Leaving Beyond – Grounded In Scripture

Written by: April J. Buchanan

To what, O soul, do you find beautiful? Christ? And how have you counseled yourself in who He is? Have you imagined Him as your heart desires and contented yourself according to doctrines and promises that lead you away from that most wonderful Lord? Is His Word beautiful, and are His promises better than what your heart has devised? Have you found Him wonderful? Has the oppression without exposed your heart as loving a Christ of your own making, a Christ you so quickly abandon in times of trouble?

Has your heart delighted in delusion and worked to uphold that which you have claimed to be true, and yet it is most evident that what you have claimed about Him is your own sinful heart’s delusions? Oh, how deceitful is the heart of man, which knows not that true and gracious work within. Has the heart drunk of its own bitterness, and the Christ which it has come to profess is not perfect and His work incomplete, so that this heart must add its own merit through suffering in order to earn its own way?

What doctrine delights the soul? That derived from its own secret and wicked chambers and dressed in spiritual rags that bear a semblance of being white until set against that Word which reveals its cheap imitation? Has that which is without or within governed and led the heart astray by its own willingness?

Oh Christ. Christ. What Christ has delighted the soul? Is He the God of Scripture or that which has been imagined in the mind of man?

Sweet counsel, bitter counsel of the soul. Meditations of imagination to which that spiritual and unbiblical heart delights. And yet there is Christ, beautiful and wonderful to that soul for which no other may contend.

Yet the Lord does not leave His people to the counsel of their own hearts. He brings them again and again to Himself, revealing what is false and establishing what is true, until the soul learns to rest not in what it has imagined, but in Christ as He has revealed Himself.

No matter how wicked and oppressive those things are externally, or how deep the wounds to the afflicted soul, the strength and comfort, the hope and assurance that the saint has in Christ cannot be overthrown. That man who has set his hope upon Christ and knows Him for who He truly is has not a heart defeated by what he endures, but a confidence that though he may be weak, he is strengthened by that gracious work within. He sets his mind upon the truth of who God is, and once again he is encouraged.

That man whose God is the God of Scripture, upon whom he has fixed every hope and assurance, may find strength and encouragement no matter what he endures. He speaks not to his own heart false hope, false assurances, false promises, and then claims them as his own, determining that if his heart has admired such things then they must have been placed there by God, and thus his heart leads him off into ruin while doing so in God’s name.

Oh no. Bitter and wicked heart. That heart which delights in misery to its own pleasure or embraces desires that delude the soul. That saint who has learned how to speak to his own heart does so according to the truth of who God is and what He has said as He meant it in His Word. That saint fears not that what he has said God would do will make him a liar and deceiver. No, that saint is not speaking imaginations of his own heart. He has counseled his heart according to God’s Word and therein finds every promise to be true.

The burden is not on him to see it come to pass. That is for God. He is to believe what the Lord has said, walk in it, and be comforted that no matter what he may endure in life, he has Christ, whom he shall find to be greater than every earthly delight.

Christ when he rises. Christ when he labors. Christ when he errs and repents. Christ when he struggles. Christ in the day. Christ in the night. Christ to lead him home.

For as many reasons as his heart finds to be dissatisfied, frustrated, tormented, boastful, proud, or arrogant, so much the more does he find Christ beautiful, and in his heart that which remains is placed under the authority and sanctifying power of the Word and work of the Spirit.

He submits himself to the Word, seeking that beautiful work within whereby he is sanctified and whereby he beholds the beauty and glory of Christ, so that when he hears any word spoken contrary to the truth, or when his own heart entertains that which is contrary, he may immediately resist and rebuke every contrary thought and hold firm to the truth, setting his heart and mind thereupon.

Christ. He has Christ.