Recovering with some essentials and a quote to consider from "Revival"

Yesterday, most of my day was spent with my head on a pillow and my nose in a book.  I think I have some sort of sinus infection.  It involves a splitting headache, which results in much sleeping and using up almost an entire box of tissues.  Hats off to my two oldest daughters who pretty much "held down the fort" while I started out my day sleeping late in the trailer and then trying to parent as much as possible from the "confines" of a couch.

When you are resting and trying to overcome illness it is always good to have some trusty "companions".  In those moments when I was experiencing some relief from my sinuses and headaches, I could actually manage sitting up for a while.  That is when I crocheted some stitches in the baby blanket I'm making for our little guy coming in November.  Then, there would come the point when the headache worsened and the pillow beckoned and it was time to lay down and write in my prayer journal or read from the pages of this amazing book.  Martyn Lloyd-Jones really hits the nail on the head with so many of the issues that churches were and are dealing with.  Though these sermons were given in 1959, much of what he says is relevant today and resonates with what I have experienced and been exposed to on a minor scale and to some degree in my own life.  Perhaps we have all fallen prey to majoring on the minors at some point in our Christian walk?  I love that he stresses that the issues in the church begin with each of us as individuals and our own personal walk with the Lord.  That, after all, is certainly the place to start.  May he give us grace and wisdom to put first things first.

The following quote is a little lengthy, but I hope that you take away some insight and that considering it will be worthwhile and helpful to you as you seek to serve God in the church family he has placed you in.


"If we lack a balance in the scriptural proportion of doctrines we shall find ourselves becoming dry and arid and useless.  As the Apostle Paul puts it, "Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth - builds up (1 Cor. 8:1).  And there is nothing in which this is more likely to take place than in a lack of balance with respect to doctrines - in an excessive emphasis on certain aspects of truth, so that they monopolise the whole of our attention.

This is not just my opinion.  Read the history of the Church and you will find that invariably this error has led to that result.  Read the New Testament, was that not the trouble with which the Apostle deals in Romans 14?  There were certain people who were saying that nothing mattered but this question of eating meats.  They were talking about it day and night, whenever you met them they brought it into the conversation.  This was the thing.  They were dividing the church and they were condemning one another.  But look here, says Paul, that is not the the Kingdom of God!  'The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost (Rom. 14:15).

Here then, is something of which we must always be aware.  This is the subtle temptation that the Devil always brings to those who are alive and alert spiritually, and rightly concerned about doctrine.  I have no hesitation in asserting that there are large numbers of people who have been so over-concerned with the question of prophecy that they themselves have become dry and useless.  And there are churches of which that is true.  The whole of their time is spent upon prophecy.  Whenever you meet them the first thing they talk about is 'Have you seen this item in the news?  Don't you see that that is a fulfilment...?'  And the whole time they are occupied with times and seasons.  Prophecy absorbs the whole of their attention.  They very rarely talk to you about the Lord Jesus Christ.  They rarely tell you about the experiences they have had with him.  They do not give you the impression that they are holy, sanctified people.  No, they are just experts on the times and seasons...

...Now these are all ways of quenching the Spirit.  You must not exalt to the primary and the central position matters which belong to the periphery.  I ask you, therefore, to examine yourself with regard to your interest in doctrine.  Do your doctrines conceal the Persons?  Are you maintaining a balance and a right and a due proportion?  What is the first thing you talk about when you meet people?  Do you give them the impression that you are a man (or woman) who has one idea and lives for one doctrine only, or do you give the impression that you know God and the Lord Jesus Christ, and are having business and transactions with them?  Do you give an impression that there is love in you heart, the love of God that is drawing people to him, and making them anxious to know him even as you know him?  Oh, there is nothing so tragic as this foolish lack of balance.  The history of the Church, the history of revivals, shows so clearly that when people go off at tangents, as it were, and are monopolised by one thing, the Spirit is always quenched and the work is always hindered.  Let us pray for balance.  Let us pray for sanity.  We have not received 'the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind'. (2 Tim. 1:7)  Discipline, balance, order.  Let us, therefore examine ourselves as we look at these things...

...What is fatal is to be contentious, to develop a party spirit, to put up labels, and to be more concerned about the label than about the Lord Jesus Christ himself.  That is contentiousness, like the man who always brings the same matter up the moment you meet him.  It does not matter what you say about the glory of God and Christ's blood, he will say, 'Ah, but you have not emphasised this,'-something that he is particularly interested in, and which is not absolutely essential to salvation.  Contentiousness.

We must always be careful about these things.  It is because we are concerned about the truth that the Devil, in order to wreck it all, will press us beyond measure, and bring us into this position where we are quenching the Spirit.  I could add pettiness and quarrelling, self-importance.  You know the Christian Church is riddled with this sort of thing.  And how can you expect the blessing of God upon it?  I know churches, little churches, struggling to keep going, but the whole situation is ruined by smallness, jealousy and envy, and self-importance.  Then I can add to that triviality and busyness, instead of holiness and being concerned to be ready to be used of God."

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Shouldn't that be our main concern?  To live holy lives, always seeking to serve and honor the God who has brought us together into one family by his the shed blood of his Son.  And to love one another as he has loved us...

"By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."  
John 13:35