Renew

Two Ways We Get Life Wrong

2012-02-14T07:03:00.001-08:00

The 'Parable of the Prodigal Son' found in Luke 15 is really the story of two lost sons. The younger son was estranged from the father by breaking the rules. The older son was estranged from the father by keeping them. Both were seeking to live life on their own terms, apart from a loving relationship with the father. Tim Chester, from the Crowded House, explains how this dynamic works.

There are two ways we get life wrong.

1. We want to be our own Lord instead of Jesus

In other words, I replace Jesus as Lord with Tim as Lord. I run my life my way. I want to be in charge. That often leads to behaviour that by moral standards is bad: ‘sex and drugs and rock-n-roll’. We do not think Jesus is enough. We do not think the rule of Jesus is the good life. So we replace Jesus with others things.But there is a second way we can get life wrong.

2. We want to be our own Saviour instead of Jesus

In other words, I replace Jesus as Saviour with Tim as saviour. I want to save myself by doing good things or I want to save other people by straightening out their lives or I want to save the world through good causes.Now, here’s the tricky thing: This way of getting life wrong often leads to behaviour that by moral standards is good behaviour. People who are trying to be their own saviour are going to live moral lives. Or they are going to be good husbands and wives and parents because they want to rescue their family. Or they are going to be involved in good causes, raising money for the poor or campaigning for justice or getting involved in the environmental issues.Those are all commendable things to do. So replacing Jesus as Saviour can look like a good life. They will be people in your congregation who are doing this and you will think they are doing great.But its fruit will eventually become apparent. It will lead to pride or frustration or stress or anxiety or manipulation. Think, for example, about a parent who is trying to save or sort out their children and who thinks it all depends on them. They might be manipulative or domineering as they attempt to control and protect their children. Or they might be bitter about their children’s behaviour or weighed down with stress.

The people who are rejecting Jesus as Lord will usually be easy to spot. But be on the look out for people who are rejecting Jesus as Saviour. I can think of people who have come to us highly recommended, but whose hard work turned out to be driven by deep insecurities. Gently and firmly we have taught them the good news of justification and adoption. I tell people who are rejecting Jesus as Lord to repent, find joy in Christ and change their ways. I tell people who are rejecting Jesus as Saviour to do … nothing. Stop. Listen. ‘It is finished.’ There is nothing left to do. You have a heavenly Father who loves you and cares for you.And look out for saviour-tendencies in your own heart. Many of us are rejecting the lordship of Jesus in some areas of our lives while trying to be a saviour in other areas. Here is the good news: Jesus is Lord and Saviour. And he is better Lord than you and a better Saviour than you.

A Bonhoeffer Moment

2012-02-10T13:08:00.001-08:00

In case you missed this or haven't seen it yet, you really owe it to yourself to watch this video. Eric's talk begins 35 mins in (on the C-SPAN video below) and ends with him leading the 3,500 assembled (including the President, Vice President, and Secretary of State) in singing “Amazing Grace”. This may be the most important 30 minutes you spend today.

As Eric says, this is a Bonhoeffer moment. As Christians, we need to lovingly, yet with full conviction stand for religious liberty, the freedom of conscience, traditional marriage, and the protection of all human life.

Here are two first steps. First, get informed and add your voice to the the more than500,000 people who have read and signed the Manhattan Declaration. And then share it with others on Facebook, Twitter, and by email.

Second, please take 60 seconds and sign this petition to the President and let him know that you want him to stand for religious liberty.

Chuck Colson and Timothy George on this issue in Christianity Today.

Read Eric Metaxas' New York Times bestselling book on Bonhoeffer:

The “Life-Fire” of God’s Word

2012-01-24T08:02:00.000-08:00

In 1854, at the age of twenty and just four years after his conversion, Charles H. Spurgeon became pastor of London’s New Park Street Church. His ministry grew so much that the 6,000-seat Metropolitan Tabernacle was built to accommodate the congregation. In “The Mustard Seed: A Sermon for the Sabbath-School Teacher” he spoke of the power of the gospel, and his words extende to the whole of Scripture.

The human can never rival the divine, for it lacks the life-fire. It is better to preach five words of God’s Word than five million words of man’s wisdom. Men’s words may seem to be the wiser and more attractive, but there is no heavenly life in them. Within God’s Word, however simple it may be, there dwells an omnipotence like that of God, from whose lips it came.

The Book that Would Understand Me

2012-01-21T17:14:00.000-08:00

From Princeton philosopher Emile Cailliet (in Eternity Magazine, July 1974):

I was born in a small village of France and received an education that was naturalistic to the core. This could possibly have had a great deal to do with the fact that I did not even see a Bible before I reached the age of twenty-three.

To say that this naturalistically inspired education proved of little help through front-line experiences as a lad of twenty in World War I would amount to quite an understatement. When your own buddy - at the time speaking to you of his mother - dies standing in front of you, a bullet in his chest, what use is the sophistry of naturalism? Was there a meaning to it all?

One night a bullet got me, too. An American field ambulance crew saved my life and later the use of a badly shattered arm was restored. After a nine-month stay at the hospital, I was discharged and resumed graduate work.

During my stay at the American hospital, I had married a Scotch-Irish girl whom I had met in Germany on Christmas Eve the year before the war had broken out. She was, and has always remained, a deeply evangelical person. I am ashamed to confess that she must have been hurt to the very core of her being as I made it clear that religion would be taboo in our home. Little did I realize at the time that a militant attitude often betrays an inner turmoil.

I had returned to my books, but they were no longer the same books. Neither was my motivation the same motivation. Reading in literature and philosophy, I found myself probing in depth for meaning. During long night watches in the foxholes, I had in a strange way been longing - I must say it, however queer it may sound - for a book that would understand me.

But I knew of no such book. Now I would in secret prepare one for my own private use. And so, as I went on reading for my courses I would file passages that would speak to my condition, then carefully copy them in a leatherbound pocket book I would always carry with me. The quotations, which I numbered in red ink for easier reference, would mead me as it were from fear and anguish, through a variety of intervening stages, to supreme utterances of release and jubilation.

The day came when I put the finishing touch to "the book that would understand me," speak to my condition, and help me through life's happenings. A beautiful, sunny day it was. I went out, sat under a tree, and opened my precious anthology. As I went on reading, however, a growing disappointment came over me. Instead of speaking to my condition, the various passages reminded me of their context, of the circumstances of my labor over their selection.

Then I knew that the whole undertaking would not work, simply because it was of my own making. It carried no strength of persuasion. In a dejected mood, I put the little book back in my pocket.

At that very moment, my wife - who, incidentally, knew nothing of the project on which I had been working - appeared at the gate of the garden, pushing the baby carriage.

It had been a hot afternoon. She had followed the main boulevard only to find it too crowded. So she had turned to a side street which she could not name because we had only recently arrived in town. The cobblestones had shaken the carriage so badly that she had pondered what to do. Whereupon, having spotted a patch of grass beyond a small archway, she had gone in with the baby for a period of rest.

It turned out that the patch of grass led to an outside stone staircase which she had climbed without quite realizing what she was doing. At the top, she had seen a long room, door wide open. So she entered.

At the further end, a white-haired gentleman worked at a desk. He had not become aware of her presence. Looking around, she noticed the carving of a cross. Thus she suddenly realized that this office was a part of a church building - of a Huguenot church edifice hidden away as they all are, even long after the danger of persecution has passed. The venerable-looking gentleman was the pastor.

She walked to his desk and heard herself say, "Have you a Bible in French?"

He smiled and handed over to her a copy, which she eagerly took from his hand; then she walked out with a mixed feeling of both joy and guilt.

As she now stood in front of me, she meant to apologize, but I was no longer listening to her.

"A Bible, you say? Where is it? Show me. I have never seen one before!"

She complied. I literally grabbed the book and rush to my study with it. I opened and 'chanced' upon the Beatitudes! I read, and read, and read - now aloud with an indescribable warmth surging within. I could not find words to express my awe and wonder. And suddenly the realization dawned upon me: this was the book that would understand me!

I continued to read deeply into the night, mostly from the Gospels. And lo and behold, as I looked through them, the One of whom they spoke, the One who spoke and acted in them became alive to me.

The providential circumstances amid which the book had found me now made it clear that while it seemed absurd to speak of a book understanding a man, this could be said of the Bible because its pages were animated by the presence of the living God and the power of his mighty acts. To this God I prayed that night, and the God who answered was the same God of whom it was spoken in the book.

Fewer Meetings, More Parties

2012-01-13T07:16:00.000-08:00

This past weekend we were invited to one party (a going away party for a friend) and threw another (Emily's 13th birthday party). Both were a blast and reminded me that we "should do this more often." Then I read the following today regarding Jesus' calling of Levi, the tax collector and the party that ensued.

"We seem to have forgotten an important dimension of what Christianity is all about: the kingdom of God is a party. Our Jesus was and is the Lord of the party" (Tony Campolo).

Probably the main thing my friends and I would miss if our church didn't exist would be our community parties! I think this is born from a conviction that parties can be a sign of the kingdom if they deliberately include those on the outside, those considered unacceptable by others. Today's story once again powerfully demonstrates Jesus' focus on people on the margins, with parties as a key element. In Jesus' day tax officials were extortionists, Roman collaborators, regarded as ritually unclean by the Pharisees. Still, Jesus chose to break into their world, just as he did with the man with leprosy, by calling Levi to follow him.

Jesus didn't merely call people like tax collectors to follow him; he also sat down to meals with them (29). Eating together was a sign of acceptance, and the Pharisees had strict rules about table fellowship as an indication of who were true Israelites. Jesus, however, rewrote their criteria, putting recognition of need and repentance at the heart of the matter. When they used John the Baptist as an example of religious austerity, Jesus again highlighted the party theme, a wedding feast, as a sign that a new age had come with celebration central to this. He wasn't saying that fasting was a bad thing (See Matt. 4:2; 6:16-18), but that the need was over for the type of fasting in Judaism that was a lament that God's kingdom had not yet come.

Meals feature a lot in Luke's Gospel as a radical sign of the kingdom, yet in today's church we've mostly reduced this to invitations to people like ourselves. Maybe we should have fewer meetings and more parties!

"Missions Exists because Worship Doesn't" by John Piper

2012-01-12T09:14:00.000-08:00

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the Church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.

Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions. It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white hot enjoyment of God’s glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God. “The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad!” (Ps 97:1). “Let the peoples praise thee, O God; let all the peoples praise thee! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy!” (Ps 67:3-4).

But worship is also the fuel of missions. Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you don’t cherish. Missionaries will never call out, “Let the nations be glad!” who cannot say from the heart, “I rejoice in the Lord…I will be glad and exult in thee, I will sing praise to thy name, O Most High” (Ps 104:34, 9:2). Missions begins and ends in worship.

–John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Missions, 2nd Ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993/2003), 17.

I Use to Be Skinny

2012-01-11T07:30:00.000-08:00

I'm overweight. For many who know me this will be a surprise--especially for those who knew me in high school and college. I use to be as skinny as my son, Eli. Now, the proverbial "6 pounds you gain between Thanksgiving and New Year's" have become 10. The Rubicon came last night when my wife, Heather, felt my belly and said with a shock, "What is that?!"

Something must be done.

This may seem like a very hard turn, but all this reminded me of an article I read years ago by David Wells in which he asserted that we have settled for a "skinny God." We diminish God's glory, he says. We are suspicious and ungrateful for his goodness. We would rather make ourselves the center of attention than have God be the focus of our lives. In the process, Wells points out, we substitute our importance for his greatness. Our self-obsession results in the shrinking of our souls. Diminishing God diminishes us.

Perhaps I should be less concerned about my expanding waistline and more interested in expanding my soul--spend less time gazing at my navel and more time gazing at God.

Click here to read the entire David Wells article "On My Mind: The Skinny God."

The Best Christmas Letter I Received This Year

2011-12-31T12:22:00.000-08:00

Like most people I receive a host of Christmas cards and letters every year. One of our favorite traditions is going through them on Christmas morning. Of all the letters I've received, this one stands out. With Lowell's permission I share it with you:

In just two days it will be December 25th, what most think of as the end of the season. But me, I see it as the “middle child” in our trilogy of American holidays. We started back on Thanksgiving, preparing for the renewal that comes at the start of the New Year. The thing is, January 1st can often be a disappointment. Not because your goals or resolutions were unrealistic, but because you didn’t properly prepare yourself spiritually. That’s the process we’re going through. So now that you cleared away the unnecessary distractions in your life on Thanksgiving (both material and otherwise) Christmas is the time to stop and think about what you really have and what it is you are truly grateful for. This Christmas, I say that instead of spending the day saying, “Merry Christmas,” maybe it’s time we started to instead say, “Thank you.”

Christmas is a time for gratitude. Think about just how blessed you are, and not just for your friends and family and whatever may be under the tree. Think bigger. Think deeper. Think of the Christ child and what he grew up to do. What did he give up for you? What are you willing to give up for others? This is a time for service. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Be a shelter for someone else. Help shoulder a burden and lighten someone’s load. You, me…we all deserve a second chance, and that clean slate comes in the form of God’s redemption. It’s the one gift we can all receive whenever we’re ready to accept it. His redemption is always there for you, and not just on December 25th.

Be humble, get down on your knees and help your family rise up by getting down on their knees with you. Christmas is a glorious time of year and perhaps the best time to remember the saying that goes, “All that is not given is lost.” Show your gratitude through deeds and not just words. Reflect on who you really are and what you really have. And through it all, be grateful that you’re here to experience it and know that the path towards redeeming your own life runs through the lives of others who also need help. Then and only then can you be ready for what lies ahead in the New Year. What a year it’s going to be!

May God bless you always, and I wish for you and yours a very Merry Christmas.

Regards,

Lowell S. Dunn II

Signs You Haven't Experienced Gospel Wakefulness

2011-11-23T10:00:00.001-08:00

From Jared Wilson's new book, Gospel Wakefulness, here are 11 signs (pgs 72-73) you haven't experienced gospel wakefulness...

1. The gospel doesn't interest you--or it does, but not as much as other religious subjects.
2. You take nearly everything personally.
3. You frequently worry about what other people think.
4. You treat inconveniences like minor (or major) tragedies.
5. You are impatient with people.
6. In general, you have trouble seeing the fruit of the Spirit in your life (Gal 5:22-23).
7. The Word of God holds little interest.
8. You have great difficulty forgiving.
9. You are told frequently by a spouse, close friend, or other family members that you are too "clingy" or too controlling.
10. You think someone besides yourself is the worst sinner you know.
11. The idea of gospel centrality makes no sense to you.

Why I Signed the Manhattan Declaration

2011-11-04T11:39:00.000-07:00

Two years ago, the Manhattan Declaration was released to the public at the National Press Club. The Declaration is a call of Christian conscience issued by Catholic, Orthodox Christian, and Protestant leaders to affirm support of "the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and religious liberty". The drafting committee includes evangelical leader Charles Colson, Princeton University law professor Robert P. George and Beeson Divinity School dean Timothy George. Close to a half a million people have signed the declaration including such leaders as James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Chuck Swindoll, Al Mohler, Ligon Duncan, Harry Reeder, Tim Keller, and Bryan Chapell.

R. C. Sproul, Alister Begg, Michael Horton and others refused to sign the document because of its ecumenical overtones. The document identifies Catholics and Orthodox (as well as Protestants) as "Christian" which, they maintain, muddles the distinctives of the Biblical gospel, namely, justification by grace through faith alone. Sproul asks, "How could I sign something that confuses the gospel and obscures the very definition of who is and who is not a Christian?"

The signers of this document confess the faith of the ancient creeds of the church. I would contend that on this we can agree and take clear stands against moral evils of our day. I do so without compromising my convictions as an evangelical Presbyterian. I uphold the Westminster Confession of Faith as containing the system of doctrine taught in Scripture. Though this puts me at theological odds with Catholics and Orthodox believers on crucial matters of faith, it does not mean that we don't have much in common, and can take a common stand for life, marriage and liberty. In fact, on these issues, I will stand with Jewish and Muslim believers as well.

It is important to note what the Manhattan Declaration is and is not. It is not a wide-ranging theological document that subverts confessional integrity. It does not attempt to establish common ground on vast theological terrain. It does not seek to bridge the divide between Roman Catholics and evangelicals on the doctrine of justification. It is not a manifesto for united political action. It is a statement of urgent concern and common conscience on these three issues--the sanctity of human life, the integrity of traditional marriage, and the defense of religious liberty.

I signed the Manhattan Declaration because I agree with its core assertion:

Because the sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage as a union of husband and wife and the freedom of conscience and religion are foundational principles of justice and the common good, we are compelled by our Christian faith to speak and act in their defense. In this declaration we affirm: 1) the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every human being as a creature fashioned in the very image of God, possessing inherent rights of equal dignity and life; 2) marriage as a conjugal union of man and woman, ordained by God from the creation, and historically understood by believers and non-believers alike, to be the most basic institution in society and; 3) religious liberty, which is grounded in the character of God, the example of Christ, and the inherent freedom and dignity of human beings created in the divine image.

I urge you to read the Manhattan Declaration and if you can sign it in good conscience, please do so. Pray about how you can take a stand for the sanctity of human life, the honor of traditional marriage, and the defense of religious liberty and take action.

What Suffering Have I Caused

2011-10-13T10:29:00.000-07:00

When dealing with suffering, we are quick to find fault in others--our parents, our spouse, society, God? To be sure much of our suffering finds its source elsewhere. Job is the prime example of one who suffered not because of his own sin, but as a ploy of Satan to test his fidelity to God. Job's supposed friends are a great example of what not to do when someone is grieving. We should be very to slow to jump to conclusion about the suffering of others.

It can be, on the other hand, very beneficial to examine ourselves as a source of suffering--our own and the suffering of others. What suffering have I caused? The middle portion of the 12 step program walks participants through an "owning up to the wrongs I've done" process.

Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself.
Admit to God, to yourself, and to another human being the exact nature of your wrongs.
Be entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Humbly ask Him to remove your shortcomings.

Where do I begin this process? How do I inventory my wrongs? I could rehearse my history and recount wrongs chronologically. (Do I have enough time to honestly do this?) I can think through my relationships moving out in concentric circles--my wife, my kids, my close friends, associates, neighbors, etc.

For centuries, Christians have used the moral law of God as the guide to take an inventory of their wrongs. I believe there is still no better standard.

An important note: In approaching the law, I need to keep the gospel clearly in view. The Decalogue begins: I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. In other words, I don't obey God to obtain my freedom, I obey because he has granted it. I don't obey God in order to gain his favor, I obey him because he has given it to me. As I go through this list, I need to keep God's grace firmly in mind. As Robert Murray McCheyne said, "For every look at your sin take ten looks at the Savior." With that in mind, here are my questions based on the 10 commandments:

Do I give God his rightful place in my life? Do I find my ultimate joy and satisfaction in him? Am I seeking his glory or my own or another's?
What do I worship truly? What do I value above all else in my heart? How is this shown in my use of time, money, my thought life?
Is my worship of God guided by his word? Do I depend on any unscriptural aids in worship? Am I superstitious?
Do I recognize God's right to rule over me? Do I recognize that I am his?
Am I reverent toward God, his name, titles, attributes, word, and works? Do I make light of him? Am I flippant toward him? Do I presume upon his grace?
Do I set aside time to meet with God? Do I observe a day of rest, set aside from my regular routine to be refreshed by God's grace?
Do I do right by people? Do I give honor and respect to others?
Do I do all I can to preserve and enhance the lives of others? Have I caused physical or emotional harm to others?
Have I remained chaste (sexually decent and modest) in heart, speech, and behavior? Have I viewed or listened to any unchaste images, actions, or words?
Have I managed well my own property and wealth? Have I furthered the wealth of others? Have I hindered the prosperity of my neighbor?
Have I promoted truth between people? Have I upheld their good name? Especially in testimony have I told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Have I caused injury with my tongue?
Have I been content with my condition? Have I envied the property or position of others? Have I been grieved at their good? Do I have any inordinate desires?

The next couple of steps help complete the process (which of course will not end until glory!):

Make a list of all persons you have harmed, and be willing to make amends to them all.
Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Continue to take personal inventory and when you are wrong promptly admit it.

Why Do God's People Suffer?

2011-10-13T08:37:00.000-07:00

Although there will always be nagging questions about suffering and the problem of evil on a philosophical level (Why does God permit evil?) and a personal level (Why did God permit this evil?), we are given some clear answers in God's word. Why do Christians suffer?

For their own sake--to learn who God is (Psalm 46; Daniel 4:24-37), to learn to trust God (2 Corinthians 1:8-9) and obey him (Psalm 119:67-72), to become more like Jesus (Romans 8:18-29), and to reach maturity of character (Romans 5:3-4; Hebrews 12:1-11).

For the sake of others--that God's people may have courage (Philippians 1:14) and power (2 Corinthians 4:7-12), and bear witness to the grace of God (2 Corinthians 12:9).

For Christ's sake--to identify with Christ (Galatians 2:20), and to share in his sufferings and glory (1 Peter 4:12-16; Philippians 1:29; 3:8-10; Romans 8:17-18; 2 Corinthians 4:17).

Is God Willing and Able to Prevent Evil?

2011-09-30T06:44:00.000-07:00

Epicurus, the ancient Greek philosopher, stated the problem of evil thus:

Is God willing to prevent evil but not able?
Then his is impotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Whence then is evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

This line of reasoning has been echoed by many throughout history, but it hinges on a mistaken premise. It assumes that a good God would not allow evil to continue. The reasoning underneath that premise goes like this:

1. We cannot think of any justifiable reason why God would allow suffering and evil to continue.
2. Therefore, God cannot have such a reason.

The logic does not follow. Why should there be no reason just because we cannot think of one?

Alvin Plantinga writes in Warranted Christian Belief, "Suppose the fact is God has a reason for permitting a particular evil... Is it even likely that we would wind up with plausible candidates for God's reason?... Given that he is omniscient and given our very substantial epistemic limitations, it isn't at all surprising that his reasons... [might] escape us." Plantinga also notes in Philosophers Who Believe, "Why does God permit all this evil...? Christians must concede that we don't know. That is, we don't know in any detail. On a quite general level, we may know that God permits evil because he can achieve a world he sees as better by permitting evil than by preventing it; and what God sees as better is, of course, better. But we cannot see why our world...would be better... or what, in any detail, is God's reason for permitting a given specific... evil."

In other words, if we have a God great enough to be angry at for not preventing evil and suffering, we must also have a God great enough to have a reason for allowing evil and suffering we cannot discern.

