Thank You for the Wringer, Lord

by Susan Sampson

Lord, where do I begin?  Thank you for loving me perfectly, knowing completely the state of my heart.  Thank you, Jesus, for clothing me with your garments of salvation and covering me with your robe of righteousness (Is. 61).  Thank you, Father, for declaring me righteous and holy because of the shed blood of Jesus Christ.  Thank you that instead of the wrath I deserve for my idolatry, you have freely bestowed mercy upon me out of your great love and now you look on me in Christ.  “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3).

Thank you for the wringer, Lord.  I confess my complaining spirit.  I don’t like the wringer.  But you know best.  My son doesn’t like his allergy shots, but the doctor knows best.  You know the idols my heart continues to cling to.  Fear of man, desiring the approval and acceptance of man—wanting others to think I’m good—selfishness, desiring perfection.  Thank you for the grace you have given me enabling me to see these sins.  Without the wringer, I would not even notice all that I cling to that is not Christ.  Thank you Lord for using the wringer to show me my sin as you see it.  It was Job who said after all the suffering that you allowed, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6). 

Thank you for the wringer, Lord.  Please use the wringer to cut off everything my heart remains attached to!  I see that I need heart surgery.  Your word commands us to “circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn” (Deut. 10:16).  Thank you, Father, that as we walk forward by faith working out our salvation with fear and trembling, you will accomplish this work in us.  Lord, I thank you for your promise in Deuteronomy 30:6 that says, “And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.”

So how badly do we want the Lord to change our hearts?  Enough to go through the wringer?  How badly do we want to be holy as God is holy? How badly do we want to love our husbands?  The title of our current study is Falling in Love Again with Your Husband.  Our goal is to love the Lord with all our heart and then our husbands!  I can’t love my husband if I’m busy loving my idols.  Thank you, Lord, for the wringer.

This week I believe the Lord showed me how I still think worry & fear are just parts of who I am, just part of my personality.  This is a lie I’m believing.  Fear and worry are sins.  R.C. Sproul called sin “cosmic treason” in his book “The Holiness of God.”  My fear and worry nailed Christ to the cross.  Praise be to God Most High for His glorious gift of the gospel!  “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).  

My dear sisters, let us return to the Lord.  Let us believe the glorious truth of the gospel and confess our sin, confess our idolatry and turn in repentance and faith to the Lord, our Redeemer!  May the Lord have mercy on us because He is merciful and give us eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to obey the truth of His word.

THIS WEEK – Let us STOP & truly LISTEN to what the Lord is saying to us through our husbands and may God’s grace move us to respond in humble adoration and obedience.  Praise God for our husbands!!

Listen to God’s promise to us –

“I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them. 5 I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall blossom like the lily; he shall take root like the trees of Lebanon; 6 his shoots shall spread out; his beauty shall be like the olive, and his fragrance like Lebanon. 7 They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow; they shall flourish like the grain; they shall blossom like the vine; their fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon” (Hosea 14:4-7).

Praise be to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

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