Resting in the Righteousness of Jesus

November 29, 2009

“If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.”
-Proverbs 28:9  cf. Isaiah 1:15

“Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.”
-Isaiah 59:1-2

The beautiful frustration of the Gospel is that Christ bears our sins for us and that we don’t have to.  It’s beautiful because he removes our sins from us.  Its frustrating because he does this on his own initiative and with utter finality, which means that we can’t take credit for our salvation nor can we add to it or take anything away from it.  We can’t make him love us more, because he loves us supremely.  Nor can we make him love us less.  Okay, not a lot of people actively strive to have God love them less, but we often act on the assumption that he could start to love us less.  We assume this when we begin to feel that we must do…something in order to keep or maintain that love for us.  “I must obey God,” we say “so that he continues to love me.”  But this isn’t the case.  God loves us on his own initiative, and this is frustrating, because its tough for us to accept something without doing anything to earn it.  And even if we can get past this, we usually can’t get past the desire to return the favor.

As I sat in my prayer closet a few days ago staring at some verses I had on the wall, I thought of this idea in its relationship to prayer.  It occured to me that the requisite for prayer that gets heard is righteousness.  Where righteousness is, God’s ears are too.  But this presents a problem for us, among whom none are righteous (Romans 3:10-11).  Our natural minds are hostile to God and unable to please him (Romans 8:7-8).  We have all turned aside from him (Romans 3:12).  As a result, there is a disconnect between us and God.  Since we are unrighteous, left to ourselves we can’t pray prayers that get heard by God.  One verse I love is Psalm 66:18 which says that “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.”  As an unrighteous person, I have no basis on which to talk to God.  Contrast this with the righteous person.  “The LORD is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous.” (Proverbs 15:29).  And Peter, quoting David writes “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer.  But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

So often in my prayer life, I’ve felt the need to get righteous before I come to God, or at least make myself “feel” more righteous.  Staring at the verses on my wall and meditating on the contrast between the unheard prayers of the unrighteous and the heard prayers of the righteous, I began to wonder: “If we are all unrighteous, then how do we become righteous and therefore get our prayers heard?  How can I make this time with God effective?”  First, a word about what we don’t (or rather, can’t) do.   We can’t be righteous on our own effort.  Isaiah writes “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.  We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” (Isaiah 64:6)  As sinners, even when we do good, we’re still stained with sin.  Also, being righteous on the basis of our own works is what the Pharisees tried to do, and Jesus explicitly said that unless our righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, we won’t enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:20).  In other words, we can’t just “work off” our unrighteousness.  Or even more simply, to possess the righteousness which God requires in order to hear our prayers, we can’t “do” anything.  And that’s frustrating.

But in comes the beautiful solution.  I can come to God, not because I am righteous, but because Jesus is.  And by virtue of being united to Jesus by faith in him, God credits his righteousness to me.  He no longer sees me apart from his Son.  Since I’m united to Christ, I am righteous in God’s eyes because Christ is righteous.  He lived a perfect, sinless life, and now I’m reaping the benefits of that.  This is a huge weight off the shoulders.  I don’t have to “feel” holy and righteous, because I’m not.  And I for one am sick of trying to fake it.  You can only fool yourself for so long pretending you’re righteous and holy.  But because I am in Christ, verses like 1 Peter 3:12 become a promise which I can bank on.  “The eyes of Lord are on [me].  His ears are open to [my] prayer.”  In going to God, we should make sure we have a clear conscience.  We should repent of sins.  I don’t think I struggle too much with that one.  I’m usually quick to repent of my sins.  My problem is, like I said, the lack of feeling like I’m worthy to talk to God.  I assume that I must have all these holy affections stored up in my heart before he’ll listen to me or take me seriously.  I feel like I have to jump up and down for several minutes trying to catch his attention before God will start to listen to me, that I must “prepare my heart” before I’ll be effective in God’s presence.  But thankfully that’s not how it works.  We can come before the Father because Jesus can come before the Father.  The righteousness that’s required to come before God is the righteousness of Jesus which has been given to us.

Luther called this an “alien righteousness.”  Paul prayed that he might be found in Christ, “not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.” (Philippians 3:9)  This year, I’ve really been learning how to subjectively live in light of the objective, meaning I don’t take my own personal experiences and try to find Scripture that speaks to them, but rather I try to let what Scripture declares determine how I should feel.

I can sometimes be very meticulous with my words.  When you have something you really want to say, there’s nothing quite so frustrating as feeling like the words you’ve chosen are an inadequate representation of the reality.  Re-reading and finishing this entry, I feel that way.  But for once I feel okay with it because what I’m trying to get across is not a thought that I can just hand you and educate you with.  It’s a reality that you and I have to fight and wrestle with daily to grasp.  The “righteousness of God through Christ by faith” can so easily become mere Christianese; Christian slang that waters down the reality and puts it into bite-sized portions for easy consumption.  A lot of what I’ve written here sounds just like that.  I really haven’t said anything here that most people who will read this haven’t heard.  For me, none of this stuff is new.  I know these verses.  I hear about righteousness all the time.  The difficult part is grasping and accepting this idea.  It is entirely against our nature to accept something so great without having done anything to earn it.  When someone invites me over to dinner, one of my initial questions is “Can I bring anything over?” (i.e. How can I contribute to this gift?)  Similarly, it’s hard to let someone pick up the check at a restaurant.  And when out of the blue and out of love someone gives me a gift, I feel a tinge of regret that I have nothing to give to them.

In the prayer closet this spills over.  It’s furiously difficult to stop trying to “prepare my heart” and working up enough holy affections in my heart before I feel that God will start listening to me.  And knowing all that God has done for me, it’s challenging to not feel like I have to give something back.  The most loving thing I can do when someone wants to give me a gift is to accept it, not start thinking of ways I can match it.  God prepared a plan of salvation in which his own righteousness is given to me, because there’s simply no way I could ever muster up enough righteousness on my own to get him to even look at me.   It was never in God’s plan to accept me based on what I have done.  I don’t have to impress him.  So this is where words fall short.  All you and I can do with all this is to take God at his word and trust him.  Look at what he says about the need for righteousness to come before him, and then ACCEPT without reservation the fact that he’s given you that righteousness.  Repent where you need to and move on.  You’re associated with Jesus, and that is all God needs.  It’s frustrating to accept this.  But that there is something like this to have to accept…there is nothing more beautiful.

Affections for God are an effect not a cause.  He does not respond to what we initiate.  He doesn’t start speaking to us when we feel like we’re worthy to be spoken to.  Affections are a direct result of what he has already accomplished.  “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”   -2 Corinthians 5:17

“He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.”  -Leviticus 1:4

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Righteousness: A Sure Reward

September 17, 2009

“Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.”
-Proverbs 11:4

“The wicked earns deceptive wages, but the one who sows righteousness gets a sure reward.”
-Proverbs 11:18

“In the path of righteousness is life, and in its pathway there is no death.”
-Proverbs 12:28

These three verses emphasize the definite reward of righteousness.  This is something we must constantly be reminded of, for while the full payoff for righteousness is still to come, the full payoff for worldliness can be had now.  It is a natural part of the Christian life to see the world prospering and to wonder if pursuing righteousness is even worth it (see Psalm 73).  But God is frequently reminding us in his Word that it is.  We must look to the end of all things.  We must look upon this world not with natural but spiritual eyes.