Moreover, if there is not God, people don't really have a good basis for being outraged at the existence of suffering. After all, nature is "red in tooth and claw." Death and destruction are perfectly natural. It is perfectly natural for the strong to eat the weak and "survival of the fittest" is a genetic principle. Someone can only object to injustice if they already believe in some kind of "supernatural" moral standard (i.e., some standard that comes from outside of nature and which judges some types of "natural" behavior as wrong). And where does such a supernatural standard come from if there is no God?

As I've said before, eliminating the God of the Bible because of the problem of evil does not do away with evil. It eliminates the only real solution for it.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

2011-09-20T10:01:00.000-07:00

There is something very wrong with the world. The witch in Macbeth announced that "something wicked this way comes." There is no doubt that it has arrived. The existence of evil is undeniable. Many Christians, as well as others, have worked hard to provide answers for those who ask: Is God the author of evil or its helpless victim? Many have pointed to the thought of St. Augustine (354-430) for help in solving the vexing problem of evil.

Gregory Koukl, in his article Augustine on Evil states, "Augustine's approach was notjust brilliant; it was practical. His insight is intellectually credible and emotionally satisfying in that it gives hope andoffers meaning to the Christian trying to make sense out of life in a fallenworld."

Two Aspects of the Problem

The problem of evil can bephrased in several ways. One approach addresses the origin of evil, promptingthe syllogism (a series of statements that form a reasoned argument): 1) Godcreated all things; 2) evil is a thing; 3) therefore, God created evil. If thefirst two premises are true, the conclusion is inescapable.

This formulation, if sustained,is devastating for Christianity. God would not be good if He knowingly createdevil.

Augustine realized that thesolution was tied to the question: What is evil? The argument above depends onthe idea that evil is a thing (note the second premise). But what if evil isnot a "thing" in that sense? Then evil did not need creating. If so,our search for the source of evil will take us in a another direction.

Augustine approached theproblem from a different angle. He asked: Do we have any convincing evidencethat a good God exists? If independent evidence leads us to conclude that Godexists and is good, then He would be incapable of creating evil. Somethingelse, then, must be its source.

If Augustine's approach isfair, it prompts a pair of syllogisms that lead to a different conclusion.First: 1) All things that God created are good; 2) evil is not good; 3)therefore, evil was not created by God. Second: 1) God created every thing; 2)God did not create evil; 3) therefore, evil is not a thing.

The key to success here, isthe truthfulness of two premises. If Augustine can offer evidence throughnatural theology that God exists as Creator and also that God is good, makingeverything He created also good, then the conclusion--evil is not athing--automatically follows.

This is Augustine's strategy.If evil is not a thing, then the case against Christianity stated in theoriginal syllogism is unsound because one of its premises is false. Thecritical question is: What is evil?

Digging a Hole in Goodness

Central to Augustine's ideaof goodness (and, consequently, evil) was the notion of being. To Augustine,anything that had being was good. God as the ground of being was perfectlygood, along with everything he brought into being. This goodness was a propertythat came in varying degrees.

With this foundationAugustine was now prepared to answer the key issue: "Where is evil then,and whence, and how crept it in hither? What is its root, and what its seed? Orhath it no being?"[1] To this Augustine answered: "Evil has no positivenature; but the loss of good has received the name 'evil.'"[2]

Augustine observed that evilalways injures, and such injury is a deprivation of good. If there were nodeprivation, there would be no injury. Since all things were made withgoodness, evil must be the privation of goodness: "All which is corruptedis deprived of good."[3]

The diminution of theproperty of goodness is what's called evil. Good has substantial being; evildoes not. It is like a moral hole, a nothingness that results when goodness isremoved. Just as a shadow is no more than a "hole" in light, evil isa hole in goodness.

To say that something isevil, then, is a shorthand way of saying it either lacks goodness, or is alower order of goodness than what ought to have been. But the question remains:"Whence and how crept it in hither?"

Augustine observed that evilcould not be chosen because there is no evil thing to choose. One can only turn away from the good, thatis from a greater good to a lesser good (in Augustine's hierarchy) since allthings are good. "For when the will abandons what is above itself, andturns to what is lower, it becomes evil--not because that is evil to which itturns, but because the turning itself is wicked."[4]

Evil, then, is the act itself of choosing the lesser good. To Augustine thesource of evil is in the free will of persons: "And I strained to perceivewhat I now heard, that free-will was the cause of our doing ill."[5] Evil was a "perversion of the will, turned asidefrom...God" to lesser things.[6]

Flawed Perfection

Augustine's solution has notbeen satisfying to some. Friedrich Schleiermacher snorted at the concept thatGod gave good creatures the freedom to do bad. If a being is perfect in itsgoodness, he held, it would never sin even if it were free to. Evil would thenhave to create itself ex nihilo,which is ridiculous.[7]

However, it doesn't followthat moral perfection necessarily entails immutability. That's a different typeof perfection, a perfection in being. Schleiermacher's objection confuses thetwo. The fact that a perfectly beautiful vase is capable of being brokendoesn't take away from its aesthetic perfections. In the same way, it makessense to say that man was created morally perfect (morally whole or complete,at his proper level of goodness), even though he wasn't immutable in thisperfection.

The objections raised byatheist philosophers J.L. Mackie and Antony Flew are more substantial.[8] Isn't it possible that God could have created manimmutable in his goodness, yet still have the opportunity to freely choose inother areas? Won't man have immutable goodness in heaven? And will he not alsohave freedom to choose among certain options? Why not here on earth? Couldn'tGod construct man's nature such that evil simply was not an option?

Mackie and Flew are right inone regard. God could have created such a world. Freedom in the larger sense(the ability to make choices) does not require freedom in the narrow sense (theability to make moral choices).

They miss the big picture,though: God would not have accomplished a second purpose. He not only wantedfree creatures; He also wanted plenitude, that is, the greatest good possible.Plenitude--the highest good, the best of all possible worlds--requires morethan just general freedom; it requires moral freedom, and that necessarilyentails the possibility of evil.

Since all that God made isgood, even those things which appear evil only appear that way because of alimited context or perspective. When viewed as a whole, that which appears tobe evil ultimately contributes to the greater good.

For example, certain virtuescouldn't exist without evil: courage, mercy, forgiveness, patience, the givingof comfort, heroism, perseverance, faithfulness, self-control, long-suffering,submission and obedience, to name a few. These are not virtues in the abstract,but elements of character that can only be had by moral souls. Just as evil isa result of acts of will, so is virtue. Acts of moral choice accomplish both.

The Best of All Worlds

A world that had never beentouched by evil would be a good place, but it wouldn't be the best placepossible. The best of all worlds would be a place where evil facilitated thedevelopment of virtues that are only able to exist where evil flourishes for atime. This would produce a world populated by souls that were refined byovercoming evil with good. The evil is momentary. The good that results iseternal.

What good comes out of adrive-by killing, someone might ask, or the death of a teenager through overdose,or a daughter's rape, or child abuse? The answer is that a commensurate gooddoesn't always come out of those individualsituations, though God is certainly capable ofredeeming any tragedy. Rather, the greater good results from having a world inwhich there is moral freedom, and moral freedom makes moral tragedies likethese possible.

A Heavenly Twist

This observation reveals aninteresting twist in this problem. If morality freely chosen can only happen in a world where evil is possible,then heaven will be a place where there will be no moral growth, where moralchoices will not be possible because all the inhabitants of heaven will beimmutably good. There is a type of soulish growth only available to inhabitantsof a fallen world.

Two Scriptural observationslend credibility to this view. First, in recounting the great heroes of faith,the writer of Hebrews mentions that some were rescued by faith, but others endured by faith "...in order that they might obtain abetter resurrection."[ix] (Heb. 11:35) Second, Paul tells Timothy that"...godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for thepresent life and also for the life to come." (1 Tim. 4:8)

Both of these verses indicatethat conditions in this life affect conditions in the next. Bearing up underevil in this life improves our resurrection in the next. Godliness in this lifebrings profit in the next. These benefits are not available after this life orthere would be little urgency to grow now; all eternity would be left in whichto catch up.

It appears that a deeper,more profound good results when virtue is won by free, moral souls strugglingwith evil, rather than simply granted to them as an element of theirconstitution.

Spoiled Goodness

Augustine knew that evil wasreal. Independent evidence (natural theology) was enough to convince him thatGod existed and that everything He created would be good. Evil, then, must besomething real, but not a "thing" in the conventional sense. Evil isnot a created thing, but spoiled goodness made possible by the free moralagency of rational creatures. Evil is not something present, but something missing,a privation.

The challenge that God couldhave created a world of free-will creatures immutable in their goodness isanswered by the notion of plenitude, the greatest good. The possibility of evilalso makes a greater good possible. God made a world in which true moraldecision-making and development of virtues is possible in humans, manifest bypersons whose character is formed through growth and struggle.

There's a sound reason whyGod has allowed evil. It doesn't conflict with His goodness. God is neither theauthor of evil, nor its helpless victim. Rather, precisely because of Hisgoodness He chooses to co-exist with evil for a time.

Koukl asserts that St. Augustine's answer is the most intellectually credible and emotionally satisfying solution to the vexing problem of evil. Others have not been convinced. There have been many challenges to Augustine, and many other theodicies (good reasons why God allows evil) offered. We will consider more of both in successive posts.

[1] Augustine, Confessions, VII: [V] 7.

[2] Augustine, The City of God, XI, CHAP. 9.

[3] Augustine, Confessions, VII: [XII] 18.

[4] Augustine, City of God, XII, CHAP. 6.

[5] Augustine, Confessions VII: [III] 5.

[6] Ibid., [XVI] 22.

[7] Encyclopediaof Philosophy, Vol. 3, 138.

[8] See J.L. Mackie, "God and Omnipotence," Mind, April 1955, and Antony Flew, "DivineOmnipotence and Human Freedom," New Essays in PhilosophicalTheology, 1955 (referenced in Encyclopediaof Philosophy, Vol. 3, 138).

The Death of Satan

2011-09-14T07:11:00.000-07:00

On April 8, 1966, Time's cover declared that God was dead. Bill Hamilton explained the phrase he coined for popular culture, "The death of God is a metaphor. We needed to redefine Christianity as a possibility without the presence of God."

It is interesting to note that Hamilton came to this conclusion after years of wrestling with the concept of God. When he was a teenager his friends had been building pipe bombs. The two Christian friends died. And the third, the son of an atheist, emerged without a scratch. How, Hamilton wondered, could a just God allow this? Why do the innocent suffer? Does God intervene in human lives?

"Theodicy came to dwell in my 14-year-old head that Sunday," he says.

Hamilton wrote out his two choices: "God is not behind such radical evil, therefore he cannot be what we have traditionally meant by God" or "God is behind everything, including the death camps — and therefore he is a killer."

Hamilton didn't see an active God anymore. But the theologian was not an atheist. And he didn't want to let go of Jesus, as the example of how humans should treat one another.

Now 40 years later, Andrew Delbanco puts a spin on Hamilton's phrase and uses it as the title of his book, The Death of Satan. Delbanco traces the history of the concept of evil in America, and shows how it has all but disappeared in our day.He writes, “In this world emptied of metaphysical meaning...our insurance policies may still include clauses covering (or more likely, exempting) ‘acts of God’ as well as storm, fire, flood, and the like; but the fact is that such events are regarded by most people as inscrutable misfortunes.” He continues, “there seems to be growing agreement that there was once such a concept as sin – broad and capacious but still meaningful – and that it has faded.”

Delbanco concludes his study with these words: “My driving motive in writing...has been the conviction that if evil, with all the insidious complexity which Augustine attributed to it, escapes the reach of our imagination, it will have established dominion over us all.”

Dismissing the God of the Bible because of the problem of evil doesn't do away with evil, it leaves us without a sure remedy for it. Denying or downplaying the reality of evil (in our own souls and all that springs from it) doesn't do away with it either. As Delbanco points out, being deluded into denying evil shows that you are being dominated by it.

Over the next few weeks, I'd like think through the reality of and remedy for evil. More to follow.

Theology Is Worthless

2011-09-07T09:15:00.000-07:00

In an interview about his biography on Bonhoeffer, Eric Metaxas makes a startling and stinging statement about what we can learn from the pastor and theologian who gave his life standing against the Nazi regime in his native Germany.

The main thing it to realize that on some level, theology is worthless unless we live it. This is a particular challenge for us as evangelicals--you can say, "I believe this and this," but at some point God says, "If you're not living it, I don't want to hear about it." Sometimes we can worship an idol of theological correctness. It doesn't mean that theology isn't extremely important, and anyone who says it isn't is wrong. At the same time, it's not everything, and Bonhoeffer challenges us to understand that the two have to be one--our life and what we say we believe. You can't fool God with a statement of theology.

Weeping over America

2011-09-02T07:16:00.000-07:00

This year in staff meetings we have been working our way through the book of Jeremiah. Although written over 2400 years ago, the parallels between his day and ours are uncanny. If God is still the same, his holiness hasn’t diminished, his standards for what constitute a good and just society haven’t altered, and our responsibility to hear and obey His Word hasn’t been negated, then the "weeping prophet" has a message for us. "If any nation will not listen, then I will utterly pluck it up and destroy it" (Jeremiah 12:17).Here is a sampling of the indictments Jeremiah made against Judah:

They "went after worthlessness and became worthless" (2:5).They "turned degenerate" (2:21) and wore themselves out sinning (9:5).They were so wicked that they even taught "wicked women" things they didn't know (2:33).They "polluted the land with [their] vile whoredom" (3:2).They were callous and unjust toward the poor (2:34).They repeatedly claimed that they had not sinned (2:35).They were greedy, conniving, unashamed, and self-deluded regarding their true status (6:13-15).They treated the Word as an object of scorn (6:10).They were incapable of speaking the Truth (7:28).They followed their own hearts and went after false gods even more diligently than their forefathers had (9:14).They broke their covenant with the Lord (11:1-13).They were not correctable: they would not listen to God's prophet (2:30; 5:3), and they would not obey His Word.They assured themselves that God would not judge them, that disaster would not fall (5:12).

They were wrong, of course, as history demonstrated in 586 BC when Judah was crushed by the Babylonians. Many have warned of a similar judgment pending against America. In Death in the City, written in 1969, Francis Schaeffer not only claimed that both Europe and America were even then under "the wrath of God," he also addressed the question of the contemporary relevance of Jeremiah:

We do not have to guess what God would say about this [question] because there was a period of history, biblical history, which greatly parallels our day. That is the day of Jeremiah. The Book of Jeremiah and the Book of Lamentations show how God looks at a culture which knew Him and deliberately turned away.But this is not just the character of Jeremiah’s day of apostasy. It’s my day. It’s our day. And if we are going to help our own generation, our perspective must be that of Jeremiah, that weeping prophet Rembrandt so magnificently pictured weeping over Jerusalem, yet in the midst of his tears speaking without mitigating his message of judgment to a people who had had so much yet turned away.

Diane Singer recently outlined what our response to the evil of our day should be:

We must, like Jeremiah, keep speaking the truth about human nature (17:9): “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick.” Unless people understand that they are sinners in need of a Savior, they will -- in the words of one bumper sticker I've seen around town -- tragically believe they are "Born OK the first time" and so don't need Christ. Evangelism becomes more difficult in a culture where people think they are basically good and where people reject the concept of personal sin.We must keep warning our fellow citizens that it is foolish to trust in man (17:5), but wise to trust in God (17:7). The corollary to this is that people must learn to trust what the Bible has to say about what has gone wrong with our world and what God has done to set things right. We need to promote a biblical worldview in all areas of life so unbelievers can see the futility of the man-made philosophies they have been clinging to, and suffering under, and instead embrace the Truth of God's Word as it speaks to issues such as marriage, the family, the right and wrong use of technology and science, the sanctity of human life, the proper role of government, and other "hot button" issues.We must pray that we will stand firm in these evil days, as Jeremiah did (17:14-17). And while Jeremiah was forbidden to pray for his nation (7:16), we have not yet reached that point: therefore, we must fervently pray for revival to come to America.We should, with the Cross in mind, pray for God’s judgment to fall on the unrepentant who are leading many others down the destructive path of sin and evil (18:19-23).

What does it mean to keep the Cross in mind as you pray for God's judgment to fall on the unrepentant? Singer provides a solid answer:

An imprecatory prayer must come from two intense desires: a longing to see God's holiness vindicated, and the desire to see sinners repent of their sin and come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Sometimes a form of judgment which stops short of death can bring sinners back to God: that is God's primary desire, and it should be ours. However, sometimes God's judgment exacts the ultimate price. In such cases, we should feel a deep sorrow for those who have perished, all the while recognizing that only God knows whose evil has progressed to the point of no return, and whose harmful influence on others has become so great that it must be stopped.

Early in his ministry, Jeremiah admonished his fellow citizens to "Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls" (6:16). Our study of Jeremiah this year has shown us that taking time to consider those ancient paths is still a good thing to do. The only question is whether we will be like the people of Judah who refused to walk in those paths, or whether will we be wiser than that: Will we allow the words of Jeremiah to help us stay on the narrow way which leads to life (Matthew 7:13-14)?During our study of Jeremiah Jeremiah summer, we have become painfully aware of just how bad the situation in America has become; but it's also brought great blessing. Jeremiah reminds again and again that our God is gracious, loving, and patient: His greatest desire in warning us of impending judgment is to wake us up to reality so we'll repent and return to Him. He is ready to forgive and restore.So, we have a choice to make: we can face a future of devastating judgment (Jeremiah 1:16), or we can claim as our own these hopeful words written to the exiles in Babylon (Jeremiah 29:11-14): "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the LORD..."Which path will we choose?

Montana or Bust!

2011-08-30T13:50:00.000-07:00

What a summer! It's almost Labor Day and I have yet to write about it. The 'road trip of all road trips' took us from the southern tip of Florida to the Northern border of Montana and back. The main reason for the trip was a 'once a decade Manuel family reunion,' but the purpose quickly expanded to retracing the roots of Dad.

I showed the kids where I was born, where I went to elementary, middle and high school, where I went to college, where I had my first paper route, bought my first car, scored my first (and only) touchdown, etc. They were riveted to every detail of their dad's mesmerizing life. Actually they were much more interested in creating their own adventures.

We chronicled the highlights of our trip on FB. (You'll have to friend us to see the whole slide show.) Visit the 'Manuel Cousins Reunite!' FB page for a taste of what the Manuel cousins do when they get together. The 'Redneck Waterslide' video is well worth 3:18 of your time. What can I say? I love my family.

Is Manufacturing Dead in America?

2011-07-15T13:39:00.000-07:00

Quick--answer these two questions: 1) What country is the #1 manufacturer in the world?
(HINT: I got this answer wrong.) 2) Has the manufacturing output of the USA increased or decreased in the last 30 years? (I got this wrong too.)

David L. Bahnsen, Senior Vice President of The Bahnsen Group at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, was recently asked about manufacturing in the US. Here is his reply.

What can you tell us about the state of manufacturing in the United States?

9 out of 10 times when I ask people if manufacturing is dead in America, they tell me that it is. So I suppose it will be a shock to people to find out that the United States is STILL the #1 manufacturer in the world - producing 21% of all goods (4). That percentage is the same that it was thirty years ago. But here is what I really want to share: There are 23% less employees in the manufacturing sector here in the states than there were thirty years ago, YET manufacturing output is 2.5 times higher than it was thirty years ago (4). So the point of this really can not be missed: Productive output has exploded, yet with significantly less people in the labor force. That is the point of technology and progress, and we can not fail to appreciate what it means for our economy and our society. There is no point in resisting it - adapting to it is the need of the hour.

In English: The United States remains the top manufacturer in the world, and after those thirty years of employee downsizing and factory closings, we are as competitive as ever, and much more productive than ever.

ABC News is currently featuring a on-going summer segment on neighbors gathering to display items they own that were made in America. The idea is to highlight how jobs can be created by manufacturing things in the US. I commend ABC News for their efforts. I would love to see more manufacturing jobs created here. But there are two questions I have. First, if the point of technology and progress is to make more stuff with fewer employees, what kind of jobs should be created to "fill the void"? Second, do really need to make more and more stuff?

My Summer Reading List

2011-07-08T14:22:00.000-07:00

Here are some books on my "must read" list this summer. Progress reports and book reviews will be forthcoming. NB: I actually started reading some of these books quite a while ago (like Augustine's 'City of God' in seminary circa 1996!). Happy reading!

UNBROKEN, by Laura Hillenbrand
CRAZY LOVE, by Francis Chan
AWAKENING: THE LIFE AND MINISTRY OF ROBERT MURRAY MCCHEYNE, by David Robertson
RADICAL, by David Platt
THE CITY OF GOD, St. Augustine

Short on Logos, Disingenuous on Ethos, and Long on Pathos

2011-06-23T07:51:00.000-07:00

“O simple ones, learn prudence;
O fools, learn sense.”
--Proverbs 8:5

It’s election year again. Every time the political debates come round, I am reminded of the section in Neil Postman’s book Amusing Ourselves to Death where he described what political discourse looked like a hundred and fifty years ago.

Postman cites the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates as an example of how much things have changed. In 1858 a day’s debate could last seven hours and was packed with richly developed intellectual argumentation. By contrast, today’s politicians typically offer us a succession of quick, disconnected points which attempt to convey a general impression of competence and trustworthiness while lacking in the rigors of analytical depth and philosophical sophistication.

Elvin T. Lim, political scientist from Wesleyan University, has chronicled the gradual dumbing-down of American political discourse in his 2008 publication The Anti-Intellectual Presidency: The Decline of Presidential Rhetoric from George Washington to George W. Bush. Professor Lim looks specifically at presidential speeches, yet his observations have relevance across the spectrum of our nation’s political discussions.

Lim points out that the speeches given by presidents are increasingly filled with vacuous statements that do not invite rational disputation. Speeches are designed to maximize applause lines, stroke the emotions and appeal to our intuitions, while being lean on substantive content. As such, presidential rhetoric completely bypasses the type of higher order thought necessary for proper analysis.

Lim has amassed an impressive array of evidence to chronicle the steady dumbing-down of Presidential rhetoric. He calls this dumbing-down process “anti-intellectualism”, and with good reason. He contrasts it with the classical understanding of rhetoric. For the ancients, good rhetoric included logos (the weighing and judging of reasons for a particular course of action), ethos (the credibility of the speaker) and pathos (emotional appeal). “Presidential rhetoric today” Lim writes, “is short on logos, disingenuous on ethos, and long on pathos.”

