There is a Fount: Spasmodic Meditations

I want to compose a post that will capture the beauty of the gospel in a simple click of your mouse. I want to pour out these verbless groans echoing within my spirit so you will come to know Jesus more deeply. What will likely result is a scattered collection of fragments which add up to my present 2am state.

First off, I hope you listen to the song shared above. Foreknown has captured the richness of the gospel so eloquently in his song The Never Haves. The first dozen times I heard it, it almost brought tears to my eyes. Still does. I don’t walk around wailing, though I wish I did. Jesus was a Man of Sorrows on my behalf. He wept that I may rejoice.

In fact, He did everything on our behalf.

The more I grow, the more I learn just how much of me was redeemed in the blood of Christ. Everything was. All of me. Every ounce of doubt dwelling in my bones was redeemed by Jesus’ perfect trust. Every disobedient act of mine is countered and covered by the perfect and complete obedience of Christ. And so on.

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

I’m coming to slowly understand why the gospel is something believers never outgrow. I once tweeted,

the Gospel will cease to amaze me the day I stop sinning.

I still believe this. Whenever I’m still and reflect on Jesus Christ; who He is and what He has done for me, it sinks in. The weight of the glorious gospel. That I am an undeserving sinner and Jesus – God – willingly came down as a human and died. On my behalf. To take my place–the place of a sinner.

Pastor Eric Parks pointed something out this morning in church: What do you call a person who is very arrogant and prideful? Full of themselves. Yet what does Paul tell us about Jesus in Philippians 2? He emptied Himself. This is the God who created the universe humbling Himself to the point of death–even death on a cross. The most painful form of death the Romans could conjure up. They even had to create a new word to capture the extent of this pain: excruciating (ex= “out of”, crux=“the cross”).

The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day;
And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.
Washed all my sins away, washed all my sins away;
And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.

Today one of my good friends told me he can see the spiritual world. It’s straight out of 2 Kings 6. The prophet Elisha and his servant Gehazi wake up and find themselves in a city surrounded by a huge army. Gehazi is scared because his faith is weak. Elisha prays that the Lord will open Gehazi’s eyes. God does, and Gehazi is suddenly able to see chariots of fire all around them.

This is what happened to my friend! I haven’t seen him in a year, and we sat down tonight and he told me this story: One day, he felt oppressed by evil spirits. He asked God to be able to see them. And ever since the summer, he has! That’s the hyper-condensed version anyway.

You may not believe in that stuff. I do.

I think we need to be much more aware of the spiritual world in which we dwell. My friend told me that he not only sees dark figures, but light ones too. And that when he worships the Lord, they gather around and join him in praising the Lord. I can only imagine what this would be like. I can only speculate as to how much more real God would become to me if this were my gift.

Regardless of what we can or cannot see, I think it’s time we believers began living as if the spiritual world exists. If we believe the Bible is true, then there is a lot we are conveniently overlooking.

I continue sitting here, slamming away at my poor old keyboard, trying to stuff the ocean of the gospel into this teaspoon of a poem. The merciless clock marches on and I’m growing tired.

While I’m thinking of it, know this: When I write, it’s a therapeutic form of reflective journaling for me. My deep spiritual musings come forth when I write and my fingertips tiptoe ahead of me through the forest of understanding. I sometimes get the impression that people who know me primarily through the internet have elevated me to be some spiritual beacon of perfected spirituality, spooning out oracles of God’s truth from the mountain. I wish it were so, but it is not. In real life, I enjoy eating, coarse joking, and being unsophisticated. I am a sinner in need of grace just as much as you, you, you, and you…with the exception of my grandma. Who hasn’t sinned since 1972.

I hope that some nugget hidden in this haphazard journey of mixed metaphors and biblical mumbo jumbo was juicy enough for you to sink your teeth into. I really pray that God uses my blog as a means of reaching out to those who don’t know the love of Christ, as well as an encouragement to those who do.

E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.
Then in a nobler, sweeter song, I’ll sing Thy power to save,
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.
-William Cowper

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