Righteousness is true wealth, for it delivers us from wrath (Proverbs 11:4).  Wickedness gives what appears to be a good reward, but the reward of righteousness is definite and lasting (Proverbs 11:18).  Living righteously gives life and moves us out of death (Proverbs 12:28, John 10:10).  Sowing to the Spirit means reaping eternal life (Galatians 6:7-8).

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Acts of God

July 20, 2009

“Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun.  And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them!  On the side of their oppressors was power, and there was no one to comfort them.”
Ecclesiastes 4:1

The emergence of the New Atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens over the past few years, and the publicity they have received for their very vocal attacks on religion has led me to do a lot of thinking.  There’s much that could be said about them, and perhaps I will speak more extensively some other time.  But through all their talk about religion being the bane of our existence and the cause of much of our suffering, I keep coming back to one common denominator that these men see very clearly, as do a lot of people in the world: God or not, there is one thing all mankind can attest the existence of, and that is suffering.  Suffering and pain are the great equalizer, something no right-minded person can deny when he or she looks at the world.  Suffering is real, and we must accept that.  Tsunamis ravage huge tracts of land in Asia.  Earthquakes destroy homes and lives.  Countless numbers starve to death.  Many perish for lack of fresh drinking water.  Diseases run rampant.  Children are kidnapped.  Men rape women.  Young girls are sold into prostitution.  These everyday realities beg the great question: Where is God?

Some are so confounded by this question that they conclude that God must not exist.  They look at what they can see, suffering, and establish that as the universal reality that it is.  And when they hold that up to a God they can’t see and who is supposedly loving, the scales undoubtedly fall in favor of suffering, leading them to deny God.  After all, if all the evidence seemed to point in one direction and not in the other, wouldn’t you follow the evidence?  You’d be a fool not to.  For any person to reasonably believe in God while still acknowledging the reality of suffering, he or she must be able to see God and have ample reason for believing that he is good.  But if God is invisible as Christians claim (1 Timothy 1:17), how can we possibly see him?  How can we know that God is there and that he is good?  The Bible answers these two questions with one answer, and the apostle John tells us this in two places in two distinct ways.

In John 1:18, John writes “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”  The “only God” who has made him known refers to Jesus.  John says that in Jesus was “life, and the life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness has not overcome it.”  When Philip asks him to “show us the Father, and it is enough for us”, Jesus responds “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:8-9)  Jesus claimed to be the visible manifestation of God.  John Stott wisely comments on this:

“‘That’s wonderful,’ people say, ‘but it was 2,000 years ago.  Is there no way by which the invisible God makes himself visible today?”

Jesus came to redeem a people for himself who would have life abundantly.  But what good does that do for us now in today’s age?  Seeing God in the midst of a hurting world is the hope of countless multitudes of people, and the lack of such sight is what leads many to reject him.  But if Jesus left, how are we supposed to see God?

The answer is a humbling one.  John, in his first epistle, will once again use the phrase “No one has ever seen God.”  But instead of following that up with “Jesus made him known,” he says “if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” (1 John 4:12)  Again, John Stott states:  “It is precisely the same introductory statement.  But instead of continuing with reference to the Son of God, it continues: ‘If we love one another, God dwells in us.’”  He goes on to remark that God, who had once made himself visible through Jesus Christ, now reveals himself in Christians who truly love one another.  Christ has commissioned his followers to love one another, and in so doing to be the proof of a loving God.  Where Christ was light (John 1:4-5), he places that responsibility on his disciples (Matthew 5:14-16).  In verse 16, Jesus says “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”  In other words, people will give glory to God when they SEE our good works.  In seeing our love, they will see God.  Peter instructs Christians later by saying “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” (1 Peter 2:12)  The same principle is in play here.  God calls people to believe based on making himself visible to them, and he makes himself visible to them through his children loving them.

I recently heard Gary Haugen, founder of the International Justice Mission, say that the world is yearning to know the goodness of God.  I believe even Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens are yearning to know that goodness, even if they don’t realize it.  Both men see the injustice and suffering in the world and are angry about it.  It is biblical to be angry at suffering, because God hates it.  Over and over in Scripture, God makes known in no uncertain terms that what he requires of us is to love justice.  He doesn’t want our sacrifices if he doesn’t have our hearts.  He cares about the homeless and oppressed, the widow and those who hunger.  And when they are neglected and violated we should join Dawkins and Hitchens in their outrage, but we should be quick to show them that the cause of our outrage is rooted in our belief in God.  If we are to be strictly logical, rational, and reasonable (skeptic buzz words), void of any emotional interest in the matter, if you look at suffering and conclude there is no God, you’re still left with a suffering world, and you’ve effectively removed any rational basis for seeing it as a problem.  It becomes a neutral fact of life.  I believe the New Atheists can be better referred to as Pissed-Off Agnostics.  They see suffering and get adamantly angry about it.  They want it to cease, and so they will try to eliminate whatever they feel is causing it to happen which, in our day, is seen to be religion.  God calls Christians to fight for the exact same goal, but they see the cause as something far deeper than religion.  “But wait,” it might be objected, “Christians of all people have spread suffering and dismay into this world!  They bomb abortion clinics.  They scream that God hates fags.  They preach morality and my pastor growing up was caught sleeping with his secretary.  They’re hypocrites.  They’ve fought in the Crusades.  The burned witches.  How can you possibly say that they are the proof of God’s reality and love?”  Because I don’t believe they were/are Christians.  The Bible itself is extremely severe against people who claim to love God but don’t live it out.  Jesus explicitly said that not all those who call on him as “Lord” will enter the kingdom of God.  They are hypocrites and they will receive their just reward.  Jesus said that the world will know his disciples by their love (John 13:35).  This love is the visible manifestation of God’s existence and his goodness.

Here’s what this looks like: remember a couple years back when that major tsunami hit South Asia and devastated it?  Skeptics look at that and ask where God is.  You know where he was in that situation?  He was in the massive relief effort that was sent to the region.  We reveal our own presuppositions when we assume that what goes bad is God’s fault and that whatever good comes out of it is our own doing.  The relief effort was not man cleaning up God’s mess.  It was God responding to the brokenness of this world which is due to man’s sinfulness by graciously sending help to that region.  Thousands of young girls in Asia are captured and sold into brothels to entertain older men.  This is an outrage!  So WHERE IS GOD?  He’s in Gary Haugen, a Christian who started the Christian-based International Justice Mission which goes into these countries and liberates these young women from bondage.  Is God in the storms of life?  Or is he in the body of people who go in and rescue others from them?  I can ask the question conversely: Is the problem in poverty and world hunger?  Or is the problem in the people who do nothing?  Before we renounce God because there’s so much suffering in the world, we must honestly look deep within ourselves and ask whether or not we have the right to complain.  What is tellingly common about the vast majority of people in the world who deny God because of suffering is where they live: the West.  Peter Kreeft says:

“We live in a relative bubble of comfort, and we look at pain as an observer, as a philosophical puzzle or theological problem.  That’s the wrong way to look at pain.  The thing to do with pain is to enter it, be one with [the one suffering], and then you learn something from it.  In fact, it’s significant that most objections to the existence of God from the problem of suffering come from outside observers who are quite comfortable, whereas those who actually suffer are, as often as not, made into stronger believers by their suffering.”