HT: Robin Phillips

A Chance to Die

2011-06-02T06:03:00.000-07:00

Things were supposed to slow down after Easter.
I promised my wife that I would be more available after the flurry of activity surrounding Passion Week. But alas my predictions were way off. Because of a "late" Easter, the end of the school year activities came quickly on the heels of the holiday. My administrative assistant had her baby two weeks before we expected. This meant that our new pastoral intern was thrown into his role as church administrator with no training. On top of this we are launching a day camp this summer--a new ministry for us. My reaction to this type of perfect storm, of course, is to go into "Superman mode" and think I can single-handedly get everything off the ground at once. Things never go as planned. You would think at 43 I would know this by now. Not so.

When things speed up, the chance of things going wrong increases. And that's what has happened since Easter. From my perspective, a boat load of things have gone wrong. The elusive "have it your way" promise that I think is made to me everyday has vaporized. What I need to realize is that in order for a promise to be kept, it needs to be made. And God hasn't dealt me the "have it your way" hand. It's just not in the cards. What he has promised is that "his way" is always better than "my way." What I really want is for "his way" to trump mine. But in order for that to happen there has to be a surrender of my will to his. This always feels like death--small or large--a death nonetheless. Today's devotional from Elisabeth Elliot says it well:

To be transformed into the image of Christ I must learn his character, love his obedience to the will of the Father, and begin, step by step, to walk the same pathway. For Christ the pathway of obedience began with emptying Himself. I must begin at the same place.

He "made Himself nothing." (Phil 2:7 NEB)

"You must arm yourselves with a temper of mind like His." (l Pt 4:1 NEB)

"If anyone wishes to be a follower of mine, he must leave self behind." (Mt 16:24 NEB)

What does this mean? Is it mere words? How can one leave self behind, make himself nothing? The answer will not come in a vacuum. If a man or woman honestly wishes to be a follower, the opportunity will present itself. Christ will say, "Here is your chance. Now, in this situation, you must make your choice. Will it be self? Or will you choose Me?"

An older missionary said something to Amy Carmichael when she was a young missionary that stayed with her for life. She had spoken of something which was not to her liking. His reply was, "See in it a chance to die." (from A Lamp for My Feet)

Make Up Your Mind!

2011-05-14T14:34:00.000-07:00

Two recent news events caught my attention. The puffy fizz surrounding the release of Rob Bell's Love Wins seemed to fizzle at the execution of Osama Bin Laden. I couldn't help but notice the irony between the covers of Time magazine featuring Bell's book and that of the NY Daily News heralding the news of Bin Laden's death. I could almost hear the call go out, "So which is it? Do you want there to be a hell (for Bin Laden types) or don't you? Make up your mind!"

Not That Complicated after All?

2011-05-13T12:49:00.000-07:00

Kevin DeYoung, like the rest of us with kids in the house, is a struggling parents. He writes, "I remember years ago hearing a line from Alistair Begg, quoting another man, that went like this: 'When I was young I had six theories and no kids. Now I have six kids and no theories.' I must be smart. It only took me four kids to run out of theories." I am at three kids (and holding) and I'm fresh out of theories.

After explaining his "no theory theory" of parenting, Kevin concludes:

The longer I parent the more I want to focus on doing a few things really well, and not get too passionate about all the rest. I want to spend time with my kids, teach them the Bible, take them to church, laugh with them, cry with them, discipline them when they disobey, say sorry when I mess up, and pray like crazy. I want them to look back and think, "I’m not sure what my parents were doing or if they even knew what they were doing. But I always knew my parents loved me and I knew they loved Jesus." Maybe it’s not that complicated after all.

Read the entire article here.

Have It Your Way

2011-05-05T11:26:00.000-07:00

Do you remember the Burger King commercials and slogan "Have It Your Way"? The idea was that you could order your hamburger the way you wanted with the toppings you wanted--right when you wanted it! That kind of "make it the way I want it (right now!)" mentality has crept into the way we live, the way we relate to one another, and even the way we pray.

On this National Day of Prayer, I had a note from Elisabeth Elliot in my email box. She asks, "Does prayer work?" Here is her answer.

The answer to that depends on one's definition of work. It is necessary to know what a thing is for in order to judge whether it works. It would be senseless, for example, to say that if a screwdriver fails to drive nails into a board it doesn't "work." A screwdriver works very well for driving screws. Often we expect to arrange things according to our whims by praying about them, and when the arrangement fails to materialize we conclude that prayer doesn't work. God wants our willing cooperation in the bringing in of his kingdom. If "Thy kingdom come" is an honest prayer, we will seek to ask for whatever contributes to that end. What, after all is said and done, do you want above all? Is it "Thy will be done"? If so, leave it to Him.

Is it "My will be done"? Don't waste your time and God's by praying. Have it your way.

--from A Lamp for My Feet

I Can't Get Past the Smell of Condemnation

2011-04-13T08:35:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday I was mad. I was not in a good frame of mind to be entering the pulpit. Over the course of the last three or four weeks, several people had let me down--not showing up to teach youth SS, not attending the New Member class I was offering, not showing up at small group, missing church when they said they would be there. I was letting it get to me and it showed. My preaching crossed the line from passionate to irate. And people sensed it, of course. Comments and questions like "Are you mad at us?" were made. I had to apologize and ask forgiveness.

When I read this passage from Randy Newman’s book, Bringing the Gospel Home: Witnessing to Family Members, Close Friends, and Others Who Know You Well , I knew I had missed the mark of displaying God's love as I preached about it:

A few years ago, The Washington Post conducted a social experiment in what they called “context, perception, and priorities.” They arranged for Joshua Bell, one of the finest violinists of all time, to play classical masterpieces at a Washington subway stop during rush hour. They wanted to see if anyone would recognize the world-famous virtuoso and stop and listen. They caught the entire episode on video.

For close to an hour, Bell performed great works of the violin repertoire—Bach’s “Chaconne” from Partita No. 2, Schubert’s “Ave Maria,” Ponce’s “Estrellita,” and more—on a violin handcrafted by Antonio Stradivari, valued at over 3.5 million dollars. More than a thousand people walked by without even glancing in his direction. A few paused for a moment, and several people tossed loose change into his open violin case. (He collected a total of $32.17. Yes, some people gave him pennies!) Only one person recognized the star who, just a few nights later, would accept the Avery Fisher Prize for being the best classical musician in America.

The Post writer and his colleagues had to admit their hypothesis was wrong. They had anticipated that, despite the stress of rush hour and the noise of the trains, beauty would transcend.

You can imagine how people interpreted this experiment. “We’re too busy today.” “We don’t take time for beauty.” “We have become musically illiterate.” “We need more funding for the arts.”

But Gene Weingarten, the Post writer covering the story, had a different take. He saw the problem as one of context. People expect a virtuoso when they pay large amounts of money to sit in beautiful concert halls where the lights are dimmed and the background noises are deliberately eliminated.

But in a subway, at rush hour, with irreducible noise, you don’t expect Joshua Bell. You might not even want him! Weingarten concluded, “He was, in short, art without a frame.” It was the context that shaped “what happened—or, more precisely, what didn’t happen …”

In a similar way, we sometimes present our gospel-masterpiece in a context that belies our message. We speak of measureless love, unmerited grace, and infinite goodness but our tone of voice, demeanour, and lifestyles convey the exact opposite. We want people to quiet their hearts so they can hear the music of the gospel, but we’re performing in a context of judgmentalism. We want them to feel loved by God, but they feel unloved by us. We want them to be amazed by grace, but they can’t get past the smell of condemnation.

Perhaps we need to work on the context as well as the content of our evangelism. (128-129)

Dance, Drink, Smoke and Chew

2011-04-06T08:49:00.000-07:00

I was raised in what most people would consider a very strict family. I was banned from many "worldly" activities that my friends enjoyed. My motto became, "I don't dance, drink, smoke or chew or ever go out with girls that do." Whenever I pressed my parents about going to school dances, I was reminded what Mamie (my grandmother) would often say when asked to dance, "When I dance so, I sweat so, and when I sweat so, I stink so--so no thank you, I don't think so!"

A lot of my friends growing up, however, (and many of my friends now) fit very comfortably in the dance, drink, smoke and chew category, including my wife (JK--I just angered Heather, my wife, and gave my mom a heart attack!). Often people ask me about these "worldly" activities--if I think they are sinful or if people who do them are going to hell.

Randy Newman, in Bringing the Gospel Home: Witnessing to Family Members, Close Friends, and Others Who Know You Well, gives a great answer to someone raising these questions:

“Well, I think we all like rules because they make it easy to know who’s in and who’s out. We like rules because they can make us feel superior to those people who don’t keep them. In fact, I think I make all sorts of rules that I generally keep because they make me feel good about me and bad about others.” I could see I had grabbed his attention.

“But the stuff I need forgiveness for is a whole lot worse than just smoking or dancing or drinking. I need to be forgiven for anger, bitterness, hatred, self-righteousness …” I stopped. His face looked shocked.

“No. Really.” I continued. “If I’m going to have any kind of connection with God, I need forgiveness for some really ugly attitudes and actions. That’s why I really like Christianity. It offers that kind of forgiveness.” (74)

As for these "worldly" activities. Heather and I don't drink (often). Heather won't let me smoke or chew (or go out with girls who do!). But we both love to dance and when we do we sweat. I stink (in more ways than one). Heather does not.

I don't despise my heritage. I treasure it. I value the character and integrity that was instilled in me by my parents and grandparents. Their love for Christ was the motivating factor in their lives. What they did for Him was more important (in the end) than what they didn't do. And I know now that Mamie did love to dance. Now, in heaven, she does so without sweating.

Just Wait! You'll See!

2011-04-05T07:10:00.000-07:00

Last night as usual, our family sat around the dinner table and talked about the events of the day. Then we talked about gifts and how we should use them. Taking turns, we told the person on our left a talent God had given him/her and how they could best use it to bring glory to God and good to people. Elijah's talent? A bright and creative mind he can use to help people think and enjoy learning. Emily has a way of great influence with people. Ellie is a ray of sunshine and helps all the other kids feel included. Heather has the gift of hospitality and is always reaching out to people. Eli said that he sees me as a general leading people strategically in battle against evil. Heather said I have great faith and can see things before they have come into existence. That sounds very grand, but I'm not sure I always see it. The soldiers in God's army don't seem to know there is a war going on at all, much less that I have the responsibility to help lead the 'soldiers of the cross' move forward against the evil without and within with 'deeds of love and mercy'. We seem to be too busy arguing about what the kingdom of God is to actually see it be advanced in our lives and in our community.

Then I read this morning's devotional from Elisabeth Elliot's A Lamp For My Feet. She quotes 1 Corinthians 15:49, "As we have worn the likeness of the man made of dust, so we shall wear the likeness of the heavenly man," and then writes:

What a word of hope for us when we are discouraged with our own sinfulness! The old Adam is always there, rising in rebellion against the new life which Christ has given us. There is constant struggle, daily reminders that we are yet very unholy, very un-Christlike, very dusty. But a day will come when even I, with all my glaring faults, will wear the likeness of the heavenly Man. This gives me ammunition to fire at the Accuser. I shall be like Christ--just wait! You'll see!

The Gospel of the Kingdom

2011-04-01T08:57:00.000-07:00

For over 25 years I've been studying, talking and writing about the gospel of the kingdom. It all began when I picked up a little book call The Gospel of the Kingdom by George Eldon Ladd. As I read it, I had an inkling that it was a game changer. Now looking back I can see that it was a fork in the road (one of many!). It changed the course of my life.

A quarter of a century later, I am still sorting out the gospel of the kingdom in my head, heart and life. Without any hesitation or fear of overstatement, I can say the gospel of the kingdom is not only my only hope, but the only hope for the human race, the planet and the cosmos. It is that monumental, huge, epic (or whatever the current slang for massive is).

To get a picture of what I'm talking about, consider this very compelling (and concise) article by Matt Guerino. He asks, "What is the gospel?"

It’s a deceptively simple question, yet one that merits more thoughtful reflection than might seem necessary at first. The word “gospel” simply means “good news.” So the gospel, meaning the Gospel of Jesus, is good news about Jesus. For years I was taught, as many are, that this means Jesus died on the cross for my sins so that I can be forgiven. I understood “the gospel of Jesus” to mean the good news that because He died I can avoid hell and be in heaven. It’s a Gospel of Final Destination. And this is true, as far as it goes.

But it doesn’t go far enough.

Read the entire article here.

Comedy or Tragedy?

2011-03-30T09:09:00.000-07:00

When people ask me if I'm optimistic or pessimistic about the future, I say, "Both, of course!"

I'm very optimistic about the grace of God triumphing over evil. In the end, God wins. Evil will be banished and righteousness will prevail. Leland Ryken describes the scene of the new heaven and new earth portrayed by the apostle John:

The climactic vision of Revelation is this vision of heaven. It is pictured in symbolic terms--as a transformed or new place and as a city that combines features that no earthly city can possess. The emphasis is on motifs of permanence and transcendence; splendor; the bliss and perfection of the citizens of the city; the beauty of the place, freedom from intrusions of sin; absence of fallen experience; the banishment of all evil; the satisfaction of all human needs and longings; the life-giving, light-shining presence of the Lamb... The garden of perfection at the beginning of the Bible is here completed in a city of perfection.

I'm very pessimistic, however, about the progress of mankind. Despite centuries of medical, scientific and technological advances, we are still plagued with the vices of pride, greed, lust, malice, envy, as well as the challenges of poverty, disease, famine and natural disaster that only add to the misery of our mismanagement. If the future of the planet rests in the hands of men and women, then what is to come is bleak indeed. Those who stand opposed to God in the end will be "thrown into the lake of fire...and be tormented day and night forever and ever" (Revelation 20:10).

Of course, there is hope. Augustine, in his monumental work The City of God, meticulously traces Biblical history and describes the peace and happiness belonging to the heavenly city, or the people of Christ, both now and hereafter. Those in the kingdom of God have a very bright future. Those, however, who reject God and the salvation he offers through Christ face heartache without hope in this life and certain judgment in the life to come.

The love that wins is the love that lost. Jesus was cut off by God the Father on the cross so that those who trust in him will be given new life. Those who reject Christ will themselves be cut off, and that without remedy.

Another way to state this is to ask the question: Is the story of the world a comedy or a tragedy? The answer according to Scripture and Augustine (and the historic creeds of the church) is, of course, both. For those in the city of God "all will be well" despite the hardships endured in this life. It is the comedy from which all others find there true source. For those in the city of man, the tragedy finds its fitting end.

Family Movie Night

2011-03-17T09:28:00.000-07:00

Last night was 'Family Movie Night' at Redlands. We had our dinner as usually at 6 pm, followed by a special Spring Break edition of our normal mid-week gathering. It was "a break form Spring Break," complete with popcorn, candy, and Lord of the Beans on the "big screen." We learned the importance of using your gifts for the glory of God and the good of others.

Just in case you don't have plans for your Spring Break weekend, I thought I would recommend some movies that you can actually watch with the kids (or your parents) and may have missed (or need to watch again):

1. Chariots of Fire This is still my favorite movie. Recently, the kids, Heather and I watch it for the first time together. The race scenes still get my heart pumping. What struck me this time was the scene when Eric Liddell reads verses from Isaiah 40 while athletes’ greatest efforts come to nothing. In light of the recent fall of dictators and the threat to empires, the scene became for me even more powerful.

Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance…
He bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.
Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?
He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.
But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

2. Treasures of the Snow I love watching this one with the kids in the winter when it is freezing up north and balmy down here is South Florida. Again, my heart races when Lucien sets off to find help for little crippled Danny and the hope of forgiveness found through Christ is vividly portrayed. Call me a sucker for sentiment. This is a great conversation starter!

3. Secretariat This one suffers from some melodrama, but the story is so remarkable that it doesn't really matter.

4. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga Hoole This movie will remain a family favorite for years to come. It is a reminder that being heroic is not glamorous and battling evil is never easy.

5. Waiting for "Superman" is "premiering" this weekend at the Manuel Movie Theater. This "silly sentimental propagandist docudrama" according to one reviewer, was snubbed by the Academy for an Oscar--deservedly so, according to the Washington Post. Sounds like just the kind of movie I want to see and talk about.

Was Bonhoeffer an Evangelical?

2011-03-11T11:20:00.000-08:00

Eric Metaxas' biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer made my top ten list for books last year. It is actually the best biography I've read in a long time. (Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand comes in a close second.) Metaxas has been criticized for presenting Bonhoeffer as too evangelical. Here is his reply, in classic Eric Metaxas style.

Critics have said that you paint Bonhoeffer as "too evangelical." I thought that you portrayed the whole of Bonhoeffer's theology, even quoting lengthy excerpts from his books. How do you respond to this criticism?

I find the criticism hilarious on the one hand and tragic on the other. Bonhoeffer and any other serious Christian is less concerned with being an "evangelical"—whatever that really means—than with being a Christian, a devoted disciple of Jesus Christ. One thing I have said over and over: I never set out to paint any portrait of Bonhoeffer other than what I saw, for good or for ill. That some seem to think that I have put some English on the ball seems to say more about their expectations than about the reality of his life.

The facts are what they are: Bonhoeffer thought of the Bible as the living "Word of God" and prayed every day and pointedly criticized the regnant theological liberalism of his era (both in Berlin and at Union Theological Seminary in New York), called abortion "murder," advocated a traditionally biblical view of sexuality, called for the Lordship of Jesus Christ over every realm in history and culture, advocated obedience to God under all circumstances and spoke against mere "religion"... so, yes, he tends to look pretty "evangelical." But that really is a label that is unhelpful when trying to understand him. Bonhoeffer was a devout disciple of Jesus Christ. That, I think, should suffice.

Not that some ideologues on the left and right haven't been annoyed, as you mention. But they are annoyed at reality, not at my depiction of reality.

It really is rather funny, though. It has to be noted that theologically liberal Bonhoeffer scholars have kept deadly quiet for decades while chest-beating humanists like Christopher Hitchens and "Bishop" John Shelby Spong have claimed Bonhoeffer as one of their own. But when Bonhoeffer is portrayed as the robust and serious Christian that he was, they have howled with all their might and main and have practically scampered up palm trees to cast down their coconuts of bitter fury. One wonders where their priorities lie.

Fussy theological conservatives, on the other hand, who have accepted this false theologically liberal view of Bonhoeffer, are another story, no less tragi-comic. They bring to mind the guy on the beach with the metal detector and headphones, oblivious to the staggering beauty of the sand and sea and sky. They seem bent on discovering any scrap of evidence that "proves" Bonhoeffer was neo-orthodox, and if not that, then something else unpalatable—anything! I think even a cigarette butt in the sand would thrill them. They sometimes seem to be worshiping an idol of theological purity.

But to have perspective on it all, we must remember that both types, left and right, have always been with us. As a friend of mine once said: "They are like the children in the marketplace who say, 'We played the pipe and you would not dance; we played a dirge and you would not mourn!'" Quel dommage.

You can read the entire article here.

You Know You're Preaching the Gospel When...

2011-03-04T06:56:00.000-08:00

Felipe Assis, pastor of CrossBridge Miami, wrote a top 10 list for Gospel preachers. I think it is well worth reading even if you're not a preacher. He notes that "most sermons among the most famous evangelical preachers of our day could be preached by Dr. Phil, Deepak Chopra, and Oprah without a problem." This, of course, is a problem. Whether you are preaching in a pulpit, teaching a Sunday School class, explaining Scripture to your children, evaluating a sermon, or just reading the Bible on your own, this list will help.

You know you’re preaching the gospel effectively when…

1. In your prep you are able to see Jesus in light of every text and every text in light of Jesus. Jesus is the hermeneutical key to unlock every text because every text fulfills its main purpose when it reveals Christ. He said so himself (Lk 24:25-27,44).

2. Your reasoning sounds deep to mature Christians and simple to non-Christians. Both groups of people are not used to see Jesus in the Bible. The “mature christian” is not trained to read the Bible through Jesus and even when they are, they constantly need to be reminded because that’s how they grow. The non-christian on the other hand does not read the Bible and generally has a very negative view of the Bible (slavery, bigotry, violence…). Which means that, if you’re able to show Christ in the text there will be “a-ha” moments for both groups of people.

3. Change is taking place in the heart of the one who preaches before it takes place in the lives of those who receive it. When you’re able to see the Gospel in the text your heart cannot help but to burn and melt (Lk 24:32). You will begin to see your own idolatry, hopefully repent of it and, allow the truth of the Gospel to work in you before you hit the pulpit. If you allow enough time between your prep and your delivery your words will have depth. I usually give it about 2 weeks to marinate.

4. You’re able to share more out of failure than out of virtue. This one is a consequence of the previous point. When the Gospel becomes real to you there’s no shame in sharing weakness because the power of the Gospel is only made true in weakness (2 Cor 12:9). If you do this often people will not only relate more but grace will be made more real to them. Romans 7 is another great example of how this works.

5. You find yourself relying on the power of the gospel instead of relying on the intellect and emotions to be effective. I find that most preachers feel the need to quote dozens of smarter than everybody people, cry like a baby in front of people, yell like a drill sergeant, act like a comedian, among other things out of insecurity. Deep inside they feel the Gospel does not have enough power to do the job (By the way, I’m not saying these things are bad just that you should check your motives of why you keep doing it). Part of it is that they do not have a Christ-centered hermeneutic, do not think through the deep implications of the gospel (in that particular text) for their lives and other peoples lives and, do not go the length to explain the gospel clearly to people. I find myself constantly in this tension because I come from a race that worships feelings and a tradition that worships the intellect. I find Scriptures such as Rom 1:16, 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 extremely helpful to keep the right perspective.

6. The implications of the Gospel are communicated beyond being right with God. We are made right with God so that things in the world will be made right. Part of the reason why God justifies sinners is so that everything would be redeemed (Col 1:15-20) through the power of the Spirit at work in the lives of redeemed individuals. If people are going forward and being baptized but your community is not becoming more grace-based, more sacrificial, more giving, more missional and your city is not becoming more beautiful, safe and just as a result of the people in your church, chances are that the whole gospel is not being preached.

7. There’s full emphasis on what Christ has done for change instead of what needs to be done to change. When the whole gospel is not being preached you have moralism mixed in with evangelism. So even though the “plan of salvation” may be presented at the end of every sermon the “living the christian life” part is based either on moralistic applications of the Bible text or on motivational/ self-help principles. This weird dichotomy produces the best kind of pharisees.

