Right now, as I write this, I am sitting in a big rocker on the front porch enjoying the morning sunshine. One of my sons is in the driveway tinkering with his car, and another is in the vegetable garden, nailing together the box for a raised garden bed. I can hear the next-door neighbor, too, using some kind of power tool outside in his yard. The winters are long here—from October through April—so no one wants to waste a moment of the warmer temps and brighter skies. There will be a few Sundays over the summer when there will be no Sunday School at my church because too many teachers and too many children are gone. Yukon families love their summer weekend camping trips! I’m not saying these frequent church absences are good—they're not—but they are what they are. This it the rhythm of Yukon life: eight months stuck indoors, and then four months of freedom in the glorious landscape that surrounds us.
What is the rhythm of your life? Five workdays and then the weekend? Nine or ten months of school and then summer vacation? Or maybe every day is different and it seems like there is no rhythm at all. Still, there are probably patterns to your life, even if you don’t feel them—patterns of work, play, and rest, of wake time and sleep.
And looking beyond—or deeper—than your daily physical life, do you see a rhythm to your spiritual life? Sinclair Ferguson says “the rhythm of the Christian’s life is always determined by the principle that when the revelation of God in His glory is grasped by faith, the response is to return all glory to God.” [1] Theology should always result in doxology; the study of God should always lead to praise.
When our lives and our days are busy, we tend to focus on getting tasks done. We have schedules and to-do lists, and we center everything around them. Is it any wonder, then, that when we think about how to apply the truths we learn about God, our first thoughts are practical ones: “What should I do? How can I serve? What duties should I add to my to-do list?”
This not how it ought to be. This is not—or shouldn't be—the rhythm of the Christian life. Sure, what we do is important, but our first response to knowledge of God and his ways should not be more action, but more praise. Truth, then worship, and then—maybe—action. Maybe, because sometimes an adoring heart is enough.
But always, hearts that sing go before hands that do. Right before his plea for believers to live transformed lives in service to God, the apostle Paul wrote a song of praise:
But always, hearts that sing go before hands that do. Right before his plea for believers to live transformed lives in service to God, the apostle Paul wrote a song of praise:
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
“For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
“Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:33-36)
Paul urges his readers to pour out their lives in obedience to God because they have seen the glory of God through his work of salvation. They have just read of his "unsearchable judgments" and inscrutable ways." Surely their hearts, like Paul's, are already bursting with praise! “To him be glory forever” is the reason for “I appeal to you . . . to present your bodies as a living sacrifice (Romans 11:33-12:2).” Keeping the rhythm, Paul puts a song of praise before the call to service.
What is the rhythm of your Christian life? Are you regularly learning about God? Do you see his acts in creation, providence, and salvation, and glimpse his goodness? And when you do, are you taking time to praise him in return? Are you stopping to rejoice in his goodness? Not because it’s the next thing on your list of things to do, but because it’s what comes naturally. (Or perhaps, since we're talking about spiritual things, we should say it's what comes supernaturally.) Are you grasping God in his glory by faith and then returning all glory to him? Is this the rhythm of your life?
[1] Beeke, Joel R., Living for God’s Glory: An Introduction to Calvinism (Orlando,
Florida: Reformation Trust Publishing 2008), 388.
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