God is made known when his children love, when they share the burden of those who are suffering.  God makes himself known in this way.  Paul tells believers that “God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.” (1 Corinthians 3:17)  So where is God?  Christian, where are YOU?

I saw a really simple and concise summation of all of this while flipping through a magazine a few months ago.  I came across a one-page ad for the Salvation Army in which a person was walking down a road flanked on both sides by homes left desolate by a storm.  The caption read: “We combat natural disasters with acts of God.”  I absolutely loved it.  God is not in the storm.  He is in the relief.  That is the problem of good.  How can an evil or non-existent God possibly allow so much good?

Of course all this still leaves us with one fact that I haven’t even attempted to refute: suffering exists and abounds.  That’s a reality.  That’s the one thing all of us will agree on even if our life has been relatively easy.  We all experience the brokeness of this world.  And as a Christian, I can’t fully explain why suffering even exists in the first place.  We’re not told.  But we are told that God is on a mission to eradicate it, and that one day it will finally be over.  He came to demonstrate this through his Son Jesus Christ, so that whoever would follow him would dwell with him when God creates a new earth that is free of death and full of life, where there will be no pain or injustice.

Christian, you are the proof of God’s existence and love.  How are you doing with that with that responsibility?  Is your life a checkmate against the claims of those who believe that belief in God is what is wrong with this world?  People will become skeptical, angry, and cold toward things that burn them.  A woman who has continually had her heart broken by men is going to be extremely skeptical and weary of giving another man her heart, if she ever does.  Similarly, so many people who don’t believe in God are skeptical of him not because they don’t want to believe, but because they have been burned so often by those who claim to follow him.  Prove the New Atheists wrong by the way you live.  Shine Jesus, the light of men, in this broken and dark world.  Always remember: there is no God to be seen for those who are not loved by his people.

“The world cannot argue with a Church that lives in the pain of society’s poor.  The integrity of this form of Christianity silences the harshest of critics, because they know genuine love and compassion when they see it.  And the truth is, they want it.”
Tony Campolo and Gordon Aeschliman

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
Revelation 21:4

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The Promises of God- An Introduction

July 17, 2009

“The best praying man is the man who is most believingly familiar with the promises of God.  After all, prayer is nothing but taking God’s promises to Him and saying, ‘Do as You have said.’  Prayer is the promise utilized.  Prayer not based on a promise has no true foundation.”
Charles Spurgeon

The above quote is one that has impacted me profoundly in my prayer life.  I first read it a couple years back when I read the best book on prayer I’ve yet read: Spurgeon’s The Power of Prayer in the Believer’s Life.  It came back to mind a few months back, and I began dwelling on it a lot.  I’ve found in my life that the better I know Scripture, the better I pray, and I think the principle behind that is exactly what Spurgeon says above.  As I’ve meditated on this quote, I decided to get more serious about applying it.  I decided I wanted to have a solid list of powerful promises to look at and be able to bring before God in prayer and say “Do as You have said.”

If you go to any bookstore, you should be able to find all kinds of books in the Christian section with titles like “God’s Promises for Your Life” and “The Bible’s Promises for Life.”  They’re small books and are usually organized topically.  As I began my endeavor to mine through the promises of Scripture, I naturally thought of these books first since I have a few.  But I realized that most of these books can be seriously misleading in their intent.  By virtue of their title, many lead you to believe that what are contained in their pages are biblical promises.  Yet I’ve realized that in large part these books can’t be considered as such.  They’re more subject indexes than they are promise books.   For example, one of these books of bible promises has a section entitled “Love of God.”  One of the entries is Psalm 89:1- “I will sing of the steadfast love of the LORD, forever; with my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations.”  The problem with including this verse is that it’s not really a promise.  It’s a beautiful description of praise and the worshiper’s response to God.  It’s wondefully instructional, but I wouldn’t throw it in the category of ‘promise.’

Another verse under this heading is Romans 5:8- “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  This is a beautiful and indispensable verse when we’re talking about the subject of God’s love.  It accurately describes the nature of this love.  But if I’m looking for a promise that I’m loved by God, I’d be more inclined to look at Romans 8:35-39 where God promises us that there is absolutely nothing that will seperate us from his love, and to his promise that he’ll never leave me or forsake me (Hebrews 13:5, Matthew 28:20).

Under ‘Generosity’, one of the verses I find is 1 John 3:17- “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?”  Again, great verse.  Crucial for instruction.  But it’s not a promise.  In the same heading I find Psalm 41:1- “Blessed is the one who considers the poor!  In the day of trouble the LORD delivers him” and Matthew 25:40- “‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these…you did it to me.’”  Now THOSE are promises!  If you consider the poor, you ARE blessed, and you’ll be delivered.  If you serve even the least, it’ll be counted as if you’ve done it to Jesus himself.

I’ve started keeping a sheet of paper nearby in my quiet-times which has a list of very explicit promises I’m finding in Scripture, and I’ll be expounding on these specific promises in later entries.  I don’t intend this list to be exhaustive by any stretch.  I intend to be adding to this list for the rest of my life.  My hope in writing these out is to encourage you in your walk with Christ to talk hold of what God has promised you, so that you may be bold in prayer by taking these promises back to the one who gave them.  It is this confidence, this faith in God, which gives prayer its power (James 1:6).

“No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.”
Romans 4:20-21

“…it is impossible for God to lie…”
Hebrews 6:18

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Mix CD Eschatology

June 1, 2009

About a week ago I was driving downtown to a coffee shop listening to a new mix CD I’d made.  Mix albums are an art.  Selecting your tracks is only one part of the process.  What can make an album truly great is song order.  The whole tone and success of a CD for me can be determined in the order.  It can’t jump around too much.  It can’t be alternating between fast songs and slow songs.  As I was listening to this album in the car, I was enjoying a track toward the end, with about three songs after it.  Thinking ahead to the tracks that awaited me, I wasn’t too excited.  It wasn’t that they were bad songs.  If they were, they wouldn’t be on the CD.  They just weren’t as good as several of the tracks that preceded them.

When I thought about his, I realized that I often judge the content of my mix CDs by how well they end.  If I can be increasingly excited about what is left to come as the CD progresses, then it is a successful album to me.  As I chased this train of thought a little bit further, it hit me how often this principle transcends into other things in life.  A bad ending to a story will, at the very least, be a weakness to the story, and at the worst it will completely undo it.  When you go see fireworks on the Fourth of July, all the splendor of what you’re seeing is eclipsed only by the expectation that the grandest part of the show is yet to come at the conclusion of it all.  The best Star Wars movie, “The Empire Strikes Back”, is defined by its ending when we discover (spoiler alert) that Darth Vader is Luke’s father.  The ending of a story is the culmination of everything that came before.  Endings give us the light to see the ultimate purpose behind everything and to understand their function.  We eagerly look toward the end in order to gain this clarity as well as to see the story end happily.