8. People are compelled by grace to believe instead of being coerced by guilt to behave. The gospel promotes an inside out change not an outside in change. Behavior modification has all to do with religion and nothing to do with the Gospel. So, don’t guilt people for not changing, nor force change upon them. Preach the Gospel and allow the third person of the Trinity to do as it pleases.

9. There’s greater satisfaction that you’ve pleased God and that God is pleased with you than that you’ve pleased people and that people are pleased with you. We often measure success in preaching by the number of compliments we receive afterward. I’m not saying that compliments are not good in terms of feedback nor am I telling you not to accept them but, when you’re depressed the next day because you didn’t get enough, you’re motivation might be sightly out of line with the Gospel. And, if you’re not drawing your motivation from the Gospel you will find yourself being less and less willing to be faithful to the Gospel message and more and more willing to be faithful to your audience. At the end of the day if your motivation is not right, you will either grow in pride or succumb in sorrow.

10. Both religious and irreligious people are believing the Gospel. When the Gospel is preached faithfully and consistently in a community, you will experience an interesting dynamic. Both the “churchy” and the unchurched will often be offended while at the same time both will be encouraged with the hope they’re able to find in the Gospel. Meaning, in a Sunday you might get two completely different feedbacks from same demographic unchurched folks. Same with “churchy” folks. Mainly because the Gospel will be doing its job to humble the prideful and uplift the humble at the discretion of the Spirit. You’ll see both types not only mixed in the crowd weekly but coming to Jesus often. There’s no way around it.

Put Down the Stick and Start Building

2011-02-17T12:12:00.000-08:00

I've found Tim Chester's comments about well-intentioned idealism below extremely helpful. Having been an assistant pastor for over a decade, I can relate and I'm ready to put down the stick and get busy building.

I love idealists. The gospel calls us to be holy, gospel-centred, loving, missional people and to be holy, gospel-centred, loving, missional communities. Given the choice, I’ll always take an idealist over a pragmatist.

But ideals can be misused. People can use ideals as a means to criticize other people. They become a stick to beat people up.

Too often people use talk of ideals to hide a critical spirit or even to portray a critical spirit as a godly attitude of uncompromised integrity.

Here’s a man who sees himself as a man with ideals. He has a clear vision of how church should be. But he does not nothing about it except stand on the sidelines and criticize what others are doing. He feels good about himself because he’s uncompromised, but the reason he’s uncompromised is because he never does anything.

Here’s a man who is an assistant pastor. Among his peers he rolls his eyes as he talks about his traditional, backward church. He’s quick to express his frustration with the way things are. This critical spirit enables him to position himself as an idealist without having the courage to start something new. He portrays himself as a victim of other people’s compromises.

Here’s a man who once did some innovative gospel ministry. Now he’s a consultant or in a parachurch ministry. He goes around teaching a set of ideals and critiquing other people. This critical spirit enables him perpetually to look cool and edgy.

Ideals are not a stick to criticize others. Instead, we should use our ideals to define our direction of travel. We are sinners living in a sinful world so we know we will never completely arrive. We live by grace. But our ideals keep us pointing in the right direction. There will be compromises and failures, but we know what we’re aiming for.

And ideals should make us bold as we work for Christ. If you want to keep your ideals pristine and unsullied by real life then do nothing. That way nothing is ever tarnished because nothing is ever risked. But a true idealist pushes forward towards their ideals even if along the way there are failures and disappointments.
From: The misuse of ideals

Posted: 13 Feb 2011 07:11 AM PST

I Do Find You Beautiful

2011-02-09T08:38:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day is Monday (heads up to all the husbands!). Seventeen years ago, Heather and I were married. Little did we realize what was in store for us. She describes our marriage as the most broken and beautiful thing she has ever known. She's right on both accounts. We are both learning day by day how to love as we've been loved--facing the truth, extending grace.

On our wedding day (December 18, 1993), when the 'Bridal March' began to play, the music suddenly stopped and Heather's recorded voice came through the PA system. It was one of those 'you could have heard a pin drop' moments--a gravitas moment--and no one felt the weight of her words more than me.

I come to you today, down this aisle, dressed in white hoping you will find me beautiful. My brother is beside me, ready to give me away. Derrick has been the most important man in my life, until I met you. In the few minutes it takes for us to march down the aisle, you will hold my hand in yours as you look upon me--my face misted with the veil which you will take away. I hope you will find me beautiful. I am bringing you my greatest treasure, myself, my life, my love, my future. I put them all in your hands. I will be one with you for all life's days and I ask that you never take lightly what I have to give as I will never take lightly what you are giving me, for from today my life, my being, my name is gone and I am yours. I hope you find me beautiful. You have told me your dreams, your hopes, your deepest desires. You have told me that you have found in me all your heart's devotion. May you truly find me beautiful. And today when you lift my veil and see me plainly and then through all the countless days and years when hidden veils will be revealed and you will truly know me, may you find me beautiful.

Heather, I do find you beautiful.

Starving Under Expository Preaching?

2011-02-09T07:55:00.000-08:00

Written by Terry Rayburn
Thursday, 03 February 2011 00:00

I am a big fan of expository preaching and teaching. To preach the Word of God verse by verse and "give the meaning" is one of the highest forms of honor to God's Word, and the most fulfilling food to the sheep...unless…

…it is devoid of Christ and His Grace. "The Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ." (John 1:17).

Jesus is the true Bread of Life. Even the most accurate and well-delivered exposition will leave malnourished sheep hobbling along the path with their ribs sticking out, if that Bread is not a part of every meal.

Preachers and teachers, please don't let a sermon or lesson leave your lips, without our precious Savior and Lord, and His wonderful Grace, being an integral part of it.

Perhaps Mr. Spurgeon's little story will help make this point clear:

A young man had been preaching in the presence of a venerable divine, and after he had done he went to the old minister, and said, “What do you think of my sermon?”

“A very poor sermon indeed,” said he.

“A poor sermon?” said the young man, “it took me a long time to study it.”

“Ay, no doubt of it.”

“Why, did you not think my explanation of the text a very good one?”

“Oh, yes,” said the old preacher, “very good indeed.”

“Well, then, why do you say it is a poor sermon? Didn’t you think the metaphors were appropriate and the arguments conclusive?”

“Yes, they were very good as far as that goes, but still it was a very poor sermon.”

“Will you tell me why you think it a poor sermon?”

“Because,” said he, “there was no Christ in it.”

“Well,” said the young man, “Christ was not in the text; we are not to be preaching Christ always, we must preach what is in the text.”

So the old man said, “Don’t you know young man that from every town, and every village, and every little hamlet in England, wherever it may be, there is a road to London?”

“Yes,” said the young man.

“Ah!” said the old divine “and so from every text in Scripture, there is a road to the metropolis of the Scriptures, that is Christ.

And my dear brother, your business is when you get to a text, to say, ‘Now what is the road to Christ?’ and then preach a sermon, running along the road towards the great metropolis—Christ.

And,” said he, “I have never yet found a text that had not got a road to Christ in it, and if I ever do find one that has not a road to Christ in it, I will make one; I will go over hedge and ditch but I would get at my Master, for the sermon cannot do any good unless there is a savour of Christ in it.”

(From "Christ Precious To Believers", preached March 13th, 1859)

Terry Rayburn is the owner of the NoBurglars.com Security Firm in Clarksville, TN and attends Community Bible Church in Nashville. He blogs regularly at
http://www.grace-for-life.blogspot.com/ where his article first appeared: it is used with his appearance.

Top Ten Books of 2010

2011-01-04T09:31:00.002-08:00

I love books. I'm always reading a couple (or three or four) at a time. As I look back on what I read in 2010, most of the books were written by dead people. Here's the best of what I read that was actually published last year (with one exception). In stead of a simple list of 10 books, I'm recommending the "best" of 10 categories.

1. Best Book - To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World by James Davidson Hunter
If you, like John Mayer, are 'waiting for the world to change,' if you are finally waking up to the reality that (most) things cannot be solved by political means, if you have given up on your beauty pageant dream for a better world, you really need to read this book. Hands down the best book of 2010.

2. Best Children's Book - Pinkalicious and the Pink Drink by Victoria Kann
My 3-year-old has the original Pinkalicious book memorized (really she can recite it word-for-word. Did I mention she's 3?). This is a great "sequel." By the way, did you know that Pinkalicious: The Musical, premiered in New York in 2007 to sold-out audiences and is now going on a US tour?

3. Best Book for Pre-teens - Guardians of Ga'hoole (Books 1-4) by Kathryn Lasky
OK, so these books have been out for a while (2006), but the movie debuted in 2010 so I'm including it. (Hey, it's my list.) As is usually the case, the books are much better than the movie. See the movie, read the books. My favorite lines:

Kludd, the disbelieving owl, to his father: "Dad, have you ever seen a Guardian?"
Father: "Just because you haven't seen something, doesn't mean it isn't real."

Ezylryb (Lyze of Kiel), the wise warrior, to Soren: "I fancy it must be hard meeting your hero and finding out he is real and not a myth (when Soren sees Lyze disfigured from war and learns that the stories aren't as heroic as he had heard). This is what it looks like when you've actually fought in battle. It's not glorious, it's not beautiful. It's not even honorable. It is merely doing what is right and doing it again and again, even if some day you look like this."

4. Best Biography - Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas
I love good biographies and this is the best I've read in years. Kudos to Metaxas. He clears up some of the misconceptions concerning this great evangelical theologian and pastor. This is the Bonhoeffer that Dr. MacKenzie was trying to portray to us in seminary (and I think he knew him personally).

5. Best Fiction - Bamboo People by Mitali Perkins
This beautifully written story provides insightful, first-hand viewpoints of the current conflict in Burma through the perspectives of two boys, Chiko and Tu Reh. When the two boys' lives intersect, they realize that despite their different backgrounds and experiences, they are not so different after all. The heart-wrenching horrors of the conflict in Burma are haunting and the hardships that the boys endure are real. Perkins keeps the story engaging, thought-provoking, and in the end hopeful and inspiring.

6. Best for Women - A Way with Words: What Women Should Know about the Power They Possess by Christin Ditchfield
Heather, my wife, should be making this recommendation. She's an avid reader and has buzzed through several books this year. I did ask her--she said something about some books about the sun, Twilight, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn, or something like that. (She's going to kill me!) Here is my recommendation. I'll say no more.

7. Best for Men - Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
Hillenbrand is a great story-teller (she authored Seabiscuit). This book tells the story of Louis Zamperini, a juvenile delinquent-turned-Olympic runner-turned-Army hero. The book includes the remarkable tale of his conversion to Christianity. Read the book and be ready for the movie.

8. Best for Parents - The Faithful Parent: A Biblical Guide to Raising a Family by Martha Peace and Stuart W. Scott
I love being a parent and I love my kids. I want them to love and serve God, but that's not really up to me. What I'm called to be is a faithful parent. Some of the men and women I respect the most have children who sadly are not walking with Christ. Most parenting books, outright or indirectly, promise a good outcome if you only follow their suggestions. This book contains a wealth of practical, Biblically-based suggestions, but it maintains that the most important relationship in any family is vertical—between parents and God.

9. Best for Couples - What Did You Expect?: Redeeming the Realities of Marriage by Paul Tripp
Our marriage needs help. (Can you tell from the comments above?) Perhaps there are couple out there who have it all together, but I haven't met them. If anyone tells you their marriage is perfect, you should speak to their spouse for the real story. This book offers real help. Tripp says it well, "Spouses need to be reconciled to each other and to God on a daily basis. Since we're always sinners married to sinners, reconciliation isn't just the right response in moments of failure. It must be the lifestyle of any healthy marriage."

10. Best for Christian Living - Generous Justice: How God's Grace Makes Us Just by Timothy Keller
Keller has the ears of many (to the tune of 25,000 downloads of his sermons each week). In this book, he may rattle a few cages. He is among a new breed of conservative Christians eager to break out of the straitjacket that frowns on justice work as doctrinally unsound or the work of overzealous liberals. Keller carefully analyzes Old and New Testament passages to make the case that God's heart for justice on behalf of widows, orphans, immigrants, and the poor is indisputable, and that an encounter with grace will inevitably lead to a desire for justice. If you haven't read Keller before, start with The Prodigal God, then Counterfeit Gods, then Generous Justice.

Happy reading!

How to Have a Happy New Year

2011-01-03T09:24:00.000-08:00

I must have said (or heard) "Happy New Year!" a hundred times over the weekend. But how do you have one of those? Success at work, a happy wife, well-behaved kids, a run on the beach, a few more margaritas? Where does true happiness come from?

The great English Puritan John Owen helps answer the question about our happiness, ironically enough, by stating what brings sorrow to God's heart.

"The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him, is …"

How would you complete that sentence? Owen said: "The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him, is not to believe that he loves you." John Owen continues:

Many saints have no greater burden in their lives than that their hearts do not constantly delight and rejoice in God. There is still in them a resistance to walking close with God … So do this: set your thoughts on the eternal love of the Father and see if your heart is not aroused to delight in him. Sit down for a while at this delightful spring of living water and you will soon find its streams sweet and delightful. You who used to run from God will not now be able, even for a second, to keep at any distance from him.(John Owen, Communion with God, abridged by R. J. K. Law, Banner of Truth, 1991, 16, 17, 32–33.)

Does this seem too simplistic? It certainly isn't simple, but it is the key to true happiness. Delight and rejoice in God. This is only possible by knowing that God, in Christ, delights and rejoices in us. Consider the following as great words for a happy new year:

You have put more joy in my heart
than they have when their grain and wine abound.
(Psalm 4:7)

But let all who take refuge in you rejoice;
let them ever sing for joy,
and spread your protection over them,
that those who love your name may exult in you.
(Psalm 5:11)

O LORD, in your strength the king rejoices,
and in your salvation how greatly he exults!
You have given him his heart's desire
and have not withheld the request of his lips. Selah
For you make him most blessed forever;
you make him glad with the joy of your presence.
(Psalm 21:1, 6)

Delight yourself in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:4)
You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:11)

The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing. (Zephaniah 3:17)

Showing Them a Light

2010-12-14T10:33:00.000-08:00

“We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.”

Madeleine L’Engle

Stairwell to the Servants Quarters

2010-11-02T07:22:00.000-07:00

I am so full of myself and my own importance. If I am not noticed and my work not recognized, I grow sullen. (For instance, why don't more people read my blog?!) Then I read of Jesus' service to his disciples in John 13. He takes up the basin and towel and washes their feet, a job that was usually reserved for Gentile servants. It was beneath the Master, but He did not regard it as such.

"The stairway to the ministry is not a grand staircase but a back stairwell that leads down to the servants quarters."
-Edmund Clowney

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy... Prayer Warrior

2010-10-28T10:14:00.000-07:00

Eric Metaxas has written a terrific biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Reading it (which I highly recommend) has prompted me to pull my books by Bonhoeffer off the shelf (alas, I only have two) and read the man himself. His little prayer book on the Psalms is rich and rewarding and prods me to do more than just read about prayer:

The phrase "learning to pray" sounds strange to us. If the heart does not overflow and begin to pray by itself, we say, it will never "learn" to pray. But it is a dangerous error, surely very widespread among Christians, to think that the heart can pray by itself. For then we confuse wishes, hopes, sighs, laments, rejoicings--all of which the heart can do by itself--with prayer. And we confuse earth and heaven, man and God. Prayer does not mean simply to pour out one's heart. It means rather to find the way to God and speak with him, whether the heart is full or empty. No man can do that by himself. For that he needs Jesus Christ.

Read Them and Weep

2010-10-21T08:16:00.000-07:00

OK--I know I'm biased. I studied Bible and Biblical Languages in college and grad school. I have a passion for God's Word. That's why I majored in it and am spending my life teaching and preaching it. But as I tell my kids, the Bible is the most important thing you will ever study. Don't just take my word for it. God has a few things to say about His Word. (See Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32; Psalm 119; Proverbs 30:6; Isaiah 40:8; Matthew 5:18; Revelation 22:19.) Consider, also, what some of our past presidents have said. Read them and weep.

"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible." George Washington, 1st President

"I have examined all religions, and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world." John Adams, 2nd President

"Almighty God hath created the mind free . . I know but one code of morality for men whether acting singly or collectively . . Nothing is more certainly written in the Book of Life than that these people are to be free." Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President

"We have staked the whole future of American civilization not on the power of government ... not in the Constitution... (but) upon the capacity of each and every one of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments" James Madison, 4th President

"So great is my veneration for the Bible that the earlier my children begin to read it the more confident will be my hope that they will prove useful citizens of their country and respectable members of society..." "The first and almost the only book deserving of universal attention is the Bible. I speak as a man of the world . . . and I say to you, 'Search the Scriptures.'" John Quincy Adams, 6th President

"That book, sir, is the rock on which our republic rests." Andrew Jackson, 7th President

"I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given man. All the good from the Savior of the world is communicated to us through this book. But for it we could not know right from wrong . . It is the duty of nations as well as men to recognize the truth announced in Holy Scripture and proven by all of history that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord . . I am profitably engaged in reading the Bible. Take all of this book upon reason that you can and the balance by faith, and you will live and die a better man." Abraham Lincoln, 16th President

"I do believe in Almighty God! And I believe also in the Bible . . Let us look forward to the time when we can take the flag of our country and nail it below the Cross, and there let it wave as it waved in the olden times, and let us gather around it and inscribed for our motto: "Liberty and Union, one and inseparable, now and forever," and exclaim, Christ first, our country next.” Andrew Johnson, 17th President

"Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet anchor of your liberties. Write its precepts in your hearts, and practice them in your lives. To the influence of this book are we indebted for all the progress made in true civilization, and to this we must look as our guide in the future." Ulysses S. Grant, 18th President

"If you take out of your statutes, your constitution, your family life all that is taken from the Sacred Book, what would there be left to bind society together?" Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President

"Almost every man who has by his life-work added to the sum of human achievement of which the race is proud, of which our people are proud, almost every such man has based his life-work largely upon the teachings of the Bible." Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President

"The strength of our country is the strength of its religious convictions. The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country." Calvin Coolidge, 30th President

"The Bible is the one supreme source of revelation of the meaning of life, the nature of God, and spiritual nature and needs of men. It is the only guide of life which really leads the spirit in the way of peace and salvation. America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture." Woodrow Wilson, 28th President

"Menaced by collectivist trends, we must seek revival of our strength in the spiritual foundations which are the bedrock of our republic. Democracy is the outgrowth of the religious conviction of the sacredness of every human life. On the religious side, its highest embodiment is the Bible; on the political side, the Constitution." Herbert Hoover, 31st President

"We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a nation, without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic. Where we have been the truest and most consistent in obeying its precepts, we have attained the greatest measure of contentment and prosperity." Franklin Roosevelt, 32nd President

"The fundamental basis of this nation's laws was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings we get from Exodus and Saint Matthew, from Isaiah and Saint Paul. I don't think we emphasize that enough these days. If we don't have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State!" Harry Truman, 33rd President

"The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a nation than its wealth. The Bible is endorsed by the ages. Our civilization is built upon its words. In no other book is there such a collection of inspired wisdom, reality, and hope." Dwight Eisenhower, 34th President

"Of the many influences that have shaped the United States into a distinctive nation and people, none may be said to be more fundamental and enduring than the Bible." Ronald Reagan, 40th President

Begin Again, Believe Again

2010-10-20T09:21:00.001-07:00

I have a new friend (via Facebook). Her name is Sharon Hersh. She has written a book called Begin Again, Believe Again. Here is an excerpt of a recent blog on the same theme. Perhaps you'll find a friend in her as well.

I haven’t written a blog for a long time. I have a lot of excuses. It was a rough summer, and yet despite the vicissitudes of hope and despair of the past months this new book hits the bookstore shelves October 29, 2010. I can’t think of a better theme for my own heart and life right now than Begin Again, Believe Again. Perhaps the most important word in the title of this book is again. Whatever season of life we are in, we inevitably face the opportunity to try again, risk again, hope again, forgive again, love again –to begin again and believe again. I am coming to believe that the word again is probably one of the most important and difficult words to live out. Whether it’s beginning a diet again, a relationship again, sobriety again, a letter to a long-lost friend again, an apology again, or time with Jesus again — living in “again” is humbling, challenging, and absolutely necessary if we are to become who we long to be and who God intended us to be.

One of my neighbors is crazy. At least that’s what we’ve said — I hope with some compassion — during the fifteen years that I’ve lived here. She only leaves her home at night, and then in a dark coat with a scarf wrapped around her head no matter the weather she walks quickly to the mailbox to get her mail. I’ve often wondered if she’s waiting for a letter or a card from someone who could help her with her overgrown lawn, peeling paint, and lonely hours. She has a basement full of cats that keep her company. I learned from a neighbor who has lived in this neighborhood longer than I have that she went through a messy divorce about twenty years ago and has never been the same since. She quit her job (she was a therapist!), pulled down her blinds, and has spent her days in the company of her cats. My neighbor told me that on the day of her divorce from her husband of twenty-five years my “crazy”, cat-loving neighbor told a few women in the neighborhood, “I’m done. My heart is broken, and I will never love again.”

Today when a box full of my new books arrived at my front door I pulled out a book and ran my finger over the raised letters of the title, Begin Again, Believe Again, and I thought about my neighbor. Ten years ago my family broke into a million pieces that all of the counseling and wisdom of this world could not put back together again. I think I’ve gone a little crazy along the way. I’ve relapsed in addiction, and in the process, I’ve hurt and scared a lot of people, including me. I’ve seriously thought about never leaving the house again. I’ve thought about getting a fish, because I’m severely allergic to cats.

This new book tells my own story and the stories of other women with broken and battered hearts, and again I’m contemplating hiding out in the basement. Making one’s failures public is a scary thing. Yet I know that if you ask anyone over the age of thirty if their relational lives have turned out as they dreamed, you’re almost guaranteed to hear stories of hard relationships, broken relationships, and evn unbearable relationships that make people go a little crazy.

In his wonderful book, A Taste of Silence, Carl Arico writes, “Transformation is the process of God’s recreating our very selves . . . . All the phases of transformation are not done through our strategies. They are done because we are open to remaining in the presence of God.” As I consider the realities that have resulted in hopelessness, uselessness, despair, abandonment, rejection, lack of understanding, loneliness, and vulnerability — realities that assault my equilibrium, I am learning that when I am in the place where I must begin again and believe again, God is closer than I realize.

