Loving you

The love I embrace is undeniable

“but is it true?”

It is affectionate like my mothers kiss

“but is it true?”

A day cannot surpass where I could relieve

The voluble tenure of loving assonance

“but is it real?”

As vivid as veracity in tangible dew

Loving you is……

                             The daylight streamed

Manufacturing radiance amiss….    

                                          My diffused disparity

“Is it Me?”

Lucid assurance

The Love I embrace is undeniable 

K.Oni

Grace: Right Here, Right Now

Do you understand the majesty and practicality of the grace you have been given? If you don't, in subtle and not so subtle ways, you are looking to other things to get you through. You don't need to go out searching for hope and help, because they are already yours in the resources of grace that you have been given as God's child.

Grace is the most transformational word in the Bible. The entire content of the Bible is a narrative of God's grace, a story of undeserved redemption. By the transformational power of his grace, God unilaterally reaches his hands into the muck of this fallen world, through the presence of his Son, and radically transforms his children from what we are (sinners) into what we are becoming by his power (Christ-like). The famous Newton hymn uses the best word possible, maybe the only word big enough, for that grace—amazing.

So grace is a story and grace is a gift. It is God's character and it is your only hope. Grace is a transforming tool and a state of relationship. Grace is a beautiful theology and a wonderful invitation. Grace is a life-long experience and a life-changing calling. Grace will turn your life upside down while giving you a rest you have never known. Grace will require you to face your unworthiness without ever making you feel unloved.

Grace will make you finally acknowledge that you cannot earn God's favor, and it will once and for all remove your fear of not measuring up to his standards. Grace will humble you with the fact that you are much less than you thought you were, even as it assures you that you can be far more than you had ever imagined. You can be sure that grace will put you in your place without ever putting you down.

Grace will enable you to face shocking truths about yourself that you have hesitated to consider, while freeing you from being self-consciously introspective. Grace will confront you with profound weaknesses, and at the same time bless you with new-found strength. Grace will tell you again and again what you aren't, while welcoming you again and again to what you can now be. Grace will make you as uncomfortable as you have ever been, while offering you a more lasting comfort than you have never before known .

Grace will work to drive you to the end of yourself, while it invites you to fresh starts and new beginnings. Grace will dash your ill-founded hopes, but never walk away and leave you hopeless. Grace will decimate your little kingdom of one as it introduces you to a much, much better King. Grace will expose to you the extent of your blindness as it gives you eyes to see what you so desperately need to see. Grace will make you sadder than you have ever been, while it gives you greater cause for celebration than you have ever known.

Grace enters your life in a moment and will occupy you for eternity. You simply cannot live a productive life in this broken-down world unless you have a practical grasp of the grace you have been given.

Are you living out of this amazing grace? Does it shape the way you respond to your personal struggles, your relationships, and your work? Does your trust in this grace form how you live with your husband or wife? Does it propel the way you parent your children? Does it give you comfort when friends have disappointed you? Does it give you rest when life is unpredictable and hard? Does it make you bold and give you courage in places where you would have once been timid? Does it make the idols that tempt you less attractive and less powerful? Do you wake up and say, "I don't know what I will face today, but this I do know: I have been given amazing grace to face it right here, right now."

May God help you to understand and rest in the grace that you have been given!

Paul David Tripp is the president of Paul Tripp Ministries, a nonprofit organization, whose mission statement is "Connecting the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life." Paul is an international conference speaker, Pastor (Tenth Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, PA), seminary professor (Redeemer Seminary, Dallas, TX), Executive Director of the Center for Pastoral Life and Care, and the author of many books.

One of the Greatest Blockheads in the World

Seeing the devil is so cunning and subtile, it may seem a paradox, why he will endeavor to frustrate the designs of an omniscient being, or to pretend to counterwork him that is omnipotent, and will not suffer anything but what is for his own glory: seeing that God turns everything he does to the greater and more illustrious advancement of His own honor, and seeing he has experience of it, for so long a time, [that] all his deep laid contrivances have at last come out to his own overthrow, and the event has been directly contrary to his design.