My life has become extremely focused on eschatology in the last few months.  This is true in the academic sense in that I’ve been studying the millenium and whether Christ’s return will be premillenial, postmillenial, or amillenial.  But the thoughts the mix CD inspired were more related to eschatology in the broader sense, and what I mean by that is despite all the numerous views on Christ’s second coming that there are and all the debates that surround it, one thing remains constant in all these theological systems: Jesus is coming back.  In realizing that so many things are dependent on their endings, I understood that this is not only equally true of the story of God, but ultimately and especially true of it.  The most important ending is the end of all things.

The entire Bible is eschatological.  It points that final day when God will create a new heaven and a new earth, right all wrongs, and glorify his children.  This became very apparent to me in the last few months when I caught a clue that the entire hope of the apostles was based on the life to come and not this life.  They were constantly looking forward, looking through the trials of the present to the ending they knew would be truly magnificient.  One of my favorite verses as of late has been 1 Peter 1:13- “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”  Peter’s encouraging believers by telling them to make the entire gravitational pull of their hearts the day when Christ returns.  Paul’s endurance during trials was his assurance that he would be with Christ again, and that that joy would completely overshadow his trials now and make them incomparable (Romans 8:18, 2 Corinthians 4:17-18).  Paul encourages the Colossians to look upward and set their minds on things above, where Christ is (Colossians 3:1-2).  God points Isaiah to the day when all things will be made new and wolf and lamb shall graze together (Isaiah 65:17-25).  When Asaph was flabbergasted and distraught that he suffered while the wicked seemed to prosper (Psalm 73:1-15), he found comfort in discerning their end and his own (verses 16-28).  There is a future for the believer because Christ is king and thus he will prevail and all will be well for his children.  This is what Stephen saw as he was stoned to death, and he died with joy saying “‘Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the  Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’” (Acts 7:56)

This forward-pointing is everything to the Christian.  Jesus’s sermon on the mount has one central thrust: “‘Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.’” (Matthew 24:42)  Jesus is coming back, so don’t fall under the seduction of this temporal world that we live in (see also 1 John 2:15).  Live for that day at all times.  My other favorite verse right now is 2 Timothy 2:4- “No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.”  Christians are soldiers on behalf of Christ, armed with the good news of God’s grace and not with physical weapons.  I’ve opened myself up to be challenged by this verse in conjuction with all the preceding ones.  Is the magnetic north of my affections the day when this temporal world comes down like a veil and Christ returns to rule?  Again, for the Bible authors, the assurance of Christ’s kingship and his return to rule for all time was the bedrock of their joy.  Everything for them pointed to that day.

My struggle has been clear: am I as hopeful of that day and thus as joyful as the apostles were?  If not, why?  What civilian pursuits am I entangled in which displace such a focus?  What are some very practical and subtle things I do each and every day that make me love this life a little too much?  What can I be doing to look more eagerly for Christ’s return?  Do I long and pant for his return above all things, or do I think it would be convenient for him to wait just long enough until I can get married and have a couple of kids?  Recently I’ve been scouting out good deals on TVs.  I would absolutely love to get a decently-sized TV along with a Blu-Ray player.  I was a Blu-Ray skeptic until I actually watched a movie in the format and…wow.  That’s a big investment, and I really don’t have that kind of money right now.  But honestly the money isn’t really the issue for me.  In order to make such a purchase in the future, I’d have to do some serious soul searching.  The way I put it to my roommate is that I’m cautious of anything that’s going to make our couch a little bit more comfortable.  I need to be careful of anything that’s going to encourage me to indulge myself rather than encourage me to help build the kingdom of God.  Comfort typically hasn’t been the most effective way of reorienting a person’s mind to Christ and his coming.  It’s hard to be eager for death like Paul was when comfort is plentious.  Paul said that to live is Christ and to die is gain (Philippians 1:21).  He groaned to leave this life and be with Christ (2 Corinthians 5:1-12), and he saw value in living this life only in being able to tell others about Jesus and to instruct them in his teachings (Philippians 1:24-26).  But he didn’t do this reluctantly.  He did it joyfully because though he wanted to depart, the certainty of God’s triumph allowed him to be content doing whatever he could in this life to save others.

A story’s ending makes or breaks everything that leads up to it.  A good and happy ending clarifies the confusion, gives hope in tragedies, and accentuates the joys because they all coalesce into a glorious conclusion.  This life is meant to be viewed in light of the end.  The life Jesus calls us to, the building of his kingdom, necessitates this vantage point.   For only when we trust in the riches to come will we forsake the riches of this life (Matthew 6:19-21).  Only when we confidently wait for the comforts of heaven will we look past the trials of this world (Romans 8:18).  And only when we realize that fullness of joy is found in God’s presence alone (Psalm 16:11) and in being with him forever will we stop trying to be satisfied with the transient things of this world.  Jesus is coming back.  Let everything you do in life be done with this in mind.

How can I gain and preserve this precious treasure of placing the entirety of my hope in Christ?  It is valuable, precious, and fragile above all other things.  Set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.  Look above and beyond this life.

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Links and Nuggets- 3/24/09

March 25, 2009

1.  The Guardian posted a brief article about a month back showing the effects that sexy images of women had on men’s brains.  While the findings of the article are important, most of the conclusions will make you say “Doi.  Knew that.”   There was a particular bit which I found interesting, namely how the pictures stimulated activity in the region of the brain called the premotor cortex, “which is involved in urges to take action.”  It’s cool seeing how God has hardwired men to be initiators.

2. Addicted to Facebook?!  Tara Stiles has 10 indicators that you might be.  Have to admit, I was a little convicted by a couple of them, which has caused me to pull back.

3.  I just discovered a contemporary theologian named Arturo Azurdia, and I’m enjoying what I’ve heard of him so far.  He has a massive library of expositional sermons on Revelation, and I wanted to link his sermon on Revelation 20:1-3 here.  This is the beginning of the passage dealing with the millenium, and Azurdia (like me, incidentally) is coming from an amillenial perspective as opposed to a post-millenial or pre-millenial one.

4.  I’m a ‘Lost’-aholic.  Let me get that out of the way.  During last week’s episode, there was a wonderful exchange between two characters.  As a reader, I think it’s well said.  Hopefully fellow book-lovers will agree!  Enjoy:
JACK: So where do we go from here?

SAWYER: I’m working on it.

JACK: Really? Because it looked to me like you were reading a book.

SAWYER: [Chuckles] I heard once Winston Churchill read a book every night, even during the Blitz. He said it made him think better. It’s how I like to run things. I think. I’m sure that doesn’t mean that much to you, ’cause back when you were calling the shots, you pretty much just reacted. See, you didn’t think, Jack, and as I recall, a lot of people ended up dead.

JACK: I got us off the Island.

SAWYER: But here you are… [sighs] right back where you started. So I’m gonna go back to reading my book, and I’m gonna think, ’cause that’s how I saved your ass today. And that’s how I’m gonna save Sayid’s tomorrow. All you gotta do is go home, get a good night’s rest. Let me do what I do.