An intimate relationship with Jesus is for crazy people — not because it’s untrue but because this whole world is untrue, and nothing proves that more than our relationships. Yet these very difficulties are what can compel us to want Jesus more than we want any human relationship. When we ignore His knocking at our door in the midst of painful or difficult relationships, we build dungeons for our souls. When we don’t realize that relational realities are intended to compel us to hear His knocking, we miss the Truth and we miss being discovered by the Truth.

In revealing his desire for a relationship with us, God chooses foolishness — broken, painful, confusing, heartbreaking, crazy, human relationships. The New Testament expresses it this way, “God chose the fooish things of this world [risking in relationships again] to shame the wise [playing it safe]; God chose the weak things of the world [brokenness in relationships] to shame the strong [looking like we have it all together]. He chose the lowly things of this world [difficult relationships] and the despised things [failed relationships] — and the things that are not [loneliness] . . . so that no one may boast before Him.”

I do want to invite you to read my new book – knowing that the very ability to write and process my own life has kept me from hiding in the basement living with a room full of cats — hoping that in considering the ups and down of our relationships that Christ Jesus might “become for us wisdom from God — that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:37-30).

What keeps us from going stark-raving mad when we experience heartache again and again? Knowing that we are loved. Loving because we have been loved. And in loving, knowing intimately the One who is the beginning, middle, and ending of all our stories.

“So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well . . . .” Philippians 1:9

What's Out There?

2010-10-05T04:02:00.001-07:00

Here is a passage from Elisabeth Elliot's Keep a Quiet Heart. Besides my wife, Heather, and my mom, Alice, she has more than any other woman shaped my thinking, feeling and (hopefully) some of my doing. The data from the Time magazine article may be dated, but her point remains. Check her science and check out her faith. Seriously, read anything she has written. Start here.

Time magazine once reported the discovery of the most massive object ever detected in the universe. The odd thing is nobody knows what it is. The Kitt Peak telescope picked up two quasars ("intensely bright bodies so far away that the light they emit travels for billions of years before reaching the earth") which seemed to be identical, an occurrence astronomers consider about as likely as finding two people with identical fingerprints. Something called a "gravitation lens" seemed to be bending the light (get that!) from a single quasar in such a way as to produce two identical images. Nothing astonishing about that--Einstein predicted it more than seventy years ago, and Arthur Eddington confirmed it a few years later.

The great question is just exactly what is acting as a gravitational lens. Whatever it is, it has to have the mass of a thousand (1,000) galaxies. If it's a black hole, it is "at least a thousand times as large as the Milky Way (which consists of hundreds of billions of stars, including the sun)." Got that? I was bemused by the statement, "Astrophysicists find it difficult to explain how so tremendous a black hole could have formed." I guess they do. They're turning over a third possibility, much too arcane for me to peer into at all, but it has to do with the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe.

The most numbing of the facts of this story for me is that people go to such elaborate lengths to avoid mentioning one vastly prior fundamental possibility that (surely?) stares them in the face: creation.

How much faith does it take to believe in God? Less, I venture to say--a great deal less--than to believe in the Unconscious generating the Conscious, Mindlessness creating Mind, Nothing giving birth to Something.

What we know of God we have seen in His Son. He in whom we are asked to trust is Love, creative Love; thinking of us, I suppose, before He thought of gravitational lenses; giving Himself in sacrificial love long before He gave us His own breath of life--for the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world.

My Lord and my God. Forgive my faithlessness.

Tomorrow Is None of My Business

2010-09-29T07:49:00.000-07:00

Here's my quote for the day:

"Today is mine. Tomorrow is none of my business. If I peer anxiously into the fog of the future, I will strain my spiritual eyes so that I will not see clearly what is required of me now." Keep a Quiet Heart, Elisabeth Elliot

I Love Soccer

2010-09-23T11:43:00.000-07:00

My son loves soccer. And what my son loves I love--except for apple sauce. I don't really even like apple sauce. But soccer? I can get into this game. When I was growing up in Western Nebraska, soccer wasn't even an option. Now I love the game. That's why I'm excited about the possibility of having the FIFA World Cup hosted in the USA--because Eli is excited about it.

The Forgotten God

2010-09-18T12:58:00.000-07:00

Here are some quotes from Francis Chan’s The Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit, David C. Cook, 2009:

“God created feelings. Sure, like anything else, they can be misused and abused. But the intent and purpose of feelings came from God. Since he created emotions, why is it difficult to believe that he himself has emotions? The Spirit is grieved when there is a breach in relationship, whether it be relationship with God or relationship with other people. When we are disunified, unloving, hateful, jealous, gossipy, etc., that is when we grieve the Spirit of God. And since he is the creator of emotions, I believe that the Spirit grieves more deeply than we can even understand … I pray for the day when believers care more about the Spirit’s grief than their own. In fact, I pray that some of you readers would be broken over the grief you’ve placed on the Holy Spirit. So broken that you actually put down this book and work to resolve any conflicts you have with other believers. ‘If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all’ (Romans 12:8).” (72, 76)

Here are some of things according to Chan that should be present in your life if the Spirit dwells within you:

1. The Spirit helps us speak in precarious situations.

2. The Counselor teaches and reminds us of what we need to know.

3. The Spirit enables us to witness to others.

4. The Spirit empowers us to put to death the mis-deeds of the body.

5. The Spirit gives us an adoption to be God’s children.

6. The Spirit convicts us of sin.

7. The Spirit brings us life and freedom.

8. By the Spirit we abound in hope.

9. We are given a manifestation for the common good in community.

10. We exhibit the fruits of the Spirit.

Please Preach Christ

2010-09-07T06:09:00.000-07:00

There is a lot of chatter (on line and off) about Christ-centered preaching. This can only be a good thing I think. I would hope that all Christian preachers could agree that we should follow the apostle Paul (who was following Christ) when he aimed at preaching "Jesus Christ and him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2). We should heed the warning of Jesus who reprimanded those who were diligent students of the Bible but failed to see how they bear witness to him (John 5:39). Jesus also showed his disciples that in order to interpret Scripture rightly you must see how it all pertains to him (Luke 24:25-27, 44-47). A lot of the discussion centers around how you actually go about doing this. (The guys who continue to debate whether or not this is necessary need the metaphorical bash to the head or kick in the pants.) There is no question that the how to's are hard. In fact, apart from the Spirit of God they are impossible. We need to start (and proceed) by recognizing that. There are plenty of helpful, reliable, gospel-preaching explainers. Here are a few:

Christ-centered Preaching by Bryan Chapell
Gospel and Kingdom by Graeme Goldsworthy
Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture by Graeme Goldsworthy
Preaching Christ from the Old Testament by Sidney Greidanus
Preaching Christ in All of Scripture by Edmund Clowney
Heralds of the King by Dennis E. Johnson

This last work contains examples of Christ-centered sermons. Of course, in order to preach Christ-centered sermons you have to hear them being preached by such men as Tim Keller, "Skip" Ryan, and Iain Duguid, Phillip Jensen, Sinclair Ferguson and Eric Alexander. Reading Ryle, Edwards, Spurgeon, Bunyan, Lloyd-Jones, Whitefield and the like is also invaluable. By whatever means, please preach Christ.

Only Sinners Need Apply

2010-09-06T16:19:00.000-07:00

One of the common objections to Christianity is that Christians are a bunch of lousy hypocrites, people who call out other people for being sinners, but who still sin themselves. R. C. Sproul has a great answer for this objection in Reasons to Believe:

What happens is that people observe church members sinning. They reason within themselves, “That person professes to be a Christian. Christians aren’t supposed to sin. That person is sinning; therefore, he is a hypocrite.” The unspoken assumption is that a Christian is one who claims he does not sin. It reality just the opposite is the case. For a Christian to be a Christian, he must first be a sinner. Being a sinner is a prerequisite for being a church member. The Christian church is one of the few organizations in the world that requires a public acknowledgment of sin as a condition for membership. In one sense the church has fewer hypocrites than any institution because by definition the church is a haven for sinners. If the church claimed to be an organization of perfect people then her claim would be hypocritical. But no such claim is made by the church. There is no slander in the charge that the church is full of sinners. Such a statement would only compliment the church for fulfilling her divinely appointed task.

Please Preach

2010-09-02T09:53:00.000-07:00

Last night I confessed a fetish to my church. OK, so there were only 15 there at the time, but it was a surly confession nonetheless. I have a book fetish. I can't seem to get enough of them. I sometimes buy a half dozen books in a months time--sometimes more. The book of books tells us that "of the making of books there is no end" (Ecc. 12:12) and I think I need to read--well not all of them, but my "need to read" stack is piling higher and higher. One of the caring souls in our congregation reminded me that we have a library, so I need not purchase so many books. Another countered that you're not supposed to mark up library books (which of course I do a lot of). I must confess that neither one of these helpful comments helped much.

With that being said, I am reading a great book by Philip Jensen called "The Archer and the Arrow." It's about preaching the very words of God, aimed mostly at preachers. But he gives a very clear definition to preaching:

Sermons and preaching are not synonymous … Biblical preaching is about communicating God’s thoughts and not our own. And so we preach biblically whenever and wherever we declare the word of God to each other. In fact, sometimes there may even be more preaching happening over morning tea than from the pulpit, if dozens of conversations revolve around sharing God’s word of encouragement and rebuke with one another. Sermons, in other words, are a subset of a larger activity – the activity of proclaiming God’s word to one another, and from one generation to the next. Preaching is an activity that all are called on to perform.

So please preach God's Book and help me stop buying any more than I need.

New Worship Songs

2010-08-30T18:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Dale Chapel taught from Psalm 144 to wrap up our Songs of Summer series at Redlands Community Church. He did a fabulous job and got me thinking (he always does). He made a comment about new songs being new (or new again) to us even when they are familiar. He gave the example of singing "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" at different times in his life. Each time we sings of God's faithfulness it takes on new meaning because now looking back we can see it afresh.

Of course, there are some great new worship songs being written today. I've posted some of them on our church's website. Music has and always will play a vital role in our worship and praise God he is still giving us great songs to sing! Read the quotes below from William Temple, former archbishop of Canterbury, and check out some new songs:

To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God.

Both for perplexity and for dulled conscience the remedy is the same; sincere and spiritual worship. For worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of mind with His truth; the purifying of imagination by His beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of will to His purpose – and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin. Yes – worship in spirit and truth is the way to the solution of perplexity and to the liberation from sin. – William Temple, Readings in St. John’s Gospel, (1942-44).

Atheists Don't Have No Songs

2010-08-28T11:08:00.000-07:00

I love music. Always have, always will. My earliest memories are of my mom and dad making music in church. My mom played the piano. My dad directed the choir. I sang even as a young kid before I could read or write. Now I do all three. One reason is that I have a song to sing. I always have songs going on in my head. Happy songs. Sad songs. Silly songs. Holy songs. At any given moment I might break out into song (often embarrassment of my kids in public places).

I'm glad I have a song to sing. I have a lot of things I like to sing about--my wife, my kids, the great outdoors, my country, my favorite pass times and favorite places... My favorite songs to sing are God songs (as Elijah calls them). Ancient, modern, fast, slow, contemporary, traditional, classical, popular, folk, Anglo, Latino, Celtic, Israeli, African, Asian--I like all types. If it's a solid, Scripturally sound, singable song, I'll sing it and enjoy doing it.

In light of this, you've got to view this silly, but very insightful, video. I have nothing more to add.

Thinking about Rocks

2010-07-28T07:45:00.000-07:00

On Sundays this summer, we started doing a children's sermon during the morning worship service. Here's how it works. One of the children brings something in a black box (something that fits inside, is not alive, and is approved by mom or dad). I open up to box and use the object to teach a Scriptural lesson. This can be challenging.

This past Sunday, Alexandra brought a piece of coral rock in the black box. I talked about God being our Rock and Fortress and Jesus being the Rock on which we build our lives. Of course, I've been thinking about rocks all week. (Funny I've been thinking more this week about the kid's sermon than the "adult" one.)

I came across this brief article by George Grant in Approaching the Throne of Grace: A Parish Presbyterian Church Prayer Booklet. This is what I wish I would have said, but then it wouldn't have been a "children's sermon":

I was reminded of a well-known English nursery rhymne
Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockleshells,
All in a garden row
when I decided this year to put in a vegetable garden. I thought it would be a wonderful idea to have fresh vegetables. I knew the soil would need to be prepared, holes dug, and plants placed with growing room between them. What no one warned me about were the rocks. They were everywhere! Little ones, medium ones, big ones, huge ones--an ever-growing pile of rocks, which all needed to come out so the plants would be able to sink their roots deep in the soil. I spent a lot of time breaking and digging up rocks.

It got me thinking about the rocks in the soil of my relationship with God--not the Rock on which we stand, but the rocks that get in the way of my prayer time with God. I have rocks of pride, covetousness, defensiveness, doubts, temper, greed, fear, right things done for wrong motives--the list goes on. Some days it seems like I have a rock garden, but the huge boulder in the middle is self-justification. Just as a shovel is needed in a garden to remove rocks, a confession is needed for spiritual rocks.

As Christians, we need a time of confessing our sins to God in prayer, both privately and corporately. Without it, we are likely to think either better or worse of ourselves than we should--either way it is about us. Prayer can become an exercise in self-focus and self-justification.

Confession, though, reminds us of who we are and Whose we are. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins" (1 John 1:9). Grace removes the boulders of self-justification, allowing us to be fruitful gardens. There will always be rocks this side of heaven, and as grace grows they'll be moved also.

How does your garden grow?

Ever Green and Full of Sap

2010-07-17T13:09:00.000-07:00

I love old people. One day I will be old and I hope I will still be loved. (To my eleven-year-old daughter and nine-year-old son, I am old and they still love me.)

Have you heard the story of "The Wooden Bowl"?

A frail old man went to live with his son, daughter-in-law, and four-year grandson. The old man's hands trembled, his eyesight was blurred, and his step faltered. The family ate together at the table. But the elderly grandfather's shaky hands and failing sight made eating difficult. Peas rolled off his spoon onto the floor. When he grasped the glass, milk spilled on the tablecloth.

The son and daughter-in-law became irritated with the mess. "We must do something about Grandfather," said the son. "I've had enough of his spilled milk, noisy eating, and food on the floor". So the husband and wife set a small table in the corner. There, Grandfather ate alone while the rest of the family enjoyed their dinners together.

Since Grandfather had broken a dish or two, his food was served in a wooden bowl. When the family glanced in Grandfather's direction, sometimes he had a tear in his eye as he sat alone. Still, the only words the couple had for him were sharp admonitions when he dropped a fork or spilled food.

The four-year-old watched it all in silence. One evening before supper, the father noticed his son playing with wood scraps on the floor. He asked the child sweetly, "What are you making?" Just as sweetly, the boy responded, "Oh, I am making a little bowl for you and Mama to eat your food in when you get old." The four year old smiled and went back to work.

The words so struck the parents that they were speechless. Then tears started to stream down their cheeks. Though no word was spoken, both knew what must be done. That evening the husband took Grandfather's hand and gently led him back to the family table. For the remainder of his days he ate every meal with the family. And for some reason, neither husband nor wife seemed to care any longer when a fork was dropped, milk spilled, or the tablecloth soiled.

"Honor your father and mother" is a command that we never outgrow, but is too often neglected. Our youth-oriented culture doesn't square with most of the cultures of the world throughout history. The aged have usually been revered. And is Scripture there are specific references to the godly aged.

[The righteous] still bear fruit in old age; they are ever green and full of sap...
Psalm 92:14

Eugene Peterson comments: "The life of faith does not deteriorate or wear out. The longer we praise God, the more vigorous we become. There is a flourishing of faith that properly comes to its most lively expression in the later years." I've seen this many times over. Some of my favorite people on the planet are godly men and women that have continued to "grow in grace and the knowledge of God" well into their 80s and 90s. They are "ever green and full of sap."

Bill Iverson is one such man (pictured above). I saw him recently at our church's General Assembly in Nashville for the first time in 8 or 9 years. He is still "vigorous and flourishing in the faith." He is still actively sharing the gospel with others and busy helping to plant a church in downtown Newark. His son (a missionary in Japan) and his grandson (a missionary in India) were also there. I had to introduce Heather and my kids to him, and without hesitation Bill started playing ball with my three-year-old Ellie.

I love old people!

Life Flows through Relationships

2010-07-08T08:44:00.000-07:00

“Death creates an economy that makes life precious. One of the ways of naming that preciousness is friendship.”
--Stanley Hauerwas

Heather and I just returned from a two-week trip to Nashville and back. Along the way we lost luggage, fought colds, ate everything from Kentucky and Tennessee BBQ (I think TN won) to Georgia's best blueberry pie, did loads of laundry, and saw lots and lots of friends (although I am beating Heather in the "Facebook friend" challenge, she in reality has way more friends than me--and I'm OK with that--really!). Even when we were "by ourselves" at the Country Inn and Suites, our friends from Cape Coral were just across the hall (and I'm very OK with that--really!).

Oliver Claassen, a pastor-mentor of mine, once said that ministry flows through relationships. I've found that to be true. My version is that life flows through relationships. (I don't think Oliver would mind my edit.) Think about it--you would not be alive today if your mom and dad didn't have a relationship--good, bad or indifferent. Despite the dysfunction in your family, it still took two people to produce you.

Jesus showed how life flows through relationships by using a vineyard as an illustration (John 15). Jesus taught that He is the vine and His Father is the vinedresser. We are the branches. If we abide in Him, we will flourish and bear fruit. Apart from Him we will wither and perish. Here are Jesus' own words:

"If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you." (John 15:6-7)

I think that most of us want to ignore the first part (v. 6) and dare not believe the second part (v. 7). The bad news is that because of sin, none of us have stayed. We have all strayed. We are all runaways. We are all toast. The good news is that Jesus stayed with us. He remained. He was obedient even to death--to conquer it and bring new life. Now if we abide with Him, we'll have it. Everything connected to Jesus will be renewed. Real and lasting life flows through a relationship with Jesus.

Help Haiti Concert

2010-06-01T07:23:00.000-07:00

In July, Redlands Community Church will be sending a team to Haiti to assist Pastor and Mrs. Jovin in their efforts of caring for hundreds of people left homeless in the aftermath of the January 12 earthquake in Port-au-Prince. The team will be transporting needed medical and clothing supplies for the "tent city" that has sprung up outside the Jovin's home, as well as assisting them on a construction project at their church and school property.

On Wednesday, June 2nd Redlands will hold a Help Haiti Concert to inform our church family about how they can be involved in this project. Please join us Wednesday for our family meal at 6:00 pm and concert at 7:00 pm. An offering will be to go toward supplies for the trip. Details at redlandscommunitychurch.org.

Room for God

2010-06-01T06:08:00.000-07:00

As a child, I learned this southern gospel classic by Ira Stamphill:

I've got a mansion just over the hilltop
In that bright land where we'll never grow old
And some day yonder we will never more wander
But walk on streets that are purest gold

I also learned from John 14 that Jesus told his disciples of the place He was going to prepare for them. In verse 2 Jesus says, "In my Father's house are many rooms (KJV, "mansions" - Gk., monai, "dwelling places"), if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?" In verse 23 he says, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home (Gk., mone, "room, dwelling place") with him." This is quite remarkable. Not only is Jesus preparing a place for his people. He and the Father (and the Spirit)are indwelling his people. He is not only making a home for us--we are being made a home for him.

How can I (an unholy sinner) possibly be made a dwelling place for God (the Holy One)? Surely a dwelling place for God must be swept clean of all evil--be made spotless and white as snow. This is a task we cannot do on our own, but only by receiving daily the grace of God who declares those in Christ righteous based on his merit, not ours--and is making us more and more righteous as we die to sin and rise to new life day by day for the one who died and rose again for us.

A collect (a short prayer used in a worship service) found in the Book of Common Prayer reminds us of the place we ought to prepare for Him: "Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at His coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for Himself."

In Revelation 21, we are told by John of the coming of Christ:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from he throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God."

Come--not to find, but make this troubled heart
A dwelling worthy of Thee as Thou art.
--(Bishop Handley Moule)

Prayer Is Hard Work

2010-04-28T07:46:00.000-07:00

Prayer is hard work. It's a struggle for me and when I do pray I don't do it too well. So why do it? Well, it's commanded for one (2 Thessalonians 5:17 and Philippians 4:6). And it's necessary. If I need God--if I can't do anything without him (Psalm 42:2; John 15:5), then I need to pray. Prayer is a (chief) means that God accomplishes his will on earth. That we have the privilege to play a part in "bringing heaven to earth" is awe-inspiring.

Amy Carmichael knew about "bringing heaven to earth" and she knew about the importance of prayer. Here are some private notes she wrote to her "Family" (hundreds of children and their helpers, both Indian and European) in Dohnavur, South India, to help them prepare for a special day of prayer:

WITH WHAT DID I STRUGGLE?

1. With all that says to me, what is the use of your praying? So many others, who know more of prayer than you do, are praying. What difference does it make whether you pray or not? Are you sure that your Lord is listening? Of course He is listening to the other prayers but yours are of such small account, are you really sure He is "bending His ear" to you?

2. With all that suggests that we are asked to give too much time to prayer. There is so much to do. Why set aside so much time just to pray?

3. With all that discourages me personally--perhaps the remembrance of past sin, perhaps spiritual or physical tiredness; with anything and everything that keeps me back from what occupied St. Paul so often--vital prayer.

WHAT WILL HELP ME MOST IN THIS WRESTLE?

1. The certain knowledge that our insignificance does not matter at all, for we do not come to the Father in our own name but in the Name of His beloved Son. His ear is always open to that Name. Of this we can be certain.

2. The certain knowledge that this is Satan's lie; he is much more afraid of our prayer than our work. (This is proved by the immense difficulties we always find when we set ourselves to pray. They are much greater than those we meet when we set ourselves to work.)

3. Isaiah 44:22 and kindred words, with 1 John 1:9, meet all distress about sin. Isaiah 40:29-31 with 2 Corinthians 12:9,10 meets everything that spiritual or physical weariness can do to hinder. Psalm 27:8 with Isaiah 45:19 meets all other difficulties. And the moment we say to our God, "Thy face, Lord, will I seek," His mighty energies come to the rescue. (See Colossians 1:2,9.) Greater, far greater, is He that is in us than he that is against us. Count on the greatness of God. But are we to go on wrestling to the end?

No, there is a point to which we come, when, utterly trusting the promise of our Father, we rest our hearts upon Him. It is then we are given what St. Paul calls access with confidence (Ephesians 3:12). But don't forget that this access is by faith, not by feeling, faith in Him our living Lord; He who says "Come unto Me" does not push us away when we come. As we go on, led by the Holy Spirit who so kindly helps our infirmities, we find ourselves in 1 John 5:14,15 and lastly in Philippians 4:6, . It is good to remember that immediate answer to prayer is not always something seen, but it is always inward peace.

