has always been a constant for us. But this passage now turns it into a 6000-year-old placeholder of the Glory of God, and light of the Lamb.

Humanly, we find it hard to make true sense of this verse. It sounds beautiful, but how to imagine it? How can the Glory of God and the Lamb light that city? Yet if we see with new eyes, part of it is not so hard to understand. But only in part (1 Cor. 13:9).

Tell me, what is light? Can you define it? Can you capture it? (lightning bugs excluded). Most of us have no idea what light actually is. We know it is photons with no mass, it has motion, and energy moving at a speed incomprehensible. It touches what it passes, yet remains untouched itself. It fills every space it enters, but has no mass or substance. That’s all we really know. Every created light, from the smallest spark to the gretest supernova, is simply borrowed from that first command. For the most part, light is a complete mystery to us. We simply take this miracle for granted. We should not. It is a gift the blind have never had.

The City

Before we get further into the light, let’s look at the city herself. Remember, John is trying to capture what he is seeing in the spirit (Rev. 1:10; 4:2), with his first century vocabulary, thousands of year in the future. We do not envy his task. When it came to describing what John was seeing, it was easier for him to use metaphor than describe the indescribable. How often he seems to pile up words, using “like”, and “as”, and “like unto.”

“His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire” (Rev. 1:14). None of that was what he actually saw. It was like it. “And his voice as the sound of many waters”, not actually many waters (1:15). “His countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength” (1:16), not the actual sun.

Imagine being a 1st Century writer transported to Times Square, at night. Then trying to write about it in the vocabulary of ancient Koine Greek. Thankfully, symbols, and likenesses, and comparisons, in descriptive language, remain timeless.

So what is this city?

The City is the New Jerusalem, the Bride herself adorned and made ready. John says, “Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife… and he showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem” (Rev. 21:9–10). Heaven, in its final and fullest sense, is the King of that City and His perfected bride joined in everlasting union (Heb. 12:22,23).

The city’s measurements are equal in length, breadth, and height (Rev. 21:16). A perfect cube, matching the description of the Most Holy Place over which the Shekinah rested (1 Kings 6:20). That’s very interesting. In means the Holy of Holies is now the new creation. No corner is left outside the presence of God (Rev. 21:1).

Her foundations are precious stones, each gleaming with element light (Rev 21). Her walls are salvation itself, transparent yet impenetrable (Isa. 26:1). All gates are as pearls, open, never shut, because nothing unclean can enter (Rev. 21:21, 25, 27). Through the middle of this city runs the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb (Rev 22). On either side grows the tree of life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations (Rev. 22:2).

If you wanted to put it simply (and it can’t be simply put): the City is all creation finally become worship (Ps. 150:6; Rom. 8:21), and a glorified bride finally coming home (Rev. 19:7). It is the last garden and the First Church of Eternity, one and the same.

How Can This Be?

“Sun and moon,” “Glory of God” and “the Lamb.” These are four lights. Two created, two Uncreated. Interesting contrast. We could say, the prophetic lights and fulfillment Lights. Scripture says: “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). That is a statement about God’s being. “No variance, no shadow of turning.” “The Father of lights.” (James 1:17) When John says, “the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof,” he is tracing the end of that prophetic arc. Rather than the “glory of God” being something external, it is His Selfsame-holiness and Selfsame-goodness, manifest. It is God’s self, His essence, now unveiled rather than veiled. To call Him “the Father of lights” is to recognize Him as the fountainhead of every kind of illumination, natural, moral, and spiritual. There is “no variableness, neither shadow of turning” in Him, because self-existent light does not shift. He has neither top nor bottom, beginning or end, front or back, up or down, or shadow or variance. God is light.

What is the Lamb, then? The Lamb is the personal embodiment of that glory (Col. 1:15), the visible face of invisible light (Heb. 1:3; 2 Cor. 4:6). As He shines, it is the eternal life of God made apparent (John 1:4). Creation’s twin lights taught dependence and time; redemption’s Lights reveal immediacy and permanence.

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So what is that actual luminescence in heaven to creatures with physical eyes? We can’t really say.

Except, the light of that city will not come out of thin air. It will be some kind of emitting of the Lamb “who is above all, and through all, and in you all” (Eph. 4:6). It will somehow be the very presence of God filling all things (Ephesians 1:23). When John says, “the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof,” he is describing something our fallen human minds cannot comprehend. In our world, light travels through space. In that world, it appears God is the space in which we “live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

In the resurrection, the entire created order will be transfigured. Matter, either changed or permeated. Paul calls this “the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). Creation will share in resurrection’s light! Every particle, every molecule will be transform to the will and beauty of its Maker (Hab. 2:14).