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Being a Single Christian Guy on Valetine’s Day

March 25, 2009

A late-March entry about Valentine’s Day? Believe it. Depending on whether you’re on the “half-pipe is complete” end of the spectrum or the “half-pipe is only half awesome” end, I’m either a month late or 11 months early. Let’s go latter! Below I’ve included an entry from my journal from a month ago about some of my meditations on being a single Christian man on the day Saint Valentine was beheaded. I’ve gone ahead and included some “month after” commentary after doing some more reflection on this subject lately.

2/14/09

“I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.”
1 Corinthians 7:32-35

Valentine’s Day. And God is GOOD. More and more, he is faithfully bringing me to a place where the above passage is not just a lofty ideal to aspire to but an inward reality to be enjoyed. I feel like I’m no longer having to convince myself that I’m happy in my singleness. I just feel more content. But in no way is my desire marriage depleted. It’s still there. But I didn’t care being single today. I credit this to becoming increasingly dependent on God’s promise to be good to me (Romans 8:28). By focusing on the promised end (all things working together for good), I rest and let God decide how he wants to do this. God has and will continue to lavish his goodness upon. If he can be most good (and most glorified) by keeping me single forever, I will gladly accept. If he will be most good by partnering me with a wife, then that’s what he will do. It is liberating to belive God when he promises to be good. This inherently crushes dissatisfaction. For if we are in despair over singleness, we’re essentially trusting in our own definition of “good” and not God’s. Our primary good is the knowledge of God by which we are saved (John 17:3), which he pours out on us (Ephesians 1:3, 2 Peter 1:3).

The Christian is to be preoccupied with that which will carry over into eternity. The institute of marriage as we know it will be a casualty of the consummated Kingdom. Thus, a preoccupied with marriage in and of itself is foolish at best and idolatrous at worst. Preoccupied with eternity, the Christian should pursue marriage as a means of producing more fruit, more treasures, and more glory to God (Galatians 5:22-23, Matthew 6:19-21, Ephesians 1:6,12,14)*. My attitude about marriage should be governed by the realization that people won’t marry in the new earth. This realization forces a Christocentric recontextualization of marriage itself.

In all of this, I’m learning to see the world more in relation to Christ. And because it’s not necessary to be married in order to serve and meditate on him, I’m growing more content in my circumstances.

“Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!”
-2 Corinthians 9:15

(end entry)

The working definition of wisdom I’ve been living off of for the past few months is this: Wisdom is seeing the end state of all things and living in light of that in the temporal (or something to that effect). So when Jesus says that “in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Matthew 22:30), how should that affect how I live now? How much control should the desire for marriage have in my heart as a temporal institution?

I find myself becoming far more confrontational with myself in the fight against sin. What I mean is that I’ve often tried to convince myself I was satisfied in singleness. I read passages like 1 Corinthians 7, and Song of Solomon 2:7, and would feign some excitement: “Yeah, Lord. Awesome. I’ll be single for you if you call me to!” But if God were to physically appear to me and tell me he wanted me to remain single for his cause, I would have broken down. Pride is unmercifully relentless, and cunningly subtle. I have discovered in my heart at times the attempt to appear to be content in my singleness in the elusive hope that God will look at my contentment and decide that because now that I’m content in him alone, I’m finally ready to get married. That’s anything but contentment. It’s a charade. So when I say that I’m becoming more confrontational, I mean that I’m asking myself harder questions. “I’m content in my singleness.” Am I? Really? What are the evidences of this? If God were to confirm in my life that he wanted me to remain single, how would I really react? How do I live as a single man?

I’ve come to believe that this issue of Christian singleness is much more serious than I’ve treated it in the past. Sermons addressed to young singles are centered around the theme of waiting. They’re patience-driven. This is fine, but it leaves one kind-of big aspect unaddressed. To instruct singles to wait well is to presuppose that they will one day get married. But no one has that assurance. There’s a great scene early on in the show “Lost” in which the survivors of a plane crash are about a week into their time on the island, and they’ve been waiting eagerly for rescue to come at any moment. Their leader Jack then makes an awesome leader-speech in which he starts out saying “It’s been six days… and we’re all still waiting. Waiting for someone to come. Well, what if they don’t? We have to stop waiting. We need to start figuring things out.”

The problem many Christian singles face isn’t patience. It’s idolatry. Impatience is merely the symptom. I’ve too long treated the symptom, trying to become more patient without looking deeper into my heart and seeing the problem there, the idol I’ve made of getting married one day. I’m still waiting. Waiting for a wife to come. Well, what if she doesn’t? I have to stop waiting, and start figuring things out. I’ve long planned (albeit vaguely) my future ministry and plans on the assumption that I’ll be married then. But what if I’m not? A man is more than his marital status. Such a status is temporal. God’s kingdom is eternal. We teach our children that “true love waits” when the Bible doesn’t give anyone the assurance that there’s anything romantic to wait for in the first place. We must be weary of promising earthly blessings when God has not.

As I stated in the journal entry, I’m a weird paradoxical spot when it comes to marriage. My desire for it is perhaps stronger than ever, yet I’m more content than ever in my singleness. There’s a fine line between desire and need, and by God’s grace alone I’m slowly but surely leaving one of those sides. But that’s a daily fight. It’s only been in the last few weeks that I’ve realized that I’ve been harboring an idol in this area. God calls us to be truly satisfied in him. And only when we do this, when we relinquish all control and let God decide how he wants to be good to us will we be truly satisfied in our marriages, in our singleness, in our jobs, and friendships. If our treasure is here, it can be threatened, leaving us vulnerable to fear and hate when that threat comes. But if our greatest treasure isn’t here, then nothing here can threaten us. May we all learn to find deeper satisfaction in God alone, not what he can give us. God’s greatest gift to man is himself, and nothing can ever top that.

*At the risk of purging this thought of its full implications, it is fruitful to your walk and wonderfully glorifying to God to be bathed in sexual satisfaction in the God-given context of marriage.

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3000 Miles Later…

February 19, 2009

A month ago today I arrived at my new home in Philadelphia. Two weeks later, I arrived back in Texas, and on the 21st of this month I’ll be moving in to my new apartment in Dallas with a dear brother in the Lord. Suffice it to say, 2009 has been extremely fast-paced and unpredictable! This is a brief reflection on all that has transpired, the causes for it, and the spiritual impact it has been having on my life.

Seminary has been a desired destination of mine for probably five and a half years now. In the Fall of 2007, Westminster Theological Seminary first came to my attention. It, along with a school in Boston, became the two schools I gave all my attention towards. I decided it would be one or the other. For most of 2008, the question of where to go loomed in the back of my mind. I was choosing between two schools and three locations since Westminster had a Dallas campus. Boston was my numero uno choice for a long time. Eventually it began to be eclipsed by Westminster. For a while though I had decided that if I went to Westminster, I’d just go to its Dallas campus. I officially ruled Philadelphia out. Then Philly became my main focus, eclipsing Dallas. After months and months of wrestling through decisions and praying, I became intent on going to Philadelphia to Westminster Theological Seminary.