And if the day ends otherwise and we are discouraged? Then tell Him so, "nothing ashamed of tears upon His feet" [here she is quoting from F.W.H. Meyers's poem "St. Paul"]. Lord, Thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that I love Thee. "Yes, my child, I know." But don't settle down into an "it will never be different" attitude. It will be different if only in earnest we follow on to know the Lord.

God's Way of Changing the World

2010-03-05T07:05:00.000-08:00

Heather and I have been reading Scripture Union's Encounter with God for years. It's a daily devotional that takes us through the New Testament twice and the Old Testament once in a five year cycle. Today's reading is Hebrews 11:32-40, the last portion of the "hall of faith" which reads like a who's who of Old Testament characters: Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel. Their military and governing accomplishments are impressive. But others suffered mocking and flogging, imprisonment, stoning, being sawed in two, death by a sword. Even those who were mighty "were made strong out of weakness." The SU writer comments:

In western democracies, one notable way to influence society and promote your values is by mobilizing a large voting block that can have a significant impact on elections. Christians, in pursuit of their values, may go that route, too. But our passage today describes a radically different approach for influencing society. Instead of building a large following, amassing lots of resources, crafting a public image, the faithful throughout history have been jeered, mistreated, stoned, imprisoned, tortured and killed. That's no way to win elections, but it's God's way of changing the world.

To read the full devotional click here. You can purchase Encounter with God here or receive it free daily via email here.

If I Had the Time (and Money)

2010-02-18T13:28:00.000-08:00

The New Canaan Society is a group of men (they call themselves 'brudders') who meet on a weekly basis. Its not a church group, a bible study, an accountability group, a speaker forum or a men’s fellowship. It’s just men joined by the common desire to experience deep and lasting friendships, with each other and with Jesus. You can read about how the group got started here. They have speakers like Os Guinness, Luis Palau, Tim Keller, Miroslav Volf, Chuck Colson, Rick Warren and Dave Dravecky. Plus the guys that MC--Skip Bowlinski and Eric Metaxas--are ridiculously funny. There is an infectious joy about these guys that seems to be (happily) contagious. Their love for Christ is spreading. There are NCS chapters popping up all over the place. Each year they have a retreat. This year it is March 5th-7th in Hot Springs, VA. If I had the time (and money) I'd go with some guy friends (you know what I mean). James Hunter is one of the speakers. I've read his work since college and am challenged by him even at points where I disagreed with him. John Seel gives a synopsis of the theme of the retreat.

What "Faithful Presence" Means
By Dr. John Seel

Faithful presence means leading the league in assists.

John Stockton is the all-time NBA leader with 15,806 assists. He didn't merely know how to pass the ball -- any player can do that. What makes an assist leader is the ability to see the entire court, or field of play. With this skill, they distribute the ball with pinpoint passes that players easily turn into points. That's why assist leaders command respect. They serve others. John Stockton epitomized this to near perfection.

Faithful presence is when the church leads the league in assists and everyone wins, even if the church doesn't lead the league in scoring. It is when culture-shaping institutions in the wider world respond to the church and respect it. It is what the Bible calls flourishing or shalom.

In his forthcoming book, To Change The World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World, James Hunter calls the church to adopt a public posture of faithful presence. He writes, "A theology of faithful presence calls Christians to enact the shalom of God in the circumstances in which God has placed them and to actively seek it on behalf of others." Faithful presence is not the starting point of Hunter's book, but its conclusion. Two-thirds of the book is devoted to understanding how culture is changed and the appropriate role of power in this process. Coming to faithful presence requires first clearing years of erroneous assumptions. It's a new paradigm, not a new program.

Faithful presence is contrasted to three other postures towards public life -- what Hunter calls "paradigms of engagement" -- that have been adopted by the church in the recent past. Faithful presence can be clarified by underscoring what it is not.

It's not a defensive enclave set against the world. For those who adopt this vision the main problem is secularity, "if only God could be re-enshrined in the social order the culture would be restored." One can think of this as a lament over lost market share.

It's not relevance to culture, where the priority is being connected to the pressing issues of the day or the felt-needs of the person in the pew or more importantly the felt-needs of the nonbeliever. This posture focuses its sharpest critique not on contemporary culture but on the established church. One can think of this as a branding crisis.

And finally, it's not purity from culture, where active engagement in culture is abandoned for a call to authentic witness. This posture adopts the view that the "church has no other obligation other than to be itself." While expressed in many different ways and through various traditions, it feeds on the logic of "us-against-them." One can think of this as a new monasticism.

In contrast, the foundation of faithful presence is the incarnation and Jesus' example of "pursuit, identification, and offer of life through sacrificial love." The same should be evident in our relationships with others, in the exercise of our vocations, and in the spheres of our public influence. "What this means," writes Hunter, "is that where and to the extent that we are able, faithful presence commits us to do what we can to create conditions in the structures of social life we inhabit that are conducive to the flourishing of all."

Make no mistake about what is required. The church's flourishing is tied directly to the flourishing of the community in which it lives and works. Our shalom is found in the shalom of others. This is the calling and cost of faithful presence. So it was for Jesus. So it is for the church. It works on the court just as in life.

Too bad I won't be able to make it. I guess I'll have to spring for the DVD. Did I mention that Paul Baloche and Graham Kendrick are going to be leading worship?

Atheist Christopher Hitchens Knows What a Christian Is

2010-02-12T13:48:00.000-08:00

In a recent interview, Christopher Hitchens, the fervent atheist and author of God Is Not Great, showed he has a much clearer understanding of what it means to be a Christian than the Unitarian minister, who claims to be a Christian, interviewing him.

Marilyn Sewell: The religion you cite in your book is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make a distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?

Christopher Hitchens: I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.

Click here to read the rest of the interview.

HT: Randy Alcorn

The (Wo)man Who Walked 1,000 Miles

2010-02-09T05:26:00.000-08:00

1 Kings 10 records the account of the Queen of Sheba who traveled 1,000 miles to see the reputed splendor of Solomon. He answered all her questions. There was nothing he could not explain to her. She was left breathless. It wasn't just his wisdom and prosperity that surpassed the reports she had heard. It was also the joy of the people who served him. "Happy are your men!" Bathsheba observed, "Happy are your servants, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom!"

It was a good reflection on Solomon that the people in his kingdom served with joy. Those who serve Christ with joy are a good reflection on him. Am I happy to serve my King? What about those in my care? Is my wife happy to have me as a husband? Are my children happy to have me as a dad? Is my church happy to have me as a pastor? The joy of those in my care is a good reflection on me.

In light of this I should seek to maximize my joy in God (which should be easy--there is no better king to serve) and to increase the joy of those in my care (which often times proves to be hard--I could be a much better husband, father, pastor--and even at my best, I will never please everyone).

What promotes my joy in God (and therefore should be emulated in fostering joy in others)? God is wise--he knows how things work. When we bring to him what's on our mind, there is nothing hidden that he cannot explain to us. (There is a limit to this, of course. See Deuter. 29:29). I need to increase in wisdom (James 1:5).

God is blessed and blesses. He is supreme in his own affections and rightly so. What's more, he blesses his own with his favor. I must show favor to those in my charge. Bestowing a blessing is a powerful way to foster flourishing which leads to joy.

God is love and loves. This is the motivation behind showing favor. He loves us because he loves us. He has chosen to bestow his love on us based on his promise of covenant faithfulness. I must love those who I have pledged myself to. This again leads to joy.

God executes justice and righteousness. He is always just, always right. He will not waiver from doing what is equitable. I must seek justice and righteousness in my dealings with others (Micah 6:8).

Jesus is the Greater Solomon who fulfills when Solomon failed (Luke 11:31). True and lasting joy is found in those who serve in his court and kingdom.

Note bene: The court of Solomon was never meant to be an end in itself. Solomon lost sight of the fact that God blessed the king in order to benefit the people in his realm and even the world. When Solomon's court became self-serving it imploded. In contrast, Christ the King "did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). It is joy to serve such a King.

Haiti Relief

2010-01-20T07:11:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday, January 12, Haiti was hit by a 7.0 earthquake. There is extensive damage to structures in Port-au-Prince and the surrounding area. Hundreds of thousands were killed and millions are without homes. The conditions in Haiti were terrible. Now they are even worse. In terms of natural disasters, this is the worst case scenario. I've been to Haiti and seen the need, so I'm compelled to help in the relief and recovery effort and call others to do the same. Here's how.

Emergency Response

Pray. Let all the media coverage on Haiti inform what you pray about in the morning, at breakfast, during lunch, at the dinner table with your family, as you sit in your living room in the evening, and as you drift off to sleep. Let the gospel shape how you pray. Pray with great confidence that the God who has come to us in Jesus has not forgotten us or the people of Haiti.

Pray as a family. Pray as a small group. Pray as a church. Pray.

Give. Donate money to reputable organizations that are already on the ground in Haiti. This is the most tangible act you can do for the people of Haiti right now. They are in desperate need of water, food, and medical supplies. Donating money is currently the best way to meet those needs. Who can you give to? I'm glad you asked. Here is a list of reliable organizations who are helping in Haiti now.
http://www.gcanet.org/
http://www.foodforthepoor.org/
http://www.redcross.org/

Advocate. The Joint Council on International Children’s Services is leading the way in advocating for Humanitarian Parole. Check their Haiti page often for updates and for information on what you and your church can do to advocate for Haiti’s orphaned and vulnerable children. Educate yourselves and advocate for Haiti’s children.

Plan. I encourage you to begin thinking about how you (and your church) can serve Haiti in the weeks and months and years ahead. Begin considering how you (and your church) might serve a Haitian church when the time comes. For example, begin thinking through the following questions:

What can we do over the next several weeks so that we don’t forget about the people of Haiti?

What will our church be able to do if/when Humanitarian Parole is granted for Haiti’s orphans?

Where in Haiti can we send our people to serve on short-term trips come summer?

How many people can our church send?

Long-term Engagement

After the media coverage and the celebrity fund-drives, there will be the ongoing work of recovery and rebuilding. The problems in Haiti are not going away for a very long time. We need to be thinking through strategies for long-term engagement with the people of Haiti. My hope is that many individuals and churches will begin thinking about how this crisis in Haiti might change their life goals and ministry trajectory for years to come.

God Gives Grace

2009-12-29T17:49:00.000-08:00

Quote of the day:

"God receives none but those who are forsaken, restores health to none but those who are sick, gives sight to none but the blind, and life to none but the dead. He does not give saintliness to any but sinners, nor wisdom to any but fools. In short: He has mercy on none but the wretched and gives grace to none but those who are in disgrace."
Martin Luther

Mary's Song

2009-12-18T09:32:00.000-08:00

During our Christmas Concert Sunday night I talked about the first Christmas carol, Mary's Magnificat. We tend to go to extremes concerning Mary. We either venerate her to the point of worship (and forget that she was herself a sinner in need of a Savior) or we dismiss her (and forget that she is blessed among women). I recently discovered Luci Shaw's Mary Song which beautifully portrays the ponderings of Mary's heart.

Mary's Song
...by Luci Shaw

Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
keep warm this small hot naked star
fallen to my arms. (Rest...
you who have had so far to come.)
Now nearness satisfies
the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies
whose vigor hurled a universe. He sleeps
whose eyelids have not closed before.
His breath (so light it seems
no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps
to sprout a world. Charmed by doves' voices,
the whisper of straw, he dreams,
hearing no music from his other spheres.
Breath, mouth, ears, eyes
he is curtailed who overflowed all skies,
all years. Older than eternity, now he
is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed
to my poor planet, caught
that I might be free, blind in my womb
to know my darkness ended,
brought to this birth for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended
I must see him torn.

Web Junkies

2009-12-02T13:24:00.000-08:00

How much time do I spend on the internet? Probably more than I should. One of my heroes, J. I. Packer, has some words of advice for all of us web junkies:

I'm amazed at the amount of time people spend on the internet. I'm not against technology, but all tools should be used to their best advantage. We should be spending our time on things that have staying power, instead of on the latest thought of the latest blogger—and then moving on quickly to the next blogger. That makes us more superficial, not more thoughtful.

Here's an idea--why not dive into a good book by Packer? I think they have "staying power." Here's a list of books by Packer that I would recommend:
Knowing God
Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs
Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life
Keep in Step with the Spirit: Finding Fullness in Our Walk with God
Growing in Christ
Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God
Knowing God's Purpose for Your Life
Praying: Finding Our Way Through Duty to Delight (with Carolyn Nystrom)

Being Outdoors

2009-12-01T14:26:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Heather, the kids and I spent the day with my mom and dad at John Pennekamp National Park. (pictures are on their way!) It was a gorgeous day to be in the Keys and we spent it (how else?) on a boat--a glass-bottom boat to be exact. We saw sting rays, nurse sharks, barracuda, sea turtles, and tons of fish and coral. It was great to be out on the sea and even better to be with family. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Being outdoors reminded me of one of the wisest things I have ever read on dealing with discouragement or depression written by Charles Haddon Spurgeon (c. 1880):

He who forgets the humming of the bees among the heather, the cooing of the wood-pigeons in the forest, the song of birds in the woods, the rippling of rills among the rushes, and the sighing of the wind among the pines, needs not wonder if his heart forgets to sing and his soul grows heavy. A day's breathing of fresh air upon the hills, or a few hours, ramble in the beech woods' umbrageous calm, would sweep the cobwebs out of the brain of scores of [people] who are now but half alive. A mouthful of sea air, or a stiff walk in the wind's face, would not give grace to the soul, but it would yield oxygen to the body, which is next best.

Album of the Year (2008)

2009-11-25T13:59:00.000-08:00

If I were to vote for album of the year, it would be Come Weary Saints from Sovereign Grace Music. Each song has been been remarkably timely and encouraging during a particularly trying time. My three favorite tracks are...

I Have a Shelter

Steve & Vikki Cook and Bob Kauflin

I have a shelter in the storm
When troubles pour upon me
Though fears are rising like a flood
My soul can rest securely
O Jesus, I will hide in You
My place of peace and solace
No trial is deeper than Your love
That comforts all my sorrows

I have a shelter in the storm
When all my sins accuse me
Though justice charges me with guilt
Your grace will not refuse me
O Jesus, I will hide in You
Who bore my condemnation
I find my refuge in Your wounds
For there I find salvation

I have a shelter in the storm
When constant winds would break me
For in my weakness, I have learned
Your strength will not forsake me
O Jesus, I will hide in You
The One who bears my burdens
With faithful hands that cannot fail
You’ll bring me home to heaven

© 2008 Integrity’s Hosanna! Music (ASCAP)/Sovereign Grace Worship (ASCAP)

Oh the Deep, Deep Love

Original Words by Samuel Trevor Francis (1834-1925). Music, chorus, and alternate words by Bob Kauflin.

Oh the deep, deep love of Jesus
Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free
Rolling as a mighty ocean
In its fullness over me
Underneath me, all around me
Is the current of Your love
Leading onward, leading homeward
To Your glorious rest above

Oh the deep, deep love
All I need and trust
Is the deep, deep love of Jesus

Oh the deep, deep love of Jesus
Spread His praise from shore to shore
How He came to pay our ransom
Through the saving cross He bore
How He watches o’er His loved ones
Those He died to make His own
How for them He’s interceding
Pleading now before the throne

Oh the deep, deep love of Jesus
Far surpassing all the rest
It’s an ocean full of blessing
In the midst of every test
Oh the deep, deep love of Jesus
Mighty Savior, precious Friend
You will bring us home to glory
Where Your love will never end

© 2008 Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI).

As Long As You Are Glorified

Mark Altrogge

Shall I take from Your hand Your blessings
Yet not welcome any pain
Shall I thank You for days of sunshine
Yet grumble in days of rain
Shall I love You in times of plenty
Then leave You in days of drought
Shall I trust when I reap a harvest
But when winter winds blow, then doubt

Oh let Your will be done in me
In Your love I will abide
Oh I long for nothing else as long
As You are glorified

Are You good only when I prosper
And true only when I’m filled
Are You King only when I’m carefree
And God only when I’m well
You are good when I’m poor and needy
You are true when I’m parched and dry
You still reign in the deepest valley
You’re still God in the darkest night

© 2008 Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI)

The First Thanksgiving without My Mom

2009-11-22T21:44:00.000-08:00

A very long while ago, Paul asked me if I wanted to be a "guest blogger". I declined. I didn't have anything to say. (Shocking, I know.) Tonight, I am having a hard time sleeping, so I thought I would give it a try. Here goes....

Grief is a funny thing. I have compared it to an ocean often in the past 9 months since I have experienced it in a new way after my moms death. It was incredibly choppy the first several weeks. As the months went on it became easier on a daily basis. Then those waves would come... almost out of nowhere. It just rolls right over you sometimes with an almost shocking intensity.

So, tonight is one of those nights. I knew it was coming. I've known for about a month now, wondering when it would hit and dreading it. Here it is. My first Thanksgiving without her. And this Thanksgiving particularly, I would really like to share with her. I really, really miss her. I feel like part of my history went with her. No one can answer "Did I do that when I was little?" or a host of other questions I wish I would have asked her about.

She was really a remarkable woman. She loved God. She trusted God. She didn't always understand what He was doing, but she was His and that was enough. She instilled in me a love for His church as I watched her serve it with joy and make it a priority in our home. I am really grateful for that. She modeled faith and trust in a remarkable way.

I was reading through Psalm 103 this past week. It has always been my favorite Psalm and I have loved it at Thanksgiving time especially as it reminds us to talk to our souls: "Praise the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all His benefits." The Psalmists goes on to list several which are truly incredible and reason for exuberant praise. However, something new struck me in my reading this time:

"As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord's love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children's children." vs 15-17

The notes in my study bible says this: "The song reaches its crescendo here: amid the shortness of human life (vv. 15–16), God's steadfast love for his faithful is everlasting (v. 17a), bestowing on them the privilege of nurturing those who will be his people in coming generations (vv. 17b–18). This psalm goes beyond that, however: the faithful expect that God sets his saving love on their children's children. This is the crowning privilege that God gives to his faithful: though their lives are short and appear almost insignificant, they may still contribute to the future well-being of the people of God by their godly and prayerful parenting and grandparenting."

I couldn't help but think of my mom when I read that. She is gone, but God gave her the amazing privilege of contributing to the future well-being of the people of God by her Godly example. He graciously put me into a covenant home, redeemed my life from the pit and crowned me with love and compassion (vs 4 & 5). My children have also been given that blessing and because God's steadfast love is from everlasting to everlasting I can trust that their children and the generations after them will be a part of that. Her life, with all its struggles as a single mom, was incredibly significant because God had placed His everlasting love on her. I'm grateful for her and MORE grateful for a God like this who redeems broken things and turns a life that seems insignificant into something of incredible worth and value. I pray earnestly He does that in my life as I seek to train my children to love, obey, honor and adore their God. The thought that He could do this is incredibly humbling. Only by His grace will what I do contribute to the future well being of the people of God - I am so very well aware of that. I want it, though. I want to make more of Him and less of me.

So, all that to say, I am grateful God gave me Barbara Strom to nurture me. She didn't do it perfectly, but she did it well. She relied on God's grace. She left a Godly example for me to follow as I am in the middle of nurturing my own children. I wish she was still here. I miss her incredibly.

I'll probably wake up in the morning and regret posting this. I'll think it sounds too sappy or something - but it's been good for my soul. Missing her makes me long for heaven more. Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

Don't Go to Church?

2009-11-19T08:14:00.000-08:00

Jeff Purswell is a pastor at Covenant Life in Gaithersburg, MD and serves as the Dean of the Sovereign Grace Pastors College. He saw a bumper sticker the other day that read "Don't go to church - be the church."
Here are his thoughts:

Now, despite the element of truth (God’s people are the church), there are all kinds of things wrong with this statement. But behind the words is obviously someone’s disappointment (and possibly disillusionment) with organized Christianity. And although I’d guess that many Christians would reject this false choice, their attitude to Sunday gatherings of the church may reveal a similar apathy.

To fight such apathy, we all need a biblical perspective on what is taking place on Sunday—a perspective that can transform our attitude toward “going to church.” And it’s this perspective that the writer of Hebrews gives us when he describes the ongoing worship service we join when we gather to worship each Sunday.

Mount Sinai and Mount Zion

In Hebrews the writer presents a striking contrast between Mount Sinai and Mount Zion, between the experience of the people of God under the old covenant and their experience under the new covenant.

In verses 18–21 the writer recounts the gathering at Mount Sinai (as recorded in Exodus 19). After their deliverance from Egypt, God gathered his people and made a covenant with them. He constituted them as a nation, his very own people.

For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.”

Now look at the gathering at Mount Zion described in verses 22–24:

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

What a contrast.

At Mount Sinai everything served to emphasize the chasm between God and these people. At Mount Zion everything encourages us to come boldly into God’s presence. There, at Mount Sinai, the scene itself is frightening—fire, darkness, gloom. Here, at Mount Zion, is a gleaming city, the New Jerusalem, the place where God dwells with his covenant people.

At Mount Sinai the sounds are frightening—whirlwind, trumpet blast, unutterable words. At Mount Zion is the sound of exuberant and celebratory praise.

At Mount Sinai was a solemn gathering filled with fear. Here at Mount Zion is a joyful assembly of those whose names are forever written in the Lamb’s book of life.

There at Mount Sinai was a picture of the unapproachability of God’s holy presence. But here at Mount Zion is a picture of full access into the presence of God through the mediator Jesus Christ.

Now think about your church. Think about the people with whom you serve, live, and worship. Have you fully grasped just what your local church is and what it’s doing on a Sunday morning? Your local church is one authentic, visible manifestation of the entire people of God for all time. It is a part of the heavenly throng that even now is worshiping before the throne of God. And we get to be part of that!

Think about this gathering, which includes—

Angels. We are worshiping with creatures before whom we would be tempted to fall down in terror and worship, if we could see them.

The spirits of the righteous-made-perfect. Here are the heroes from Hebrews 11—Abraham, Moses, Samuel, and David—mighty men of God, mighty prophets who trusted God, so endued with power that they stopped lion’s mouths and put foreign armies to flight. We are worshiping with them.