To this I say, that although the devil be exceeding crafty and subtile, yet he is one of the greatest fools and blockheads in the world, as the subtilest of wicked men are. Sin is of such a nature that it strangely infatuates and bewitches persons: makes men deliberately choose eternal torments rather than miss of their pleasure of a few days, and to esteem a little silver and gold above eternal happiness; makes men choose a few minutes pleasure, though eternal flames be joined therewith, rather than not have it—thus do the cunningest of wicked men. Sin has the same effect on the devils, to make them act like fools, and so much the more as it is greater in them than in others.

The devil acts not according to his deliberate judgment, but is driven on to his own inexpressible torment by the fury of sin, malice, revenge and pride; is so entirely under the government of malice, that although he never attempted anything against God but he was disappointed, yet he cannot bear to lie still, and refrain from exerting himself with all his might and subtilty against the interest of holiness; though he, if he considered, might know that it will turn to its advantage.

 —Jonathan Edwards, Miscellanies #48 (paragraphing added)


http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/2592_one_of_the_greatest_blockheads_in_the_world/

Life isn't fair. We all know that.

“Sometimes you step off the kerb, and get knocked down by a bus”.[1] These were the parting words of the former BP chief executive Tony Hayward as he left the company where he had spent his entire career. Commenting on this unfortunate departure, his successor Bob Dudley added, “Whether it is fair or not is not the point. The fact is that life isn’t fair. We all know that”. The grieving families, the local tradesmen, the environmentalists and creation itself know that. They have all been hit by a bus.

There is indeed something very random about life. While we would love to discover a sense of orderliness and coherence, life seems pretty incoherent and chaotic at times. The connection between our actions and the results appear to be missing. At times, we may conclude, like the author of Ecclesiastes, that everything has lost meaning (1:2). This is not a blunt, cynical, response to the crisis created when he recognised life’s vanity and inequity. Rather, it is a valuable contemplation of a mature thinker.

Life isn’t fair. This is a bitter reality in the human experience. The apostle Paul portrays the struggle in this world and in the Christian community in Romans 8. Creation is groaning and so are the people of God. Life is tough. We all know that. But Paul also knows something beyond this common knowledge. Following his reflections on life’s suffering, groaning, and inherent weakness, he adds a subsequent “we know that…”.

“We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (8:28). And here is where the Christian experience and knowledge become distinctive. Like the BP executives we know that life is not fair. But the Christian carries a conviction that such common knowledge of life is superseded by a greater truth of heaven.

In his letters, Paul uses the phrase “we know that” to introduce commonly recognised truth. The idea that “all things work for good” has parallels in philosophical and Jewish literature. Joseph’s story is a classic example that God uses suffering for his overruling purposes. Joseph stepped off the proverbial kerb and was knocked down by his brothers who sold him to merchants on their way to Egypt . Life takes us on surprising trajectories. While Joseph knows that life isn’t fair, he also knows the transformative capacity of a just and purposeful God. While his brothers intended to harm him, God intended it for good: “to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Gen. 50:20).

“All things work together for good” literally refers to “all things”. When life is neither good nor fair, we have a person to turn to. We have a rich body of literature that resonates with, and gives expression to, our laments. We have an advocate who appeals for us and we can make our own appeal to the one who can restore and redeem. And so we know that the painful contractions in life are placed within God’s overarching purpose.

Marijke Hoek, Coordinator Forum for Change

There is Hope

A man jumps of an aero plane and as he was about to pull the string that activates his parachute, he realizes that he had forgotten it. He panics and eventually he accepts his fate. With no other parachuters in site, he closes his eyes waiting for the imminent fall of his flight; for he had already made peace with himself that there is no hope so fighting is futile.

There is a Christian version of this futility. The Christian has put his trust in Christ and the journey at the beginning was sweet. He has waged war against sin and had tasted that the Lord is good. His battle with sin now becomes a struggle and he has fallen so many times that despair creeps in and a sense of futility grips him. He still believes in God, trust the inerrancy of the scripture, and orthodox in doctrine but his failure with sin has paralysed him with a sense of hopelessness like the man who forgot his parachute.