After finding a place to live which didn’t require me to sign a lease, I decided to go ahead and move up in January. Since I didn’t officially have a job and wasn’t certain I would have one upon arriving in Philly, a lease-less residence afforded me the freedom to bail on the whole endeavor if nothing worked out. In case it didn’t work out and I came back to Dallas, I wanted to know what it would take to transfer my acceptance to Westminster to its Dallas campus. Wanting only to see what it would take, I visited the campus in Dallas. On this trip, I got introduced to many students and professors, one of which invited me to lunch the following the week. This invitation was literally the second thing out of his mouth after his greetings to me. This was a Tuesday. I accepted the lunch date for the following Tuesday.

Four days later on Saturday, I decided to take the plunge and I called the owners of the house that I’d found to live at in Philly and let them know I was going to be coming the next weekend. Again, keep in mind that my visit to WTS Dallas wasn’t me deciding if I wanted to go there. It was just me finding out if I could go there if I needed to come back to Texas. I knew that Mike (the professor I was having lunch with) was going to try to get me to stay on our lunch date, so I wondered if I should cancel our appointment. In the end, I decided to meet with him as planned. I felt a little bad about making a final decision before I actually met with him, but I figured if nothing else he could impart wisdom to me as a new seminarian.

When I got there the following Tuesday, he told me that we would be joined by the campus president Steve, and Jason, the director of recruiting. “Oh this will be akward,” I thought. We went to lunch, and I told them my current plans, and they were totally cool about it. After lunch I met with Steve and Jason for a while back at the seminary, and Steve offered me a deal that ultimately I couldn’t say no to. How to pay for seminary was a huge concern for me. I want to pay out of pocket for this degree. To do that I’m going to work and save money and also raise some support. I’m pretty much refusing to go into debt. If I don’t have money, I just won’t go that semester. That’s my goal. If I ever did decide to take out any loans, I won’t take more out than I can pay back quickly.

Anywho, the seminary in Dallas is offering some pretty generous scholarships. I must say that this was the answer to my prayers for financial provision. From that point, I heavily began to consider Dallas. Additionally I got to meet some stellar professors (and one in particular) who made quite an impression on me. Plus there were many personal benefits for being in Dallas. I almost didn’t leave at all for Philadelphia after that meeting. But I decided to go ahead and go that Friday, three days after my lunch with them, promising to keep in touch with them.

After a couple weeks of number-crunching, meditation, and prayer, along with the fact that the job situation wasn’t really panning out, I began to move towards returning to Dallas. Originally I had thought that if I left Philly, I’d leave toward the end of February and start seminary either in the summer or in the fall. The family I was staying with allowed my month’s rent to be considered from 1/15- 2/15, which gave me the option of getting back quicker if I needed to. I started to look at the class schedule for the spring semester at Westminster Dallas (which began February 5). Hypothetically putting together a possible class schedule I began to postulate the crazy idea of starting then and not waiting until later in the year. I started e-mailing Steve back and forth and got the okay to go ahead and register for classes for the spring. To put the speed at which all this happened in perspective, from the day I decided to move back and start seminary in Dallas to the day I attended my first seminary class, there was a period of less than a week. I decided probably Friday, left Monday, arrived home at 4:45pm Wednesday, and left for my first class fifteen minutes later.

Two weeks later I’ve recovered from one of the busiest weeks of my adult life. I’ve just recently been rehired with a Barnes & Noble in Dallas and move in to my new apartment this Saturday. Class has been going wonderful so far, and I’m blessed to be sitting under some wonderful teachers of God’s Word. I’ve also been befriending people quickly there. The reading load is pretty intense, but I’m so happy to have books like these as my school textbooks.

Through all of this, I keep thinking of James’s warnings against arrogant boasting of tomorrow (James 4:13-17). God officially took months of planning, made a thousand adjustments, and handed it back to me. I wasn’t necessarily boasting arrogantly, but still I’m in awe of how completely different my life is shaping up to be than what I had planned. Life can change in an instant, so I should hold my plans very loosely. Through all of my planning, Proverbs 16:9 has been close to my heart: “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.” On the flip side of Philadelphia, I can only read this verse and chuckle to myself about its veracity. Also relevant is Proverbs 19:21- “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand.”

Contentment. If there’s one thing I’d say God has done in me in the past month, he’s grown me in contentment. I’ve been reminded how its ultimately God’s plan that determines where I am and where I go. I’ve tasted afresh his sovereignty and providence. And this inherently causes one to achieve new levels of relaxation and therefore peace. My plans may fall through, and I love it, because God’s plans don’t. He’s never surprised. These unexpected turns cause me to remember that God is in control and that I am safe. God has promised to be good to me, and events like those of the last month help me to be content in letting God decide how he wants to do that. I don’t deserve the slightest mercy from him. He doesn’t owe it to me. So for him to not only be good to me, but to be abundantly good, and on top of that, for him to PROMISE this goodness (Romans 8:28, Lamentations 3:25, Psalm 23:6)…I can only respond in utmost gratitude for the privilege of being known by God and knowing him in return (Psalm 116:12, Romans 8:32).

“my cup overflows” – Psalm 23:5

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What Calvinism Is Not

January 10, 2009

It never ceases to surprise me when talking with Christians I’ve just met or have run into after a long hiatus how easily the conversation turns to the controversial topic of predestination, or just Calvinism in general.  “Wow, so you’re in school, have a dog, and you’re not a Calvinist.  Sounds like things are going good!”  I personally became a Calvinist in a coffee shop three years ago and haven’t looked back.  It’s something I relish reading books on, and something I love to discuss assuming it’s done so in a loving environment.

Recently I’ve been very aware of many of the misconceptions about the Calvinist interpretation of Scripture, misconceptions that I oftentimes take for granted because they’re no longer things I’m struggling with.  Among its opponents, Calvinism is sometimes treated fairly but is more often than not caricatured (though usually not on purpose).  What is often thought to be Calvinism is actually what is called “Hyper-Calvinism,” something that is blatantly unscriptural.  Below are some points I hope will clear up confusion for some Christians by showing what Calvinism is NOT.  I don’t intend for these points to be exhaustive.  I could write and talk forever about each one of these points on their own.  Rather, I hope what follows will at least clear up some of the confusion about Calvinism that is so rampant among its dissenters and perhaps inspire fruitful discussion.

1.  Calvinism does not negate John 3:16.

If you’re banking on verses like this one and others that say that ANYONE who trusts in Christ will be saved as an argument against Calvinism, you’re not understanding what Calvinism is.  The caricature is this: God predestines only some to eternal life.  So you could be an incredible saint but if you’re not one of his elect, sucks for you.  Conversely, you could spend your whole life in extreme immorality and yet, because you’re one of God’s elect, you lucked out and get to go to heaven!  In other words, God saves some against their will and flat-out rejects some who believe in him as savior.