Faithful saints. These men and women endured torture and refused deliverance if it meant compromise. They chose a stoning pit or a chopping block before they would deny Jesus. And if they survived, they joyfully embraced poverty, deprivation, and persecution. They feared God and they feared sinning more than they feared man—all so that they might receive something better. And when we worship, we join them before the throne of God, who remains “a consuming fire” (v. 29).

We come to Jesus. He is there, our mediator, whose sprinkled blood cleanses us from sin. His blood “speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (v. 24). Abel’s blood cried out for judgment, but Jesus’s blood cries out for mercy.

Sunday Morning

So back to your home church this upcoming Sunday. When you enter and the music begins, what are you more aware of? Is it the song set? the musicians? the mix? Does the worship band wow you? Does the routine bore you?

Or do you perceive something beyond all this?

Your church is one authentic manifestation of the entire people of God that right now is worshiping before the throne of God. That is the reality of new covenant worship. And when we begin to wrap our minds around that, there springs to mind a thousand reasons to rejoice, to praise, and to sing; and to renounce flippancy, self-display, selfishness, superficiality, sloppiness, and thoughtlessness.

Before the God who is a consuming fire, we don’t shuffle in casually. We don’t demand our artistic preferences. We don’t merely gather with our friends. We don’t merely sing together. As the people of God, we enter into the very presence of God. Encountering God in this way is the very nature of the church. By definition, to be the church is to gather in God’s presence and to worship God together. And when we begin singing, we join the glorious worship that takes place unceasingly before the throne of God.

This is true regardless of how we feel, who leads worship, what songs we sing, or how we think worship went. There is something incredible happening on Sunday morning!

Be the church and go to church. Something eternal is going on in there. Don’t miss it.

John Donne

2009-11-18T06:45:00.001-08:00

John Donne (1572-1631) was an English poet and a churchman famous for his spellbinding sermons. Here are some of my favorite John Donne quotes and poems.

Our critical day is not the very day of our death, but the whole course of our life: I thank him, that prays for me when my bell tolls; but I thank him much more, that catechizes me, or preaches to me, or instructs me how to live.

John Donne: Sermons.

The whole life of Christ was a continual passion; others die martyrs, but Christ was born a martyr . . . His birth and his death were but one continual act, and his Christmas-day and his Good Friday are but the evening and morning of the one and the same day.

John Donne: Sermon of Christmas-Day, 1626.

The Father was pleased to breathe into his body [of man] in the creation; the Son was pleased to assume this body in the redemption; the Holy Ghost is pleased to consecrate this body by his sanctification. The consultation of the whole Trinity is exercised upon the dignifying of man's body.

John Donne: Sermons.

Meditation XVII (No Man Is An Island)

No man is an island, entire of itself
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls
it tolls for thee.

Holy Sonnets: Batter my heart, three-person'd God

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

The Doctrine Is the Drama

2009-11-17T14:18:00.000-08:00

Quote of the day--"It it is worse than useless for Christians to talk about the importance of Christian morality, unless they are prepared to take their stand upon the fundamentals of Christian theology. It is a lie to say that dogma does not matter; it matters enormously. It is fatal to let people suppose that Christianity is only a mode of feeling; it is vitally necessary to insist that it is first and foremost a rational explanation of the universe. It is hopeless to offer Christianity as a vaguely idealistic aspiration of a simple and consoling kind; it is, on the contrary, a hard, tough, exacting, and complex doctrine, steeped in a drastic and incompromising realism. And it is fatal to imagine that everybody knows quite well what Christianity is and needs only a little encouragement to practice it. The brutal fact is that in this Christian country not one person in a hundred has the faintest notion what the Church teaches about God or man or society or the person of Jesus Christ.... ...Theologically this country is at present is in a state of utter chaos established in the name of religious toleration and rapidly degenerating into flight from reason and the death of hope."
— Dorothy L. Sayers (Creed or Chaos?)

Economic Good News

2009-11-12T07:00:00.000-08:00

The financial crisis of 2007–2009 has been called by leading economists the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It contributed to the failure of key businesses, declines in consumer wealth estimated in the trillions of U.S. dollars, substantial financial commitments incurred by governments, and a significant decline in economic activity. The International Monetary Fund estimated that large U.S. and European banks lost more than $1 trillion on toxic assets and from bad loans from January 2007 to September 2009. These losses are expected to top $2.8 trillion from 2007-10. U.S. banks losses were forecast to hit $1 trillion and European bank losses will reach $1.6 trillion. Many causes have been proposed, with varying weight assigned by experts. Certainly high among the causes would be a lack of responsible management, a shortage of high ethical standards, and widespread greed run amuck.

There is some good news. There seems to be a movement toward more responsible management. More than 1600 business school grads since early 2009 have now signed an oath on "Responsible Value Creation." Their promise is to lead organizations "for the greater good" rather than just their own benefit. In this way they are modeling Christ, who came not to be served, but to serve.

These men and women with MBAs desire to create value, build wealth, and use money for the greater good rather than contribute to a hedonistic lifestyle and culture where people are "enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures." I encourage you to consider taking this oath or recommending it to those you know in the business world.

The Doxology

2009-11-11T07:06:00.000-08:00

The Lord's prayer ends how it began: with God. "For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen." The kingdom refers to God's all embracing control over all of his universe. He created the world, so he has the right to rule the world--and, in fact, does. More particularly, his kingdom denotes his design to redeem a people for himself by overthrowing the rule and dominion of Satan. Having asked for God to bring that about, the prayer concludes by asserting its reality: the kingdom is his. J. I. Packer comments:

Satan, the prime example of how sin breeds cunning but saps intelligence and rots the mind, does not accept that the Lord is king in this basic sense, and would dismiss this doxology--indeed, all doxologies--as false; but Christians know better, and praise God accordingly.

The power is God's as well. God can do anything in accord with his nature. There is no power that can overthrow the rule of God Almighty. Jesus came into the world to destroy the works of the devil and his naive claim to power (1 John 3:8). Derek Thomas provides this helpful summary:

What needs do you have? The kingdom and power are the Lord's to provide!
What sins have you confessed? The kingdom and power are the Lord's to pardon!
What temptations threaten to undo you? The kingdom and power are the Lord's to protect you!

The glory is also his. The word glory speaks of "weight" and "worth." Glory can be defined as God's essential being. It is synonymous with who and what God is. The doxology is therefore attributing, not only rule and might to God (kingdom and power), but also divinity. To say that all glory belongs to him is the same as saying, He is the Lord!

It is noteable then that when John wants to convey to us that Jesus is none other than God, he declares, "we have seen his glory." Paul writes along the same lines: "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6).

Finally, the doxology declares that God has his kingdom, power and glory forever and ever. God is outside of time. Time itself is part of the created order of things. He is not subject to the ravages of time. He is unchangeable, utterly dependable, always the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). Because God will never change, we know that our relationship with God as his children will never change.

Amen is a transliteration of the Hebrew word meaning "truth" or "firmness." Jesus used it to emphasize some important truth he was about to speak ("Amen, Amen" or "Verily, verily" as the King James Version rendered it). Saying "Amen" to this prayer (or any other) asserts our conviction that everything in it is our longing. We are saying, "This is my prayer. These petitions express the longing of my heart. This is my confession of faith, my record to what is essential and true." Amen.

Everyone Must Live for Something

2009-11-10T17:29:00.000-08:00

Quote of the day--"Every human being must live for something. Something must capture our imagination, our heart's most fundamental allegiance and hope. But, the Bible tells us, without the intervention of the Holy Spirit, that object will never be God Himself." Tim Keller in Counterfeit Gods
Get the book here.

Temptation

2009-11-05T08:51:00.000-08:00

While I was in college, I was told a story of two brothers from Tennessee who received a surprising gift from their father. Their dad brought home a lion cub to the farm as a pet for the boys. They were thrilled of course, but soon realized that the cub was growing and needed a pen of its own. They built a cage for the lion and all was well, until one day they discovered the heads of chickens scattered around the yard. Right away the boys realized that the lion was responsible, but how was he killing the chickens. They decided to set up surveillance. Hidden behind some bushes they saw the lion in its cage feigning sleep. Soon chickens were approaching the lion's cage and poking their heads through to eat from the lion's feeding trough. First timidly, then with abandon, the chicken gorged themselves. At that moment, the lion swiped at the chicken's head and it went sailing through the air and into the yard. The chicken would then run around like the proverbial chicken with its head chopped off and fall to the ground.

The amusement of this (true) story wears off when we see how it parallels our temptations to sin. Satan lures us to taste the forbidden and let's us fulfill our craving until we lose our heads. Peter instructs us: "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour" (1 Peter 5:8).

How are we to guard against temptation? Jesus warned his disciples: "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation" (Matthew 26:41) The last petition of the prayer he taught his disciples is, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." Jesus is teaching us to pray for protection when we find ourselves faced with situation and enticements that would drag us away from loyalty to him. He was tempted in all points as we are--yet without sin. Jesus answered each temptation with truth from God's Word. He resisted the liar by speaking truth.

We will fall to temptation unless we see our need for God to protect us from it. We need to recognize our weakness. We must never think that we cannot be tempted in certain ways. We must never say, "That could never happen to me." John Owen warns:

Do not flatter yourself that you can hols out against temptation's power. Secret lusts lie lurking in your own heart which will never give up until they are either destroyed or satisfied. "Am I a dog, that I should do this thing?" asks Hazael (2 Kings 8:13). Yes, you will be such a dog, if you are like the king of Syria. Temptation and self-interest will dehumanize you. In theory we abhor lustful thoughts, but once temptation enters our heart, all contrary reasonings are overcome and silenced.

John Bunyan, in 1684, published a short article to be posted on the walls of homes called A Caution to Stir Up to Watch Against Sin. The second verse (of the sixteen-verse poem) goes like this:

Sin, rather than ‘twill out of action be,
Will pray to stay, though but a while with thee;
One night, one hour, one moment, will it cry,
Embrace me in thy bosom, else I die:
Time to repent [saith it] I will allow,
And help, if to repent thou know’st not how.
But if you give it entrance at the door,
It will come in, and may go out no more.

Why do we have to go through temptation? Why is there still a struggle? Derek Thomas answers: "God allows us to experience...temptation's attraction because he wants to engage us in living the Christian life. He actually wants us to battle because it is through the experience of battle that we often grow. Just as unused muscles atrophy, so spiritual maturity is stunted by passivity. God wants to develop in us the skills of resisting the devil so that he will flee from us (cf. Jas. 4:7; 1 Pet. 5:9)."

How do we resist the devil? How did Jesus respond to temptation?
1. He recognized the devil's subtle villainy. "Surely God wants you to eat. Why don't you just turn these stones into bread? Use your miraculous powers for self-satisfaction." Most temptations are subtle.
2. Jesus asserted the truth of God's Word. He charged and rebuked Satan out of the Scriptures. Jesus replied that he needed (to trust and obey) God's Word more than physical nourishment.
3. Jesus recommitted himself to God. He had come, not to do his own will, but the will of his Father. We are to follow the same example. It is interesting that Jesus quotes Deuteronomy, the book of covenant-renewal, which taught him to yield his entire life to God and his ways. Saying "No!" to temptation means saying "Yes!" to God's will.

It is the grace of God, Paul says, that "teaches us to say 'No' to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope--the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good" (Titus 2:12-14).

Forgive Us

2009-11-04T10:07:00.000-08:00

There once was a boy that was quizzed by his father about the sermon he had just heard. "What was the preacher talking about?"
"He was preaching about sin," the boy replied.
"What did he say about it?" asked his dad.
"He was against it," the boy answered.

The fifth petition is "Forgive us our sins (or debts)." Sin is not pleasant or popular, but we ignore it to our peril. If we don't deal with our own sin it will swallow us up. Go wrong here, and everything else is warped. Make light of sin and you make light of God's holiness and his love. Jesus came and gave his life to deal with our sin.

David dealt forthrightly with his sin and expressed great grief at having disobeyed God by his adulterous affair with Bathsheba and the subsequent murder of Uriah:

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are proved right when you speak
and justified when you judge.
Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
(Psalm 51:1-5)

In this short passage there are three words about sin, three about forgiveness, and three about God's grace. The word "sin" conveys the idea of failing to hit the target or of coming short. The word "iniquity" means a distorting, a bending out of shape. The word "transgression" involves a willful rebellion, of knowing that a thing is wrong but doing it anyway.

The three words that teach about forgiveness show us what God must do to deal with sin: "blot out...wash away...cleanse." These words come from the ceremonial system, where they refer to rites that allow a person to come safely into God's presence. They focus on the inner condition that the ceremony points to. Sin makes us unclean and unfit to enter the presence of God. Forgiveness comes at a cost. A sacrifice must be made. God provided the sacrifice by sending his Son to die in our place.

The three words that show us the riches of God's grace "mercy, unfailing love and compassion." Mercy is unmerited favor. Unfailing love (perhaps the richest word in the whole Bible--hesed) speaks of God's covenant commitment to do as he promises no matter what. Compassion reminds us of God's passionate and ever-flowing love.

Sin is an ongoing concern of the Christian life. Question: Why do we need to pray for forgiveness? Answer: Because we keep on sinning! Sin is a debt we owe God. Every failure to perform renders us culpable. As the Prayer Book puts it: "We have left undone those things which we ought to have done..." Sin is a failure to meet our obligations.

If we don't realize why Jesus came into this world as a man and why we need him as our Savior, then we haven't yet considered the greatness of the weight of our sin. It is a cancer, a parasite that will undo us unless it is removed. The greatness of our sin shows us the greatness of our Savior. Through his life and death he rescued us from sin's penalty. We are no longer under condemnation. Through his Spirit we are being rescued from sin's power. We are no longer under sin's dominion. Through his resurrection we will one day be rescued from sin's presence. We will no longer sin!

This petition not only reconciles us to God, but is meant to reconcile us to one another: "Forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors." There is clearly a link between the two. Jesus presses the truth home by adding, "If you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses" (Matthew 6:14-15).

This brings up several questions. Is forgiveness conditional? Do we extend forgiveness to the repentant only? Is there a difference between forgiveness and reconciliation? One thing is abundantly clear--there must never be on our part an unwillingness to forgive. Whatever obstacles there may be on the part of the offender in receiving forgiveness--we, on our part, must always be ready to forgive.

Our Daily Bread

2009-10-30T10:20:00.000-07:00

What does "Give us today our daily bread" mean? It means that we are asking God to take care of all our physical needs. The Bible teaches us that God not only created all things but provides for their needs as well.

All look to you to give them their food at the proper time.
When you give it to them, they gather it up;
when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things. (Psalm 104:27-28)

The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time.
You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing. (Psalm 145:15-16)

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:25-34)

We pray for God to supply our daily needs so that we come to know that he is the only source of everything that is good.
[God] has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy. (Act 14:17)

[God] himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. (Act 17:25)

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. (James 1:17)

If God is going to give us all these things, why do we need to pray for them? Because by praying we realize that neither our work or worry nor God's gifts can do us any good without his blessing.

He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. (Deuteronomy 8:3)

Better the little that the righteous have
than the wealth of many wicked; (Psalm 37:16)

Unless the LORD builds the house,
its builders labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchmen stand guard in vain.
In vain you rise early
and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat—
for he grants sleep to those he loves. (Psalm 127:1-2)

Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58)

By praying to God for our daily provision we are showing our dependence upon him for our every need. We need his help to give up our trust in creatures and to put our trust in him alone.

Cast your cares on the LORD
and he will sustain you;
he will never let the righteous fall. (Psalm 55:22)

This is what the LORD says:
"Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who depends on flesh for his strength
and whose heart turns away from the LORD.
He will be like a bush in the wastelands;
he will not see prosperity when it comes.
He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives.
But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.
He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit." (Jeremiah 17:5-8)

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,
"Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you."
So we say with confidence,
"The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?" (Hebrews 13:5-6)

Thy Will Be Done

2009-10-29T07:01:00.000-07:00

It is striking to me that the prayer Jesus taught his disciples focuses chiefly on God and not us. The first three petitions concern God: his name, his kingdom, his will. This is in sharp contrast with the way I normally pray--too often my prayers are self-centered and egotistical. A failure to give God the glory due him and seek our own glory (be our own God) is at the heart of our sin-marred lives. This petition is meant to bring us to a place of surrender--to pray as Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, "Not my will, but yours be done."

But how are we to determine God's will? Some say that the will of God can be discerned through impressions on the mind or emotions. This usually leads to thought about God's will in terms of what best pleases us. Others think they have a direct line of communication with God that enables them to speak with confidence about knowing the will of God concerning some matter. Others read into unusual events the voice of God directing them in one way or another. Others seek to block out all the noise by making their minds 'blank' so that God can fill them. Does God intend to guide us through these subjective means--through a variety of impressions, urges, dreams and promptings of intuition?

We have been taught the Scripture is our only rule for faith and practice. The Bible is to be our guide. The apostle Paul put it this way: "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16-17). God gave us his Word to instruct, convince, heal and equip us so that we might live the life he intends. Scripture instructs us concerning God's will: Scripture read, Scripture preached, Scripture interpreted, Scripture applied, Scripture hidden in our hearts, Scripture lived out in our lives.

But is the Bible really relevant to our lives in the 21st century? The truth is that there isn't an aspect of our lives that doesn't fall under the scope of what the Bible teaches. God's will is to be discerned from the Scriptures, either expressly or by inference. The Bible may not tell you which pair of shoes to by, or who to marry, or whether to be a lawyer or a linebacker. But the Bible does give us principles by which to make these decisions. We are to use our common sense, seek the advice of others, and heed to voice of conscience. The subjective nudges that we sense are no more than a conscience which has been trained by Scripture to recognize God's way as opposed to the world's way. "Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, 'This is the way; walk in it'" (Isaiah 30:21).

Derek Thomas in Praying the Saviour's Way writes that discovering God's will involves four things:

1. Asking what most glorifies God in any particular action and always choosing the best.

2. Studying Scripture to see what it has to say, either directly or by good and necessary consequence.

3. Using our minds and rational faculties: that is, employing the maxim of Psalm 32: 'I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you. Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you' (vv. 8-9). Too many errors come at this very point.

4. Only having done these three things first should we ask what 'burdens' God may have placed on our hearts, or what providence may have 'cornered' us into allowing no room but to go in a certain direction.

Going back to the Lord's prayer, we must be ready to give up our will and yield to God's. We must be prepared to discover that God's will may be the opposite of what we desire. We will never go wrong when we pray for what God has promised.

He promised his presence ("I am with you always..."). He promised to accept those who come to him ("those who come to me I will in no wise cast out"). He promised comfort to those who come to him in need ("as one who is comforted by his mother, so will I comfort you"). He promised mercy and pardon for those who call on him ("I have blotted out your transgression and your sins: return to me"). He promised safety to the righteous ("No evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague will come near your tent"). He promised protection ("He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways"). He promised strength ("they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength"). He promised wisdom ("He gives wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding"). He promised eternal life ("this is the promise that he promised us, even eternal life").
All of these promises (and more) are granted through Jesus. "For all the promises of God in him are yes, and in him Amen, to the glory of God by us" (2 Corinthians 1:20).

Submitting to the will of God is always difficult. Taking up our cross and denying ourselves is never easy. Doing the will of God is often a process of submission that takes some time. We must deal with the intrusion of our sinful responses to God's will: stubbornness, distrustfulness, anger and resentment, all of which make the process even more difficult. The will of God for our lives is hardly ever revealed in full at any one time. God give us sight of only so much of his will as we are able to take in at the time. The issue is whether we are willing to submit and obey the will of God that has become clear to us. That is the point of the prayer: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

A Parable

2009-10-27T07:34:00.000-07:00

There was a splendid fishing trawler docked at a seaport near some of the world’s richest fishing grounds. The large boat was well equipped with everything necessary for netting, landing, and preserving fish. On a regular basis, the officers and crew gathered for instruction in fishing theory. Afterwards they discussed with zeal and intelligence the various approaches to fishing. Sometimes they invited professors from the marine biology academy nearby to offer special lectures. Some maintained that the only way to fish was to anchor and pray that the Lord would send the fish into the nets. Few of these men attended the prayer meetings called for this purpose. Several argued for friendship fishing, noting that fish are easily frightened. Others held to the position that it is best to seek out the young ones, otherwise they will soon swim away into the deep.

In the meantime, day after day the other fishing boats went out early in the morning and returned at evening loaded with fish. The officers and crew often analyzed the catches of the other boats. “Mostly culls, easy catches of surface fish,” they said. “Their boats are not as sound as ours. Their nets leak and their engines are net kept up. Their refrigeration systems are bad, so that what they catch they can never keep long enough to get it to the cannery.”

Yet the trawler remained tied to the dock with heavy lines. The engines never roared into life.

One day, a young crewmember was called before the captain and the crew. He had been critical of the continuing education program and very frustrated by the ship’s inactivity. “Why do we always sit here tied to the dock? Why do we study fishing theory without going out into the deep? Why do we watch others fish and never fish ourselves? I know other ships are not as well equipped as ours, but isn’t what they do imperfectly better than what we don’t do at all?”

Some wanted to fire the young man right on the spot. Others argued caution. A committee was selected to study the matter. That was five years ago.

(Source: Letter from Ray Cortese)

Lunch with Charlie

2009-10-21T10:52:00.000-07:00

Heather and I recently took a quick trip to NY. We saw a lot of the city in just a couple of days, but one of the highlights was meeting Charlie Drew for lunch. Charlie is pastor of Emmanuel Presbyterian Church near Columbia University. I highly recommend Charlie's book A Journey Worth Taking: Finding Your Purpose in This World. It presents a comprehensive and clear Christian perspective on life calling--a great book to give to college student or read yourself!

Thy Kingdom Come

2009-10-21T09:58:00.000-07:00

The second petition of the Lord's prayer, "Thy kingdom come," encapsulates the entire purpose of God in the world. Why did Jesus come into the world? What is the relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament? What is the function and role of the church in God's redemptive plan? What is God doing in the world today? All of these questions revolve around the kingdom of God. It has been said that this petition is at the heart of the message of the Bible.

Derek Thomas in Praying the Saviour's Way, gives the following explanation of "Thy kingdom come":

First, this petition alludes to the sovereign rule of God as King over the entire universe. The Lord who merely speaks all things into existence at the creation is King. His word is authoritative and powerful.

Second, this petition alludes to the covenantal rule of God over his people... On every page of the Old Testament there is the expectation that God is working out a plan and purpose in which he is gathering a people to himself and over which he intends to exercise his rule...The church of the New Testament is the gathered people, the seed of Abraham: 'If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise' (Gal. 3:29).