The Christian feels that fighting his sin is pointless as he can never gain victory over it and though he knows that there is power in Christ to help him defeat it, he focuses on his past experiences and how he tried but failed. Even more he feels himself worthless to do anything worthy for Christ and his kingdom and even more he feels that Christ must be disappointed with him. So he resolves to apathy towards the things of God and believe that he cannot come close to God for he is to holy and he has failed to please God evidenced by his failure.

If you feel like this, there is hope. It is awesome to know that the biblical gospel of justification by faith alone answers your failures. Romans 4:5 says that “To the one who does not work but trusts in him who justifies the ungodly, is faith is counted as righteousness”. This great and awesome truth is meant to uphold and destroy hopelessness.

John piper writes the following on this issue. ‘The connection between the sinner and the Savior is trust, not improvement of behavior. That comes later. It's this order that gives hope. "For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law" (Romans 3:28). The basis of this wild and wonderful hope (the ungodly justified) is "Christ for righteousness to everyone who believes" (Romans 10:4, literal translation). Through faith alone God counts the ungodly as righteous because of Christ. "For our sake [God] made to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Let all who are paralyzed by the weight of sin and the powerlessness to change turn in here.

To the fallen saint, who knows the darkness is self-inflicted and feels the futility of looking for hope from a frowning Judge, the Bible gives a shocking example of gutsy guilt. It pictures God's failed prophet beneath a righteous frown, bearing his chastisement with broken-hearted boldness. "Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light" (Micah 7:8-9). This is courageous contrition. Gutsy guilt. The saint has fallen. The darkness of God's indignation is on him. He does not blow it off, but waits. And he throws in the face of his accuser the confidence that his indignant Judge will plead his cause and execute justice for (not against) him. This is the application of justification to the fallen saint. Broken-hearted, gutsy guilt’.

Let us always remember that there is hope, there is hope for the hopeless saint because your righteousness is in heaven and his righteousness makes you perfect. So when you do fall, look not unto your sin but confess them and He will always forgive you and his power will change you. So although the man with no parachute had no hope because his trust was in his parachute, there is hope for the Christian because with God all things are possible.

K.Oni

Picture by Charley Evans

Good to be back

Its been almost three months since I came back home and what a joy it is to be back. I ponder to myself that, why don’t I make coming back home a regular occurrence since I enjoy the company of my dear family very much. The only answer I could think of was of my busyness and expenses. Nevertheless coming back home on Saturday allowed me to see my cousins that I hadn’t seen in years and it was a joyous occasion as one of my cousins turned one.

On Sunday after church we went out for a family meal and the food was delicious. Table talk was good and I took the opportunity to ask my cousin to take some pictures. Though the bill was rather expensive and the drinks ridiculously overcharged, yet the restaurant was nicely decorated and the chairs comfortable. Later that evening, I was taking to watch the Inception and we thought that on a Sunday night the cinema would be almost barren but to our surprise it overflowed with dating teens and packs of cheerful families coming to watch the same film we wanted to eagerly watch. Well I wasn’t so eager but curious. Many had raised a high alarm for the awesomeness and complexity of the film that I thought it beneficial to also see what all the commotion was all about. Inception was rather good and the story line was excellent. Though it is highly unrealistic yet some parts are realistic and indeed many are living in a dream world and shut themselves out of the pr sent reality in order to numb guilt or to get away from the sheer despair of human existence without God.

Then was finally home and discussed the film a while and read a bit of the book I am currently reading and then decided that it was time for an early night.

Throughout all these events, my soul feels not the peace and comfort that I am so accustomed too and I know why. Torn by things which I ought not to be but I know that it is of the devil to attack me and I am not unaware of his devices. I grow saddened by the uncaring nature of many and the evilness that prevails our fallen world. I see the love for the world but not a love for Christ and I notice the hypocriticy of the soul and that within my own too.

K.Oni

The warmest time has past

I think the warmest time has past; Embrace

The cold lines of a heartless walk. Speak

To a silent theme; Release

The dark cringe before it all begins; Taking

Time and time to trial; She

Meant something but a touch; He

Expected to her a reverie stream

I think the warmest time has past; Embrace

Now the cold path of a pitiless walk

K.Oni