This all seems strange to us, I know. It was strange to the disciples too, when Jesus walked through doors (John 20:19, 26). Christ’s heaven-bound body after the resurrection gives us some clues. His body was physical, He ate, spoke, and could be touched (Luke 24:39–43), yet it shone with unborrowed life. What the disciples saw in flashes on the Mount of Transfiguration will become the common experience of all in heaven. “His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light.” (Mat. 17:2). Then read this, He, “Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body”. We will be like Him in the resurrection. The Lamb’s humanity, perfectly united to Deity, becomes the lamp of all creation (Rev. 21:23; 22:5). Augustine in his City of God, (Book 22, Chapters 29, 30 but especially 30) opens this up most beautifully.

When Every Lesser Light Goes Out

One morning, we don’t know when, the final sunrise will come, and the final rays will follow. The glowing orb we have come to expect, will go out forever. Something more beautiful, far and exceedingly so, will light the whole city. Nothing opaque, nothing hidden, everything clear with holiness, every face bright by the brightness of the Mount of Transfiguration. There will be no daylight or nightlight in that city, just Light.

The redeemed will live in a transparency beyond imagination. Every heart open to God and to each other (1 John 3:2), every face bright with the radiance of the Lamb. What we now feel we taste in vanishing moments of communion here on earth, will somehow become the air we breathe. Love will no longer strive, or light endure, or diminish; it will just simply, be. All knowledge will be by holy discovery.

Such thoughts should make the believer homesick for a place he’s never been. We’ve lived all our lives by a borrowed, reflected and refracted light, looking through veils of weakness and half-understanding (2 Cor 3:18; 4:6). But one day, the believer will know, even as we are known. We will see Him for presently, we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face (1 Cor. 13:12). “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

Envy this most wondrous City, child of God. Never live content under this world’s borrowed light. We enter its gates on earth by the church Christ loves, His bride, and the means He has given for her salvation. If you don’t, the days of your life will sunset into an endless night, endless darkness, and the misery of an everlasting judgement (Jude 13; Mat. 25:30). The Light you ignore is already shining unto that perfect day, and is yet translating citizens from darkness to light (1 Pet. 2:9). And when the last sunset on earth falls, those who love the Lamb will awaken, and find all creation ablaze with God.

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The believer, unveiled by grace, comes a child welcomed home. He looks and lives. His faith is sight beginning. Every look at Christ refines the soul’s features, sanding down the hard lines that sin carved deep.

Beholding changes us. Not quickly, not painlessly, but surely. The old face fades. The new one, gentle, steadfast, forgiven, takes shape beneath the sight of glory. This is the secret of sanctification. We are transformed by worship, not will. The mirror of the Word, the preaching, the cup, the bread, all become one single lens through which the Spirit shows us Christ until the image is etched on our hearts.

The Lord’s Table ends, but the beholding does not need to. Communion begun in bread and wine, may continue on in regular life. I often see the believer leaving the Supper carrying light in the eyes, mercy on their lips, and peace across the countenance. Like Moses, others see it without knowing why, the quiet evidence of time spent before the face of God.

Heaven is never far to such a soul, if they would just pause an think of Him. The light that once seemed distant may grow day by day. Until that perfect Day. May we catch a vision of that Day, in the rehearsal dinner of the Lamb.

O Lord, keep me under that light until I wake and see Thee as Thou art. Then the mirror will be gone, but Thy likeness will remain forever.

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Every sin leaves a stain. Hasty words, undone duties, secret thoughts that rot in the corners of conscience. Water cannot reach them. Resolve’s solvent cannot lift them. Only one blood has power to cleanse what lies beneath the surface of the soul.

This world shrinks from blood, calls it barbaric. Yet heaven rejoices in it. Angels gaze with amazement upon redemption’s flow. Because this blood, spilled in rage, is poured out in love. It satisfies Divine justice while healing the wounded heart that caused it.

To drink from this cup is to confess, “My sin required this.”

It is also to believe, “This blood was shed for me.”

The two thoughts cannot be separated. Where confession deepens, assurance brightens.

The Supper as much about about beholding purification as it is remembering guilt. It is the taste of peace after long restlessness. The heart washed clean beats differently, slower, stronger, surer.

And when the last drop is taken, the believer is strengthened in forgiveness, that holy comfort, which becomes his constant desire. The conscience, once afraid to draw near, now draws near again and again. Perfect love has cast out fear.

O Christ, eternal Priest, keep me near this fountain.

Let no guilt grow old enough to harden.

Cleanse me daily, deeply, until even my memory wafts of mercy.

Your friend and pastor,

J. Lewis

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