Third, this petition alludes to God's intention to overthrow all of Satan's pretension to power...'The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work' (1 John 3:8). 'And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross' (Colossians 2:15).

Fourth, this petition alludes to the as yet incomplete nature of the kingdom of God. We live as Christians...in the time between the two great advents of Christ. The Incarnation is past; the Second Coming is future. The kingdom of Christ has come and the kingdom of God is yet to come! There is 'now,' but there is also a 'not yet'...The decisive battle has been won, but the ultimate victory celebration must await the final triumph of Christ in the establishment of the new heavens and new earth...In personal terms, this means that although the decisive change has taken place in our regeneration and union with Christ (we are not, nor can ever be, what we once were), the change is incomplete. We are sinners still, and hence we feel the pull of sin that would (if it could) drag us down so as to deny Christ entirely. We wrestle, then, against the world, the flesh and devil and cry out for deliverance.

Praying this petition of the Lord's Prayer, then, has in view the ultimate triumph of Christ in the gathering of the church, as well as the visible defeat of Satan in our own lives as we struggle with ongoing sin. Every victory against sin and Satan is an advancement for the kingdom of God.

Telescope Magnification and Microscope Magnification

2009-10-08T10:53:00.000-07:00

The fist petition of the Lord's Prayer is "Hallowed by thy name." What does "hallowed" mean? We don't use the word that often. Does it have something to do with Halloween? Actually, both words have hallow (from the Old English word halgian) as their root, meaning "to regard as holy." So how do we regard God's name as holy? One translation puts it, "May your name be honored" (NLT). Eugene Peterson's The Message reads, "Reveal who you are." In English, the verb form of holy is sanctify, meaning "to set apart." Peter says, "Set apart Christ as Lord" (1 Peter 3:15). We are to revere God--to exalt him above everything (and everyone) else.

But how can we sanctify God? Can we make him more holy and majestic than he is? John Piper's distinction between telescope magnification and microscope magnification is helpful here.

There's telescope magnification and microscope magnification, and it's blasphemy to magnify God like a microscope. To magnifiy God like a microscope is to take something tiny and make it look bigger than it is. If you try to do that to God you blaspheme. But a telescope puts its lense on unimaginable expanses of greatness and tries to just help them look like what they are. That's what a telescope is for.

When we pray "Hallowed be Thy name" it is not that God is made more holy than he is, but that he is more holy than we have imagined him to be. We are to pray that he will be more glorious, more beautiful, more wonderful, more magnified in our eyes.

Our Father

2009-10-07T09:58:00.000-07:00

How are we to pray? Jesus taught his disciples the Lord's Prayer (or perhaps better the Disciple's Prayer, because Jesus did not pray the Lord's Prayer himself--the petition for forgiveness would not have applied to him since he was without sin).

When we use this prayer as a pattern for our own, we begin by addressing God, 'Our Father in heaven' (Matt. 6:9). This is how Jesus constantly addressed God, and how because of Jesus we can address him too. The beloved Apostle John tells us how it is possible that we can call God our Father: "To all who did receive [Jesus], who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God" (John 1:12). But do we recognize the significance of being able to address God this way? John later writes in astonishment, "See (Behold!) what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are!" (1 John 3:1).
J. I. Packer, in Knowing God, wrote:

You sum up the whole of the New Testament teaching in a single phrase, if you speak of it as a revelation of the Fatherhood of the holy Creator.

Sinclair Ferguson, in Children of the Living God, wrote:

You cannot open the pages of the New Testament without realizing that one of the things that makes it so "new," in every way, is that here men and women call God "Father."

Derek Thomas wrote in Praying the Saviour's Way:

To be able to call God, 'Father,' is what the message of the New Testament is principally about...The Fatherhood of God, or its corollary, our sonship or adoption, is the very heartbeat of the new covenant.

So Christ commanded us to call God "our Father." Why did he do so?
The Heidelberg Catechism answers the question this way:

At the very beginning of our prayer Christ wants to kindle in us what is basic to our prayer--the childlike awe and trust that God through Christ has become our Father. Our fathers do not refuse us the things of this life; God our Father will even less refuse to give us what we ask in faith.

Praying the Savior's Way

2009-10-02T10:36:00.001-07:00

I am amazed at the sheer selfishness of much of my praying (when I actually get around to praying!). Far too often, I rush into asking God for things or asking for God's help to do this or that, without first being amazed that I can address God at all!

Making prayer about what God can do for me--my wants and needs, my anxieties and cares, my agendas and to-do lists--reveals that I am once again putting myself at the very center of things. The Bible calls this idolatry. Calvin wrote in his Institutes of the Christian Religion that man's heart is a perpetual factory of idols. The idols of my heart often reveal themselves in my spoken and unspoken prayers.

Derek Thomas in his helpful book on the Lord's Prayer called Praying the Saviour's Way gives some penetrating questions to analyze our prayers.

Are they worshipful?
Are they God-centered?
Are they focused on the kingdom of God?
Are they humble and not presumptive?
Do they reveal an increasing sense of our sinfulness?
Is their chief end to glorify God?

When I ask these questions about my prayers, they are too often sorely lacking. For example, many of my prayers become a series of medical reports. Prayers about health concerns are not wrong, of course. But without worship and adoration and praise and thanksgiving accompanying them, they become self-centered in an unhealthy way--as I'm praying for health! Derek Thomas comments:

The very sickness which solicits the prayer may well have been sent to make us focus on the Sender, that in our frailty we might acknowledge his sovereign purpose and worship him accordingly. "Some graces grow best in winter," wrote Samuel Rutherford, "and some prayers mature when life is bitter."

There is no better model for our prayers than the prayer Jesus taught his disciples:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.
Amen.

The Incredible Universe

2009-09-25T07:07:00.000-07:00

Some time ago an article appeared in the National Geographic entitled "The Incredible Universe," by Kenneth F. Weaver and James P. Blair. It included this paragraph:

How can the human mind deal with the knowledge that the farthest object we can see in the universe is perhaps ten billion light years away! Imagine that the thickness of this page represents the distance from the earth to the sun (93,000,000 miles, or about eight light minutes). Then the distance to the nearest star (14-1/3 light years) is a 71-foot-high stack of paper. And the diameter of our own galaxy (l00,000 light years) is a 310-mile stack, while the edge of the known universe is not reached until the pile of paper is 31,000,000 miles high, a third of the way to the sun.

As incredible as the universe is, what's more amazing is that God created it all with the power of His Word. And what's even more amazing is that we can know this God personally. The Creator is our Redeemer. This is what He says:

"With my own hands I founded the earth, with my right hand I formed the expanse of sky; when I summoned them, they sprang at once into being..." Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, "I am the Lord your God, I teach you for your own advantage and lead you in the way you must go. If only you had listened to my commands, your prosperity would have rolled on like a river in flood and your righteousness like the waves of the sea..." (Isaiah 48:13, 17, 18, NEB).

The God who has rescued us in our rebellion is the commanding presence in the universe. Nothing disproves him. Rather, everything reveals his glory. The prosperity (i.e., peace) we know in Him is not seasonal, but perpetual. And His righteousness covers our sin again and again like the waves of the sea.

Truth and Power

2009-09-16T10:27:00.000-07:00

An astute friend pointed out a concern about my reference to John Wesley's "heart strangely warmed" experience at the point of his conversion. Here is a quote he passed along from How Wide the Divide? a Mormon & an Evangelical in Conversation by Craig Blomberg and Stephen Edward Robinson:

"Joseph [Smith] confessed a greater affinity for Methodism than Presbyterian or Baptist thought prior to his supposed encounter with God (Joseph Smith History 2:5-Il). Is it a coincidence that Mormonism subsequently turned out to be closer to Methodism than to its Protestant competitors on a whole host of doctrines, from denying the major tenets of Calvinism (predestination, original sin, eternal security) to affirming the strong call for holiness and moral perfection? Even the testimony of Methodism’s founder, John Wesley, that he found his heart “strangely warmed” at his conversion is reminiscent of Mormonism’s “burning in the bosom.” None of these were issues that concerned the ancient Jews or Central Americans who populate the pages of the Book of Mormon, but they all fit the religious climate of nineteenth-century North America very readily."

There are problems with both Methodist and Mormon theology. Some of them are mentioned in the quote. However, there is a difference between a genuine conviction of the Holy Spirit and a "burning in the bosom."
An example of the former would be what happened during Jesus' exposition of Scripture on the road to Emmaus in which he explained to Cleopas and another disciple that all of the Old Testament reveals God's redeeming work through himself. Afterward, they said to each other, "Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?" (Luke 24:32)
Another example would be on the day of Pentecost. The apostle Peter preached to the crowd that had gathered about Jesus' death and resurrection. When he pointed out (twice) that those present were culpable in Jesus' death "they were cut to the heart" (Acts 2:37).
The disciples hearts "burned within them." The Jews were "cut to the heart." In both examples, people are moved viscerally by the truth of Scripture. But notice that it is based on the objective truth of Scripture, not just a subjective feeling. Now back to John Wesley and Joseph Smith. My contention would be that one of these was a genuine conviction of the Holy Spirit (in Wesley's case) and one false (in Smith's case). One was brought about by the truth of the gospel being expounded from Romans. In this case a subjective feeling was based on objective truth. Mormons reverse this, basing truth on subjective feelings. Potential converts are coached to suspend judgment concerning theological or historical problems with Mormonism until they receive the appropriate "testimony" or emotional confirmation of the "truth" of Mormon doctrine.
This leads to subjective interpretations of Scripture that very often depart from the historic Christian faith. R. C. Sproul gives some helpful instruction on how to avoid this in Essential Truths of the Christian Faith (pp. 27-28):

Subjectivism has been the great danger of private interpretation...Believers are free to discover the truths of Scripture, but they are not free to fabricate their own truth. Believers are called to understand sound principles of interpretation and to avoid the danger of subjectivism.
In seeking an objective understanding of Scripture we do not thereby reduce Scripture to something cold, abstract, and lifeless. What we are doing is seeking to understand what the Word says in its context before we go about the equally necessary task of applying it to our lives. A particular statement may have numerous possible personal applications, but it can only have one correct meaning.

Notice that we do not "reduce Scripture to something cold, abstract, and lifeless." It is a living document. It cuts as well as heals. It is truth and it is power. As I said on Sunday, Christianity is the intersection of truth and power. The Bible never pits objective truth against subjective reality, truth against the spirit. In fact, there is no Spirit power without truth, for the job of the Spirit is to take truths about Jesus and make them vivid, glorious and affecting to our hearts (John 16:13-14). The Spirit gives us power by making the truth of God shine and empower us. As Tim Keller states:

We can think of the Spirit as "fire," but the truth of God's Word as "firewood." Without both wood and fire, you don't have a fire!

We need both.

Heart Strangely Warmed

2009-09-15T11:25:00.000-07:00

On May 24, 1738, John Wesley famously attended a meeting of the Moravian society in Aldergate Street which lead to his understanding and embracing the gospel for the first time. Here is a description of that evening from Wesley's journal:

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate-street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

If you haven't ever read Luther's Preface to Romans that Wesley refers to in his journal, I recommend that you take the time to do so. Here is how it begins.

This letter is truly the most important piece in the New Testament. It is purest Gospel. It is well worth a Christian's while not only to memorize it word for word but also to occupy himself with it daily, as though it were the daily bread of the soul. It is impossible to read or to meditate on this letter too much or too well. The more one deals with it, the more precious it becomes and the better it tastes. Therefore I want to carry out my service and, with this preface, provide an introduction to the letter, insofar as God gives me the ability, so that every one can gain the fullest possible understanding of it. Up to now it has been darkened by glosses and by many a useless comment, but it is in itself a bright light, almost bright enough to illumine the entire Scripture.

The full text can be found here. Then take Luther's advise and dive into the book of Romans yourself.

Seeing Jesus

2009-09-10T07:05:00.000-07:00

I received an email from Paul Miller this morning. Paul is the executive director of seeJesus, a ministry that produces some great small group material. Paul's passion for people to see Jesus comes out as he describes a meeting he had with some seminary professors:

This summer I took two seminary professors that I know to lunch and asked them, “Has the church missed studying the person of Jesus? I know of only three books or articles in the last 500 years that have thoughtfully studied what Jesus is like as a person.” After about an hour discussion one said, “Yes, I guess it slipped through a crack.” At which point I about jumped out of my chair, “A crack?! It is a huge hole! How could we have missed something so fundamental?”

Then I read this from Charles Spurgeon's Morning and Evening:

This morning we must endeavor to ascend the mount of communion, that there we may be ordained to the lifework for which we are set apart. Let us not see the face of man to-day till we have seen Jesus. Time spent with Him is laid out at blessed interest. We too shall cast out devils and work wonders if we go down into the world girded with that divine energy which Christ alone can give. It is of no use going to the Lord's battle till we are armed with heavenly weapons. We must see Jesus, this is essential.

Root and Fruit

2009-09-03T09:12:00.000-07:00

We're going through Romans on Wednesday night at Redlands Community Church (our new church home). Ken Boodhoo and Jerry Frye are doing a great job walking us through this monumental book. When we got to chapter 2 verses 6-10 we were somewhat puzzled. Here's what it says:

God "will give to each person according to what he has done." To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.

Our question was this: Is this a contradiction of being "saved by grace through faith...not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works" (Ephesians 2:8-9)?
We need to give Paul some credit. He isn't into contradicting himself. Tim Keller in his study on Romans, explains.

Paul [in the above verses] is dealing with good works as the test on the day of judgment, NOT good works as the basis of salvation with God. A good way to illustrate the difference is--the apples on an apple tree prove life, but they don't provide life. The apples are the test that the tree is alive, but it is the roots which pull in nourishment. In the same way, faith in Christ alone provides new life (brings it in from God), but a changed life of righteousness is what proves we have real faith.

So how do we know if our heart is right with God or not?

Verse 7 gives tests that indicate a person is right with God: "persistence in doing good" means that doing good and living well has become a persistent pattern; "seeking glory, honor and immortality" means that these qualities that come from life with God. The person who is right with God does not do good deeds for their own sake. He or she wants to become a particular kind of person--one like God.
Verse 8 gives tests that indicate a person is not right with God: "self-seeking" is the tell-tale sign. It means to have a spirit of self-will, or self-glorification. This is something that can be pursured either through being irreligious and licentious, or through being moral and religious and upright; "rejecting the truth and follow evil" means that there is an unwillingness to be instructed and to learn from God's truth. A lack of teachability, a refusal to submit to truth outside one's own convictions and heart [shows that one is not right with God.]

Infinite Grace

2009-08-17T18:29:00.000-07:00

Elisabeth Elliot has lost two husbands. Jim Elliot was martyred in Ecuador in 1956 while seeking to make contact with the Auca (now known as Huaorani). Her second husband, Addison Leitch, died of cancer in 1973. During his illness, he struggled with depression and guilt. She ministered to him by reminding him of God's amazing grace. Here are her reflections:

When my husband was near death from cancer, depression often seemed to overwhelm him like great black waves, and he was at times convinced (we know the source of this conviction) that his sins were unforgivable.

"Do you really think God can forgive my sins?" he would ask, for he felt that his sins were out of all proportion to the light that had been given him as a Christian (a Christian home, a Christian education, a wide sphere of Christian service).

The popular notion of somehow "balancing" our good deeds against our sins will not hold much reassurance for any of us when we face the final truth. Then we need grace, infinite grace, and plenty of it.

It is there for us--mighty waves, deeper and stronger than our blackest despair.

I had to remind my husband of what he knew very well intellectually: that his particular sins could not possibly exhaust the grace of God.

"God's act of grace is out of all proportion" to our wrongdoing (Rom 5:15 NEB).

Preach Christ or Go Home

2009-08-15T17:09:00.000-07:00

Darryl Dash passed on this advice from Spurgeon:

Of all I would wish to say this is the sum; my brethren, PREACH CHRIST, always and evermore. He is the whole gospel. His person, offices, and work must be our great, all-comprehending theme. The world needs to be told of its Savior, and of the way to reach him…Blessed is the ministry of which CHRIST IS ALL.

This advice shouldn’t be necessary. What else is there to preach about? To quote Spurgeon again, “No Christ in your sermon, sir? Then go home, and never preach again until you have something worth preaching.”

A Fellow Missionary

2009-08-11T17:30:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, we had the privilege of having John Grotenhuis in our home. John serves with Middle East Reformed Fellowship in Eritrea. His work there amazes me. Before he was deported, he cared for a household of 15. On many days he would spend 6-8 hours gathering (begging for) food for them. Usually he would bring back bread. An egg was a treat. He left behind a fledgling church that is still meeting in the house. He asked us to pray that the Holy Spirit would do his work of grace in the hearts of those new to the gospel and that God would provide their daily bread.

L-O-V-E

2009-06-10T06:09:00.000-07:00

Love is an amazing thing. When you see it truly demonstrated between two people you can't help but be moved. I'm amazed at how Heather continues to show me love even when I continue to be a jerk.

God's love to us is an astounding thing. When you understand how he demonstrated his love by giving his life for us you can't help but be moved. John records how Jesus "loved [his] disciples to the end" in John 13. "He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin...to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him." The Master serving the disciples in this way is astounding. George Herbert, the Welsh poet and priest, wrote about this kind of love:

LOVE (III)

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.

"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.

Jesus went on to instruct his disciples, "If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you."

How to Know God

2009-05-27T11:28:00.000-07:00

While I was in college, my mentor recommended that I read Shadow of the Almighty by Elisabeth Elliot. The book challenged my faith like no other had up to that point. After reading it, I wasn't sure I knew God--not in the way Jim Elliot did at least. Ever since then Elisabeth Elliot has become a mentor of sorts to me. I've read almost everything she has written and she still challenges my faith. Here's a classic example:

The only valid test of love is obedience. Take one thing commanded and start doing it. Take one thing forbidden and stop doing it. Then we are on the sure road to knowing God. There is no other.

I would add that this is his commandment, "that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us" (1 John 3:23).

Easter Wings

2009-05-26T17:20:00.000-07:00

George Herbert (3 April 1593 – 1 March 1633) was a Welsh poet, orator and priest. Richard Baxter said of him, "Herbert speaks to God like one that really believeth a God, and whose business in the world is most with God. Heart-work and heaven-work make up his books." Here's another of his well-known poems from The Temple (1633).

Easter Wings

Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poore:
With thee
Oh let me rise
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

My tender age in sorrow did beginne:
And still with sicknesses and shame
Thou didst so punish sinne,
That I became
Most thinne.
With thee
Let me combine
And feel this day thy victorie:
For, if I imp my wing on thine
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

A New Found Favorite

2009-05-18T16:50:00.000-07:00

George Herbert, a metaphysical poet of the 17th century, was also an English country priest. His poetry mixes the complexities of his era with profound, often moving, spiritual reflection. Several are meditations on his role as a pastor.

Here's his poem "Aaron" about the need for another to cover his 'profaneness' and clothe him in a holiness which cannot come from his own works. He's referring to the Old Testament priest Aaron's garment worn in worship and sacrifice. (Thanks to Drew Field for calling my attention to this wonderful poem.)

AARON

HOLINESS on the head,
Light and perfection on the breast,
Harmonious bells below raising the dead
To lead them unto life and rest.
Thus are true Aaron's drest.*

Profaneness in my head,
Defects and darkness in my breast,
A noise of passions ringing me for dead
Unto a place where is no rest :
Poor priest! thus am I drest.

Only another head
I have another heart and breast,
Another music, making live, not dead,
Without whom I could have no rest:
In Him I am well drest.

Christ is my only head,
My alone only heart and breast,
My only music, striking me e'en dead ;
That to the old man I may rest,
And be in Him new drest.

So holy in my Head,
Perfect and light in my dear Breast,
My doctrine tuned by Christ (who is not dead,
But lives in me while I do rest),
Come, people; Aaron's drest.

* drest = archaic English for 'dressed'. Referring to Exodus xxviii. 29-37.
Source: Herbert, George. The Works of George Herbert in Prose and Verse.
New York: John Wurtele Lovell, 1881. 276-277.

What Are You Looking At?

2009-05-16T12:42:00.000-07:00

In A Lamp for My Feet, Elisabeth Elliot writes about a photograph that was taken while she was a missionary in Ecuador. It's a close-up of a scorpion on a screened window. It takes up the whole frame of the picture. Nothing of the pineapple fields or wide river outside the window can be seen. She writes:

When the eye of the heart is fixed on the world and the self, everything eternal and invisible is blurred and obscure. No wonder we cannot recognize God--we are studying the scorpion. Instead of gazing at Him in all his majesty and love, we peer at the screen, horrified at what we see there.

We shouldn't be oblivious to the horrible things we see around us, but we can't lose sight of what we can only see by faith. With God in view everything else takes it's proper place. So what are you looking at?

The Real Girl

2009-05-14T14:30:00.000-07:00

Heather and I recently saw "Lars and the Real Girl" based on the recommendation of a friend. A lonely guy orders a silicon girl through the internet--not a movie we would normally watch. But this was one of the most moving movies we've seen in quite a while. It's all about community. Lars is scarred by the death of his mother and can't stand to be touched by anyone, so he orders a plastic girlfriend for himself. The funny thing is that the whole town goes along with it and makes 'Bianca' feel very welcomed. You'll have to watch the movie to see how it turns out. It shows the transforming power of community in an amazing and hilarious way. Here's the trailer.

Spiritual Maturity

2009-04-21T15:13:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday we heard a message from my friend T. J. Campo, senior pastor of St. Andrews Presbyterian. His theme of spiritual maturity has been challenging and encouraging me all week. Here are my notes:

Spiritual maturity stems from a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Jesus showed that people can't get to God. God had to come to us.
Jesus' resurrection makes him more than a spiritual leader. It validates his claim to be God in the flesh.
Spiritual maturity is knowing what the Son of Man is doing. He is renewing all things--righting all wrongs.
Working for God is really cooperating with God in his renewing work.
There can be no spiritual maturity where there is no spiritual life.

Four incentives for spiritual maturity:
1) Remember my weakness when left to my own will power vs. grace.
2) See how Jesus kisses away our self-inflicted wounds.
"Your denials will not defeat my plan for you."
"It's not about your failures--it's about my grace."
3) Jesus Christ is alive and knows where the fish are.
4) You will change and will become like me by grace and the Spirit.

Three indications of spiritual maturity:
1) A lack of self-confidence...Peter is no longer impressed with Peter.
2) Real sorrows over failings...Peter was grieved.
3) Real failings...Peter was not perfect, but useful.
A useful life is lived close to the cross.