Of course, that is very plainly not what the Bible teaches.  I take the “whosoever” of John 3:16 as serious as any Arminian.  Christ will never reject anyone who comes to him.  “And whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37b).  But what goes on behind the scenes of this?  What causes a person to want to come to Christ?  The first part of the verse tells us: “All that the Father gives me will come to me” (John 6:37a).  Everyone who comes to Christ will be saved, and everyone who does this does it as a result of God the Father’s giving them to Jesus.

2.  Calvinism Does not Deny Choice

True Calvinism does not crumble under the reality of the individual’s choice.  To believe in choice is not antithetical to God’s predestinating certain individuals to salvation.  That they are opposed is based on an assumption Scripture does not warrant, an assumption summarized well by the classic statement: “God votes for you, Satan votes against you,  and you cast the deciding vote.”  The assumption is that man is a blank slate with equal forces pulling him in two different directions.  But the Bible, particularly Paul, is not this optimistic about the human condition.  In Romans 8:7 he writes: “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.”  Writing to Timothy, he describes the unbeliever as being in “the snare of the devil…captured by him to do his will” (2 Timothy 2:26).  We’re enslaved by Satan and we don’t have the luxury to say “Hmmm, think I’ll choose Christ.”

The Bible is clear that EVERYTHING in a person, including the desires and the will is subject to the heart, the ultimate source (Proverbs 4:23).  Proverbs 21:1 is a helpful verse for this discussion.  It says “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.”  The Bible’s understanding of the heart is that it is a flowing stream.  But God can and does redirect the way the stream flows.  By so doing, he’s not actively pushing the water (because it flows freely), but rather is redirecting the channel to himself.

The water flows freely within the channel.  God doesn’t force us to believe in him but graciously redirects the flow of our hearts- which were flowing towards sin- towards himself.  In so doing we gladly, not grudgingly, respond positively to Christ.  This is totally the work of God.  Augustine well said that God chooses us not because we believe, but so that we may believe.  And do remember that the essence of the New Covenant inaugurated by Christ is that God gives us completely new hearts (Ezekiel 36:26-27).

3.  Calvinism does not fully adhere to one man’s theology, namely John Calvin.

I was a “Calvin”ist at least a good year before I ever sat down and read anything by Calvin that wasn’t just a quote.  I’ve still read relatively little of his works, but I do have his “Institutes” which I hope to get to in the next couple of years, as well as a few of his bible commentaries which I love to turn to.  I love what I’ve read from him so far, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m a disciple of John Calvin.  The historical particulars of why Calvin’s name got slapped onto a theology far older than himself is something that is currently unknown to me.  While I trust the man, I subject his teachings to the same scriptural scrutiny that I would give to any theologian.

4.  Calvinism does not negate evangelism.

I remember being in my car when it dawned on me that evangelism and missions was a crippling blow to the theology of Calvinism.  “Dude…” is what I think I said, “If God’s predestined people to be saved, then he wouldn’t have been so adamant about preaching the Gospel!  Checkmate!”

But by that same time the next year, I realized  there was still a move to be made.  This is similar to the misconception I mentioned in the first point.  God chooses whom he will save.  But we must repent of our sins in order to be saved.  Therefore, if God is irrevocably choosing who he will save, he is essentially ensuring that this repentance will take place.  The classic Calvinist phraseology on this point is this: God does not only ordain the end, but also the means.  God has called us to preach the Gospel, because that preaching is the means God has chosen to bring his sheep into the fold (Romans 1:16, John 10:16, Romans 10:14).  When you diminish the ordained means of salvation, you end up with hyper-Calvinism.  When you diminish the ordained end of salvation, you end up with Arminianism.  But when you uphold both and understand that God has sovereignly chosen to save a people by causing them to willingly choose him, that is Calvinism.

5.  Calvinism does not negate prayer.

Very similar to the last point.  God has not only ordained the ends, but the means as well, and prayer is one his greatest means of accomplishing his purposes.  The absolute best description of this I’ve yet to hear comes from Charles Spurgeon:  “Our prayers are God’s decrees in another shape.  The prayers of God’s people are but God’s promises breathed out of living hearts, and those promises are the decrees, only put into another form and fashion.  Do not say, ‘How can my prayers affect the decrees of God?’  They cannot, except to the degree that your prayers are decrees, and that as they come out, every prayer that is inspired of the Holy Ghost in your soul is as omnipotent and as eternal as that decree which said, ‘Let there be light: and there was light’ (Gen.1:3).”

I believe it was Martin Luther who well said that prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance, but laying hold of his willingness.  The idea is that we’re not persuading God to do things through prayer, but rather we’re bringing those things about through those prayers.  For example, God does not save a man because he (God) has been convinced through prayer to save him.  Instead he has appointed those prayers to be the means by which he saves that man.  “But,” you might object, “that seems like a needless formality for God to choose to do things only in response to prayer.”  Yet this is a “formality” that pervades the entirety of one’s prayer life, not one that is unique to prayers of salvation.  For God knows what we need before we ask (Matthew 6:8).  Before we even say anything, he knows it (Psalm139:4).  Therefore, as A.W. Pink writes, “Prayer is not appointed for the furnishing of God with the knowledge of what we need, but it is designed as a confession to Him of our sense of the need…God requires that His gifts should be sought for.  He designs to be honoured by our asking, just as He is to be thanked by us after He has bestowed His blessing.”

6.  Calvinism does not make God the author of evil.

But it does put him in control of it.  I once had someone counter Calvinism by making this claim.  And then to throw out the trump card he asked if Hitler killing six million Jews was part of God’s plan.  That’s a very good and sensitive quesion, namely how God’s sovereignty and evil correlate.  How we treat the question depends entirely upon the motives of the one asking.  Some genuinely want to know.  Some throw out the question in order to clinch the debate once and for all.  But to acknowledge this difficulty and ask how it’s possible is nothing that hasn’t been asked before…by the Bible itself.  This is the same question Habakkuk wrestled with.  How could God use sinful people to bring judgment on his people?  His eyes are too pure to look on evil, right?  God may use evil to further his purposes, but that doesn’t mean he’s condoning it.  Rather he’s giving it the biggest slap in the face by turning it to accomplish the exact opposite of what it wants.

Joseph’s brothers selling him to slave-traders turned out to unite that family big-time and ended up saving a whole lot of people.  God himself became flesh and was sinfully crucified in order to bring salvation to his children.  God uses it for righteousness’ sake, and in the end he will punish those who carry it out.

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Posted by thetenthleper

Toward an Aggressive Discipleship, part 1: Reflection

December 7, 2008

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
-Romans 12:2

This subject of renewal has been on my mind, and I have paid careful attention to it lately when reading through scripture.  It is a radical concept when you think about it, and it’s one I’ve taken for granted, to my own hurt.  The renewal of the mind, patterned after the thoughts of Christ, means the unlearning of every habit we’ve formed according to worldly wisdom.  Trying to visualize it, I picture cloth being torn from its seams.  The renewal of the mind isn’t changing your thoughts but changing the very way you think.

I recently read a very convicting statement from John Piper in which he asked why (if they don’t) doesn’t the world ask us about the hope we have in us (1 Peter 3:15)?  The answer must be that it looks to them like we’re hoping in the same things they are.  So simple.  So profound.  That got me thinking: what does it look like to be a Christian living in America in the 21st century?  In what areas am I called to excel in non-conformity?  No culture is fully compliant in its values with scripture.  So what are the points of divergence for me?  In what area of my life am I living notably different?  In what area of my life can it be said that my pattern of thinking differs?  Or to put it another way, what are some things in my life that show others I’m hoping in the same things they are?

America is a very materialistic culture.  Am I living with a renewed mind?  Am I living in a way that shows others that Jesus is more precious to more than anything else?  The harder question is this: HOW?  To be a Christian in any culture on this planet is to sacrifice.  What have I sacrificed in the realm of material possessions?  I currently work in a retail environment, where you love to hate your customers for causing you the slightest annoyance and then talk about them to your co-workers.  How does the mind renewed by Christ manifest itself in a retail store?  Am I exemplifying a spirit who is patient, kind, and fair?  Do I pray for those who are rude to me?  What is the point at which I differ?

The difference is everything, because the difference is the Jesus others are meant to see.  If I’m living just like the world, the world will see no validation in my gospel.  But more importantly, if I’m living just like the world, I can’t see validation of my faith.  So who is Jesus to me really?  This refreshing reminder has caused me to re-evaluate my life, and how I spend my time.  I have become so lax in my standards when it comes to my choice of entertainment, particularly some of the things I watch.  Looking back over the last year, I have justified so much on the basis of how funny it was.  What that sounds like is: “Oh man it’s so wrong, but it’s so funny.”  Saying this now, I hear it for the ridiculousness it is.  What do I filter if not these things?

It’s been a long time since I’ve really watched “Friends,” but I think it serves as a perfect catalyst of what I’m talking about here.  I watched it all through high school and well into the beginnings of my walk with Christ.  I’ve conversed with so many fellow Christians who can be described as fanatics.  But I would ask those people, as I had to sit back and ask myself: do you notice anything wrong with “Friends”?  If I could pinpoint one thing it would be promiscuity.  Not only is it scattered profusely throughout the show but very frequently, mostly through Joey’s character, it is the fuel for humor.  Think about that.  And now think about this…

The Christian divorce rate in this country is as high as the divorce rate among secular marriages.  What’s the point of difference there?  We are called to be transformed by the renewal of our minds and to not be conformed to the patterns of this world.  But when you look at this statistic, who does it appear is influencing who?  Jesus tells us that we are lights in the world, but unless we are transformed the world will be OUR light.  If the American Church’s divorce rate is 50%, something is askew in our understanding of relationships.*  I feel it would be naive for those of us believers who spent years immersed in “Friends” to believe it didn’t rub off on us some.

I’m not putting the blame on Christian divorces on “Friends.”  There’s a huge number of contributors.  I’m just using it as an example.  I’m not even condemning the show per se as much as I am the extent of devotion it has received from many Christians over the years.  The goal is to keep its negative influences (or any show’s for that matter) at bay.  And that’s going to look different for different people.  Some episodes of the show are fine, so maybe for some, renewal of the mind means limiting yourself to those episodes.  Some might want to forgo the show altogether, and that’s fine too.  The point of this isn’t to make lists of shows you can or can’t watch or episodes of a certain show that are permissable.  The focus here is on the heart.  What are the sacrifices you have made?

We must sit back and reflect.  What are the values of our own culture?  Am I standing against the tide or going with it?  Paul warns us against being taken captive by philosophy and empty deceit which is according to human tradition and not according to Christ (Colossians 2:8).  With so many Christian marriages ending in divorce, it is time to aggresively re-evaluate how we approach relationships.  While we are taught that feelings are king, God tells us to pattern husband/wife relationships after Christ’s love for the church, in which he gave himself up for it (Ephesians 5).  Be renewed.  I just read an article in Christianity Today which chronicled the pitiful amount of money that Christians give.  The early church was known by its hospitality and generosity.  But when our giving is as miniscule as 1-2%, how we handle our finances not only ceases to be evidence we can point to Christ’s transformative power, it could even point into the opposite direction.  It has been well said that you can fake a lot, but you can’t fake what your checkbook reveals.  Practical life lesson: look at what you’re spending your money on.  I can’t think of a more definite revelation of our ultimate priorities.

Where the Church is living as it should, the world takes notice.  But here in America, too many of us are so similar to the people around us that we blend in.  Ultimately our values direct our lives, so if our lives are statistically the same as unbelievers, our values also are the same and we are seen to be hypocrites, the sin that Jesus vehemently lashed out against.  We must renounce worldly principles and follow Jesus, and this begins in the heart.  It begins with the renewal of the mind resulting in a completely different way of thinking of and living in the world.  If you have indeed been raised with Christ, then seek the things above, where he is.  Stop seeking the things of this earth.  Stop entertaining yourself to death and confront the realities of this world.  Where Christ is, there our minds must be.

It all begins in the heart, and that is something only God can change.  If you have been risen with Christ, you have been given a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26-27).  Pray to him that he may awaken that new heart where it has grown dull and restore your affections for him.  Also I encourage everyone to start thinking creatively.  Once again, how we seperate ourselves from the mindset of the world will differ from culture to culture.  What are the values of present-day America and at what points do they differ from Christ?  And how can you choose him in those areas and magnify him by doing so?

If we are not exemplifying the beauty of a life lived without the things we condemn, to the world we will only appear as obnoxious children who try to ruin everyone else’s fun because we aren’t having any of our own.  And these are the children who get ignored by other kids.  The Christian ultimately isn’t doing anything the world doesn’t do when he forgoes lesser desires to pursue the greater ones.  Everyone sacrifices anything that hinders them from attaining that which they most cherish.  So to live differently, Christ must be what we cherish most (see Psalm 42:1-2, Psalm 73:25, Psalm 63:3).  This is why we renounce the world, so that we may pursue Christ.  It’s not about making lists of do’s or don’ts.  It’s about finding what helps us pursue and gain Jesus, and when we do, we will look at the lesser pleasures we have forsaken and say “I have sacrificed nothing.”

To be trained as a disciple is ultimately the changing of the heart and finding outlets to unleash those desires into the world.  In short, it is living differently.  It is living like Jesus.  Much of modern discipleship however succeeds only in one of these things.  Jesus saves us and gives us new hearts.  But finding the outlets to unleash this new life often goes untapped, leading us to be everything I’ve talked about: not different.  Some thoughts on how we have failed in this will be the subject of the next entry.

*Incidentally, one of the best, most scriptural books I’ve read concerning the renewed mindset toward relationships is Joshua Harris’ book I Kissed Dating Goodbye.  I don’t know if it is the silly title or what, but I frequently hear this book not being taken seriously whenever it comes up in conversation.  Sometimes the mere mention of it is met with patronizing laughs.  But I have yet to hear an honest, biblical critique of the book.  I’ve yet only heard objections based on the very thing Paul warns us of living by: cultural values.  Being renewed in mind doesn’t mean slapping “JESUS” onto worldly living.  We must catch a clue in the area of relationships and realize that if we are to be a light to the world regarding marriage, we cannot approach it the same way it does.  It will inherently look different.

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Posted by thetenthleper